The form of the Sales Pipeline tells a story – the Champagne Flute
One of the easiest analysis is to assess the form of the Sales Pipeline. Easy but very informative. The form can show the current commercial capability and performance of that sales person. Or on an aggregated level – the commercial capability of that company.
The Champagne Flute
The form of the pipeline is long and small. In commercial terms this means two things:
1. The conversion rate to each next level is high
A sales funnel like a champagne flute is typical of a business that focuses on sales of major projects and products with a high deal value. If your business model is to win a major deal say every quarter, then there will be a small number of bids underway, a few more very close relationships being developed and nurtured in the middle of the funnel, and some targeted door-opening going on at the top of the funnel.
Because of the cost of sale, the qualification will be massively important, to ensure the right organisations enter the funnel, and sales effort is committed to opportunities that will lead to a purchase and selection of your solution. The buying and selling cycle may take many months or even years, where other activities need to be aligned at the client organisation.
However, if say you need to win one deal a quarter and you win either zero or two deals this can have a big impact on revenue and resource utilisation. If large deals are lost to competition, or spending is deferred, it will create big issues.
2. There is a limited amount of (qualified) leads
Although the effectiveness of the sales and marketing in the champagne flute looks high, there is also a loss of opportunity to grow the business more rapidly. More leads would probably lead to an average lower conversion rate, but with an increased revenue. And changing the form of the sales funnel into a Martini glass.
Sales professionals with this profile typically:
- Score high on persuasiveness probably based on a good domain expertise and/or high customer understanding.
- Face challenges with finding new leads, need to show more pro-activeness and perseverance by not just exploiting the current network but hunt new leads from out of their network. Probably need also to try more (digital) marketing techniques and campaigns to reach other audiences.
Companies with this profile have a lower score on business development and marketing and probably are not using different channels and content for every stage of their pipeline.