Rocket Readings: What you don’t know about your sales funnel

What you don’t know about your sales funnel:

We all think and talk about our sales funnel a lot. We’re always saying things like:

We need to keep it full.
We need to stay active with the prospects that have been in it for awhile.
On average, it takes a prospect X months to move through it.
And so on….

But consider the statistic to the right. 60% of your sales efforts are what happens before you have actively put someone into the funnel. In other words — it’s not you who is doing the selling.

Who is?

Your existing customers
The customer who left and is working with your competitors
Your vendors
Your website
Review sites
Your social presence (or lack thereof)

How much do you know about your pre-funnel sales machine? Do you know what’s being said? Maybe the bigger question — how should you be influencing those conscious and accidental sales efforts?

Think about how you shop — whether it’s for work or something for home. Do you beeline for a salesperson or sales collateral? Or do you do a little bit of investigating first?

Get out a piece of paper and do this exercise. Write down the bullet points I have above (starting with your existing customers) and next to each bullet point — describe what you would ideally like a prospect to hear/see/experience from each source.

Then — go to each source and see what’s actually being said/experienced. I’m guessing you’ll identify some areas that require your attention.

After all — your prospects are paying attention to these sources — shouldn’t you?