We’ve all done our 2018 sales and marketing pipeline planning already, right? He he.
If you’re a bit behind, like some people I’ve heard about, you can use this quick pipeline planner to get a sense of how many leads you need, what your close rate should be, etc, to meet your revenue goals. There are 2 different scenarios you can compare, so for example, you can plug in your actual numbers from 2017 on one side, and your 2018 goals on the other.
One of the best things about this exercise is that you can see how small changes in each step accumulate into a huge change in overall revenue. You don’t have to double your close rate (although I’ve seen some people do that) to double your business.
Note that you may not have all the relevant information at your fingertips, but you can guesstimate, if needed. (Having all your proposals in one place, so you can quickly see how many you won and lost is really useful.) If you have exact numbers, great. If not, this will still give you a good idea of where you have opportunities for improvement, and how small improvements along the pipeline can lead to dramatic growth.
If you spent too much of 2017 trying to throw things at the proverbial sales and marketing wall to see what sticks, doing a little pipeline planning will help you focus and be more successful in 2018.
p.s. And if you’re really thinking about strategic planning, here’s a post I did last year on this to help you think about the big picture.