The Pipeline Diversity Tool was developed to take a higher-level look at a sales rep’s pipeline to ensure diversity at all levels. This is the perfect tool to use in a Sales Plan, or in a planning discussion for an upcoming new fiscal year as revenue projections and accountabilities are created. 
 
Additionally, this tool is great to implement during quarterly business reviews with a business development professional, to help them look at their current YTD achieved goals, and revisit remaining quota vs. pipeline to help ensure goal achievement.
 
There are a few important callouts on the Pipeline Diversity Tool to point out.
 
Each rep on your team can be assigned a tab of their own. One is displayed. Simply right click on the Example Rep tab and create a copy. Rename the new tab. 
 
The top bar with your Annual Goal/Quota, 5X Pipeline, and Sales Rep name is static on the document.
 
For a balanced pipeline, reps want to have an even 33% revenue share from small, medium, and large opportunities. Successful revenue producers will pull from various sized opportunities throughout the selling year. When one area of the pipeline is overweight (or underweight) the percentage of achievement drops.
 
Outside of each revenue (small, medium, large) total is a % which dictates the revenue % of that bucket against the other two.
 
You’ll notice two arrows pointing to Annual Goal/Quota, and Pipeline Needed. Why are these important callouts for your reps:
Input their goal (or remaining goal if done mid-year) to populate what a 5X Pipeline number is.
Once populated, the Pipeline Needed cell will populate; this is the number they want to shoot for when building prospect opportunities.
 
There is a table on the right (under the largest revenue pipeline area) to list leads that are yet to be qualified but deem consideration for including them into the pipeline.
Example: I have a meeting with Nike in two weeks. I know the opportunity is worth $2,000,000. I haven’t started the business development cycle, nor quoted Nike yet, but I know I’ll get the opportunity to do so over the next 30 days.
 
Additionally, there is a table on the bottom left area of the document to highlight vertical market representation. For any diverse pipeline, a sales rep will want to have multiple vertical opportunities and not have all their proverbial eggs in one vertical’s basket.
 
The Top Vertical in Territory table is a way for you to break down which vertical market segments are represented most in a sales rep’s pipeline. Use this to weigh pipeline risk like 5X pipeline achievement.
 
The key to success for any revenue producing professional is having a diverse pipeline filled with small, medium, and large opportunities. The reason we use 5X as a multiplier within the pipeline is to hedge against a lower-than-average closing percentage, or other uncontrollable business redundancies that can take place when bidding on new business.
 
As sales professionals, we can’t 100% control the outcome of our prospects, even though we like to think we can. No one wins every deal. The best reps will close 30-40% of their deals. Organizations that require Sales Plans and pipeline diversity planning are the ones that have year over year growth and revenue achievements.
 
If your organization seeks guidance on how to implement pipeline diversity, please reach out to Sales Homie (contact@saleshomie.com).
 
You can find out more information about Sales Homie on it’s website (www.saleshomie.com).