Building 4th Quarter Pipeline to Finish the Year Strong

Is there still time?

That depends on the length of your sales cycle.  If you have a sales cycle that runs 90 days or less, then you have time, but you must begin today.  If your sales cycle runs longer than 90 days, then your fate is sealed, and you and your fourth quarter revenue will live or die based on what you built and worked in the early stages of your sales cycle’s timeline.

Let’s assume that you are one of the lucky ones who can still impact their fourth quarter revenue.  It will take some math, unconditional commitment and the skills to pull it off.  Let’s begin with the math.

Determine the revenue you need to close this quarter, divide that by your average sale, and call that answer SOLD.

Next, let’s determine what it takes to sell one.  I’ll share some typical ratios and you can follow the formula and adjust accordingly if your experience is different.

Typically, to sell one, salespeople must have the following in their pipeline:

2 Closable (they indicated they would move forward)

4 Qualified (completely qualified including for funding and decision maker engagement)

6 Prospects (compelling reason to buy and to buy from you)

10 Suspects (a scheduled a first call, video or meeting and they have an issue you can help with)

The pipeline requires 22 opportunities for every one you need to close.  If your ratios are better you can adjust downward and yours are worse you can adjust upwards.

Take your final numbers and multiply them times SOLD.  Then divide by 3 months and you must be certain to make sure that the distribution of your pipeline has those opportunities in each stage at all times during the three months.

Next you must tackle the question of how to get those suspects into your pipeline.  My sample pipeline called for 10 and typically, salespeople must do the following to schedule 10 meetings:

10 meetings, calls, or videos scheduled

50 conversations

300 attempts

Adjust your numbers accordingly.  There will be fewer required conversations if all of your attempts are to verified leads.  Even fewer will be required if they are qualified leads.  More will be required if they are names with contact information, and even more if you are making cold calls.

Take your final numbers and divide by the number of days in each month you can devote to prospecting.  The maximum number of days is 20 and the number decreases during November and is just 10 in December.

So now you should know what you must do each day, and what your pipeline must consist of each month.

The next step is commitment.  How important is this to you and are you willing to do whatever it takes to achieve this?  I’m talking about unconditional commitment.  No procrastination.  No skipping days because it’s difficult.  No backing down because you reached a resistant prospect.  No giving up because you don’t like it.  You do it no matter what.  You just do it.  Back in the 1950’s, an insurance executive named Albert Gray said, “The only difference between sales winners and everyone else is that the winners do what they don’t want to do.”  Will you perform like a winner, or like everyone else?

That leaves the skills.  There are three keys to success when prospecting by phone:

1. Your messaging (opening with the right statement to get them engaged)
2. Your delivery (sounding likeable and non-threatening)
3. Your skills (ability to listen for issues and ask the right questions to justify a meeting)

There you have it.  A roadmap to close fourth quarter business.  If you haven’t been doing this right along, why not?  If you are going to use this road map for the fourth quarter, don’t stop there!  Continue using it for every quarter!