A playbook on monitoring, managing, and improving your AE team’s pipeline management.
Overview
Want help deploying one of these playbooks? Contact your CSM here.
When managing AEs, it’s hard to argue with the importance of forecasting and tracking your team’s progress towards quota. Helping your reps manage their pipelines is key to having an accurate forecast.
Managing pipeline hygiene means paying attention to your team’s open opportunities through every stage of your sales process. A manager with an eye for pipe hygiene will ask questions like,
- “Are my AEs working all of their opps with a reliable cadence?”
- “Are there any stages in our funnel where opps get stuck?”
- “Are there any deals in our pipeline that have been forgotten? I should probably make sure that’s not being included in our forecasting…”
In addition to improving your forecast accuracy, pipe hygiene can help increase your team’s revenue. When your reps increase the frequency of high-quality touchpoints with prospects, you’ll see positive impacts on your win rates. After all, neglected opps won’t close-win. When everyone on the team is keeping an eye on stuck and untouched opportunities, it’s harder for deals to fall through the cracks or get left behind.
Roles
- Inside Sales - SMB through Enterprise
- Outside Sales - SMB through Enterprise
Suggested Metrics
| Role & Segment(s) | 🟢 Basic | ⬥⬥ Advanced |
|---|---|---|
| Inside Sales, Outside Sales | Opps Owned, Untouched Opps, Stuck Opps, New Opps Owned | Days between Opp Touches, Time in Stage, Conversion Rate From Stage, Stage Reached - Owned By |
Suggested Views
These are a few suggested views to help monitor, manage, and improve rep and team performance as relates to Pipeline Hygiene. The best practice is to group them together in a folder.
If you’d like to get amazing at innovating your own Atrium views, these guides on Dashboards, Alert Feeds, Opp Health, and Goals are a great place to start.
Pipe Hygiene Dashboard
Read more about Dashboards in Atrium here.
View Type: Dashboard
View Description: A dashboard with a combination of metrics related to opp ownership, stuck opps, and untouched opps. Some show the state of things now, and some show progress over the last 6 months.
Roles & Segments: All AEs, SMB through Enterprise
Subject(s): Individual AEs on a team
Suggested Metrics: Untouched Opportunities, Stuck Opportunities, Opportunities Owned, New Opportunities Owned, Opportunity Health
| 📊 Metric, Filters, Splits | 👫 People(s) | 📅 Timeframe | 📅 Grouped by | 📸 Screenshot |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Untouched Opportunities (split by Opportunity Stage) | All AEs on team | This Second (Now) | N/A | Screenshot |
| Untouched Opportunities | All AEs on team | Trailing 6 months | By month | Screenshot |
| Stuck Opportunities (split by Opportunity Type) | All AEs on team | This Second (Now) | N/A | Screenshot |
| Opportunities Owned (filtered by Close Date: Last Month or Before Last Month) | All AEs on team | This Second (Now) | N/A | Screenshot |
| Opportunities Owned (split by Opp Type) | All AEs on team | This Second (Now) | N/A | Screenshot |
| New Opportunities Owned (split by Opp Type) | All AEs on team | Trailing 30 days | None | Screenshot |
| Opportunity Health | All AEs on team | This Second (Now) | N/A | Screenshot |
| Stuck Opportunities | All AEs on team | Trailing 6 months | By month | Screenshot |
Broadcast Audience: AE Team Email List Serve, AE Team Slack Channel (screenshot)
Broadcast Cadence: Monday at noon so that your reps have the whole week to get their pipe cleaned up.
Other Distribution: Hyperlinked in Team Meeting agenda doc and meeting invite
Example Screenshot(s): Screenshot
AE Pipe Hygiene Goals
Read more about goals in Atrium here.
View Type: Goal Set
View Description: A set of goals for a core set of metrics related to pipeline management and sales motion
Roles & Segments: AEs, SMB through Enterprise
Suggested Metrics: Opps Owned, Untouched Opps, Accounts Touched, Conversion Rate From Stage, Stage Reached - Owned By
| 📊 Metrics & Filters | 📅 Time Interval | ❓Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Untouched Opps - New Business | Weekly | For this goal, Atrium considers an opportunity ‘untouched’ if it has gone 30 days without a call, email, or meeting. |
| Opportunities Owned | Monthly | Set a range here so that your AEs don’t get overloaded. (screenshot) |
| Opportunities Touched | Weekly | This helps you understand if your AEs are engaging in enough activity to keep their pipelines clean) |
Example Screenshot(s): Screenshot
Pipe Hygiene Alerts
Read more about Alert Feeds in Atrium here.
View Type: Alert Feed
View Description: An alert feed composed of team and individual alerts related to pipeline management metrics for all AEs
Roles & Segments: AEs, SMB through Enterprise
Suggested Metrics: Stuck Opportunities, Untouched Opportunities, Opps Owned
Subject(s): All members of the AE Team and the Team Level Alerting (screenshot)
Alert Categories: Personal Alerts, Peer Alerts (+ Ramping), Goal Alerts (+ Ramping)
Alert Type(s): Positive, Warning, and Neutral Alerts
Broadcast Audience: AE Management, via email and Slack (screenshot)
Broadcast Cadence: Monday morning at noon so the team has the whole week to get their pipe cleaned up
Other Distribution: Linked in 1:1 docs for each AE, so the manager and AE can talk through alerts together
Other Notes: Some teams choose to distribute the alert feed to management and individual AEs, because it promotes healthy competition: Who can trigger the most positive alerts? Other managers choose to broadcast it to themselves only, if they think the negative alerts, without context, will bring down morale.
Example Screenshot(s): Screenshot
Down Funnel Opportunities with No Next Meeting
Read more about opportunity health in Atrium here.
View Type: Opp Health View
View Description: A view of all the opportunities closing this month or next month without a next meeting on the calendar. This view is split by the month of the close date.
Roles & Segments: AEs, SMB through Enterprise
Subject(s): All AEs
Filters: Next Meeting Date (Month), Close Date (Month), Opportunity Type
Broadcast Audience: AE Team, via email and Slack (screenshot)
Broadcast Cadence: Monday and Friday afternoons. The Monday broadcast tells reps what to work on over the week, and the Friday broadcast keeps them accountable: Did they bring their numbers down?
Other Distribution: Some customers also have this view linked in their Pipe Review meeting agenda.
Example Screenshot(s):Screenshot
Opportunities with Close Dates in the Past
View Type: Opp Health View
View Description: All the opportunities that have close dates last month or earlier
Roles & Segments: AEs, SMB through Enterprise
Subject(s): All AEs
Filters: Close Date (Month)
Broadcast Audience: AE Team via email and slack (screenshot)
Broadcast Cadence: Monday mornings so that the team can spend the week knocking these out!
Example Screenshot(s): Screenshot
View Example Screenshots
Pipe Hygiene Dashboard
Pipe Hygiene Alerts
Opp View: Down Funnel Opps w/o Next Meeting
Opp View: Opps with Close Date in the Past
