My customer called me into a meeting and told me that he has a peculiar problem and he wanted my opinion on it. He said that his organization has a huge sales pipeline but they are not resulting in sales. Then we went step-by-step and started looking at them in detail:

1. They are able to create opportunities
2. They are able to provide information on their solutions
3. They give their pricing and do negotiations on them
4. And the orders weren’t coming through…..

His question was where does the problem lie?

My answer was pretty straightforward and I told him that it lies in the created opportunities. And they are being used as column fodders by their prospects and not being seriously considered for engagement. This set the process rolling into a brainstorming session. Then we worked out a opportunity management profiler that would allow us to figure out if we are wasting our time and energy on poorly qualified opportunities. This allowed us to figure out where exactly we are on the sales cycle and it also brought the pipeline close to reality.

It becomes extremely important for a sales organization to look at the created opportunities closely, for it would help them avoid the shoppers and focus their energies on serious buyers. This will allow for better conversions, happier customers and increased revenues.

Just in case you think that you can make use of the opportunity management profiler template that we did, please do write to me and I will have it sent out.

sales pipeline sales opportunity qualified opportunity column fodder sales conversion opportunity management opportunity profiler