Summary: It would be great if we were able to close every prospect we ever targeted, but that's just ridiculously unrealistic. So how many prospects should we have in our pipeline? And how many do you have in there right now?<br> <br> <br> <br> David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today, cohost Chris Templeton, and I will be talking about the prospects in your pipeline. Should you have more? Could you have less? Welcome Chris.<br> <br> Chris: Hi David. You know, many business owners and sales people think in terms of growing their customer base. But the number of prospects in their pipeline is a key element of that, isn't it?<br> <br> David: Yes, absolutely. And it's very often overlooked. It's one of these things like we were talking about in the previous podcast, things that people know -- business owners know, salespeople know -- but we don't always practice. The idea that we have to have a nice solid sales pipeline. You have to put enough in the front of the pipe, so you can have some coming out the back of the pipe? Or some people use the analogy of a funnel. If you don't have enough going into the top of the funnel, you're not going to have anything coming out the bottom. So yes, having a really solid pipeline is absolutely key. If you think of like an oil pipeline or something like that, if you have great gaps in the pipeline, if you just have great pockets of air, that is not going to accomplish the goal. And it's the same thing with customers with prospects. If you've got a nice, solid pipeline of customers in place or prospects in place, then the likelihood that some of them are going to close is pretty great. And you will very likely have the type of customer base that you can grow and the type of business that you can actually live in. But if you've got tremendous gaps in between your prospects in your pipeline, then the likelihood of success is greatly diminished. Before we started this podcast, we were talking about this topic, how many people do you have in your pipeline? And I responded with "both of them." You know, and for some people, that's where they are. They might have a few people, they have a handful of people in their pipeline. And they're just crazy about the idea of when is one of these people going to close? And they fail to take into consideration that if you had twice as many people in the pipeline, then your closing ratio could be cut in half and you'd still make a sale.<br> <br> Chris: And the other thing is the whole time, if I've got a full pipeline, if I've got 20 or 30 potential people that I'm working on over time, or a hundred, whatever the case may be, depending.<br> <br> David: Or a thousand, yeah.<br> <br> Chris: Depending on where I am in that, I love the funnel analogy. At the top, it's probably somebody who may be receptive at some point, or is even a lead that you haven't talked to. But having that pipeline loaded with potential clients, I think is one of the greatest ways to reduce stress in your business. Especially if you're a sales person. Would you agree with that?<br> <br> David: Yeah. It reduces stress and it increases the likelihood of success. And it positions you to be able to generate the sales that you want to generate. You know, one of the things I've always struggled with, with the idea of either a pipeline or a funnel is that if you have a pipeline, if you have a funnel, you put something one end, it all comes out the other end. In a sales funnel or a pipeline it doesn't really work that way. Some of them are not going to make it all the way through. So it's like these things have these various escape valves going off in one direction or other, and the ones who aren't going to make it get siphoned off. But the ultimate visual, I guess, is that you put a bunch of them into the top and the ones t...
