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How to Tell a Story Car Buying Advice - Learning to Buy Cheaply is Fun and Worth It

Do You Have a Sales Funnel in Your Process?

This is how I manage mine. It might seem complex, but the approach is based on years of experience. Chasing deals I'm not going to win is definitely not my idea of fun.

First off I differentiate between funnel and pipeline.

For me the funnel is individual company/project plans. Each one has a strategy, objective and action plan. But these aren't prospects. They're opportunities I want to turn in to prospects.

Once I've done that they go into the pipeline - more on that later. My funnel gets broken down into categories:

Targets - companies I'd like to do business with but haven't yet figured out how to do that.
Suspects - companies I know a little more about - contacts, strategies, initiatives.

For Targets I'm in research mode. What's going on in there? Who do I know with an inside track? What are their pain points? How can I help address those?

With Suspects I'm in development mode. How can I help with the pain points? Who do I need to pitch my solution to? How do I get that person's attention? Do I have a reference to support my pitch?

Working out who should be Targets and how to develop them into Suspects takes planning.

That planning finds me the silver bullet and who to fire it at.

Once this is done I'm set for my sales campaign, based on research and contacts and strategy. If I'm able to engage the right people I've laid the foundations of the sale.

That means I'm prepared to commit time to making the deal happen - because I know, and can explain, why it should.

This may seem a complicated approach to building a pipeline, but the philosophy is based on experience. A long time ago I learned kissing frogs is a fools game.

The inspiration for this post came from today's pitch from a service provider.

A young man, expert in his field, understood our strategy and pitched exactly at our sweet spot.

"The reason we're taking all this trouble" he said "is you are a home run for us."

"You need exactly what we're offering, and here's why."

This guy thinks he's an SEO expert, and he is, but mostly he's a natural born salesman!

Steve Reeves is Founder and CEO of Front Office Box, the Business 2.0 solution for helping smaller businesses manage plans, tasks, schedules and relationships. His passion is helping them exploit the Internet to increase opportunities and enhance capabilities.

Steve is a 30 year veteran of sales and sales management roles in the B2B space, primarily software, consulting and outsourcing.

To find Steve's blog and get a free Front Office Box visit us at http://www.frontofficebox.com