Ineffective pipeline meetings can lead to wasted effort or missed investment opportunities, while well-run pipeline meetings result in well-coordinated teams focused on closing the best deals. However, running a successful pipeline meeting requires thorough preparation, which can often entail manual, time-consuming tasks that busy deal teams struggle to prioritize.
To prepare for an efficient, productive pipeline meeting, deal teams must:
1. Add New Deals to the Pipeline: Manually inputting information for each new deal is time-consuming and prone to errors. The complexity and duration of this task increase with the number of metrics to be tracked in the pipeline, often encompassing both property-level details, key dates and returns information.
2. Update Existing Deals: As teams re-underwrite deals based on new information, updating the corresponding data points within the pipeline – critical for accurately reflecting the current state of the deal – requires meticulous attention to detail. The process becomes especially time-consuming when multiple deals need simultaneous updates.
3. Resolve Versioning Issues: While tools like SharePoint allow multiple team members to work on the same Excel file, difficulties arise when individuals download copies of the pipeline and make local updates. These local versions, once edited and circulated, risk lacking the latest updates made by others. This can lead to discrepancies, causing confusion and potentially resulting in decisions based on incomplete or outdated information.
4. Share the Updated Pipeline on Time: Distributing the most current version of the pipeline is the final step. However, if the updated pipeline isn't shared prior to the meeting, team members might come unprepared or miss the chance to identify potential issues (such as necessary updates or missing data) before the meeting.
Origin makes preparing for pipeline meetings a breeze by automating every step in the process.
1. Automated Deal Creation: Origin extracts data from broker and seller files, automatically creating new deals and placing them in your active pipeline. This process eliminates the need for your team to spend hours manually reviewing files, extracting data, and inputting it into spreadsheets.
2. Streamlined Deal Updates: Origin allows you to update key assumptions, underwritten returns and other metrics by simply importing the latest underwriting model.
3. Version Control Made Easy: All deals, whether new or updated, are consolidated in one unified pipeline. This ensures that every team member accesses the same, most current material at any time, effectively resolving any version control issues and maintaining consistency across the board.
4. Timely Pipeline Exports: Origin enables you to schedule pipeline exports directly from the platform to the wider team. This feature guarantees that team members consistently receive the most accurate and relevant information, with no anxiety over versioning issues.
Pipeline meetings are not just procedural check-ins; they are crucial for a systematic and uniform evaluation of each potential investment. The structured approach in these meetings ensures proper assessment of each deal, aiding strategic resource allocation decisions.
However, the success of these meetings relies heavily on meticulous preparation, ensuring that every discussion is based on accurate, up-to-date information. When conducted effectively, pipeline meetings align the team's focus, drive informed decision-making, and play a pivotal role in the successful execution of investment strategies.
“I save hours of time on data entry and reporting. With the ability to build our database by simply forwarding in files, we now have more information at our fingertips than ever before - Allowing us to make the best investment decisions, without requiring a large team to maintain this advantage".
— Michael Travers, Vice President, Scarp Ridge Capital Partners
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