Sales funnel in banking. The Ideal Sales Funnel: Conversions and Examples

About what a sales funnel is - 6 stages of the buying cycle + useful tips on how to build it.

People in sales know how important it is to build a sufficient customer base with good purchasing power.

That is why often in stores, salons, agencies and other organizations selling goods/services, all efforts are thrown into improving sales figures.

Competent managers use various tools to manage trades, analyze clients (potential and actual), and solve other important tasks.

But, alas, not all managers and sellers are competent.

Some don't even know what is a sales funnel and how to use it correctly.

If you are still not familiar with this marketing term, then it’s time to fix it and become a true professional in your field.

Who coined the term “sales funnel” and what is it?

You will probably be surprised, as I was, to learn that the concept of a “sales funnel” is quite an old one.

It was proposed to be used by Elias St. Elmo Lewis and this happened back in 1898.

True, Lewis called it a consumer funnel, but the essence of the term did not change.

The same Lewis described the main stages that the buyer goes through before making the final purchase:

• getting to know the product/service;
• interest in her;
• a formed desire to make a purchase;
• specific action.

Today, in marketing classes, teachers explain that sales funnel is a description of the sales process and the distribution of customers by stages of their purchase - from the initial stage (acquaintance) to the final stage (directly making a purchase).

In English specialized literature, this term is written as sales funnel.

Of course, many sellers get by quite well without specialized marketing knowledge, using completely different principles in their work: when it’s the usual selling of goods and starving the client out, when it’s fraud or something else.

But, as the experience of my friends and acquaintances working in sales shows, a scientific approach to business and knowledge of specialized terms help increase sales.

In any case, the knowledge gained will definitely not hurt you.

The sales funnel is an inverted pyramid

If we talk about the image of a sales funnel, then it is an inverted pyramid, a cone or a vessel (whichever image you like best).

The upper part of the figure (the widest) shows how many customers are involved in the initial stage of the sale, that is, they get acquainted with the product.

But the lower part (much narrower than the upper) shows how many clients made a sale, that is, spent their money.

Based on this table, you can find out the following:

1. How many customers should you have at the initial stage so that at the final stage you sell the required amount of goods/services and earn a sufficient amount of money?
2. How many potential buyers will be eliminated at each stage?
3. What actions can you take to reduce the number of dropouts and retain more clients at the end stage to increase your income?

The task of each seller is to ensure that as many buyers as possible get from the initial stage of bidding to the final stage, because the income of the organization involved in the sale of goods/services depends on this.

By drawing up this funnel, you can correctly calculate everything and take timely steps to reduce client losses.

The Sales Funnel: Stages of the Buying Cycle by Elias St. Elmo Lewis

It is clear that in the time of Elias St. Elmo Lewis (late 19th century), the bidding process itself was much simpler than it is today.

The buyer was not so spoiled by offers, he had fewer temptations, and the competition among sellers was not as serious.

That is why Lewis created only 4 stages of the buying cycle, which make up the sales funnel:

Acquaintance.

A person gets a first impression of a product/service either through advertising, or through the recommendations of other buyers, or because of a chance personal acquaintance (I was walking aimlessly through a shopping center and saw a beautiful dress).

After getting acquainted with a product/service, the consumer makes a conclusion for himself whether he is interested in it or not.

If not, then at the second stage the failed buyer will be eliminated; if so, then he moves on to the third stage.

In addition to the thoughts “oh, what a beautiful dress,” a completely conscious desire appears: “it would be nice to buy it.”

If the seller can keep the client at this stage, he will move on to the final, fourth.

Action.

That is, the buyer still makes a purchase, allowing the seller to earn money.

What does a sales funnel look like according to modern marketers?

The four-stage sales funnel has long been accepted as an axiom in marketing circles.

Recent studies prove that the psychology of today's buyer is more complex, therefore it is more effective to create a funnel that consists not of 4, but of 6 stages of the buying cycle.

Managers and sellers who want to make money today should know about these 6 stages:

Openness.

Buyers who are drawn (still unconsciously) to the purchase fall into this stage, so they are ready to get acquainted with it.

Food for brain.

Information analysis.

If we are not talking about an impulsive purchase “saw - fell in love - bought”, then any consumer will try to collect as much information as possible about the product/service he is interested in in order to make an informed decision.

Poll of other opinions.

The buyer can ask his friends if they have purchased goods/services in which he is interested and whether they are satisfied with them, or read reviews on the Internet.

1. Making a purchase– the consumer is nevertheless convinced that he needs the offered item or service and pays money for it.

Evaluation of the completed purchase.

Elias St. Elmo Lewis did not have this stage, the final stage was action, but today's sellers must understand how important it is how the buyer evaluates what he has purchased.

It depends on this whether he will become a regular customer or not, that is, whether you can earn money from him once or whether this process will be regular.

How to build a sales funnel?

Let's look at an example of how to build a sales funnel so that you can use it in your work.

Let's say you are a manager who needs to sell new products.

To do this you will need to do the following:

1. You mail 40 promotional offers to all your regular customers.
2. Only 20 people from this list were interested in the proposal and wanted to know more about it.
3. Through a personal meeting, telephone call, sending an advertising brochure or other convenient method, you provide complete information about the offer.
4. 15 people, after a detailed study of the information provided, decided that they were interested in this proposal, but they would like to think about it some more, 5 immediately refused.
5. 9 out of 15 people reached the final stage and actually bought what you offered them.

To competently build a sales funnel for your business,

You see, it is difficult for a good manager to do without knowledge, what is a sales funnel, because this knowledge helps him better study consumers and thus increase his own income.

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The sales funnel is the main tool that clearly demonstrates the efficiency of the business process taking place in the company.

The first thing you need to do to build it is to describe the existing business process step by step, that is, the steps that lead the seller to a transaction. For example, a business process might look like this:

1. cold call/request from website
2. preparing and sending a commercial proposal
3. meeting / follow-up call / on-site presentation
4. signing an agreement
5. invoicing
6. payment

The more transparent and optimally short this chain is, the better.

Optimality can be achieved with a tool such as a working day card for each employee. Filling it out makes it possible to track everything that sellers are doing and how much time they spend on it.

After analyzing the data received, start removing redundant steps, moving unusual functions outside the department, and dismissing careless employees.

After the process is optimized, make adjustments to the CRM system, getting rid of unnecessary statuses there. You do not have ? Start selecting and implementing it, customizing it for your reference business process. After this, based on the statistics “entering” the CRM, you can build a sales funnel.

The funnel itself will be visually similar... to a funnel, an inverted pyramid. Its wide “throat” indicates the number of leads entering the company. The output is the number of payments from customers. At the same time, it should be divided horizontally into “layers” - the stages of the business process described above.

Using the funnel, you can track both quantitative indicators, which are transformed downward at each stage, and such a critical parameter as conversion, that is, the share of leads who move on to the next stage.

Conversion is measured both in relation to the previous stages and represents the overall percentage of payments to the number of identified customers (who paid or responded with a firm refusal).

Using this tool allows you to see several problems.

1. You are not working with your audience, or marketing cannot correctly formulate the benefits of the product when subscribers and visitors disappear at the first stage.

2. You give customers too much time to think and don't use sales-accelerating techniques when customers drop out at the final stage.

3. Some employees lack skill or diligence when the personal sales funnels are too different from the standard business process.

Sales funnel: 7 slices

Sales funnel: 5 principles of analysis

Principle 1. Expand the walls of the funnel and increase its throughput. That is, as many leads as possible should enter each stage.

Principle 2. Count conversion correctly. An increase in incoming flow does not always help. Therefore, simultaneously improve the conversion of each stage of the funnel.

Principle 3. Start by correcting the most problematic stage. This is the stage where you lose the most customers.

Principle 4. Calculate the most converting target groups and products, and direct the efforts of managers and marketers specifically to them.

Principle 5: Each client must go through each stage. He should not skip any stages.

Sales funnel: 4 main mistakes

Mistake 1: creating unnecessary stages in the funnel. When building funnels, you need to understand which stages are acceptable and which should not be. The “extra” stages of the transaction, and therefore the funnel, include the following statuses for clients:

• "thinks";
• "in progress";
• "at work";
• “clients for later”;
• "postponed".

The indicated statuses do not carry any information load. Discard them.

Mistake 2: Keeping customers at the same stage of the funnel. It is often a consequence of a previous mistake, since at the above stages you accumulate a large number of potential buyers who do not move further along the funnel.

And the seller, day after day, week after week, can indicate this client as a potential deal in his reports. The department manager’s task is to identify in time those who will not buy your product and not waste time on them.

Mistake 3: creating multiple duplicate stages in the funnel. For example, in some companies the funnel contains the following stages: agreement approval - contract in development - contract with the client. This is practically the same stage. Such a section only creates confusion and creates a loss of employee working time.

Mistake 4: Returning the lead to the top stage. It should be remembered that the client’s movement occurs only in one direction - towards closing the transaction. The lead cannot be returned to the previous stage.

If this actually happens due to some force majeure circumstances (change of decision maker, for example), then the old deal is closed and a new one is opened. Otherwise, the conversion will be calculated incorrectly, and, as a result, incorrect management decisions will be made.

Sales Funnel: Tools to Increase Conversion

Now, to see how each customer moves through the funnel, calculate its conversion. It is this indicator that helps evaluate the performance of the entire department.

Sales funnel conversion = number of positively closed deals / total number of closed deals

Compare the NPS indicator with yourself in different periods or by market. For example, a good NPS in the training market starts at 40%, NPS Oh-li – 82%.

Sales funnel: keep track of the stages

The sales funnel displays all the stages at which the client finds himself from the moment when the offer was first announced to him until the moment of purchase. Building a sales funnel is directly related to increasing profits in any company.

You always determine, based on the characteristics of your business, which path the counterparty will take. A sales funnel might look like this.

Sales funnel:

• incoming calls;
• identifying needs;
• presentation, meeting;
• Commercial offer;
• contract;
• payment;

Clearly marked stages allow you to understand the conversion rate of potential buyers moving down to the “Payment” stage.

It becomes noticeable at what point it gets lost, where the conversion of a lead into a buyer begins to suffer.

• Duration of the transaction
• Bandwidth
• Duration of each stage
• Average transaction amount
• Number of incoming contacts
• Number of closed contacts

Sales funnel: how to identify bottlenecks using the Bottle neck method

Bottle neck technology allows you to intelligently interact with “narrow” problematic stages of the sales funnel. To find out if you have problems converting your funnel from stage to stage, pay attention to the following important points:

• whether too many leads are accumulating at one stage of the sales funnel;
• whether programs have been launched to improve touch points with customers;
• Is there a consolidated collection of data on transitions from stage to stage?
• whether the effectiveness of the transition of counterparties from stage to stage has been assessed in the context of sellers;
• are business processes aimed at eliminating the difficulties of individual stages fully developed;
• is the work of employees assessed according to the skill model through development sheets;
• Is there a training system for working with “narrow” stages of the sales funnel?
• is the analysis system configured for the transition of a potential buyer from stage to stage;
• whether leads are qualified in accordance with the portrait of the target audience;
• whether the most effective sales channels have been identified.

Sales pipeline is one of the fundamental conceptual concepts of marketing.. Today it is of interest to both marketing theorists and individuals trying to successfully build their business. And all because the sales funnel is a source of invaluable information and a useful tool for managing not only sales, but also the business as a whole. It is possible to successfully plan the development of business processes only after a detailed study of this concept. If you still don’t quite understand what a sales funnel is, then let’s decipher the term in simple words. A sales funnel is the path that a company’s client goes through, from the stage of familiarization with a product or service to the moment of concluding a transaction.

Sales funnel

The essence of the consumer funnel

Why exactly a funnel you ask? Because visually, the process of selling goods or services is similar to an inverted pyramid, the stages of which are arranged in strict sequence. This is explained by the fact that not every interested person becomes a client of the company and uses its services. The initial stream of potential clients is screened at each stage of the system. Through multi-level filtering, the number of buyers is reduced and a kind of funnel is formed, at the final stage of which only real clients remain.

The number of funnel stages is different for each individual company, because in some places more of them are required, and in others less.

Marketing theory states that the funnel represents the interaction of the supplier with consumers; during the transfer process through stages, the status of the client from “potential” is reorganized into “a real buyer who has paid money.” At the same time, at all phases there is a visual demonstration of conversion and sales analysis. Seeing from the statistics which part of the pyramid the most people came to, you can work on the mistakes. Unfortunately, not many managers use the funnel to its full functionality. Most often it is perceived as a kind of report, which is probably due to the fact that this tool has been little tested in Russia, although it is very popular in the business practice of foreign companies. We hope today, in conditions where supply exceeds demand, many will try and appreciate the described system. Since it becomes more difficult to interest people, the sales funnel makes it possible to influence the population, taking into account their needs, more concisely and unobtrusively.

What does a consumer funnel look like?

The history of the sales funnel

The very term sales funnel was transferred to us from Western marketers. It was first put forward and formulated by advertiser Elias St. Elmo Lewis in 1898. He put forward the basic principles of advertising, believing that it should attract attention and interest, and then encourage a person to buy a product. Many believe that it was E. Lewis who founded the concept. However, he simply created it, and only after that, he put it into practice R. Butler. In 1911 in his book Advertising, Sales and Credit, he described the funnel model, slightly changing the names of the stages. The model assumed that in order to sell something, you need to go through all levels of communication with the consumer, from awareness to purchase.

After AIDA advertising model was born in 1921, cited it in his article S. P. Russell. It said that at each stage the seller had a specific task. Here are the hierarchical steps to turn a potential client into a buyer:

Several decades later in 1959, it was the system put forward by Lewis that describes the client’s psychology that developed with the hierarchical model of communication - AIDA, but the meaning remained the same - to ensure a good sale. Combining a consumer funnel with a sales funnel, first published in a visual image in the form of a funnel, Arthur Peterson in the book “Sales in Pharmaceuticals, Detailing and Sales Training.” From that moment on, the concept of a sales funnel began to act as one of the basic marketing terms. The content of the model has not changed, however, Peterson identified only four main phases of the sale:

1. Cold contact or initial phase.
2. Adaptive, that is, interest.
3. Belief or illustration phase.
4. Selection phase, other than a purchase.

Benefits of a Sales Funnel for Managers

Currently, the theory of the funnel has changed somewhat: the goal of the final stage is not to close the deal, but to create a desire for repeat purchases. That is, sell repeatedly, but cooperate with clients on an ongoing basis. Let’s briefly express why a funnel is useful and why analyze it:

1. Allows you to immediately determine the target audience for sales.
2. Allows you to competently structure the entire process of interaction with the consumer.
3. You can calculate conversion both at a certain level and in general.
4. Allows you to identify the “weak link” in the sales chain.
5. Provides an opportunity to evaluate the quality of work of management employees.
6. Helps predict overall business performance.

Benefits of a sales funnel

For any businessman, the first priority is to make a pipe out of a funnel as accurately as possible, that is, all potential buyers should merge less at the stages, but, on the contrary, be modified into real clients. Since the stages differ from the direction and running of the business, let’s consider the basic ones, without which not a single started business can do:

Creating a sales funnel using a real example

So, the company sells video courses on marketing. The number of advertisements viewed online was 10,000. Afterwards, calls were made to online consultants, the number of potential clients who called was 5,000. While the company’s online resource was visited by 1,000 people, 300 of whom submitted an application to purchase the course.
The funnel looks like this:

• getting to know the product – 10000 ;
• demonstrated interest – 5500/10000 =55% ;
• desire to purchase a product - 1000/5500 = 18% ;
• purchase - 300/1000 =3% .

The resulting funnel shows a decrease in efficiency as you move from interest to purchase. Consequently, 55% of people who saw the advertisement wanted to buy the product. But only 18% visited the online resource, and only 3% of those who visited bought the video course. This means that the system needs to be upgraded specifically in the work of online consultants. It would be useful to review the purchase process itself (introduce promotions, discounts, additional services). An example of a sales funnel clearly shows how it works and helps to track at what stage improvements are needed.

Example of a funnel in information business

Funnel analysis is the key to success

Let's give an example:
If you have opened your own retail outlet, and you need to make sure that at some point sales increase and you get more profit. To do this, you just need to look at all the indicators of your business and find the aspects that are slowing down your profit growth. These include:

• number of cold contacts;
• number of citizens who showed interest;
• how many buyers reached the final level;
• average receipt amount from a one-time purchase.

It is also worth reviewing the product range and finding out what attracts customers most. As a result, your influx of people and revenue per purchase will increase. What’s most interesting is that what product you sell doesn’t matter. The main thing is that there is a lot of audience, which from time to time purchases more expensive goods. That is, if you have 1,000 customers in your store in the first month of operation, and each paid 1,000 rubles for one purchase, then you need to strive to increase these data. When in the next month your indicators change for the better, for example, 1,200 citizens have already made purchases, and each brought you 1,300 rubles, it means that your business is starting to move forward.

Consumer Funnel Audience

Increase conversion

Conversion is a percentage indicator of the efficiency of customer movement through sales stages. Accordingly, increasing conversion means turning interested people into customers in any way. Regardless of what type of marketing it is, the same techniques affect conversion:

• free shipping promotions products;
• consultation with an online seller;
• correspondence support or by calling while purchasing products;
• adding the product you like to the cart;
• personalization(setting personal data and individual approach to the client).

You need to ensure that advertising works to its fullest. That is, it is better to buy good and high-quality texts, for example, for a selling resource, and this, in turn, will bring you closer to success. They check the conversion using A/B testing. By comparing several options for resource operation and determining the best option that promotes good growth. Example: you are promoting some kind of information product and have launched a selling page on the Internet. Next, you begin to conduct A/B testing for different selling headlines on your portal. And after more than 150 people have fallen for each slogan, it is possible to identify the effective one.

How to spread the word to increase conversions

Remember that when creating a compelling slogan, every detail matters. In addition, all other components of the resource are important, right down to the location of the icons. If you have a company, then it is important to pay attention not only to the resource launched online, but also to real employees. You need to know for sure that your staff is trying and doing their best, and not just pushing the product onto the buyer without constructing a competent speech. Therefore, carefully select your employees and monitor their sales success.

Information about lead generation and leads

Lead generation is a process associated with the settlement of a constant flow of attracted buyers. In other words, it can be described as an applied tactic in marketing. It includes any methods of attracting consumers from different target audiences. Lead generation is most popular on the Internet, where many sites do not engage in direct sales. They simply collect data to communicate with customers and then sell it to suppliers, for a pre-agreed amount, per contact person.
Leads are people who came from other places., for example, clients of another portal who were interested in your offer and provided contact information for further communication. That is, A lead is not yet a client, but only an interested consumer.

Lead generation

Programs for building and analyzing a sales funnel

If you use the sales funnel wisely, it will become an ideal tool for analyzing both personnel and the resource as a whole. To create a funnel, you don’t need to display it on paper; you just need to master computer programs that help you carry out constant conversion analysis, update data and completely optimize the process. You can master:

1. Excel spreadsheet editor. The program is free, it has convenient functionality, allowing you to insert an infographic element into even the most complex reports. In addition, all entered values ​​are fixed and in the future there is no need to constantly calculate everything from scratch. It is also convenient that the program itself calculates and displays the final indicators. All you need is to break down the entire sales process into logical levels and enter a table with the data obtained, according to the statistics of each stage of the funnel.
2. CRM systems. They make it possible to create and maintain a client base, monitor the work of employees, evaluate productivity at each phase of the funnel, and also determine the best methods for promoting services and goods. If you are not satisfied with the universal system options and want a program with wider functionality, then there are paid versions.

Finally, I would like to note that the key to successful sales, first of all, is a productive dialogue with the company manager, who not only talks about the product, but also believes in its merits.

In contact with

Read the material to the end and you will know:

• 1. What is a sales funnel, why does an ordinary manager and leader need it;
• 2. How and why to conduct a funnel analysis;
• 3. What stages of the sales funnel exist;
• 4. Application of the funnel in practice, examples of real sales funnels.

1. What is a sales funnel?

The sales funnel is the number of customers at certain stages of their relationship with managers. It reflects the entire sales cycle, starting with a cold call and ending with closing a deal. With each stage, the number of potential clients decreases, so the final number of deals concluded is much less than the number of calls made by the manager.

2. Why do you need a sales funnel?

The funnel is an ideal tool for analyzing the performance of both the entire sales department and individual managers. With its help, we can determine at which stages potential clients are eliminated the most, which means there are problems there, which means we must take action to remove them.

Development and customization of a sales funnel is included in our basic program. We will select for you the best tools for systematic sales management and teach your staff how to use them rationally!

Let me give you a simple example:
It often happens that a manager who made 100 calls and submitted 10 commercial offers concluded 0 contracts. There is already room here for analyzing and identifying the weak points of the funnel. Firstly, why are there only 10 commercial offers out of 100 calls? Need to work on motivating the client to receive a commercial offer? Or did the lazy manager forget to present this very commercial offer to the client? There is already room for analysis here. Secondly, why didn’t any of the 10 command posts fire? Maybe the CP was bad? Or did the manager not put the squeeze on the client? What if the situation looks a little different? 100 calls, 90 CP and 0 sales, what do we need to pay attention to?
Here we analyzed only 3 stages of sales; in real life there are more, but this example perfectly reflects the very essence of using a funnel to analyze sales performance.

To my great regret, the reasons for the failure of managers or an entire department are analyzed after the fact, when sales stagnation occurs in the company, and then the culprits are looked for and measures are taken. And a sales funnel is a tool that allows you to do something when this stagnation has not yet arrived, but is only approaching.

3. How to analyze a sales funnel?

To analyze the sales funnel, you need data for comparison. It’s just that the data itself won’t tell us anything, since sales funnels for different markets, companies and even managers can be different.
What indicators can we compare?

• 1. Sales funnels in different periods.
• 2. Sales funnels for different managers.
• 3. Conversion by stages for different managers in different periods.

By comparing the sales funnel of one manager over different periods, we understand whether his performance is improving or not. By comparing conversion rates across different stages, we understand the optimal conversion rate for each stage. Having data for previous periods, we can forecast sales for this period.

A simple example of sales funnel analysis:
If last month a manager made 100 calls, issued 30 CPs and signed 5 contracts, barely fulfilling the plan, and this month he made 20 calls, issued 2 CPs and says that he will conclude 10 contracts. Could this be? No? But maybe 20 CPs will shoot since last month. But even if they shoot, you can’t get your hopes up. What will happen next month? That's right, a maximum of 2 contracts will be fired from this month, and there will be a failure. Therefore, a sales funnel is not only a tool for understanding a manager’s weak sales stages, but also a sales management tool. If the manager sees that managers are calling less, this is a reason to think about expanding the upper stage of the sales funnel without waiting for the end of the month. If you see that many contracts are stuck at the stage of issued CPs, you need to understand why the conditions presented to clients do not suit them? Maybe the prices are wrong? Maybe the conditions are outdated? Maybe managers have become lazy and are waiting for clients to respond to their proposal? In order for the sales funnel to give a more accurate answer, smaller stages of the sales funnel are needed. In our experience, the optimal funnel is 7-12 stages. Less means it’s more difficult to look for bottlenecks in the funnel, more means it’s more difficult for a manager to keep records, although there are exceptions.

4. Stages of the sales funnel

I will give an example of a simple shortened sales funnel for a manager who makes cold calls and the result of his work is an appointment. This is , and this is the funnel for the first stage.

1. The client is entered into the database– the manager went online, found a suitable client and entered him into the CRM for a further call.
2. Decision maker determined– the manager made a call and found out the name and position of the decision maker.
3. Information received– the manager entered into a dialogue with the decision maker, established contact with him and found out the information we were interested in to prepare a meeting or commercial proposal.
4. Meeting scheduled– The decision maker preliminary agrees to the meeting, but he needs to read about us, go on vacation, close the month, or a hundred other reasons why the meeting cannot happen right now.
5. Meeting confirmed– the day before the scheduled meeting, we called and received confirmation from him that the meeting would take place tomorrow and he remembered it. This of course does not guarantee that the decision maker actually remembers the meeting; a meeting planned two weeks ago will take place with a probability of no more than 20%.
6. The meeting was held– the meeting with the decision maker took place.
This lists the steps that a manager must go through to schedule a meeting. The sales funnel is not strictly sequential. That is, a manager can move from the “Client is included in the database” stage to the “Meeting confirmed” stage if he identified the decision maker from the first call and he became so interested that he immediately scheduled meetings for tomorrow or today. Also, an already confirmed meeting can move to the “Meeting Scheduled” status or even to the stage of information received.

5. Filling and calculating sales funnel indicators

Let’s say we made 100 calls, of which we determined data on decision makers in 73 calls, we managed to enter into a dialogue and collect information about the company and interest 22 decision makers, only 10 people agreed to the meeting, 8 of them confirmed the meeting and 7 actually held it. This is what the data in the sales funnel will look like:

This is what the sales funnel would look like if the manager made only 100 calls and continued to pursue only these clients to the meeting.
This is a classic funnel (static), which gives us an understanding of.
Conversion is the ratio of the number of transitions from one stage of the funnel to another. Conversion occurs for the entire funnel, in our case it is 7%. This is the ratio of the number of meetings held to the number of clients entered into the database. The conversion for each stage can also be calculated. For example, the conversion rate for identifying decision makers is 73%.

6. Using the funnel in practice

In practice, the situation looks a little different for two reasons:

• The manager makes new calls all the time

The manager is constantly making new calls, new clients are constantly being added to the funnel, and in order to determine real indicators, it is necessary to select only the clients who entered the funnel over a certain period.

• Each client is only at one stage.

For example, we added one client to the database, made a call and contacted the decision maker and immediately scheduled a meeting. In this case, the dynamic or operational funnel will look like this:

That is, the operational sales funnel shows us how many clients a given manager has at what stage. This funnel is necessary for the department head to understand the operational picture and how many clients are at what stages. To convert this funnel into a classic form and to calculate the conversion, we need to add to each previous stage the numbers found at all subsequent stages:

Without brackets, the number of clients who are at each stage at the moment. In brackets are data from the classic sales funnel for calculating conversion.
We wish you good luck in systematic management of the sales department!
If you have any questions, we will be happy to help you set up your sales funnel and launch system sales, please contact us!

Intuit was able to increase the average check by 43% by adding an online consultant to the site. And the marketing agency Performable just changed the color of the target action button and received a +21% increase in conversion. Such ideas are not born out of nowhere - they arise in the process of work. How to build a sales funnel, what to measure and how to improve - we revealed all the secrets in this article.

Sales funnel: what is it and what is it for?

The sales funnel is the customer's path from the first contact with you to the purchase. Each step that he goes through is called a stage of the funnel: sending an application, discussing the order with the manager, payment, delivery, etc. A correctly built sales funnel itself leads to buyers, and if it is analyzed correctly, it will allow:

• control the sales process, “transforming” a potential client into a loyal one;
• calculate the conversion of each stage and, based on it, set plans for managers responsible for different parts of the funnel: from marketing to post-sales service;
• predict sales volume: knowing the conversion, you can understand how long to expect sales with the current incoming traffic;
• analyze the manager’s performance, especially if you have a CRM system at hand that provides detailed reports on the funnel and transactions.

But having a good understanding of the theory is half the battle. The funnel should work. Next we will tell you what needs to be done for this.

What stages does the sales funnel consist of?

First, you need to decide what stages your buyer goes through. There is no universal answer here: each company has its own sales mechanism, which means the stages are different. For example, this is what the sales funnel looks like for an online store that produces portraits from photos:

The number of stages also varies: there may be 4, or maybe 12. Let’s take the typical option described marketing expert, director of the In-scale agency Egor Chemyakin(left column), and next we’ll look at the same thing, only using the example of a company supplying building materials (right column).

Stage	Typical funnel	Construction company sales funnel
1	The client learns about the offer	A manager makes a cold call to a potential client
2	Determined by choice	Manager makes a presentation of roofing materials to a decision maker
3	The customer has an intention to purchase the product	The manager sends a commercial proposal
4	Make a deal	The parties sign a contract for the supply of roofing
5	Payment	Payment from the client is received into the company's bank account.
6	Receiving the product	The company delivers the roofing to the client's warehouse
7	Repeat purchase	The client contacts the company again to purchase insulation
8	Making purchases on an ongoing basis	An agreement is concluded for the regular supply of building materials

Obviously, at each stage of the funnel, an nth number of clients are eliminated. Actually, that’s why the funnel is called a funnel - it narrows. For example, in the case of a construction company, the manager will have to make about 50 calls to organize 5 presentations; at the stage of the commercial proposal, someone else will “merge”. As a result, the funnel will look something like this:

6 main rules for building a sales funnel

Although all funnels are unique and inimitable, there are still universal rules for their construction. They were developed by Vitaly Katranzhi, business coach, founder of Salers.ru, one of the leaders in Russia and the CIS in the field of sales development.

— There are no identical sales funnels, each company has its own, and only experience will help you build it accurately. I will say more, even in one company the funnel can change periodically, as changes occur in business processes. It is impossible to sit down and come up with a really working funnel; it needs to be refined and changed over the course of 2-3 months, and having found the optimal configuration, it must be constantly updated in accordance with new realities.

So, 6 mandatory points on how to create a sales funnel:

1. Different ways to attract customers require the creation of individual funnels, and the “body” of these funnels will contain the same stages.
2. The stages of the sales funnel can completely or maximally coincide with the stages of the sales business process. Several business process steps can be combined into one funnel stage. For example, the accounting department issues an invoice and the manager sends it to the client - in the sales funnel this will be one stage “Invoice issued”.
3. There must be clear boundaries for the transition from stage to stage: they are confirmed by an action, change in status (client or transaction) or document.
4. The same action can be placed in different stages only if its purpose changes. For example, a manager sends a commercial offer twice: first, a “cold” one with a list of products that will interest a potential client, and after communicating with him and identifying needs, a “hot” one with a specific offer of goods and prices. It turns out that the action is one, but the stages of the funnel are different.
5. The client can move through the funnel both forward and backward.
6. It is most effective to work with a sales funnel in a CRM system.

Vitaly Katranzhi, business coach:
— You can maintain a sales funnel in Excel, but then we cannot look at reports in all the sections we need, analyze the selected period and look at the dynamics of relationships. Therefore, you should not save on CRM; it is one of the most important tools for effectively working with a sales funnel.

How to get the most out of your sales funnel

Once your sales funnel is ready, it's time to add a little magic - improve it to increase conversions. For this become a client of your company and go through his journey from acquaintance with the product to purchase.

Is all the necessary information on the website? Do managers answer client questions over the phone correctly? Is it easy to fill out the order form on the website? Answer these questions and you will understand what needs to be changed.

Thus, a company producing plastic windows was puzzled by the increase in unfulfilled orders: already warm clients “merged” due to the fact that they had to wait for a team of installers for 7-9 hours. Then the company added one more stage to its sales process - sending a voice message to the client before the team leaves. Thanks to this, it was possible to reduce the number of unfulfilled orders from 11 to 3 per month.

As I said, Mike Volpe, Director of Marketing at HubSpot, “don’t stop your customers from buying. Better give them what they want." Regularly collecting feedback from your customers is the best source of advice on how to make your sales funnel better. Experiment, add and eliminate steps, and then take metrics to evaluate the result and continue your search for the ideal.

CRM system: a must-have when working with a sales funnel

You can keep records on paper, but the effectiveness of such work is questionable, because you will not be able to record every call from managers, every customer click on contextual advertising, every click on the “make an order” button. And even if you can using different services, you certainly won’t be able to trace the path of each client to purchase. This means that you will never know from which source the most converting leads come, at what stage the most customers get stuck, how sales dynamics differ depending on the consumer’s region, and so on.

Today there is not a single well-known business coach who would not advise clients to implement a CRM system. Among other things, it makes the sales funnel visual and helps to improve it. Good CRM system:

• records the entire history of interaction with the client;
• knows how to draw a sales funnel: displays all transactions on a convenient board where sales are grouped by stages;
• shows statistics in real time: the amount and number of applications and transactions, their distribution along the sales funnel - and all this by sources, managers, regions, amounts, etc.;
• helps to find weak points: at what stages most deals fail, how many cold calls and meetings each manager conducted, etc.;
• helps managers guide the client through the funnel, automatically assigns them tasks: call the client, send a proposal, remind about payment, receive feedback. As a result, customers become more loyal and make a purchase faster.

This is what the report board looks like in the program

The main thing that CRM gives is the ability to adjust the process and immediately see the result in numbers. There is no need to wait a quarter, manually compile reports in Excel and assemble planning meetings. Just enter data into CRM, record sales in deal cards and immediately see the result - this is the magic of increasing conversion.

Try building a sales funnel in CRM right now, for free in the SalesapCRM cloud system, and you will see how simple and effective it is.