The sales pipeline is a way for you to envision the abstract concept of the sales process; basically, your prospective sale flows through the steps from new contact, to prospect, to lead, and so on until it emerges as a completed sale on the other end (like water through a pipe).

Of course, things aren’t always this simple, and inevitably some contacts are going to drop off along the way. This is perfectly normal, and these small leaks aren’t going to cause your company any irreparable damage—as long as those prospects that do have the potential to become completed sales are able to flow freely.

And why wouldn’t they be able to flow freely? After all, it’s not like the metaphorical pipe can get clogged, can it? Of course it can.

Clogs in the sales pipeline can occur when all of the cogs of your sales-machine aren't working perfectly in tandem (yes, I’m mixing metaphors here). When this happens, prospects lose their forward momentum, and get bogged down, often slowing their progress to a crawl or even coming to a dead stop.

As more and more prospects flow into the pipeline but fail to flow out, your company will begin to notice a decrease in profits. The day may even come when the clog becomes so bad that it ends up strangling your entire business and if that happens, you’ll find that a clog in your sales pipeline is infinitely more damaging than a clog in your shower drain. Thankfully, there are ways to manage this; unsticking that clog and getting everything flowing freely again.

Identifying the Problem

When you notice that sales prospects aren’t moving along quite like they should, your first responsibility should be to locate the clog itself. Ask yourself:

• What is it that is slowing the process down?
• Are your salespeople wasting valuable time and energy on prospects that aren’t going to pan out?
• Are there too many decision makers in your company, thus creating unnecessary extraneous steps?
• Is your business failing to follow up with potential customers?
• Are prospects making it almost all of the way to the end and then inexplicably dragging their feet?

There’s a good chance that the problem lies in the pipeline itself. After all, only about 46% of sales reps feel as though their pipeline is accurate and dependable, so that may be the best place to start.

There are any number of possible causes for a clogged sales pipeline and before you can grab the plunger and set things right, you’ll have to figure out where exactly the problem is. This isn’t very difficult, as long as you have detailed records on the progress that each prospect has made. When potential customers drop out or slow down, look a bit more closely and try to identify the why of the situation.

OK, so you’ve identified where your clog is. Now, what do you do about it? Well, it all depends; not every clog can be remedied with the same solution and where running the tap for a few minutes may be enough to loosen up certain issues, sometimes you’re going to need to reach for the drano (again, I’m being figurative here; please don’t actually use drano on any of your clients).

If your prospects are stalling right after the first contact, then you may wish to reinvent your sales approach. Maybe your method of finding new contacts needs to be tweaked (email is ranked as the #1 preferred communication channel by consumers, both for initial contact, as well as for follow up communications).

However you go about finding your potentials, the initial conversation is the place where you should be able to identify likely sales candidates, and weed out those who are unlikely to pay off. The last thing that you want to do is send your sales team a legion of time-wasting leads that are never going to make it through the pipeline. Doing so will only make it more difficult for your sales team to locate the true gems from among the chaff.

Remember, your pipeline should be about quality, not quantity; be more selective with who you allow to progress. This is made possible through being able to quickly discover a customer's individual needs and concerns, and by understanding your business and your competitors, so that you can clearly demonstrate the advantages of doing business together.

If potential customers seem to be really dragging their feet right from the get go, then move on to someone who is more likely to result in a sale. Sure, with enough effort and time, you might be able to bring an unmotivated prospect all the way to the end of the sales funnel, but will that one sale really be worth all of the energy that you had to invest to make it happen? Focus on leads that are the most likely to pay off, and leave the others where you found them.

If your customers seem to progress, but only slowly and with a lot of concerns and friction, then the problem could come from a sales team that could benefit from better training or more advances tools. Customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing automation are both tried and true methods of gaining and retaining customers. 49% percent of companies have decided to increase their investment in CRM in 2014, showing that not only is customer interaction a key issue in the mind of business leaders, but also that CRM is a trusted method of improving the customer relationship. At the same time, B2B marketers who implement marketing automation increase their contribution to the sales pipeline by 10%.

If you feel as though you have too many prospects to be able to devote the proper time or resources into helping them progress towards closure, then maybe it’s time to thin the herd. An objective look at which prospects deserve your attention and which ones don’t might just be what it takes to get things flowing again.

And what about the possibility of unmotivated sales teams hiding behind clogged pipelines as a way to avoid work? Well, that’s a personnel issue, but sometimes the clog is so bad that sections of the pipe need to be replaced. Just remember, most salespeople close less than 40% of their leads, so don’t be too hard on your team; it can be a difficult job. Still, it may be necessary to take a close look at the individual numbers of each sales member—if you see that one or two team members aren’t pulling their own weight, then speak to them and see if it’s a problem that can be corrected. If it isn’t, then replacing those employees might be your only viable option.

So, don’t let a slow or clogged pipeline drown your business in a pool of stagnant potential. Grab a (again, figurative) plunger, and see what you and your team can do to get your pipeline flowing properly. All it takes is a close look at the process from start to finish, and if you’re honest with yourself and willing to make changes where changes are due, then you won’t have to worry about your best prospects getting bogged down along the way.