The Importance of Your Pipeline Report

Keeping an accurate pipeline report is more important than you might think. Imagine this: you’re watching TV on a Sunday night and check your email. You have one from the VP of Sales that says, “Sam – I have to give a report to our CEO tomorrow morning on our market activity. Is this an accurate representation of your pipeline over 50%?” And below the message is a copy-paste of your pipeline report. How would you answer that question? This actually happened to me. And fortunately, my answer was “Yes”. Not everybody had the same answer.

Your sales management may be harping on you about your pipeline report, always nagging you to keep it current. Or, they may be on your back about utilizing the CRM tool. Whatever the case, they have good reason. And so do you. Your pipeline report is not only a critical component for the organization to make important business decisions; you are also creating your internal brand with your pipeline.

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Like it or not, the organization relies on your pipeline report for very important planning purposes. If you work in a manufacturing organization, your pipeline report might be used to order expensive inventory – or not. What happens when your pipeline report doesn’t accurately reflect your potential sales? Inventory levels are too high or too low. Either way your company suffers financially.

Nearly every business makes the rolled-up forecast an important part of the financial planning process. How many people can we hire? How many new reps? Or worse, do we need to reduce staff in light of slower sales? Keeping an accurate and up-to-date pipeline helps make these critical decisions.

If you work for a public company the CEO and his/her team are relying on the pipeline report to let investors know what to expect in the coming quarter(s). If your pipeline report is inaccurate it could affect your stock price and your CEO’s credibility on the street.

And your pipeline report is a reflection of your personal brand in several ways. First, is it up to date? Do you have all of your deals in the pipeline report, or are large and important deals missing? If not, it is a poor reflection of your organizational skills. No seller really likes to keep their pipeline report accurate. You are no exception. But it is something that needs to be done, so how you reflect that in an accurate and up to date report is a reflection on how the team can trust you.

Second, are the close dates and close percentages accurate and meaningful? Do you show a large deal about to close with a sales stage of “Discovery”? If so, you either have an incredibly short sales cycle, or the deal is inaccurately portrayed in your pipeline. Fix that. Get real about the dates and the sales stage. This kind of pipeline hygiene is important for your brand and reflects poorly on you of it is inaccurate. Again, important decisions are being made with this information.

Third, is there enough pipeline in your report? Do you have enough sales activity against your plan objectives? This is another reflection of your brand and perhaps the most important. All too often I have seen non-performing reps padding their pipeline reports with nonsense deals. I can ask about three questions and off comes the opportunity. Or, reps keep their “pet” opportunities on the pipeline reports for months or even years. Again, this is an easy to spot sign that you don’t have enough sales activity. Take a good, objective look at your pipeline and compare it against your sales goals. Is there enough? If you’re not sure how to tell, refer to my prior article, “How Much Pipeline is Enough”.

Managing pipeline and your CRM is a pain in the a$$. But the consequences for not keeping them up to date can have dire consequences for your company and you. Spend the time to make things an accurate reflection of you and your activity. You never know when you’ll get an email from an executive on a Sunday night!