Sales Manager Workflows for Pipeline Generation

Overview

As a sales manager, one of your primary focuses is likely pipeline generation, and with Outreach, you have access to the metrics, actionable insights, and reports needed to achieve this goal. To help you get started, we’ve rounded up the key workflows every sales manager needs to monitor pipeline health, spot coverage gaps, and improve seller productivity.

Check out our opportunity management, rep coaching, and forecasting guides for managers and sellers for more workflows.

Table of contents

Use these links below to jump to a relevant section

• Workflows for monitoring current period pipeline
• Workflows for pipeline changes
• Workflows for inspecting account penetration
• Workflows for reviewing activity metrics and KPIs
• Workflows for next period coverage

Workflows

Monitoring Current Period Pipeline

Use these workflows to understand your team’s current pipeline status and sales projections using metrics, projections, and insights in Outreach's Pipeline Summary dashboard.

Check-in on the state of your current pipeline within the Pipeline Dashboard

1. Navigate to the Pipeline metric at the top of the Pipeline Dashboard.
2. This metric shows deal movement by stage or forecast category and is helpful for inspecting pipeline movement over the last week. Additionally, the user can inspect goal performance such as progress toward their quota. Review the metrics included in the rollup to see:
   • Won: Deals marked closed-won in this sales period
   • To quota: The amount left to hit quota for this sales period
   • Active: The revenue value of active deals in the pipeline
   • End of cycle: How many days are left in this current cycle sales period.
3. Compare the gap-to-quota metric with the active pipeline revenue to gauge your team’s overall standing and coverage. This will show you if your team is at risk for hitting quota for the quarter or if you're on track. 
4. To drill down into particular teams, segments, or reps, find your title located directly above the Pipeline metric and click the drop-down icon. Select the level of visibility you’re looking for to toggle back and forth between their performance and the overall organization.

See what you can expect to close this quarter with total projected finish metrics

1. Navigate to the Total Projected Finish section of the Pipeline Summary page to see Outreach’s AI-generated prediction of where you will likely end the sales period.
2. Review the metrics that make up this prediction:
   • Currently won: Deals marked closed-won in this sales period
   • Remaining weighted pipeline: The value of the deals expected to close based on your organization’s average win rates per stage or forecast category at this point in the sales period
   • Projected remaining intra-quarter: High-velocity deals that do not exist in your pipeline today but are expected to be created and closed within the sales period
   • Projected remaining pulled-in: Expected pipeline for a future period that is estimated to be pulled into the current sales period
3. Spot risk by comparing the Total Projected Finish against quota and help reps get back on track using these workflows.

Gauge your quarterly performance with revenue attainment metrics

1. Navigate to the Revenue Attainment section of the Pipeline Summary page.
2. Review the attainment metrics included in this section to see:
   • This quarter: Deals marked closed-won so far this sales period
   • Last quarter: The value of closed-won deals at this point last sales period
   • This quarter last year: The value of closed-won deals at this point last year
3. Use the Revenue Attainment graph to compare your pacing against all three metrics in a given time period and analyze for trends.

Better understand the deals you have in the pipeline with deal pacing

1. Navigate to the Deal Pacing section of the Pipeline Dashboard.
2. Review the deal pacing metrics included in this section to see:
   • On pace: The value of open deals that are on track to close within the current sales period based on your win model
   • Off pace: The value of open deals that are at risk of closing within the current sales period based on your win model
3. The Deal Pacing metric breaks down all deals in your pipeline for the current sales period and breaks them out by sales stage. This model leverages AI to analyze the typical pacing from your win model (time in each stage) and the time between now and the close date (time remaining to close) to provide an on-track or off-track status. Review these metrics to see how many dollars in your pipeline are pacing per your normal win model.
4. For additional context, review the deal insights to help reps get their off-pace deals back on track or determine if they should refocus on more winnable deals.

See total revenue across each sales stage with weighted pipeline

1. Navigate to the Weighted Pipeline section of the Pipeline Summary page.
2. Review the pipeline metrics included in this section to see:
   • Total pipeline: The sum of all deals that are currently open and set to close in the sales period
   • Weighted pipeline: The sum of each weighted stage or forecast category, calculated using historical win rates from the current point in the sales period.
   • Remaining quota: The quota minus the sum of all won deals
   • Gap: The amount left to hit quota for this sales period calculated as the difference between the remaining quota and weighted pipeline
3. Drill into the weighted value of each sale stage or forecast category within the Weighted Pipeline graph. Here, you can review opportunities making up each area to see if reps need support with pipeline management or getting the deal back on track.

Workflows for Monitoring Pipeline Changes

Use these workflows to review detailed pipeline changes for your team or individual reps using the Pipeline Summary and Pipeline Movement report.

High level insight into week over week change in your pipeline 

1. Navigate to the Pipeline metric at the top of the Pipeline Dashboard.
2. Hover over each of the stages making up the stacked bar chart graphic for an overview of how much revenue has moved throughout this stage since the previous Friday. You will see the following metrics:
   • Added: Deals added to this stage
   • Progressed: Deals originally in this stage that have progressed to a later stage
   • Pushed: Deals in this stage that were pushed to a future sales period 
   • Lost: Deals marked closed-lost from this stage
3. To review the current opportunities associated with this stage, select View Opportunities.
4. The default view for this section is set to view your pipeline by sales stage. Depending on the type of view you need, you can also make the following adjustments:
   • For visibility into a specific team or reps pipeline, find the dropdown located directly above the Pipeline metric and select the desired level of visibility you’re looking for. 
   • To view the pipeline by forecast category, find the dropdown on the right-hand side of the Pipeline metric and toggle between By Stage or By Forecast.
   • If additional custom views are desired (i.e., pipeline by deal type such as New Business vs Renewal), consider creating a Saved View by following the steps outlined here.

Dig deeper into pipeline changes and quickly assess risk with the Pipeline Movement report

1. Navigate to the Reports tab in Outreach and select the Pipeline Movement report.
2. To evaluate how your current period pipeline changed in the past week, set the filters to the following:
   • Time period: Last week
   • Close date: During the sales period
   • Type: Sales stage
   • Rollup: For the broadest view, keep the rollup set to your current level of visibility or drill down further into specific teams or reps
3. Once filters are set, Outreach will generate a report that shows historical data associated with last week’s pipeline. 
4. The top section of the report is a stacked bar chart that breaks down the deals in the pipeline at the beginning of last week, broken down by sales stage. You will see the following metrics and information:
   • Date: Indicates the start date of the time frame selected
   • Stages: You will see how many deals and how much revenue was in each of your sales stages on that date
   • Created: Opportunities that were created last week that are set to close in the current sales period 
   • Pulled In: Opportunities that were pulled into the current sales period last week
   • Overdue: Opportunities that have a close date in the past and are currently sitting overdue
5. In the bottom section of the report, you will see a breakdown of how the pipeline changed throughout your selected timeframe. In this example, you would see what happened to all the deals you had in the pipeline at the beginning of last week by the end of that week. You will see the following metrics and information:
   • Date: Indicates the end date of the time frame selected.
   • Won: Deals that were won
   • Lost: Deals that were lost
   • Moved: Deals that progressed to a different sales stage
   • Slipped: Deals that were pushed to a future sales period
   • Idle: Deals that did not change
   • Percentage: Below each of these metrics, you will see a percentage. This percentage represents how much of your pipeline revenue fell into this category.
   • View opportunities: Below each of these metrics, you will also see a View Opportunities button with a number in parenthesis. The number represents the total number of deals that were in this category. You can choose to “View Opportunities” to identify the specific deals making up any category. 
6. If you want to narrow your report to see what happened to deals in a particular stage, you can select the stage in the top section of the report, and the data at the bottom will adjust accordingly. To back out of this view, click on the stage again, and you will be taken back to the holistic report.
7. To assess risk and get deals back on track, you can drill into the opportunities making up the Slipped category. Review this information for the selected deals:
   • Assigned: The rep who owns the deal
   • Name: The name of the deal, which should include the opportunities company name
   • Health: Deal health score, which calculates the probability of winning this deal compared to similar deals at similar stages.
   • Close date: Current close date
   • Value: The total value of the deal
   • Forecast category: The current forecast category for the deal
   • Stage: The current stage of the deal

TIP: To change your report based on specific needs, follow the same instructions above, adjusting filters in step two as needed.

Workflows for Account Penetration

Use this workflow to inspect account penetration and ensure reps are reaching out to target accounts using saved views.

Quickly see if your team is effectively reaching out to target accounts with saved views

Note: If you haven’t already, consider creating custom saved views with custom columns in Outreach to have the information you need at your fingertips.

1. Once you’ve created your desired saved views, navigate to the Records tab in Outreach and select Accounts.
2. Sort by Last Contacted. To sort by most or least recently contacted, toggle by clicking on the Last Contacted header.
3. Scan the Sequence column to make sure that for key accounts, you have the target number of people in sequence that you’ve set as a team goal. You’ll see the following metrics and information in the column or on hover:
   • Active: Total number of prospects in an active sequence
   • Inactive: Number of prospects in an inactive sequence
   • Bounced (on hover): Total number of bounced prospects
   • Paused (on hover): Total number of prospects who are paused in the sequence
4. For accounts that don't have enough people in sequence, dig a little deeper. Remember, while the data never lies, it doesn’t give the full story. Before connecting with reps, take some time to review the following information on the account to identify potential coaching opportunities and areas of feedback:
   • Overdue tasks in the account’s Task tab
   • Account notes in the account’s Overview tab
   • Activity in the account’s Activity tab
5. Once you have more detail on the overall account and rep activity, take time to review your account plan with your rep and provide 1:1 coaching.

Note: Enable the following views:

• Account owner: Set Owner to "You" for a personal view. If you'd like to see Accounts owned by specific reps, filter by “Owner is” and then select each rep you are curious about. Lastly, if your organization has set up Teams in Outreach, you may also be able to filter off “Owner Team is” your team.
• Target Account: Is true

Workflows for Reviewing Activity Metrics and KPIs

Use these workflows to track your team’s progress and see how your team and reps are turning activity into outcomes with the Team Performance and Sales Execution report.

Make sure reps are hitting their meetings target with the Team Performance report

1. Navigate to the Reports tab in Outreach and select Team Performance.
2. Select the time period you are interested in, This Month or Last Week, for example.
3. For a high-level overview of the selected Team or User's performance, review the graph and metrics at the top of the page. You will see the following metrics and should compare them to your organization-wide goals:
   • Cumulative meetings booked: Total number of calendar invites sent, regardless of if they were accepted, broken down into Current totals and End of Month Forecast, which is the total number of projected meetings that will be booked by the end of the time period selected in step two. This forecast is calculated by Outreach machine learning and based on the team’s current trend and rep activities.
   • Prospects added: Total number of prospects added into a sequence
   • Prospects contacted: Total number of unique prospects contacted outbound or inbound via email, call, meeting, or task
   • Meeting conversion rate: Percentage of unique prospects contacted who were invited to a meeting
   • Contacts per prospect: Average number of inbound or outbound emails, meetings, calls, or tasks across all contacted prospects.
   • Emails delivered: Total number of emails delivered to prospects
   • Outbound calls: Total number of attempted outbound calls made and logged through Outreach.
   • LinkedIn tasks completed: Total number of LinkedIn tasks completed
   • Other tasks completed: Total number of other tasks completed
4. Scroll down the page past the graph to the Users section. This view lets you quickly review meetings and activity metrics to see if reps are hitting their goals. Use the following metrics to see:
   • Cumulative meetings booked: If reps are hitting their meeting target
   • Prospects contacted: If reps are hitting their prospects' contacted goal
   • Meeting conversion rate: How reps are performing against org goals

Note: The Team Overview report has activity metrics, but they are only refreshed each night. To see today’s activities or to pull week-to-date activity metrics, use the Daily Activity report.

Use email sentiment to help reps improve their outreach

1. Navigate to the Reports tab in Outreach and select Team Performance.
2. Select the time period you are interested in, This Month or Last Week, for example.
3. Use step four of the meetings target workflow above to flag reps needing additional support. 
4. To drill in deeper, you can review email sentiment insights. To do so, scroll to the top of the Team Performance page and select the Email Sentiment button. This view allows you to look more deeply at the emails reps send with high-level metrics such as total replies, positive sentiment percentage, objection percentage, unsubscribe percentage, referral percentage, and more. You’ll want to focus on the Objections column.
5. Click the percentage in the Objections column associated with reps who aren’t hitting their meeting goals or are experiencing a high objection percentage and review:
   1. Type of objection: See how prospects are objecting to emails sent, broken down by objection type
   2. Email messages: Read through responses to identify potential coaching opportunities
6. Once you’ve reviewed email sentiment and identified coaching opportunities, schedule a 1:1 to go over feedback. You can use these workflows to help get you started. 
7. You may also want to use the information uncovered in this report to help draft supplementary content to support your team. For example, if you notice a high percentage of Financial objections, you may want to create an email template your team can leverage to help overcome this specific objection.

Workflows for Reviewing Next Period Coverage

Use these workflows to look at the next period’s pipeline coverage and ensure your organization and teams generate enough pipeline for the upcoming sales period.

Use the next period coverage metric to calculate the amount of pipeline needed to attain quota this sales period and review next period’s pipeline

1. Navigate to the Next Period Coverage section of the Pipeline Dashboard.
2. Locate the Next Period Coverage metric at the top of the section. This metric will say: Target: number x / dollar amount. The resulting value is the amount of pipeline you must have in play at the start of the next sales period to most likely attain quota, calculated using your historical coverage ratio over the past four sales periods. This value can be interpreted as follows:
   • Number x: This number represents the pipeline coverage you need for the next sales period. For example, it may say Target: 3.19x.  This means you need 3.19x your quota goal for the next period already in your pipeline at the start of the period to feel confident your team will achieve quota.
   • Dollar amount: This number represents your target pipeline for next period as a dollar amount.
   • Example: If your quota goal is $6.71M next quarter, you would see: Target: 3.19x / $21.4M, which tells you that you need $21.4M in pipeline to likely hit your goal. 
3. To see what you have in the pipeline for next period, navigate to the Next Period Coverage section of the Pipeline Summary dashboard.
4. Locate the stacked bar graph to see how your current period pipeline changes week-over-week coverage trends for next period’s pipeline. 
5. Review the graph regularly to ensure that it is steadily increasing over the current sales period. Steady growth indicates your team is generating pipeline at the right rate. The ultimate goal of this section is that when you enter the next period, you’ve at least hit or surpassed the Next Period Coverage target.
6. If your team is not increasing pipeline at the right rate, you may need to focus more on pipeline-generating activities. 

Use the historical coverage metric to calculate coverage needed at the beginning of the period 

1. Navigate to the Historical Coverage section of the Pipeline Summary dashboard.
2. Locate the Average Coverage Needed metric to see how much coverage is needed based on your last four sales periods with quota. Use this number to confidently plan next period pipeline coverage.
3. Review the graph in this section for the following metrics and information:
   • Starting pipeline amount: Your goal quota for the sales period, broken down by type of pipeline coverage
   • Ending pipeline amount: How much quota you ended the sales period with, broken down by type of pipeline coverage
   • Actual coverage: How much coverage you started the quarter with, broken down by percentage and total value
   • Quota achievement: New deals you brought into this sales period, broken down by percent of coverage and total value
   • Shortfall / Miss: How much you missed quota by in relation to your Average Coverage Needed metric, broken down by percent of coverage and total value
   • Overage / Overachievement: How much you surpassed your sales period goals by, broken down by percent of coverage and total value