Building a healthy sales pipeline: Five steps to make sales easier and more consistent

A healthy sales pipeline produces work consistently. It means you know exactly what to do to win new customers – and makes running a business a lot easier.

But that’s easier said than done.

Most small business owners lead the sales process and that often means:

• sales is avoided because it’s intimidating or doesn’t come naturally

• proactive outreach doesn’t happen until work slows down

• the focus is on marketing because it’s easy to measure results

Emma Meheux, director of Brand Planning, says business owners can shy away from sales:

“Business owners can have a bad impression of what sales is because they link it to the idea of pushy salespeople, which they don’t want to be.”

If that sounds familiar or you want to improve your sales process, this blog post outlines the steps you need to take to build a healthy sales pipeline.

1. Define your sales pipeline

Start by defining the stages your potential customers go through. You probably have a good idea about this already, but might not have written it down.

Work through a few customer journeys and define the stages they go through and how they behave:

• Lead: Collect information from a potential customer.

• Prospect: Start the conversation.

• Qualified prospect: Confirm they need your product, have the budget and can make the buying decision.

• Proposal: Agree the price and key details of the sale.

• Sale: Complete the purchase.

2. Identify the right prospect

Sales starts with generating leads. To do that you need to understand your target audience, advises Emma.

“That means understanding your products and services and knowing your unique selling proposition. One of the biggest mistakes small businesses make is that they have too many ideas and they don’t have a focus.”

Use as much data as possible from existing customers, advises Katharine:

• refine your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) every six months

• monitor which customers are bringing in the most value

• leverage customer feedback and case studies to attract similar companies

Our deep dive on buyer personas explains the benefits and how to create them.

3. Find more leads for your business

Once you know who you’re selling to, you can start finding prospective customers.

In-person networking

Emma argues that building relationships in person is the most important route for small business owners.

There are lots of networking events you can join; you just need to figure out where your target customers are likely to be.

Online networking

You can join groups on platforms like Zoom, where you interact and network like you would do offline.

Social selling

Use LinkedIn as a platform to talk to people. You need to go further than just posting, using comments and messages to start conversations.

Once you’ve built a rapport, you can move the conversation to a more traditional sales meeting.

Upselling to existing customers

Your existing customers know and trust you. But they’re often overlooked as part of businesses’ regular sales activity.

Check in with existing and lapsed customers to understand their needs and make sure they’re aware of everything you offer.

Build partnerships

Katharine Mainprize, founding director of Formed Consultancy, advises small business owners to build partnerships with companies that have similar audiences:

• accelerate your positioning with customers

• share resources that multiply visibility, such as content and data

• co-market opportunities like events

• refer business to each other

Finding leads is just the start. The real challenge? Doing it consistently.

4. Be consistent with your sales activity

Katharine says that quality and consistency of sales activity win over volume.

“Regularly dedicating time to this will pay dividends over the long term. Again, utilising networks and partnerships works best as most companies buy on advocacy.”

That means setting yourself simple targets for the amount of work you do.

What you measure will vary by business. The Enterprise Nation advisers we spoke to suggest measuring:

1. the number of networking events you attend

2. LinkedIn connection follow-ups

3. conversion rates

Arianna Cerrito, founder of StartUpAndRise, says sales goals are about visibility on return on investment:

“Review last year’s actuals by month and quarter. Spot seasonality, key revenue drivers and growth patterns. Then set a challenging yet realistic target you can resource.”

Read our article on how to set realistic sales goals to learn more.

5. Build a sustainable routine

Once you’ve decided what activity you want to do and how you're measuring it, you need to build a routine.

Try to create a steady sales rhythm, advises Arianna.

“Do two protected sessions each week. Automate where possible, track what matters and celebrate progress.

“When sales time is structured, momentum builds naturally and business growth feels manageable, not reactive.”

Related resources about sales

Do you want to continue your learning journey?

These articles will help you learn more about sales.

• A 10-point Sales Planning Process (an overview of the planning process explained in Emma’s book)

• How to create a sales strategy for your small business (Enterprise Nation article)

• Need to sell more? Follow these six simple steps to develop a strategy that works (Enterprise Nation article)

• How to set realistic sales goals for your small business (Enterprise Nation article)

You can also book free discovery calls with the Enterprise Nation advisers mentioned in this article:

• Emma Meheux: “I help start-ups and SMEs devise affordable sales and marketing plans to help them grow.”

• Katharine Mainprize: “I’m an approachable mentor and adviser with over 20 years’ experience in brand, marketing and partnerships.”

• Arianna Cerrito: “I’m a Sustainable Business Growth Expert and award-winning Business Mentor.”