Fix Your Mediocre Pipeline for Accurate Sales Forecasts

He said, “I went back to your evaluation to see exactly how you restaged my pipeline…You said the quality of my pipeline opportunities was:

U-Toronto – Medium

Mt. Sinai – High

New York Genome – Medium

Columbia – Low

If this is how your method determined the order – then it was spot on…On both the low and high ends. Columbia has fallen completely off the radar while Mt. Sinai has progressed to the proposal and closable stage.  U-Toronto and NY Genome are still progressing forward slowly – with additional presentations required and much more qualifying work needed by me.

I staged the pipeline today and:

Columbia is a only a suspect

U-Toronto is a prospect

New York Genome is qualified and

Mt. Sinai is closable”

So what exactly took place?  Two months ago, this salesperson answered 19 questions about each of 4 late stage opportunities that were – and this is the key – considered to be proposal ready and closable.  After we analyzed the data, we rated the quality of those 4 opportunities as you saw above, and then restaged them as you can see below.  Keep in mind that if they were truly late stage – proposal ready and closable – his pipeline would have looked like an umbrella stand base:

However, based on what we learned from our analysis of his answers, instead of his pipeline looking like an umbrella stand base, it looked more like a top!  The image below is what his supposedly late stage pipeline really should have looked like:

However, based on what we learned from our analysis of his answers, instead of his pipeline looking like an umbrella stand base, it looked more like a top!  The image below is what his supposedly late stage pipeline really should have looked like:

opics: Dave Kurlan, sales force evaluation, sales pipeline, sales assessments, objective management group, sales forecast