Maximize Company Revenue with CRM Pipelines

By Philip Yellen

CRMs are a powerful tool in providing transparency to a company’s sales process, a part of a company’s business which has historically been opaque. One of the ways companies can capitalize on this transparency to their advantage is through a management-based on a custom sales pipeline.

What Is a CRM Pipeline?

Sales pipelines can be customized in CRMs to delineate and keep track of all the steps required for a team to close a deal and generate revenue. For example, let’s say you’re a developer who just recently launched a sales gallery for a new building. Now let’s think about all the steps required to close a deal. First, ads and email marketing have to go out to get visitors on the website. Second, a visitor needs to be convinced to submit a form for more information on the project. A team leader needs to schedule a showing and make sure that the customer is qualified. A sales agent then needs to take the customer on a tour and negotiate once an offer is submitted. Finally, after a price has been decided, legal and mortgage need to work together to finally close a deal.

In our example we have seven steps: advertise, convert to lead, qualify, tour, negotiate, legal/mortgage and close. For each of these steps, there are conversion rates or certain percentages of customers who get to the next step. By optimizing these conversion rates, a company can use their CRM to maximize revenue at each step.

Managing the Sales Cycle

By understanding the conversion between these stages, executives get insight into the weakest part of their sales process. For example, maybe your marketing team is bringing 1000 visitors a month to your website but only ten are submitting the form on your homepage. Of those ten, two schedule an appointment, and one customer buys a unit. Can the marketing team change the content on the page to get 20 inquiries with those same 1000 visitors? Can the team that qualifies the leads update their call script to convert those original ten inquiries into four appointments instead of two?

By doubling the conversion rate of form submissions and appointments scheduled, 1000 visitors now turn into 20 inquiries, eight appointments and four sales. Creating this transparency allows managers to focus their attention on weak points instead of relying on the “art of sales.” Small changes in one stage can have big impacts on revenue. Custom pipelines focus company goals and are invaluable aspects of CRM implementations.

Whether your company is selling units, insurance, or mortgages – CRM pipelines help executives understand their sales process and optimize where necessary. Sales shouldn’t be an enigma. With proper implementation and setup, companies can utilize CRMs to support revenue growth where it matters most.