What Are the Stages of a Sales Pipeline?

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Sales leaders break down their pipelines based on a variety of factors, including lead quality, industry competition, sales cycle length, and especially the complexity of the product or service being sold.

To give you an example:

Businesses selling simple services may not have to talk too much to their prospects before closing a deal. On the flip side, SaaS companies selling novelty products might have to create an 8-step sales funnel to successfully turn cold prospects into happy customers.

All in all, most sales pipelines are identical in their overall structure. The only changes that might happen will be related to how different stages are named and how complex the sales process is.

Prospecting: this is the first stage where SDRs must find new leads bahrain email list and initiate contact with them.
Lead qualification: once new prospects enter the sales funnel, sales reps will start scoring and nurturing them while taking into consideration their pain points and expectations.
Proposal: in this step, the sales team will prepare a presentation promoting the product or service as the ideal solution to the target lead’s problems.Using proposal templates and customizing one can help cover all essential information and maintain a professional appearance here.
Negotiation: any potential buyer that shows interest will enter a negotiation stage where their biggest concerns and objections are addressed. This may also be the phase where the sales team discusses pricing and payment terms.
Closing: leads at the closing stage are ready to finalize the deal and complete any paperwork required. Once the deal is closed, these prospects will become paying customers.
Retention: this is also referred to as “post-purchase”, which is the follow-up phase where the sales rep starts contacting the new client to ensure their satisfaction. There’s always a chance for a cross-sell or an upsell if the SDR does a good job of keeping the customer satisfied.
How to Build a Sales Pipeline?
Let’s now get to the practical part of this guide, which is how to actually build a sales pipeline for your company. Keep in mind that this process will take a lot of planning, research, and coordination between your sales reps.

Here’s how to build a sales pipeline for your company:

1. Understand Your Sales Process
The first step when building a sales pipeline is to have an overview of your sales process as well as your overall growth objectives. A full understanding of your sales strategy will help make decision-making a lot easier when breaking down your pipeline into multiple stages.

So before you start building a pipeline, here are some questions to answer:

What sales strategies and tools are you going to use?
How will your sales reps be reaching out to potential clients?
What resources/lead magnets will you be offering at each stage?
What are your best offers and how are you going to present them?
Some of your top priorities at this point should also be choosing lead sources, outreach channels, lead gen software, and CRM tools. The more detailed you are about your process, the better you can manage your sales responsibilities later on.

2. Study Your Ideal Buyers
In all likelihood, your target client won’t be so much different from the average customer — at least when it comes to how they move through the sales funnel. Every new lead you target must go through awareness, interest, and desire before they can finally take action.

However, it’s crucial to study your target buyers more deeply to further solidify your understanding of them. What are their biggest challenges and pain points? What are their desires? And what motivates them most to take action?

Once you answer all those questions, you’ll eliminate all the guesswork from your sales process. Your SDRs will know exactly which action to take at each stage of the sales pipeline — which can save you a lot of time and effort in the long term.