Simple Tips to Build a Sales Funnel for Free at Your Company

Are you satisfied with the performance of your sales team?

If you’re an ambitious leader, the answer is mostly no. But if you want to improve it, you might have vague ideas in your mind. You know there is scope for improvement, but the action points are not concrete.

That’s why there’s always a lingering feeling of dissatisfaction at the back of your mind.

But it doesn’t have to be like this. You can take specific actions to improve your sales performance and enhance the overall topline and bottom-line of your company.

The most effective tool to help you achieve this is a sales funnel.

A sales funnel already exists in your organization even if you’re not aware of it. Most of your prospects follow a similar path to turn into customers. And depending upon the effort of your salespeople, they remain in a stage for a predictable amount of time.

If you can make your sales team to focus on this tool and manage their tasks effectively, the rewards it can yield are unbelievable.

How to Build a Sales Funnel?

We’ve written extensively about what a sales funnel is. (You can check out this post and this one.)

Simply put, a sales funnel is a representation of the potential that multiple buyers offer as they progress through different stages in the buyer journey. This funnel empowers you with insights to take actions that will move prospects towards making decisions which benefit themselves and your company.

When tracked and reviewed periodically, a sales funnel can make your sales not just more predictable but also more rewarding.

If you’re using a CRM tool for your business, you can track various stages in your sales funnel in a tangible manner. For instance, at Enjay, our stages to map the buyer’s journey are:

1.Qualification Done – whether the prospect is the type of lead who needs Enjay’s products.

2. Demo Done – we’ve connected with the prospect and given them a demo of our product.

3. Proposal Quote – we’ve sent a proposal to the potential customer for the product.

4.Negotiation/Review – we’ve discussed the proposal with the customer and negotiations (if necessary) are going on.

5. Hold On – the customer has put the negotiations on hold for some reason.

6. Closed Won – we’ve succeeded in turning the prospect into a paying customer.

7. Closed Lost – the prospect doesn’t want what we sell (and we’ll document reasons for the same as well).

When our team consistently updated the details of their actions in the CRM tool, the in-built analytics shows us the time our prospects stays in each stage. This average time becomes the benchmark, against which we track the status of current prospects and compare the time they’ve spent in the respective stage during sales reviews.

If the salesperson faces challenges in moving a prospect to the next stage, the sales manager helps the salesperson with specific action points. If the challenge is recurrent, we know it’s time to upskill the salesperson. And if the delay is because of the prospect, we wait patiently before they’re ready to move to the next stage.

Take fifteen minutes with your sales team to discuss the various stages through which prospects move during the buyer journey. After that, here are three simple steps to increase your sales:

1. Add the stages of the buyer journey in your CRM tool

2.Ensure that your sales team constantly updates the status of prospects they’re engaged with

3. Conduct periodic reviews with your sales team and track whether they’re taking the necessary steps to help your prospects progress.

We can assure you that you’ll see a positive difference within weeks, not even months.

What More You Can Do with Sales Funnels

Selling for the first time to a prospect is not the only thing you can do with a sales funnel. Like we mentioned before, the possibilities are endless.

Here are three more ways in which you can use your funnel to increase sales:

1. Cross-Sell

The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60-70% compared with 5-20% for a new customer.

Data from your CRM tool will show you which products customers of similar demographics have purchased in the past. You can pitch relevant products to new customers in order to fulfil their needs.

You can also download our free cross-selling tool here.

2. Upsell

Customers can use supporting products to enhance the performance of the primary products they’ve purchased.

You can leverage this method to upsell benefits, like upgrades, customization, add-ons, extended service periods, and more, to existing customers, and increase revenue while lowering sales costs.

3. Referral Collection

Recommendations can drive revenue of more than 30% for a product. People are more likely to purchase something when someone they trust recommends it to them.

Identify which stage of the buyer journey is the customer most satisfied in (it could be after you’ve satisfactorily fulfilled order or even after you’ve resolved their issue). At this stage, ask customers for referrals and store the data in your CRM tool.

Not only will you generate a lead, but you’ll also get a referral which can convert faster than a cold call. This means you’ll save on marketing costs.

How have you built a sales funnel in your company? Do share your best practices with us in the comments. We would love to hear from you.