Stop start, feast and famine. It’s a conundrum we’ve all faced at one point or another in our business lives, but more often than not, it’s a mindset shift that is the key to solving the problem.
The ebb and flow of your pipeline is natural, but it should still have a steady flow to it. You shouldn’t have to be scrabbling around every few months in a blind panic. You should be safe in the knowledge that your pipeline is working hard in the background.
So, what’s this mindset all about?
Always-on mindsets and why they change the game
As mentioned, it’s a mindset shift that can help save the day. Fundamentally, it’s about changing your mindset from “I’m okay for now” to “How can I keep the flow at a steady pace?”.
With the feast-and-famine lifestyle, you’re drowning in work one month and hunting for leads the next. By switching your mindset to always having an eye on the pipeline, you can avoid this situation.
Sales mindset
No one is saying you have to focus on selling 100% of the time, but what we are saying is that you should never take your eye off the ball. Whether that’s a consistent level of content marketing married up with outreach, or a robust sales process that closes deals effectively, you should have some form of plan in place.
What it’s not, is doing nothing whilst you’re busy with delivery and then waking up one day to find you’ve got no work for the rest of the month.
It’s precisely why consistency in marketing is so critical, and why your outreach (whatever form it takes) should speak to the marketing you do carry out.
The sales pipeline
Your sales pipeline is a demanding beast, and you need to master it if growth is on the agenda. Easier said than done, I know, but it’s a simple truth.
If you can get to a place where the pipeline is consistently being fed, you’re on to a winner. The key is in the scale. There are multiple automated options out there for outreach, whether that’s email or LinkedIn.
Getting the right messaging behind the outreach is tricky, but once you do and it’s backed up by consistent marketing, you’ll find you’ll have leads to nurture at all times.
Wrap up
Okay, so that makes it sound simpler than it is, and that’s true. But it’s a mindset shift. You can’t be asking for referrals or relying on your network when the pipeline runs dry, so it’s better to shift to an always-on mindset so that you’re constantly feeding the beast.
The problem is this: if you leave it too late, you may not be able to pull it back from the brink. But a change in attitude can help prevent that from ever happening.
That attitude and mindset shift is what separates the good from the mediocre, and the growth from the non-growth. Of course, the tricky part is nurturing those leads and getting them to the thin end of the cheese where you close the deal, but that’s a problem for the future.
Focus on constantly feeding the pipeline, on top of delivery, and you’ll be set for the future.