Marketing
How To Build A Sales Pipeline From Scratch
Most UK SMEs lose 30 to 40 percent of qualified leads simply because they have no pipeline. A simple 5-stage pipeline solves it in a week.
The Steps
- 1
Define your 5 pipeline stages
Standard SME stages: New Lead, Qualified, Proposal Sent, Negotiation, Won/Lost. Each must have a clear entry criterion.
- 2
Set qualification questions
Budget, Authority, Need, Timing (BANT) or your own variant. A lead cannot move from New to Qualified until all four are answered.
- 3
Build the contact and deal records
Minimum fields: contact name, company, value, expected close date, source, owner, last activity.
- 4
Set activity SLAs per stage
E.g. New Lead must have first contact attempt within 4 hours. Qualified must have a meeting booked within 7 days. Proposal must be followed up within 3 days.
- 5
Run weekly pipeline reviews
30 minutes. Every deal in Proposal+ stage. Next action and next-action date for each. Remove ghosting deals.
- 6
Track conversion ratios
New to Qualified, Qualified to Proposal, Proposal to Won. Improve the worst ratio first.
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