FOUNDER’S GUIDE TO B2B SALES SAL vs SQL To understand the terminology, see this article where Dave Kellogg explains why SAL and SQL appear to be defined backwards. READ WHAT IS A PIPELINE SCRUB? A pipeline scrub is a periodic meeting to review and validate all opportunities in the pipeline Without them, the pipeline quality quickly degenerates. A scrub should proceed rep by rep, reviewing every opportunity in their pipeline, for the current quarter and all future quarters Future periods quickly become dumping grounds if not scrubbed. Delaying deals into the future can hide losses and enable squatting on accounts. Particular attention should be paid to the four key fields Close date, value, stage, and forecast category. Questioning should be direct and customer-in, not seller-out What did the customer say to make you believe you were in stage 5? Who said it? When did the customer say the evaluation process would complete? Who said that? Pipeline scrubs should be exclusively focused on pipeline quality and verification Pipeline scrubs should happen several times (e.g. three) per quarter Meeting at the end of weeks two, five, and eight works well for sales teams on quarterly cadence. Beware of sales managers who are “always” scrubbing the pipeline. In this case, always is likely to mean never. SPRING 2023 .23