One of the tenets of successful sales management is effective pipeline management.  Sales managers have to have an accurate read on their team’s opportunities and a good understanding of when they will close.

This truth is never more important than in a capital equipment sale.  If a product has a long lead time or a highly customized build, the sales pipeline is even more critical.  ManageSmarter.com discusses this topic in their article Pipeline = Lifeline (great title):

“Pipeline management is a critical issue,” Stein says. “Few companies have it figured out.” For those that do, they will reap a myriad of benefits, including better forecasting the length of the sales cycle.

Absolutely.  An accurate pipeline also affects other departments within a company:

The second major component of a successful pipeline is having a chief revenue officer (or equivalent individual) understand the sales cycle for products and services in a time sense, and be able to “overlay” quotas against time. “Everything done should be quantifiable,” McNally says. “The CRO can see issues before they manifest themselves. A good pipeline means no surprises. A good pipeline allows you to create correct expectations. Another benefit is, over time, you will see trend lines developing.”

The feedback loop created by the pipeline provides market data to the marketing department that leads to the trends mentioned in that quote.  Operations is also provided a preview of what parts will be needed for the builds and allows for more predictable inventory turns.

In smaller companies, pipelines provide a forecast of cash flow that allows for adjustments before an unexpected tightening.

With all of these benefits, it still surprises me how little emphasis sales managers put on perfecting the pipeline.  My conclusion is that the most unknown, or inaccurate pipelines are products of sales departments without clearly defined sales processes.  Each salesperson has their own approach to qualifying and what constitutes a prospect.  The sales manager has to struggle to ascertain the truth.  The pipeline turns into a pipe dream.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

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The Herman Group newsletter this week discusses the amount of gaming that goes on in an office.  Gaming as in playing video games.  Seriously.

We estimate that computer gaming is costing United States employers millions of dollars every year. According to a recent survey of computer gamers, 24 percent of white collar workers admitted to playing during work hours.

The most critical finding is the frequency with which these workers play. Over half (53 percent) said they play at work at least once a day. Seventy-nine percent said they play at work several times a week—or more. Eighty-four percent said that, on average, they play casual games at work for between 15 and 60 minutes each day and 11 percent said they play casual games at work for an hour or more each day.

I laughed out loud when I read this.  I used to work for a technology company selling capital inspection equipment back in the mid ’90s.  The Internet was relatively new so online game play was not common (maybe not even available).  Unfortunately, the video game Doom was a huge hit and it could be played over a local area network.

Our entire support group was addicted to the game and playing it over the company network.  I think the game totaled somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 guys playing it simultaneously.  They would sit in the back and it would be quiet outside of some furious keystrokes.  Then there would be 3 guys simultaneously yelling “Ohhhhh.”

It was really unbelievable.  I was trying to close new customers with our highly complex products that required a fair amount of support.  Yet the support guys were busy hunting each other in a video game.

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