Managing a Sales Funnel

How do you manage your sales funnel? This is how I manage mine. It might seem complex, but the approach is based on years of experience. Chasing deals I’m not going to win is definitely not my idea of fun.

First off I differentiate between “funnel” and “pipeline”.

For me the “funnel” is individual company/project plans. Each one has a strategy, objective and action plan. But these aren’t “prospects”. They’re opportunities I want to turn in to “prospects”. Once I’ve done that they go into the “pipeline” - more on that later.

My funnel gets broken down into categories:

* Targets - companies I’d like to do business with but haven’t yet figured out how to do that.
* Suspects - companies I know a little more about - contacts, strategies, initiatives.

For “Targets” I’m in research mode. What’s going on in there? Who do I know with an inside track? What are their pain points? How can I help address those?

With “Suspects” I’m in development mode. How can I help with the pain points? Who do I need to pitch my solution to? How do I get that person’s attention? Do I have a reference to support my pitch?

Working out who should be “Targets” and how to develop them into “Suspects” takes planning.

That planning finds me the silver bullet and who to fire it at.

Once this is done I’m set for my sales campaign, based on research and contacts and strategy. If I’m able to engage the right people (?) I’ve laid the foundations of the sale.

That means I’m prepared to commit time to making the deal happen - because I know, and can explain, why it should. Then the "sale" can move over to my pipeline.

This may seem a complicated approach to building a pipeline, but the philosophy is based on experience. A long time ago I learned “kissing frogs” is a fools game.

The inspiration for this post came from today’s pitch from a service provider.

A young man, expert in his field, understood our strategy and pitched exactly at our sweet spot.

“The reason we’re taking all this trouble” he said “is you are a home run for us.”

“You need exactly what we’re offering, and here’s why”.

This guy thinks he’s an SEO expert, and he is, but mostly he’s a natural born salesman!