What is a sales funnel (and why you should leave it aside)

For the past fifty years, businesses have liv or di by the strength of their sales funnel. The premise was simple: fill the top with leads and convert those who made it to the bottom.

However, there is a problem: the sales landscape is constantly evolving, but the sales funnel is not. The buyer’s journey no longer follows a straight path from awareness to consideration to purchase. Reality shows that people take many detours.

Today’s sales leaders must either reinvent the funnel or find an alternative.

Let’s take a look at the sales funnel concept, see how it differs from the flywheel approach , and explore which model is right for your business.

What is a sales funnel?

A sales funnel reflects the path your prospects take to teacher database become customers. It describes discrete stages of the customer journey, from first contact to clos deal.

It starts with a large pool of potential buyers at the top. Bas on certain criteria, this pool of potential buyers is whittl down to a smaller number of prospects.

Towards the middle of the customer journey

The number of prospects is ruc to a handful of the world learns about new discoveries opportunities, and after the decision-making stage, thesales processends with a clos or lost deal.

1. It is a clearly defin process to model how to close more deals.
2. Helps quantify the value of future sales.
3. Allows sales teams to create statistics on the size and number of deals requir to mathematically exce quota.
4. Helps define a methodology to teach salespeople how to lead customers through a logical sales process and closing sequence to maximize rep productivity and cost per lead.