Most sales teams spend the majority of their time worrying about leakage and conversion at the bottom of their funnel. And that’s perfectly acceptable, of course. The more of your active opportunities you close, the more successfully you’ll be able to meet and exceed this month or quarter’s goals.

But the real problem for most organizations isn’t the bottom of the funnel but the top. And I’m not talking about generating new leads.

The vast majority of prospects you speak with aren’t active opportunities, and aren’t even short-term leads. They’re in the “qualified but not ready to buy” category. Some studies show that this prospect group can be 4-5 times as large as those that are both qualified and ready to buy.

So if you’re cherry-picking the short-term sales opportunities and ignoring the long-term prospects, the volume and value of opportunities down the road that won’t be in your future opportunity pipeline is extremely high.

This isn’t a sales problem. It’s a marketing problem. Qualified but not ready to buy prospects shouldn’t talk to sales because they’re not ready for sales (and might even be turned off if they’re passed to sales too early). Those top-of-funnel prospects need to be nurtured, educated and watched until they exhibit signs of readiness.

This can be done in a number of ways, but it’s one of the most direct ways that marketing can impact sales and revenue performance for the organization in future months and quarters. And every bit of that can be tracked and attributed back to the nurture efforts.

Your funnel is going to leak. It’s why we call it a sales funnel, not a cylinder. Just don’t let it become a sieve.

  • http://www.linkedin.com/in/randalltabor Randall Tabor

    Matt, excellent commentary as usual.  Different funnels for different prospects is not a unique idea, but it is a good one.  It is one that should be pursued, if not by marketing, by someone.  Many companies treat prospects like their salespeople: 30, 60, 90 and out.  Just because a qualified prospect is not ready to buy within a predetermined period of time, does not mean that they will never buy.  Isn’t the company going to be around in nine months? Two years?  This is really the ideal purpose for a CRM system – to track not just those customers that are ready to make a purchase soon, but maintain and build a relationship with all qualified, suspected, prospects for the longer cycle opportunities.

    • http://www.heinzmarketing.com Matt Heinz

      Thanks, Randall. And this is exactly why marketing automation systems are so hot right now (and rightly so).

  • Darnold

    Very true.  This is why your Marketing Dept needs to be sophisticated in promoting the company offering and align closely with the sales organization.  Too many people do not understand the difference between Marketing and Sales.

    • http://www.heinzmarketing.com Matt Heinz

      Thanks for your comment.  I think the nuances between sales and marketing are not only misunderstood, but too often professionals don’t think of them as having the same objective – finding and closing business, and accelerating sales & revenue for the organization.  That’s the job of sales AND marketing.