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How to Fill Your Sales Pipeline

blog author
Written by Mike Schultz
President, RAIN Group

Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: “Put me in front of ten buyers and I'll close seven of them. All I need is more meetings.” I hear this from sellers all the time. They're convinced they'll get the hits if they just get more at-bats.

But where are those at-bats going to come from? No salesperson ever hit home runs by sitting back and waiting for the phone to ring or their email to ding. To succeed in sales, you need to proactively generate a consistent stream of new leads to fill the front end of the pipeline.


WAVE Method: The Cure for Feast-or-Famine Sales Pipelines

That's not as easy as it used to be. Today, more people are working, buying, and selling virtually. Many of the organic opportunities we used to rely on to create sales opportunities have dramatically declined. Trade shows and networking events are few and far between.

You have to take the lead to create conversations and make the most out of the opportunities you have. More importantly, you need to work hard to understand your buyers so you can be more valuable to them. That’s what top performers are so good at.

According to our Top Performance in Sales Prospecting research, top performers get nearly 2x as many high-quality meetings. How? They’ve thoroughly assimilated the four cornerstones of prospecting success, which we’ve distilled into our WAVE framework:

A graphical representation of the WAVE framework, which includes: Winner's Mindset; Attraction Campaign; Value; and Execution.



Keep Your Pipeline Filled and Healthy

Fill your pipeline and keep it healthy with the WAVE method I’ve laid out above: winner’s mindset; attraction campaign; value; and execution. As you bake this framework into your sales prospecting discipline, you’ll inevitably build a cleaner, more honest pipeline that actually wins you business.

Download: 4 Steps to Fill Your Pipeline with Quality Opportunities Guide

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Topics: Sales Prospecting

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