Business Development

Pipeline Meetings Accelerate Growth Through Structured Collaboration

Pipeline meetings are not a new concept.

You might think the pipeline meeting, like other tools in your marketing and business development toolkit, would have been perfected by now. Yet, why is the outcome of pipeline meetings so inconsistent between firms?

While some leaders tout the pipeline meeting process, others see it as a complete waste of time. Pipeline meetings can be a powerful tool in supporting a firm’s business development efforts and be instrumental in accelerating growth. Here are a few best practices to keep your pipeline meetings efficient and effective.

Set the Foundation

Pipeline meetings are a great tool to keep the team informed, maintain momentum on opportunities, help the team focus on landing optimal clients, and track individual, sector and firmwide goals. Start by getting leadership on the same page as to their expectations regarding participation and outcomes.

Establish Norms

Create a structure to promote a collaborative meeting culture. The norms, or meeting protocols, determine whether your group functions as a high-performing team or simply a collection of people. Being explicit about norms increases effectiveness, expands emotional intelligence, produces positive experiences for group members and helps to socialize newcomers into the process quickly.

This means clearly defining the structure of your meetings. Reach an agreement as to who will participate. While a few firms opt for partner participation only, that can be a short-sighted perspective. Pipeline meetings are an opportunity to develop your team and create a learning environment.

Set a consistent date, time and length for pipeline meetings. The best practice is to schedule pipeline meetings every other week and early in the morning with a 20-minute time limit. Then set protocols for extending conversations beyond the boundaries of the meeting.

Team members need a transparent understanding of how and when thorough discussion and more in-depth brainstorming sessions will occur.

Adopt a One-firm Mindset

Pipeline meetings have the potential to eliminate individual silos and bring team members together toward common goals. It is not unusual for a firm to have one or two rainmakers — those whose pipelines are always full and can land new business in their sleep. Individuals find substantial satisfaction when using their strengths and a shared vision for a greater purpose.

One area to which a “one-firm” mindset applies is the tone of the meeting. The best outcomes are achieved when the tone of your meeting is positive, upbeat and celebratory. The meeting leader can significantly impact the meeting tone. For the best outcome, have the most encouraging partner or the head of marketing or business development lead the meeting. Avoid having an assertive rainmaker take the helm, as their desire to share their wisdom or expound on the size of their pipeline or wins can discourage participation.

Reporting structure also can impact the meeting’s tone. Avoid the temptation to report by individual accomplishments, particularly if you have younger team members participating. Individual reporting encourages rainmakers to elaborate and those just learning to become discouraged and stop improving.

Report instead by service line or, better yet, industry group. Have one person responsible for reporting the status for that segment, then rotate the responsibility of reporting among team members. Individual members may still offer a brief perspective on specific opportunities, but reporting as a group reinforces the one-firm mindset.

Tracking Tools

Do not expect efficiency if your team is using excessive, outdated or inaccurate resources. Whether it’s a simple spreadsheet or HubSpot Sales Hub, track details such as opportunity, contact, opportunity lead, estimated revenue, service, industry sector and referral source. Tracking this information allows for in-depth analysis at the end of the year. Don't forget to include a summary page that tracks back to goals.

Decide how the information will be reported, whether it’s a series of reporting forms that individuals complete and submit to the marketing team for addition to the pipeline, or self-submission with your reporting tool accessible to all participating team members, with each professional responsible for entering their own data.

Celebrate Success

Lock in long-term successes. Start with firmwide goals and break down projected revenues by service line, industry sector and monthly, quarterly and annual goals. Have segments (industry or service) report on updates such as new opportunities added, qualified versus unqualified opportunities, opportunities moved to inactive, as well as wins, wins without a sales cycle and losses.

Encourage participants to ask for or offer help when opportunities get stuck such as no decision, difficulty setting meeting, or the prospect has gone silent. However, the offer during the pipeline meeting should be kept to a simple “let’s set a time to strategize,” or “I’m happy to give Jane a call,” rather than an in-depth conversation about the issue. Then, always end with a review of progress and a celebration of wins.

Collective Commitments

Use these meetings as an opportunity to make commitments to each other and hold people accountable. Leadership can use these commitments as insight into what is and is not getting accomplished. For example: “I will commit to the team to make contact with the CFO by {date}.” Then, leadership must hold people responsible by having one-on-one conversations about the lack of follow-through outside the pipeline meetings.

The other commitment involves timing. Start the meeting on time and end on time. While it is not uncommon for initial pipeline meetings to run 45 minutes to one hour, strive for 15-20 minutes. Schedule the first meeting for a longer period, and shorten the timeframe for subsequent meetings. This will teach the team to keep the reporting at a summary level. Participants may tend to overshare and drift from meeting norms if expectations and procedures are not consistently reviewed. Put signals, time limits or voice prompts in place to notify the group of necessary redirection.

Key Takeaway

Pipeline meetings are useful to track progress and success and as a development process for team members with less business development experience. They are also a tool that reinforces the culture of the firm and builds future success. If you do not take opportunities to develop future leaders by leveraging tools like pipeline meetings, someone else will.

Christine M. Hollinden, CPSM. Contact at christine@hollinden.com.