CJ Warstler, Director – Sr. Consultant, Sales Performance International Inc. helps answer this question very effectively in his post titled: “What does an ideal sales pipeline look like?” on their Solution Selling™ Blog.

He identifies the following three factors that determine the ideal pipeline:

• Sales Cycle Complexity (Quality)
  Complex sales cycles have more number of milestones in the sales cycle. When calculating the ideal pipeline, one needs to know the ideal number of opportunities at each stage or milestone in the sales cycle.
• Days in Stage (Speed)
  The longer it takes to close opportunities, the more the number of opportunities you need in your pipeline to achieve the target sales in a given period. The estimated average time taken at each milestone in the sales cycle is used to calculate the ideal pipeline.
• Yield Probability (Volume)
  As an opportunity moves from one milestone to another, the probability of closure keeps improving. The probability at each stage is used to calculate the ideal pipeline.

The following table illustrates the sample buyer’s process and the corresponding sales process, along with the two process parameters – the time required, and the probability of closure at each milestone:

The sum of the time required at each milestone then gives us the average sales cycle time, which in the above example is 120 days.

In addition to the sales process, the following information is used in the calculation:

• The sales target or Goal – for example, suppose this is 1.8 million
• The time remaining to achieve the goal – for example, suppose we are at the beginning of the year, so we have 365 days left

Then the ideal pipeline value at each stage is calculated using the following formula:

(Goal x (Average Sales Cycle / Time Remaining to Goal) x (Average Days in Stage / Total Days in Average Cycle)) / %Yield in Stage = Ideal Amount for Stage

So for the above example, we would get the following ideal pipeline:

The total pipeline value here is less than the total goal, because this is the pipeline at the beginning of the year. Assuming that new opportunities keep entering the pipeline as older opportunities flow out of the pipeline at the same rate, the pipeline over the entire year will achieve the required goal.

See the excellent explanation of this provided by Tim Sullivan in the comments on the blog.

All in all, a very well explained and simple way to ensure that the pipeline is kept at the optimal size.

Related posts:

1. Using the sales pipeline report for key performance indicators
2. Calculating the projected value of an opportunity
3. Sales Cycle Time – a critical metric for measuring performance

Rahul Jain, a highly successful business coach who has worked with several CEOs to help them effectively scale their businesses, asks some tough questions that helps a business owner evaluate their effectiveness in achieving business results:

• Is your business growing at the rate you wish it to grow?
• Are you and your business making the kind of money that you wish to make from the business?
• Do you still find time to do things you enjoy doing or your business is taking away all your time, leaving no free time?
• Do you spend most of your time working IN your business or are you working ON your business. (Are you spending most of your time solving the same every-day problems or are you investing your time uncovering new ways to grow your business.)
• Do you spend most of your time dealing with emergencies and fire fighting?
• Are you enjoying and having fun running your business or is it a cause for constant stress
• Are your employees working for you or are you working for them?
• Are you in control of your business, taking your business where you want it to go, or is the business driving you?
• Do you have self-sustaining systems in place that manage your business even in your absence?

Most business owners and manager may easily identify their situation with the above. But being caught in the trap of micromanagement, the solutions seems far from easy.

Nahid Casazza, another business coach who effectively combines her background in psychology and business expertise explains the root cause of micromanagement:

…micromanaging behavior is driven by the positive characteristics of conscientiousness, diligence, and responsibility; it’s just that they have been taken to an extreme. People often confuse themselves with the quality of the work they produce. As long as they can control the quality of their work, they are ok, but as soon as they have to depend on others for results, they are faced with the fear of representing sloppy or substandard output. Since putting out less than excellent work is SO personally humiliating, they need constant reassurance that the team is performing.

One way to escape this trap of micromanagement is to create a process documentation system that captures everything that is going on in your business and allows you to keep track of it from the outside.

Like Rahul says:

Documenting and setting up the required systems, -moving the business from people dependency to systems dependency. (It also ensures that when an employee leaves the organization, another person can quickly fit into the place, because of the systems.) A step by step program to take any function in your business and turn it into a scalable, replicable, reliable process, complete with checklists and full documentation so that anyone in your company can do it just as well, by following directions. (Putting it on Auto Pilot) having the business ‘work’…even when you’re not there, resulting in the biggest freedom which you have always dreamed of- the freedom of time.

Sounds simple. But implementing systems is by no means easy. As any business owner or manager who has tried to implement any business tracking software can verify, the biggest problem in maintaining a system is to get people to enter data in it.

The difficulty lies in the decision of how much data to capture. If you ask a manager to decide what to capture, you will tend to get an answer close to “everything”. From a manager’s perspective, the more data the better. And most software systems aim to please the manager by providing more features meaning more data to enter. This inevitably leads to a situation where over 90% of software implementation projects fail.

The approach that works is to provide systems that capture the progress of the business process automatically, without requiring people to separately enter any data. This can be achieved by providing a customized template that acts as a checklist for all tasks that are to be performed, and the person who finishes the task merely has to check off the tasks completed. The system should then automatically register the person who completed the task, the time spent, the next steps required etc. based on a pre-determined logic.

Process template - a simple checklist to track the progress of a business case

The adjoining sample screenshot is part of a process template designed for a subscription based software business. The template shared on the web and is available to all persons working on the specific business case, project or order. The process is broken down into milestones, where each milestone could have an associated set of questions that need to be answered or sub-tasks that need to be performed. The person responsible has to merely check off the tasks completed.

The system then automatically tracks the progress of all business cases, projects or orders and provides a summary to the manager. The following are two sample reports that the manager can see:

Live feed of ongoing business activity

The first screenshot is of a live feed of all ongoing business activity. This report picks up all live business cases, and lists all ongoing activity including milestones completed, messages exchanged, documents prepared or tasks completed.

This report is available for viewing from anywhere via the web, and is useful for the business owner to remotely track the business process. All activities are directly linked to the corresponding business case or project, allowing the manager to view the complete context of the specific activity.

Process Pipeline Report

The second screenshot is a performance summary report. This shows the pipeline of all business cases or orders, and tracks the velocity of movement of cases through the list of milestones in the process template.

This report provides a valuable feedback to the business owner or manager to identify possible bottlenecks or stumbling blocks. Any order that is not moving ahead in the milestones is highlighted, allowing the manager to investigate by simply clicking on the inactive projects and drilling down from the report to the list of projects and then to the individual project.

This simple strategy promises to provide the business owner or manager an effective tool to help manage the business by remote control, thereby creating more time to work on strategy to grow the business.

Related posts:

1. Case Study: Insurance and Financial Products Sales
2. Using the sales pipeline report for key performance indicators
3. Why do you need a CRM or Sales Force Management System?

To create a new note you should be on the project page for which you want to add a note.

For searching project follow Step 1 of tutorial How to: Update project / opportunity’s milestone and click on Project link to open project.

Click on Activities link from Quick Navigation Link.

Qucik navigation links for Summary, Value, Milestones, Activities, Statement and Files.

You will be taken to activities section which looks as shown below.

Activities section header

Click on “Add Note” to get following screen

Add Note form in On2Biz

Fill comments, assign a tag e.g. Status Update in above screenshot and select a contact if you want to send this note via email. Tags are customizable, contact support@on2.biz for customization.

Click on to add this note.

System creates notes whenever a milestone is changed and can be sen in Activity section as below.

On2Biz Generated Notes

Related posts:

1. How to: Create appointment.
2. How to: Update project / opportunity milestone.
3. How to: Create Task

1. List all tasks.

2. Update task.

Step 1: List all Pending Tasks.

Activity List of On2Biz

To list all Pending Tasks click on “Pending Tasks” and you will get a list of all the tasks pending. Following is the screen which shows list of pending tasks.

Task preview

Step 2: Update task

Click on button to update this task. Below is how this task will appear when you click update.

Task in update mode

Select appropiate Status from Pending, Done and Aborted. Status is customizable, contact support@on2.biz for customization. Fill Completed On date, Time Spent and Progress report. You can also send an email / SMS progress to team or project manager. SMS alerts are available on subscription to get SMS alerts activated for your profile contact support@on2.biz.

Related posts:

1. How to: Create Task
2. How to: Update appointment.
3. How to: Update project / opportunity milestone.

For searching project follow Step 1 of tutorial How to: Update project / opportunity’s milestone and click on Project link to open project.

Click on Activities link from Quick Navigation Link.

Qucik navigation links for Summary, Value, Milestones, Activities, Statement and Files.

You will be taken to activities section which looks as shown below.

Activities section header

Click on “Add Task” to get following screen

Add Task in project / opportunity.

Fill Date on which task should be completed in “Due Date”. Enter Type of Task, Type of Task is customizable, to get it customized contact support@on2.biz. E.g. of Task Type are Queries, Send referance literature, Send samples, Arrange Demo / Presentations, Call the customer etc. Fill Description, select the executive who will perform this task and select if you want to send an Email OR SMS alert now. SMS alert is available in account after its activated from On2.biz administrator. To get SMS alerts activated in your profile contact support@on2.biz.

Click on to save this task

Once you add task you get a email alert on the due date of task and SMS alert if you have opted for SMS alerts (Contact support@on2.biz for SMS alerts). Also you will be able to see Task in Activity list in On2Biz. under “Pending Tasks”.

Activity List of On2Biz

Related posts:

1. How to: Create appointment.
2. How to: Update task
3. How to: Add note

1. List all appointments.

2. Update appointment.

Step 1: List all appointments pending.

Activity List of On2Biz

To list all appointments pending click on “Scheduled Appointments” and you will get a list of all the appointments pending. Following is the screen which shows list of appointments pending.

Scheduled Appointment list.

Click on to update this appointment. Below is how appointment will appear when you click update.

Appointment in update mode.

Fill call status “Completed”, Was the call objective met?, Time spent in travelling, Time spent with customer and call report and Save to update.

You can send this call report to client as well as team by selecting Send Call Report to Attendees. By selecting this and Saving your call report will be converted to a mail as shown below, this can be sent to multiple receiver as well as you can attach files.

Minutes of the meeting email from On2Biz

Related posts:

1. How to: Update task
2. How to: Create appointment.
3. How to: Create Task

To search for a project follow Step 1 of tutorial How to: Update project / opportunity’s milestone and click on Project link to open project.

Click on Activities link from Quick Navigation Link.

Qucik navigation links for Summary, Value, Milestones, Activities, Statement and Files.

You will be taken to activities section which looks as shown below

Activities section header

Click on “Add Appointment” to get following screen

Add Appointment form

Fill Date, Time, Call Type (Call Type is customizable, contact support@on2.biz), Attendees(Internal), Attendees(External) and Agenda of the appointment. Appointment creation allows you to send agenda to attendees by email.

Click on to add this appointment.

Once you add appointment you get a email alert on the day of appointment and SMS alert if you have opted for SMS alerts (Contact support@on2.biz for SMS alerts). Also you will be able to see Appointment in Activity list in On2Biz.

Activity List of On2Biz

In activity list you will see your appointment in Scheduled Appointments.

Related posts:

1. How to: Create Task
2. How to: Update appointment.
3. How to: Add note

1. Search for project / opportunity.
2. Open and Update.

Step 1: Search for project / Opportunity.

Global search of On2Biz. Search for contacts, end customers, projects etc. here

A Global Search facility is available through out On2Biz which can be used to search any object in On2Biz e.g. you can search for contact, end customer, projects / opportunity related to end customer or contact … etc.

To search for a project you can enter name of end customer .e.g. rediff and you will get list of all the projects for rediff. See screenshot below.

Search results.

Now clicking on Project link “On2Biz for Ad selling” will take you to project page.

Step 2: Update milestone

On project page click on “Milestone” link from quick navigation links. Below is the screenshot which shows quick navigation links.

Qucik navigation links for Summary, Value, Milestones, Activities, Statement and Files.

Screen will be directly scrolled to Milestone section of Project.

Milestone section

Click on Edit will present you this section in Edit mode as shown below.

Milestone section in Edit mode.

Select the latest milestone and click on to update milestone.

Related posts:

1. How to: Create appointment.
2. How to: Add note
3. How to: Create Task

Step 1: Select the Workspace Tab in On2Biz

The On2Biz Workspace tab

Step 2: In the workspace menu on the right, select the sales workflow in the workflow selection menu, and then click on the link below it to “Create New Project”

Workflow selection menu and links to create new project or company

Once you click on the link, the New Project Form will be displayed in the central area of your screen.

This form contains various sections, each containing a template for entering information about your sales opportunity.

Step 3: Fill in the Associates section of the project form

Associates section of the new project form

The first box is to enter the name of the prospective customer’s company name. Once you start entering the name, On2Biz will query your existing customer database and find all matching names and show you a drop-down selection menu as shown below. In case the company already exists in your database, you can select it from the drop-down menu. If you would like to enter a new name, just continue typing the full name.

Enter End Customer name here. If End Customer name is already present in On2Biz then a drop down will be shown from which you can select the Name.

Below the company name, you have two tabs for entering a contact person, and an address. The default tab is for adding a contact. You can use this form to enter the details of the contact person in the new prospect. To add an address, select the Add Address tab next to the Add Contact. This will change the contact form into a form to enter the address.

Add contact and his address for associate.

In addition to the End Customer, you can also link this opportunity with other companies such as business partners, consultants or channel partners. These additional fields can be configured for your On2Biz account. It allows you to review your sales pipeline for any one of these partners too.

Additional associates linked to the opportunity

You can add contact details of the person by clicking on “more” link next to the input field.

Step 4: Fill the Overview section of the project form.

Overview section looks like following. Overview of project consists of a Title, Description, the team who will work on this project, start date of project and expected date of closure of the project. Basically, this section gives the Overview of this opportunity.

Overview section in On2Biz opportunity / project creation form

Provide a title to a project. Title is a searchable value i.e. you can search for title and find the project using On2Biz global search.

Title for a project / opportunity.

A short description should be entered in Description field. Description is also searchable using global search of On2Biz.

Enter short description for this project / opportunity.

Next is selecting a Project Manager and Project Team. Project Manager is a executive who is responsible for closing this project / opportunity, Project Team is a set of executives who will work with Project Manager. By default name of the executive who signed in is Project Manager.

Select Project Manager and Team.

The Project Manager and the Team specify the permissions for which users can view or edit the project page. This opportunity will also figure in their respective pipelines. Please note that for some On2Biz accounts, the Project team feature may not be activated. You can request support@on2.biz to get this activated.

Select a workflow, enter start and expected date of closure and if you want this project to be seen by the End Customer or not.

The Workflow selection box is not required to be edited. Only administrators and top management have the option to edit the workflow of the opportunity.

Select Start Date and Expected Date of Closure of this opportunity. By default the Start Date is the current date.

Also there is a option if you want to share this project progress with End customer of this oppoortunity. You can enable this option by selecting Yes for Share this project with contacts.

Step 5: Fill Values section

Values section allows you to select the product segments you will be selling through this opportunity. Product Segments are customizable, contact support@on2.biz to get it customized.

Value section of On2Biz add project form. Here you select the product segment you will be selling in this opportunity.

Also a more info OR product segment specific form can be added to capture more information on this product.

Customizable form to capture more information requirement.

To get a customized form please contact support@on2.biz.

Step 6: Fill Milestones Section

Milestones specified the stage which opportunity has completed. e.g. if you have provided Quotation to client then you select “Quotation Submitted” milestone. By default while adding a new lead, first milestone gets selected i.e. “Lead Captured” in this case.

Select a milestone which this opportunity has completed. e.g. "Quotations" if Quotation is submitted.

Similar to Product segment, each milestones can also have customized form to capture more information regarding selected milestone. Below screenshot shows a more information form for “Order Confirmed” milestone.

Capture more information on Milestone using customized more info form.

to get this customized form contact support@on2.biz.

Click on save and add this new opportunity to your pipeline.

Related posts:

1. How to: Update project / opportunity milestone.
2. How to: Create Task
3. How to: Add note

The secret behind effective sales management is simple: manage activities and measure results. Sounds simple but the misunderstanding lies in the fact that the link between activities and results is very short in demand fulfillment functions (entering customer orders today means shipping more orders today and tomorrow). However, that link for demand creation is much longer and tedious. It involves strategic selling, building relationship equity and the creation of tier level penetration strategies (relationships take months or longer to deliver revenue). In demand creation , attempting to manage results is like watering a plant after it has died from dehydration because the current results were determined by activities performed months in the past. The only way to create an effective sales program is to define the activities that will drive results and then manage those activities. This concept will also create discipline on the part of sales management on the back side of the performance loop.

On2Biz is a great tool to manage sales activity. Click here to sign up for a free account and find out how.

Related posts:

1. Why do you need a CRM or Sales Force Management System?
2. How effective is your sales process?
3. Lead Management: What is a lead and how to qualify leads?