Having been in sales for a couple decades now and watching my peers struggle with consistency relative to their business – you know, the peaks and valleys associated with a typical salesperson’s performance – I began to wonder why some sales professionals achieve consistency in their pipelines while others continue to struggle.

I began to dig into the reasons and this is what I found:

Common to those that struggle with peaks and valleys are a) lack of proper planning, b) lack of plan execution, and c) lack of tools to manage the plan.

Proper planning

Those who have firmly scheduled prospecting activities in their day/week/month seem to suffer less from peaks and valleys than those who either don’t plan or don’t execute their plan. Proper planning means scheduling specific dates and times to prospect. The timeframes typically vary in duration and in time of day. Time of day should be flexible to take advantage of variations in your prospects’ schedules, increasing the likelihood of making contact. Length of time depends on an individual’s close ratio. For example, if it takes 30 dials to make 10 contacts and 10 contacts to make three appointments and you need six appointments per week, then you need to do two of these sessions of 30/10/3 in order to secure the necessary appointments per week. Proper planning consists of starting with the end goal and working the process backwards based on ratios, and then scheduling the necessary activities to achieve the desired results.

The example above is for prospecting but the same methodology works for referrals. If your plan is to obtain three referrals per month and you usually obtain one referral per networking activity then you need to schedule three networking events per month to achieve your desired result.

The point is, there is a plan, based on data, and the necessary activities are properly scheduled!

Execution

 
All of this planning sounds great, but if it isn’t executed, it’s irrelevant how good the plan is. Sales professionals who avoid peaks and valleys not only have a plan, they execute it consistently and without deviation. Years ago, I was a sales manager for a 10-person sales team in a large corporation and one phone-canvassing day the phones went out in our remote office. Without even saying anything my team grabbed their planners (this was before laptops), D&B cards and bag cell phones (now I’m really aging myself!) and went down to their cars to continue with their phone canvassing. It was automatic. They were so disciplined in their approach to the phone canvassing sessions I didn’t need to say a word. They encountered a problem, developed a solution and executed it according to plan. That is execution and that is what top performers do. They execute!

Tools

 
Another element common to those who don’t suffer peaks and valleys is the use of tools to properly execute their plans. My story about D&B cards, bag cell phones and planners was full of examples of tools. Today we have laptops, smart phones, CRM systems, etc. What I learned through my casual study of this topic is that those with sustainable pipelines use and rely on their tools (no matter what those tools are) and those that struggle view these tools as impediments to their success, or one more administrative function they do not want to perform.

Interesting, is it not? Those who succeed in building sustainable pipelines value the tools that help them achieve success, while those who struggle think of these tools as an administrative encumbrance.

Bottom line, my research seems to indicate that building a sustainable pipeline occurs by a) having a plan, b) executing that plan and c) using tools to help manage the plan.

What have you found in your observations? What are we missing here that could help others build more sustainable pipelines? Why do those who struggle continue to struggle and those who succeed continue to succeed?

I would be interested in your thoughts.

Brian