The pipeline is £2m. Eighty per cent of it hasn’t moved in ninety days.

A large pipeline can be the most reassuring number in a business and the least informative. The difference lies in one column most CRMs already have.

Abstract bridge artwork for The pipeline is £2m. Eighty per cent of it hasn’t moved in ninety days.

A sales pipeline is one of the few numbers a business can grow without doing anything. Deals go in. Very few are ever taken out. Over a couple of years the total climbs steadily, quarter after quarter, and the board paper reports it with satisfaction. Then the forecast misses, and nobody can quite explain which part of the £2m failed to arrive. The useful question is not how big the pipeline is. It is how old it is, and whether anyone has decided what age means. A pipeline is a…

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