Ideas That Move Opportunities Forward

Your team may be capable of handling follow-up, but that doesn’t mean they should own it. Here’s why clear ownership matters in the early sales pipeline.

I was doing some research recently, trying to get clear on who I should actually consider a competitor. Not in a paranoid way. More of a practical one. If someone is looking for what I do, who else are they looking at? What other businesses or consultants should I be paying attention to? I found myself looking at business development consultants, fractional sales support, RevOps professionals, and anyone who seemed even remotely adjacent to what I do. And somewhere in the mid

When I first started working with this client, she hadn't posted in nearly five months. She already had a list of people she wanted to build relationships with. But some of those businesses weren't actually a good fit. Some had stopped posting altogether. Others had gone quiet. And there was no real system for managing who we were engaging with or moving anyone through a pipeline. Everything lived in different places. Some information was in messages. Some was in spreadsheets

I was on a call with a consultant last week and asked her what was moving in her pipeline. She shared her screen. 327 names. Neatly organized. Color coded by industry. Weeks of work. I asked her which ones had an active conversation happening. She paused. “Most of them I haven’t reached out to yet.” That’s not a pipeline. That’s a list. Here’s the difference. A list tells you who exists. A pipeline tells you what’s happening. Those are not the same thing, and confusing them i

Most businesses don’t have a lead generation problem, they have an opportunity management problem. Before investing in more visibility, ask a different question: What happened to the last ten leads?