2/4/2025-Buyers hold your pipeline truth

You look at some of your opps and know inherently they’re dead. So….cut bait. It’ll clear your head and allow you to focus on closing the opportunities in your pipeline that have a real chance.

Surprises are only good for birthdays…not when projecting your revenue for your manager. (That’s the funny thing about sales managers…that they don’t much like surprises.)

The first week of every month is when you must bury yourself inside your CRM (…SO much fun).

But make it simple today: which February and March opps have the best chance to close? How real is your Q1 projected money?

You don’t get a prize for a bloated, fictional pipeline, so push your prospects for the truth about your opps.

Revenue projecting is easy…the hard part is validating your CRM opportunity ratings. Are your A accounts really an "A"? Etc.

Once you have listed the February and March deals that you think will come in, call your KDMs and validate your assumptions.

You probably won’t get a live person to answer, but try anyway. And then, call again. And again.

Anyone can write an email that gets ignored, but ultimately, you must do whatever you can to get someone on the line to tell you the truth about their buying intentions.

Your revenue projection accuracy reveals a lot about your sales competencies. Your sales manager cares more about whether your data is true than if you have 100 opportunities versus 10. And what’s true or not is a big indicator of your ability to work an account.

Your activities can be measured through your CRM house’s contact management side, but the opportunity section reveals the only thing your manager cares about. Sure, if the ratio of meetings to opportunity dollars is way off with you versus other reps on the floor, your manager should help you with that, but those ratios are rarely far off.

There are three questions you should keep in mind when working to create a true opportunity pipeline:
1. When is the buyer going to buy?
2. How much are they planning on buying?
3. What are the obstacles that stand in the way of them buying?

If you ask your customer those questions – and get honest answers – your pipeline will be true.

Obviously, your pipeline is very important, but your pipe is not as big as the famous Alaskan pipeline.

One of the things you’ll learn in this short clip is the "AP" carries a whopping 1.8 million barrels a day… just so you can drive your car to get to the office and bury your head in your CRM.

Your pipe has commissions in it! Use it – and your phone – to learn the truth.