Manage your sales pipeline better to build your business

Manage your sales pipeline better to build your business

From the time a business acquires a lead, up until they close a deal - either won or lost, it is essential that they keep track of all the stages within the sales pipeline and ensure a smooth flow between them.

So what is this Sales Pipeline?
It is nothing but a systematic method that one follows to navigate between multiple stages through which a sales prospect goes - from becoming a lead to becoming a customer - and a sales pipeline helps you determine where exactly your opportunities are. Besides, it also outlines the actions that you need to perform in order to convert a prospect into a customer.

Stages in a Sales Pipeline?

There are multiple stages every sales team has, including tasks such as gathering leads and qualifying them:

1. Prospecting
It is the process by which companies attract prospects into their customer database in the hope of nurturing them through a sales process and converting them into customers. They therefore make effort to generate an interest in the prospects towards their products and services. There are various sources through which you can generate leads. Some of them include trade shows, email campaigns, social media, webforms, etc.

2. Nurturing and Qualifying
Once you have generated prospects, you will need to ensure that they are the right fit for your business. Therefore, you will need to qualify them and manage them. This is a crucial step in a sales process as it helps you prioritise the promising leads and keep them at the top of your to-do list.
3. Set Meetings and define prospect's needs
Now, in order to get to know your prospects better, or in other words, understand their requirements, better, you need to set up a meeting with them. After interacting with them on several occasions, you need to tailor your proposal to address their needs. So basically, it is crucial that you articulate how your products or services can help solve their problems.

4. Negotiate and close deal
You have done your job of understanding your prospect's needs and built a solid relationship with them. While some may be ready to purchase your products or services, in the case of other prospects, you may have to address further concerns - all of which will eventually help you provide your customers with exactly what they are looking for. After these terms and conditions are finalized, you will be in a position to close the deal - either in success or otherwise.

While most companies differ in terms of their method for follow-up, and stages in the sales pipeline. the top-level stages continue to remain the same for all.
They are:
  • Prospecting
  • Qualification
  • Proposal 
  • Closing
Benefits of a Sales Pipeline

1. Get a better understanding of the sales process
2. More efficient sales strategy
3. A better understanding of the position of each lead in the sales funnel
4. Less time spent in closing deals.

Manage your Sales Pipeline with Zoho CRM

Now that you have understood the concept of a sales pipeline and its stages, imagine managing the same without a central process in place. Defining the stages in the sales pipeline and tracking the progress in the sales process could be extremely challenging. With the help of a software like Zoho CRM, therefore, you can:
  1. Define stages in a sales pipeline
    It is crucial to define the stages in your sales pipeline early on in order to have a strong sales process as sales reps in your company will know in advance what is expected of them in order to take the lead forward through the sales pipeline and finally close the deal. This can be achieved by customising/adding values in stage field within the Deals module in Zoho CRM. For instance, imagine you run a magazine publication. You do not require some of the default values within the stage field, such as Value Proposition or Proposal. You can therefore customise or delete these fields to meet your requirements.

  2. Track your deals
    It is crucial to track your deals to get an idea of the entire progress of your deal and avoid any further errors and make better decisions in terms of your way forward. Also, it is crucial to keep track of all updates in order to avoid missing out on any vital information.

    a) Historical analysis will help you avoid repeating mistakes that may have caused you to lose deals in the past. Therefore analysing your sales stage history in Zoho CRM is crucial as it will give you the number of potentials in each stage for a specific time period.

    b) Another method of tracking your sales pipeline within Zoho CRM is by creating reports and dashboards. You will be able to track your sales trends, marketing campaigns, team performance, etc. with the help of these reports.

    c) With multiple deals within your software, trying to view each of them to determine their status could prove to be quite taxing. However, within Zoho CRM, you can view your deals in a single view with the help of kanban view. It will display the data in an organised manner.

  3. Identify priority deals to focus on

    a) If you want to locate deals that are priority (for instance, deals that are closing this month), you can use advanced filters, which is a powerful search tool that can help you extract necessary information in no time. In this case, therefore, you will be able to quickly locate deals that fit your criteria (deals that are priority) and then you can immediately follow-up on them.

    b) On the other hand, if you want the system to suggest deals that you need to prioritise, you can use Zia, Zoho CRM's data intelligence tool. Based on the trend, she will predict for you those deals that are most likely to be won. This will give you a better understanding of what to focus on. In fact, she will create a view - breaking up your deals into those which are likely to be won, lost, or those which could go either way. This will help you shift your focus onto those deals that require your attention. 

    What are your thoughts on effective sales follow up? Share your questions and opinions by commenting below. Also, feel free to suggest topics for discussion in the CRM Admins Chat Room. 


    Access your files securely from anywhere

          Zoho Developer Community

              Bootcamp
              Community
              Pricing
              Webinars
              What's New
              Integrations
              Contact Support
              Contact Sales

                Zoho Survey Resources
                  Features
                  Survey Templates
                  Integrations
                  Community
                  iOS Mobile Surveys
                  Pricing
                  Android Mobile Surveys
                  Insurvey Blogs
                  Insight Blogs
                  Tips & Tricks





                                Latest Feature Updates


                                    Zoho Desk Resources

                                    • Desk Community Learning Series


                                    • Digest


                                    • Functions


                                    • Meetups


                                    • Kbase


                                    • Resources


                                    • Glossary


                                    • Desk Marketplace


                                    • MVP Corner


                                    • Word of the Day




                                        Zoho Marketing Automation
                                          Zoho SalesIQ Resources


                                                Manage your brands on social media
                                                Access Zoho Social

                                                  Zoho Pagesense Resources


                                                      Zoho TeamInbox Resources

                                                        Zoho DataPrep Resources



                                                          Zoho CRM Plus Resources

                                                            Zoho Books Resources


                                                              Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                                                                Zoho Projects Resources


                                                                  Zoho Sprints Resources


                                                                    Qntrl Resources


                                                                      Zoho Creator Resources



                                                                          Zoho Campaigns Resources


                                                                            Zoho CRM Resources

                                                                            • CRM Community Learning Series

                                                                              CRM Community Learning Series


                                                                            • Kaizen

                                                                              Kaizen

                                                                            • Functions

                                                                              Functions

                                                                            • Meetups

                                                                              Meetups

                                                                            • Kbase

                                                                              Kbase

                                                                            • Resources

                                                                              Resources

                                                                            • Digest

                                                                              Digest

                                                                            • CRM Marketplace

                                                                              CRM Marketplace

                                                                            • MVP Corner

                                                                              MVP Corner





                                                                                Design. Discuss. Deliver.

                                                                                Create visually engaging stories with Zoho Show.

                                                                                Get Started Now


                                                                                  Zoho Show Resources


                                                                                    Zoho Writer Writer

                                                                                    Get Started. Write Away!

                                                                                    Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                                                                                      Zoho CRM コンテンツ






                                                                                        Nederlandse Hulpbronnen


                                                                                            ご検討中の方





                                                                                                  • Recent Topics

                                                                                                  • Separate Triggers and Enhanced Information for Zoho One Departments and Groups in Zoho Flow

                                                                                                    Dear Zoho Flow Team, I hope this message finds you well. Currently, there seems to be a mix-up between zoho one departments and groups in Zoho Flow, which causes some challenges in handling triggers effectively. For instance, when using the "User added

                                                                                                  • Creator Subform to CRM Subform

                                                                                                    Hello all, Has anyone successfully written data from a Creator Subform into CRM subform? I have a Creator form that once submitted creates a new Location in the CRM. Inside a Location there is a subform for hours of operation. I collect those hours in

                                                                                                  • not able to accept the Invitation

                                                                                                    not able to accept the Invitation

                                                                                                  • Inventory Management for Manufacturer

                                                                                                    Hello, We are a manufacturing company in the FnB industry. We want to use the inventory management system to manage our raw material stocks and at the same time once we produce items, we need to increase our final product inventory while decreasing the

                                                                                                  • Subform Time field showing as null in script.

                                                                                                    Good Afternoon everyone. I am trying to take the information from my subform and populate it into a multiline field in the CRM. The code below works with no errors. The problem is, it shows that the Open and Close (Time fields) are null. But they are

                                                                                                  • Is there a way to sort report on record template by a specific field like date field

                                                                                                    Hi, Is it possible to sort the report on the record template by the date field and not the default Added Time. Please check the example bellow: The records are sorting by the added time I wand to change that by the date field,

                                                                                                  • Another nightmare experience with a "Zoho Partner": Cloud Z Technologies

                                                                                                    I found "CloudZTech" on fiverr and I hired them to do a simple $300-$500 task. They did not deliver on time and I was forced to fire them. You guys must watch out for these fake ZOHO PARTNERS, 99% of them don't have the expertise necessary to help. I

                                                                                                  • Produce application url to be common for all the Creator application Stages

                                                                                                    I am trying to develop an application using the 3 environments steps like development, stage, production. I am trying to pass in a variable url like which redirects to a Report inside the application URL = "https://creatorapp.zoho.eu/insurancemarket/environment/development/all/#Report:Sign_Up_Form_Report"

                                                                                                  • ZOHO BOOKS - RECEIVING MORE ITEMS THAN ORDERED

                                                                                                    Hello, When trying to enter a vendor's bill that contains items with bigger quantity than ordered in the PO (it happens quite often) - The system would not let us save the bill and show this error: "Quantity recorded cannot be more than quantity ordered." 

                                                                                                  • Bill quantity received / PO quantity

                                                                                                    PO's are raised & often the quantity received is greater than the PO quantity, so when we receive the bill & adjust the quantity on the bill we get.... Quantity recorded cannot be more than quantity ordered. This necessitates the adjustment of the PO

                                                                                                  • Inventory API - How do I add a payment to a bill using the API?

                                                                                                    I can update the "notes" field but I don't know how to add a payment to an existing bill. Is this possible? Does someone have a working example?

                                                                                                  • Update Multi select field values to another form table as individual record

                                                                                                    Hi, I am new to coding and do basics within deluge. I need help with the deluge script to meet the following requirement. Form Student Attendance The fields are : Attendance Date Course (Lookup to Course Form) Class (Lookup to Class Form) Students (Multi

                                                                                                  • Why Doesn't TrueSync Desktop App Have an Auto-Update Feature?

                                                                                                    I have to manually update the app myself. I think it's a big shortcoming.

                                                                                                  • Link Zoho Inventory to Clover POS

                                                                                                    Is it possible to link zoho Inventory to Clover POS?

                                                                                                  • How can I start trial version without any example data?

                                                                                                    I am lazy to manually delete each data in every section. Is there any button to fresh start my account from zero?

                                                                                                  • Send Whatsapp with API including custom placeholders

                                                                                                    Is is possible to initiate a session on whatsapp IM channel with a template that includes params (placeholders) that are passed on the API call? This is very usefull to send a Utility message for a transactional notification including an order number

                                                                                                  • Building a custom site

                                                                                                    do we have an option in Zoho to build custom sites like adding custom functionalities? want to make a site like https://trackscourier.com/jnt-tracking-ph/. Is it doable? Please assist.

                                                                                                  • Free developer edition of Zoho CRM

                                                                                                    A question for Zoho and other developers: How can you set up a demonstration version of a Zoho CRM implementation to show employers/clients what can be achieved? Do you pay for Zoho CRM Enterprise/Zoho One for this purpose? Does Zoho offer a free version

                                                                                                  • Confirmation prompt before a custom button action is triggered

                                                                                                    Have you ever created a custom button and just hoped that you/your users are prompted first to confirm the action? Well, Zoho knows this concept. For example, in blueprint, whenever we want to advance to the next state by clicking the transition, it is

                                                                                                  • Selecting ZOHO Help Desk Plan for Startup

                                                                                                    Hello everyone, We at unisouk are setting up a Product support team for our platform. and probably we will be team of 3-5 people. Which plan would cater my needs to address customer technical queries and maintain the inflow of various channel queries

                                                                                                  • Where do we manage tags?

                                                                                                    Where is the page where we can view all tags and manage them (like change a tag name to something else or merge tickets under a particular tag with another)?

                                                                                                  • Possibilité de créer des boutons de raccourci dans les tickets Zoho Desk

                                                                                                    Bonjour, J'ai développé plusieurs automatisations avec Zoho Deluge pour optimiser la gestion des tickets. Je souhaiterais savoir s’il est possible de créer des boutons de raccourci directement accessibles dans l’interface des tickets afin de déclencher

                                                                                                  • Update to the Merge Tickets Functionality

                                                                                                    This is to inform you about a significant update to the Merge Tickets functionality in Zoho Desk.  Until now, while merging tickets, a user could set one ticket as the master ticket and choose the final value for any field from any of the secondary tickets too. As a result of this provision, many a time, crucial details related to the master ticket faced the risk of being excluded in the final, merged ticket. To overcome this challenge, we have decided to make the value of some critical fields unchangeable,

                                                                                                  • Setting up CRM for RFP workflow management

                                                                                                    This will be the first time our organization uses an off-the-shelf CRM, transitioning from our homegrown custom solution, and I would appreciate general thoughts on how to get started in general with our workflow using Zoho CRM. The main question: if

                                                                                                  • Integrating Calendly with Zoho Calendar in Zoho Mail

                                                                                                    I moved my office into a business incubator space that uses Calendly for meeting management and events. Calendly doesn't have a integration with Zoho Calendar and vice versa. I was directed to Zapier for integration but it doesn't have an integration

                                                                                                  • How to send binary data in invokeurl task?

                                                                                                    Hello, I am using Adobe's Protect PDF API. Source: https://developer.adobe.com/document-services/docs/overview/pdf-services-api/ Everything works fine in Postman. But for some reason after encrypting the file, it is empty after password protecting the

                                                                                                  • Unable to access Zoho Desk at all - has an extreme slow load and then just remains blank

                                                                                                    This is all I see:

                                                                                                  • Demande : Épingler automatiquement un commentaire via Deluge

                                                                                                    Bonjour, Je suis utilisateur de Zoho Desk et j'ai développé une fonction avec Zoho Deluge permettant d'ajouter automatiquement un type de commentaire à chaque création de ticket. Cependant, j'aimerais pouvoir épingler ces commentaires directement depuis

                                                                                                  • Unknown error occurred

                                                                                                    Hi, When we want to publish or edit a page in our website, we encounter with "Unknown error occurred" problem. I share a screenshot here. Our website is www.essoft.com. It happens every page. We want to solve this ASAP.

                                                                                                  • Using Creator API access tokens in deluge script

                                                                                                    I am working on generating download urls for files that are uploaded via a creator form. I want to include these urls in record templates so they can be easily accessed. The goal is to make downloading multiple attachments in a record as quick and easy

                                                                                                  • Option to Re-order from past orders

                                                                                                    Customers would like to place a repeat order with the business entity. Currently there is no option to support this and everytime the customer has to check out following the same process. Can a option be given to reorder from the past orders?

                                                                                                  • Display your zoho contact name when they call your mobile number

                                                                                                    As per the title If a contact calls the office number, the contacts name shows on mobile as long as I have their contact details registered in my crm. Is there a way that if the contact calls my mobile, their name can be displayed? Currently just their number shows when they call.

                                                                                                  • US to EU Data Migration done / Workflows and Custom Functions stopped working

                                                                                                    Hello, I need help to restore my workflow rules and custom functions to work. My data was transferred from the US to the EU (Data center migration). Now all Workflow Rules and Custom Functions not working. I have no idea how to restore them to work again.

                                                                                                  • Custom view for Milestones

                                                                                                    Hi, Just an idea for the future... would it be possible to create custom views for the Milestones view under Work Overview ? I usually need to look at this view filtered by project group but the filter doesn't remain when navigating away. A custom view

                                                                                                  • Zoho API Error Code 7019 when adding job.

                                                                                                    Hello, I am following the documentation found here. https://www.zoho.com/people/api/timesheet/adding-jobs.html Regardless of how I try and post the data (including just using the example requests), I receive back the response {'response': {'message':

                                                                                                  • Getting error during inserting a record in form of zoho people using zoho api

                                                                                                    import requests import json # Set your access token and Zoho People API base URL access_token = '1000.XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX' api_base_url = 'https://people.zoho.in/people/api/' # Set the form name and data to be inserted form_link_name

                                                                                                  • Email an Invoice from API

                                                                                                    When calling the API to email an invoice, it seems it does not actually send it. Below is a screen shot where I used an API call for the bottom record, and it updated its' status to "Due Today", but no email was actually sent. The top record, I hit the

                                                                                                  • How to delete Email Sent From CRM from Contact Records

                                                                                                    I can't figure out how to delete email sent form CRM from contact records. Can you please advise? 

                                                                                                  • Recurring Events Not Appearing in "My Events" and therefore not syncing with Google Apps

                                                                                                    We use the Google Sync functionality for our events, and it appears to have been working fine except: I've created a set of recurring events that I noticed were missing from my Google Apps calendar. Upon further research, it appears this is occurring

                                                                                                  • Is there a Kanban view of Tasks across all Projects?

                                                                                                    As the title indicates, I could use a Kanban view of my Tasks across my Projects. If it's there, I don't see it. If it isn't there, I'd like to submit this as a feature request. Thx.

                                                                                                  • Next Page