I’ve been travelling the length and breadth of the UK last week and not been able to put up any posts on my blog and so feeling a little more than a tad guilty I’ve been trying to put one together during my lunch break on one of the training workshops that I’ve been running… to help me I enlisted the help of some friends and so my thanks go to Tony, Richard, Elaine, Mike and Dave (aka Ishbell) who helped me develop this list.

Here are our 5 best reasons why you should not manage your pipeline:

You Might Make Some Money
It may well be a fallacy that sales people want to make money. Some people clearly don’t rate it as a priority and therefore failing to manage the pipeline is the clearest sign that money is not important… it’s as that great inventor, Thomas Edison, once said… “Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning.”… so avoid good fortune because as we know money is the root of all evil and therefore best not to have too much of it.

It Limits Expectations
Let’s face it, managing your pipeline is only going to raise expectations. If you show that you are in control of your business you are setting the expectation that you are indeed in control… is this really the image you want to portray of yourself?

There’s No Fun Being Predictable
If we have some fun at work then the job becomes more enjoyable and it’s good to be able to enjoy your work. A couple of bluebirds in the pipeline has never done anyone any harm… you are way behind on your number, nothing in sight that is going to close… your boss is about to have a nervous breakdown due to pressure of not being anywhere near close to the number and you walk in with a fantastic deal, from nowhere, that saves the day. Just watch the relief on everyone’s face… is that not more enjoyable than being predictable?

Visibility Means Questions
The more there is to see, the more questions you will be asked. If there are big deals in the pipeline then more people will be asking the questions. While you take time to answer the questions you are not selling. Also, there may be some questions that you can’t answer and so you may lose some credibility, which you don’t want to happen and so by showing the deals you will really have to be in control and by demonstrating you are in control you will lose that aura of enigma that you have worked so hard to cultivate.

Makes you Replaceable
Let’s face it… show everything, keep contacts up to date, keep account plans up to date, keep pipelines up to date, produce full deal plans, etc, etc and you can be more easily replaced. Play everything close to your chest and management will find it more difficult to replace you… obviously you don’t want to be replaced, so is this not the best way to avoid it?

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