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The Sales Funnel
Keeping control of your sales pipeline.

With the idea of the Sales Funnel, we use the metaphor of a funnel (wide at the top, narrow at the bottom) to monitor the sales process.

At the top of the funnel you have “unqualified prospects” – the very many people who you think might need your product or service, but to whom you’ve never spoken. At the bottom of the funnel, many sales and delivery steps later, you have people who have received delivery of your product or service and have paid for it.

The metaphor of the funnel is used because people drop away at each stage of a long sales process: For example, many of your unqualified prospects may have existing suppliers with whom they’re very satisfied. Others may have needs which other competitors are better-placed to satisfy. Still others may love your products, but not have the budget to buy them.

The image of the sales funnel (see figure 1 below) elegantly combines a visual representation of the step-by-step nature of a long sales process with this drop away in prospects at each stage.

Why use the tool?

By using the sales funnel, and by quantifying the number of prospects at each stage of the process.