How to Use Pipedrive Effectively: Get More Sales

Pipedrive, the versatile Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, has become a popular choice for businesses of all sizes. If you’ve recently joined the ranks of Pipedrive users or are considering making the move, you’ve come to the right place.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the essential features, tips, and best practices to help you maximize the benefits of using Pipedrive effectively.

Getting Started with Pipedrive: An Overview

Pipedrive is a CRM software designed to streamline and optimize your sales pipeline. It provides a structured system for managing prospects, nurturing leads, and closing deals efficiently. However, to harness its full potential, you must understand the fundamentals.

Understanding Sales Pipelines in Pipedrive

A sales pipeline is a defined set of stages through which a prospect progresses to reach the ultimate goal – often, making a purchase. These stages can be customized to align with your specific sales process. For example, you might have stages like “Prospect,” “Proposal,” “Negotiation,” and “Closed Deal.”

Pipedrive allows you to create multiple pipelines, which is especially useful if your business offers various products or services. In Pipedrive, a deal represents a sales opportunity moving through your pipeline. It contains crucial information such as the contact person, organization details, estimated deal value, expected closing date, and more.

Key Terms in Pipedrive

To make the most of Pipedrive, it’s essential to understand the key terms used within the platform:

• Deal: The core object in Pipedrive, representing a sales opportunity within your pipeline. Deals contain information about the contact person, organization, estimated value, expected close date, and more.
• Lead: A potential deal that hasn’t matured enough to be added to the sales pipeline. Pipedrive allows you to keep leads in a separate inbox until they’re ready to convert into deals.
• Activity: Scheduled tasks or actions tied to specific deals. These can include calls, meetings, tasks, deadlines, emails, and more.
• Contact: In Pipedrive, a contact encompasses two data entities – Person and Organization. You can add a person’s or organization’s details individually.
• Product: Products or services that can be associated with a deal.

With these foundational terms in mind, you’re ready to explore the ways to manage your sales pipeline effectively.

How to Get the Most Out of Pipedrive

Now that you have a firm grasp of the basics, let’s delve into best practices and advanced techniques to supercharge your Pipedrive experience.

Deal Management in Pipedrive

Creating a new deal in Pipedrive is straightforward. You can do this from any page by clicking the “+” button next to the search bar or from the Deals menu by clicking the green “+Deal” button. Once you’ve initiated a deal, populate the essential fields with prospect information.

Pipedrive automatically creates a corresponding person and organization, streamlining the process. As your deals progress, move them through the various stages using the deal ticket or by dragging and dropping the deal card along the sales pipeline. The ultimate goal is to either win or lose a deal.

Here’s an Example

Let’s dive deeper into deal management. Consider a scenario where you’re a sales manager, and your team is actively using Pipedrive to track deals. You have just entered a new deal into the system, and it’s at the “Negotiation” stage. This deal represents a significant opportunity for your company. You’ve estimated its value at $50,000, and the expected close date is three months from now. It’s vital to keep this information up to date as the deal progresses.

Your team schedules activities related to this deal. They’ve planned a face-to-face meeting with the potential client for next week. It’s a crucial step in the negotiation process. In Pipedrive, you can easily schedule and track these activities, ensuring that nothing falls through the cracks.

As time goes by, the deal advances to the “Closed Deal” stage. It’s a moment of celebration as your team has successfully secured this valuable opportunity. Pipedrive keeps a record of the entire journey, from the initial contact to the final handshake.

Managing Activities and Contacts

Adding contacts (individuals and organizations) and scheduling activities can be done in two ways:

• Click the “+” button next to the search bar and choose the relevant data entity.
• Use the green buttons in the respective menus, such as +Activity, +Person, or +Organization when creating or editing a deal.

Consider your specific workflow and objectives when deciding which method to use. Pipedrive’s flexibility allows you to tailor your approach to your unique needs.

Here’s an Example

Imagine you’re a sales representative responsible for managing leads and converting them into deals. You’ve just had a productive call with a potential client. They’re interested in your product, and it’s time to add them to Pipedrive. You click the “+” button next to the search bar and select “Person.” You input their name, email address, and other relevant details. This creates a new contact in the system.

Next, you schedule an activity – a follow-up call – for this lead. You choose the date and time for the call and link it to the lead in question. This ensures that you don’t forget to follow up, and it keeps your sales process organized. These scheduled activities become your to-do list, guiding you on what needs to be done to move deals forward.

Optimizing Your Daily Pipedrive Routine

When you log in to Pipedrive, avoid diving directly into the Deals menu, where you’ll find a long list of active deals. It’s often challenging to determine which deals need your immediate attention. Instead, start with the Activities list, where you’ll discover your to-do list based on scheduled activities. Of course, this approach will only work if all of your deals have an activity scheduled. You can check this by looking at your pipeline:

The deals with a grey icon are the deals with scheduled activities. 

The deals with a green icon are the deals with activities scheduled for today.

The red icons are for overdue activities!

The deals with a yellow triangle icon are those without any scheduled activities.

You can filter activities by specific periods, such as today or the week. By focusing on today’s activities, you can systematically work through them and schedule additional tasks as needed.

Ensure that every deal has an associated activity. Your pipeline should display deals with scheduled activities as gray icons. If you spot deals with yellow triangle icons, it means no activities are scheduled. These icons serve as visual cues to keep your sales process on track. Overdue activities are indicated by red icons, which you should strive to avoid.

Best Practices for Pipedrive

To optimize your Pipedrive workflow, adopt the following best practices:

• Ensure that every deal has a scheduled activity.
• Take advantage of Pipedrive’s email capabilities. You can send emails from the platform, even on the free plan. Connect your email account to Pipedrive to synchronize messages with leads, deals, and contacts.
• Keep detailed notes on deals for future reference.
• Sync your activities with your calendar for better tracking and workflow management.
• Consider creating an “On Hold” stage or a separate pipeline for deals in a pending state, neither won nor lost.

By adhering to these best practices, you’ll make the most of Pipedrive’s capabilities and enhance your sales pipeline’s efficiency.

The Power of Pipedrive Analytics

Beyond the basics and best practices, data analysis is crucial for improving your sales process. Pipedrive offers an Insights menu where you can access various reports and create custom dashboards. While these built-in analytics are valuable, they may have limitations, especially if you require more in-depth analysis.

Many Pipedrive users choose to build custom dashboards using third-party tools like Google Sheets, Data Studio, Tableau, or other business intelligence and data visualization solutions. These dashboards can be automated to sync with Pipedrive data, providing a deeper level of analysis and insights.

For instance, you can export data such as deals and activities to Excel on a regular schedule, from monthly to every 15 minutes. This data can then be used to create complex and informative dashboards that are easily shareable with stakeholders.

The Versatility of Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a versatile CRM solution that can adapt to various use cases beyond sales. Let’s consider an example: Human Resources. Imagine you’re an HR manager looking to streamline your hiring process. You could leverage Pipedrive’s flexibility to create a tailored hiring pipeline.

Initially, you might use Pipedrive to manage sales leads. However, when you expand its usage to the HR department, you can create a hiring pipeline with stages like “Application Review,” “Interview,” “Reference Check,” and “Offer Letter.” As candidates progress through these stages, Pipedrive keeps all relevant information organized.

With Pipedrive, you can automate and streamline your hiring process, saving time and resources. This adaptability and customization make Pipedrive a powerful tool for various business functions, not just sales.

Pipedrive Pricing and Plans

Are you wondering which Pipedrive plan will you give you the most bang for your buck? Pipedrive offers 5 different plans: Essential, Advanced, Professional, Power, and Enterprise. If you aren’t sure which one suits you best, we have saved you the trouble of crunching the numbers by compiling a detailed comparison of the prices and features of each plan. Choosing the right plan is important because it will influence what CRM features you have access to.

Wrapping it Up: Pipedrive is a Valuable CRM

Pipedrive is a robust CRM tool that offers a comprehensive set of features to manage your sales pipeline effectively. While it may not top every CRM comparison, it has proven to be a reliable choice for many small to medium-sized businesses.

The key is understanding its features, implementing best practices, and adapting it to your specific needs. Whether you’re a sales professional, an HR manager, or in any role that involves managing relationships and processes, Pipedrive can be a valuable asset in your toolkit.

By investing time in learning and applying the concepts covered in this guide, you can unlock the full potential of Pipedrive and boost your productivity, organization, and, ultimately, your success. So, take the plunge, explore Pipedrive, and make it work for you. The journey starts here, and with Pipedrive, your sales pipeline has never looked more promising.