A sales pipeline calculator is a tool that takes key data from a company’s sales process to forecast how much money it might make in the future(based on existing numbers).
It calculates a predicted revenue estimate by considering factors such as the total number of leads, conversion rates across stages (for example, the proportion of leads that become qualifying opportunities), and the average value of a final sale.
A Sales Funnel focuses on the numbers and conversion rates between stages. It answers questions like, “What percentage of our leads become opportunities?” It’s a marketing and analytics model.
A Sales Pipeline focuses on the specific deals and actions within those stages. It answers questions like, “What’s the next step for closing the deal with Company ABC?” It’s a sales management tool but should also be reviewed by revenue-led marketers.
A funnel shows you the health of your conversion process, while a pipeline shows you the health of your current deals.
Marketers utilize the data by working backward from the company’s overall revenue target; they use historical conversion rates and average deal sizes to calculate the precise number of leads they must generate at the top of the funnel.
Sales team works forward, analyzing the deals currently in their pipeline and applying stage-specific win probabilities to create a realistic, weighted revenue forecast for the upcoming quarter. This dual approach ensures that marketing’s lead generation efforts are directly built to support sales’ revenue goals.
A basic spreadsheet or calculator such as this one, can work for a very small team. It’ll quickly becomes inefficient once the organisation grows and there are more complex channels and teams involved.
Popular CRMs like Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho CRM, and Pipedrive are specifically designed to help you build, manage, and analyze your sales pipeline visually and effectively.
Sales Reps: Should review their personal pipeline daily to plan their activities.
Sales Managers: Should conduct pipeline review meetings with their team weekly to discuss progress, roadblocks, and strategy.
Leadership/Executives: Should review the overall company pipeline monthly or quarterly for high-level forecasting and strategic planning.
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