Visualizations can be tricky. If you want your sales manager or management in general to easily view a dashboard that displays exactly what the sales pipeline looks like at any given moment, you've really got to think about the layout, what numbers to display, what columns to use for your database, and what kind of charts / visuals to show.
Here is a sales pipeline tracking template I built that does a great job at effectively displaying key metrics. It uses funnels and dynamic speedometer gauges.
- Funnel chart: A funnel chart can help you visualize the stages of your sales pipeline and identify areas where you may be losing potential customers. Each stage of the funnel represents a step in the sales process, and the width of each stage represents the number of leads or opportunities that make it to that stage. You can also track and calculate the dollar value at each stage and use that to drive the width.
- Bar chart: A bar chart can be used to display the number of leads or opportunities in each stage of the pipeline. This can help you see which stages have the most opportunities, which stages are taking the longest to move through, and where you may need to focus your efforts to improve your sales process.
- Scatter plot: A scatter plot can help you visualize the relationship between different variables, such as the amount of time it takes to move a lead from one stage of the pipeline to the next and the probability of closing a deal at each stage. This can help you identify trends and patterns in your sales data that can inform your sales strategy.
- Heat map: A heat map can be used to highlight areas of your sales pipeline where you are seeing the most activity or the most success. For example, you might use a heat map to show which geographic regions or industry verticals are generating the most leads or closing the most deals.
- Line chart: A line chart can help you track changes in your sales metrics over time, such as the number of leads generated each month or the average time it takes to close a deal. This can help you identify trends and patterns in your sales data and adjust your strategy accordingly.
- Gauge / Speedometer: This is perfect for measuring the performance of single data points. For example, you can measure conversion rates where 100% is all the way over to the right (like a speedometer) and a needle will move around based on the actual closed deals relative to total deals. This also works for other data points such as the average opportunity size or average days it takes to convert leads into sales. The template linked above contains gauges visualizations for that.
Why is it a Good Idea to Keep Track of Your Sales Pipeline?
- Better forecasting: By tracking your sales pipeline, you can get a better sense of how many deals you have in the works and how likely they are to close. This allows you to forecast your sales revenue more accurately and plan for future growth.
- Improved efficiency: Tracking your sales pipeline can help you identify areas where your sales process may be inefficient, such as bottlenecks in the sales funnel or high dropout rates at certain stages. By identifying these issues, you can take steps to address them and improve your sales process.
- More informed decision-making: By having a clear understanding of your sales pipeline, you can make more informed decisions about where to allocate resources, which deals to prioritize, and how to adjust your sales strategy to better meet the needs of your customers.
- Better collaboration: By tracking your sales pipeline in a centralized system, you can improve collaboration and communication among your sales team. This can help ensure that everyone is working toward the same goals and that opportunities aren't falling through the cracks.
Overall, tracking your sales pipeline is essential for any business that wants to grow and succeed. It allows you to stay on top of your sales process, make data-driven decisions, and optimize your efforts for maximum efficiency and results.
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