Your Sales funnel: If it’s not flowing, you’re not growing

In a perfect world, your experience and talent sell themselves and the money just keeps pouring in. But as we all know all too well, it’s far from a perfect world, and being good at what you do is just one part of the success equation. Another big part is establishing an effective sales funnel. 

An effective sales funnel comprises two essential elements: sales processes and the funnel itself, otherwise known as the buyer’s journey. Let’s break those down.

Having these processes and knowing where to focus and when will help you optimize your resources, grow your revenue, and protect your cash flow. 

1. New prospects. These are people who haven’t transacted with you before. Not surprisingly, this is where it’s at for people early in their businesses. This is the costliest of the three processes in terms of time, money, and talent required to find, attract, and close them. You may be thinking, what about a referral? That didn’t cost me anything because they just landed on my doorstep. WRONG. Think about the time and effort that went into establishing the relationship and your credibility with the referrer. That counts. 

2. Active clients. Once your business is more established, this is where the bulk of your revenue will come from. These people are already transacting and have a lower risk tolerance because you’ve proven that you’re amazing. Build on that momentum by keeping them in your funnel and actively moving to the next best step. Taking your eye off this ball is a tragic missed opportunity that will cost you.

3. Past clients. Contracts end, but the relationships you’ve built shouldn’t. Reengaging with past clients can be low-hanging fruit when you need a cash infusion. Build something for them (based on existing offerings) and approach them.

You can only deliver the right offering to the right client at the right time by understanding where they are in this journey (which may not always be where they THINK they are) and meeting them there. In other words, find out what’s really going on through a formal—paid for—assessment. 

1. Awareness. In this phase, a prospect knows there’s a problem based on symptoms such as losing market share, but they can’t necessarily name it. 

2. Consideration. Here, the prospect has defined the cause(s) of the problem and is committed to finding out how to solve it. Or have they? Here’s where your expertise must shine through. No one likes to be told they’re wrong. But no one likes to spin their wheels and lose money either. Call it like you see it. If you sell it effectively, they’ll thank you (and pay you) for it.

3. Decision. In the decision phase, the prospect knows how they want to solve the problem and is deciding which solution to buy. This is where you close the deal—IF the prospect truly is in this phase. Sometimes they think they are, but only because they don’t know what they don’t know. For example, if a contact skips straight to asking how much you charge and when you’re available, it’s easy to assume they’re in decision mode. But if you take the time to assess what’s really going on, you may discover they’re not ready to be shopping for a solution or aren’t a good fit for you at all. Sleuthing this out will save you from setting a price only to realize halfway through the project that you’ve wildly underestimated the time and effort required to solve the problem—if you even can.

No two clients are the same. To build an effective funnel, you must consider your target market profile. 

• What does the market need/want? 
• What are their available resources (time, money, talent)? 
• What approach do they prefer (DIY, high-touch, etc.)? 
• What is their risk tolerance for spend and pace? 
• What’s most important to them (perceived value)? 

The answers to those questions will guide you forward.

Book a Profitability Power-up Session with Nikkie to review your sales funnel and optimize your flow.