🚀 How to assess sales pipeline health?

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3 tactics to assess sales pipeline health

🔎 Check pipeline size and quality

• Track two key metrics:

  • Number of new opportunities entering the pipeline 

  • Net new dollars those opportunities are adding each month

• Evaluate if the opportunities align with the ideal customer profile (ICP); non-ICP leads soaks up resources and time

• A healthy pipeline shows growth in ICP-fit leads and a reduction in non-ICP ones, even if it is a smaller overall pipeline

👂 Track deal velocity and stage health

• Compare how long deals are moving through each stage to an average deal of similar type (e.g. deal size, ICP, product, etc)

  • How long has the deal been at the current stage compared to this average?

  • Is the closing date appropriate for where the deal is in the sales process?

• Check for consistency in the pace of ICP leads; any inconsistency indicates a sales process or personnel issue

• Look for deals propelled by urgency and qualified buyers; unqualified prospects and uncommitted decision makers stall deals

• Flag stagnant deals where neither the sales team nor buyer is actively engaged and take immediate action to revive or close them

💰 Evaluate the shape of the pipeline

• A healthy pipeline is a funnel: wide at the top, narrowing toward closed deals

• Bloat in the middle or bottom stages = sales leadership problem

  • Middle-stage bulge → enforce disciplined follow-up and qualification

  • Bottom-stage bulge → check for real budget and executive sponsorship, remove roadblocks actively

• Clean the pipeline by asking:

  • “What specific actions are expected from the customer, and by when?” No clear answer → deal isn’t actively managed.

  • “Is this still a qualified opportunity? What is being done to get this deal unstuck? When is the next action?”

• Force decisive action:

  • Choice #1: Disqualify the opportunity

  • Choice #2: Move it back up the pipeline and reduce the probability

  • Choice #3: Move it out of the active pipeline until a tangible customer action occurs (e.g. customer initiating a conversation) 

2 traps to avoid

🚨 Confusing a full pipeline with a bloated pipeline

• Bloated pipeline = stale, stuck, or dormant deals that drag performance and make it hard to forecast with accuracy

• Clear out stalled opportunities or force a specific next-step plan

• Salespeople need adequate time to tailor presentations to prospect’s specific needs

• Smaller, active pipelines = higher focus, passion, and win rate

🚨 Ignoring individual pipeline performance

• Overall pipeline may look fine but individuals (between co-founders and/or sales reps) may be struggling

• Look at both the overall pipeline and individualized pipeline based on the leads they have

• Compare deal speed, shape, and close rates to each individual pipeline; misalignment signals a personnel problem

1 tool to leverage

📖 Best practice on sales pipeline

• Typical pipeline size is 3x of sales goals, but aim for pipeline size to be 4x to 5x greater given typical close rate is around 20%

• Leverage Hubspot CRM to track and manage your sales pipeline for free

Bonus: 1 trend to spark startup ideas

📈  Real estate agents are drowning in paperwork

• The $4.1T global real estate market generates massive transaction volumes but agents spend 30 out of 40 hours of work for each deal on administrative tasks

• Manual bottleneck is suffocating productivity - real estate professionals juggle property showings, client communications, contract negotiations, and endless documentation using spreadsheets and paper forms as 61% of firms still rely on legacy systems

• Every real estate deal follows predictable workflows with structured documentation that AI can automate (e.g. standardized contracts, MLS listings, property comparables, mortgage applications, and transaction histories etc)

• Three transformation opportunities:

  • Automated property valuation: AI analyzes comparable sales, market trends, and neighborhood data to generate instant accurate valuations, replacing manual comparative market analysis that takes hours

  • Contract and document automation: Natural language processing extracts key terms from purchase agreements and generates compliant paperwork, eliminating manual drafting and review cycles

  • Lead qualification and client matching: ML algorithms analyze buyer preferences, financial profiles, and behavior patterns to instantly match qualified prospects with suitable properties