Automatically Nudging Reps to Update Close Dates

In computer programming there’s a saying, “garbage in, garbage out”. The same goes for the sales pipeline.

How can you nail the forecast if the data you’re working with is utterly junk?

In a previous post I talked about the importance of introducing a pipeline hygiene score. It’s a stupidly simple mechanic that should be in every sales operations toolkit.

Let’s review it one more time to dust off the cobwebs.

What is pipeline hygiene?

Pipeline Hygiene is a process each business develops to increase signal fidelity from its existing pipeline. Low fidelity pipeline increases the difficulty by which leaders are able to accurately receive empirical and anecdotal data directly from the CRM. In times of low fidelity, the business increasingly relies on anecdotal data via informal feedback channels such as 1-to-1 meetings and unreliable deal reviews. Revenue Operations enters the frame with a rigorous approach to developing a hygiene standard. Let’s go over an example:

A Pipeline Hygiene Rollup is the next metric you’ll want to display for the entire team. Let’s say for example we set 85% as the acceptable standard. For example:

No more past due Close Dates

So now let’s go over how to set up automation to further reduce the number of bad close dates in your Salesforce instance. This is another tactical post for those who wish to setup their Salesforce instances.

We’re going to set up an Auto Launched Flow to do the following:

• Scan for all opportunities with a past due close date and is open

• Increment the number of reminders this opportunity has

• Send a message to the owner of the opportunity

• If the reminder gets to a count of three (3) it’s going to add in the manager

Sounds simple enough?

Let’s go.