1. What is a sales funnel ?

Answer. The sales funnel (also known as a revenue funnel or sales process)
refers to the buying process that companies lead customers through when
purchasing products. The definition also refers to the process through which a
company finds, qualifies, and sells its products to buyers.

The typical sales funnel is divided into multiple steps, which differ depending
on the particular sales model. One of the most common ways of dividing a
sales funnel possesses seven phases including:

 Awareness Phase – in which prospects become aware of the existence of a

solution.

 Interest Phase – in which prospects demonstrate interest in a product by

conducting product research.

 Evaluation Phase – in which prospects or prospect companies examine

competitors’ solutions as they inch toward a final buying decision.

 Decision Phase – In which a final decision is reached and negotiation begins.

 Purchase Phase – in which goods or services are purchased.

 Reevaluation Phase – in B2B sales it’s common for offerings to involve

contracts that need to be renewed. As a customer becomes familiar with an
offering, and especially as a contract draws to a close, a customer will enter a
reevaluation phase during which they’ll decide whether or not to renew their
contract.

 Repurchase Phase – in which a customer repurchases a product or service.

Both marketing teams and inside sales managers commonly adopt strategies,

tools, and tactics  aimed at optimizing each stage of their sales process.

2. What are the process and stages involved in

making a sale ?
Answer : Your sales figures rely on careful research and planning, authentic
communication and tactical skills in persuasion and closing a sale.

You can develop a successful sales process for your business using these
10 essential steps to selling. Depending on the size and type of sale, multiple steps
can be done at the same time or in a different order.
1. Find customers
 Research your potential customer base.
 Identify your tactics for finding new customers in your sales and marketing
plans.
 Gather information about your customers' needs, such as:
o what motivates them to buy
o how they prefer to shop
o what they spend their disposable income on.

2. Plan your approach

 Review information you have gathered about your customers and their needs
– make sure it is up to date.
 Consider what products, services or experiences you have that meet their
needs.
 Communicate with credibility.
 Be clear about your purpose. Are you making contact to convey information,
arrange a time to meet or hand over your business card?

3. Make initial contact

 Approach your prospective customer in a way that comforts them and builds
their trust in you. Use friendly and courteous body language, facial
expressions and manners.
 Listen to their needs.
 Use an anecdote or relevant fact to establish their interest. For example,
describe a recent customer who received the kind of benefits they are looking
for.
 Where suitable use humour, and be open and genuine.
 Don't take up more time than you need. Get to the point quickly.
 Make an observation about something your customers have, or say, that
relates to your products.

4. Confirm specific customer needs

 Confirm an individual customer's needs by listening to their requirements.
 Ask questions that are relevant to your customer's needs and your products.
Questions can be
o direct — for example, 'Do you find it hard to keep your carpets clean?'
 o open-ended — for example, 'Tell me about the products you're using at
the moment.'
o for clarification — for example, 'So you're really looking for a product
you can use outdoors, is that right?'

5. Select the appropriate product or service

 Consider your product range and choose the product, service or experience
that best meets the needs you've identified.
 If you have several options to choose from, pick one and focus on it.

6. Make the sales presentation

 Present your product's features, but focus on its benefits.
 Be enthusiastic and show your conviction.
 Explain what makes your product different from the others.
 Anticipate likely questions or reactions and be prepared to respond to them.
 Use examples of your product's success.
 Use up-selling or cross-selling techniques to introduce your customer to
related products.
 If using a presentation, ensure it is up to date and tailored to your customer.
 Be open in your presentation.

7. Handle objections
 Be prepared for what customers will say, and be ready to respond. For
example
o Objection: 'Sorry, I don't have the time today.'
o Response: 'No problems. I'm more than happy to book you a 10-minute
test run another afternoon this week so you can take advantage of our
complimentary offer.'
 Recognise your customer's comments by acknowledging their views and then
responding with solutions.
 Ask questions about their views to find ways to address them.
 Restate the customer's objection. By saying it aloud, you can reduce its
impact.

8. Close the sale

 Look for signals that indicate the client is ready to make a purchase (e.g. they
ask specific questions about availability or warranties).
 Stop talking — give your customer a chance to fill the silence and say yes.
  Offer a choice that assumes their purchase (e.g. 'Would you prefer the
medium or large?').
 Address the customer's minor questions or decisions about the product to
eliminate all of their obstacles.

9. Follow up
 Offer after-sales service and deliver on whatever you've said you'll do.
 If you didn’t close the sale, follow up with additional opportunities or maintain
the relationship.
 Update your sales matrix and/or customer relationship management tool.
 Check in with your customer after the sale to see if they are happy with the
product.
 Look for the next selling opportunity by drawing the customer's attention to
related products or upcoming specials.
 Build on your rapport to establish a relationship over the longer term.

10. Review the sales

 Gather information about your business's sales performance and product
popularity.
 Do some customer research. You could use customer feedback forms to
evaluate customer satisfaction.
 Look for issues in product performance and take-up, and identify where your
sales tactics and sales team are most and least effective.
 Consider what you have learned and make relevant changes to your sales
plan.

3. Differentiate Marketing funnel & Sales Funnel.

Answer :
What is a Sales Funnel?
As you can see, the marketing funnel usually draws attention to sponsoring a brand
to as many audiences as possible. Its goal is to attract potential prospects who can
quickly transition into actual buyers. The moment such prospects are detected and
they develop a certain interest in the brand’s product or service, they will enter the
sales funnel. From this moment on, the prospect would become a sales prospect.
The sales funnel can be identified as the process that leads a sales prospect from
the marketing stages to conversion one. This sales funnel is at the narrowest end of
the conically shaped marketing funnel.
What is a Marketing Funnel?
Marketing is a fundamental business function that allows brands to improve
visibility and gain a competitive advantage over other competitors. For this reason,
a marketing funnel is an approach that guides potential customers throughout the
whole journey; from the first moment they interact with a brand, way up to the
point where they overcome the urge to purchase the product or service.

Differentiation: Sales Funnel vs Marketing Funnel 

Marketing Funnel : A marketing funnel is the high-level strategy to guide
customers from absolutely unaware of your brand to actual, loyal customers. 
The phases of the marketing funnel, therefore, start at raising awareness and make
it to the end with conversion.

Sales Funnel: On the other side, the sales funnel is the process whereby you
plan to get people to take action — either logging in to your email list, purchasing
a product, or participating in an event.

It’s a series of sites that are made to seamlessly persuade a customer to go from
point A (i.e. be inquisitive about your product) to point B (i.e purchasing your
product).

In that way, a sales funnel is actually a part of the marketing funnel.

4. If you’re facing any objection from your leads and how are
you going to overcome them in order to convert them to a
valuable customer of our corporation ?

Answer : Sales objections are the reasons why your prospects can’t or won’t
buy your product or service. This could be for many reasons. Maybe they don’t
have room for your product in their budget. Some prospects will tell you they
don’t need your product. Others will say they don’t trust your company. These
are just a few of the most common objections salespeople come across.

But you can’t afford to give up on a potential sale so quickly.

It’s your job to reframe the perspective of your potential customer and teach
your team about properly handling sales objections.
 Luckily, if you can identify your lead’s sales objection you can get critical
insight into the exact pain point you need to overcome. The best salespeople see
objections as a positive opportunity to tailor their pitch and zero in on the
factors that will make or break the deal.

There are almost always ways to address your prospect’s concerns if you
approach the objection in the right way.

On the flipside, certain objections can act as an effective lead qualification tool
for your sales team. They allow you to weed out the low-value leads early and
can help to build trust with realistic prospects.

In this guide, you’ll learn exactly how to overcome sales objections, especially
the most common, including:

Price: If price objections are your main issue, you might need to better qualify
your leads. However, smart sales professionals know that a budget doesn’t have
to be a dealbreaker.
Time: This type of objection will test your sales skills, especially on the phone.
Your relationship management and conversational prowess is vital.
Competition: If the lead is using a competitor, it means they have a need for
your product. Now it’s your job to prove your product/service is a better option.
Trust: If you’re a new company, make sure you have some testimonials ready.
Buyers want to see a solid track record. Your empathy is just as important.
Change: When the lead is reluctant to switch, you need to use your sales pitch
to show them the benefits and highlight what that means for their business.
Authority: Make sure from the start that you’re dealing with a decision-maker.
Don’t allow anyone else to deliver your sales pitch to the final buyer.
Need: If the prospect thinks they don’t need your product, it’s up to you to
reframe the conversation and change their perspective if you still think you can
add value for them.
Read on to learn exactly how you can take advantage of all these sales
objection solutions. But first, you need to know how to prepare for managing
objections.

Encourage proactive losing

What happens when an objection is valid?

Your solution isn’t for everyone, and not everyone is your ideal customer. Use
common sales objections as a way to qualify leads in your pipeline, and understand
what your ideal potential client looks like. You need a process to help you find and
drop the worst prospects quickly, so you can focus your efforts on those with the
best chance of turning into an ideal customer.

As Napoleon Hill (author of Think and Grow Rich) said, “The best way to sell
yourself to others is first to sell the others to yourself.”

By following this advice you'll find it far easier to maintain a clean sales pipeline
and help your team focus without the fear of missing targets.

According to Lincoln Murphy’s Ideal Customer Profile Framework, your ideal

customer is:

Ready: they have a problem they need to solve

Willing: they are ready to take action to solve that problem

Able: they have the budget and authority to solve that problem

If your prospects hold these traits, handling their sales objections will help you
identify them and tailor communications to their specific needs, their sales
objections shouldn’t be insurmountable if you qualify your leads correctly.

When your lead qualification process is humming, the nature of the objections
you’re likely to encounter should be reasonably similar.

If your lead is not ready, willing and able, think about the situation in two ways:

The customer’s perspective: will they really benefit from your product or service?
Will it make a genuine difference to the business and bring better chances of
success?

Your company’s perspective: Will you benefit from having them as a customer?
Will they happily keep paying for your offering or do you think, as a customer, this
prospect would be more trouble than they are worth?

The best sales teams turn reactive losing into proactive losing.

Sales isn’t about tricking people into buying something they don’t need, won’t use
or will regret. The sooner you match yourself up with an ideal lead and ditch a
poor candidate, the better your conversion rates.
When objections lead your team to believe there isn’t a true fit between a prospect
and your company, make sure you reinforce this positive lead qualification
decision.

5. Explain the sales funnel with a real time example or a case

study.
Answer : A sales funnel allows you to qualify leads and nurture them down
the funnel until they are converted to customers.
A study showed that 75% of leads do not lead to sales. This is largely due to
the lack of good nurturing of the leads.
As a marketer, you need to be able to effectively nurture your leads right
from the moment they enter into your sales funnel.
We have compiled 10 sales funnel examples and case studies to show you
how some great marketers and business owners convert leads and increase
their customers.

A perfect Webinar Funnel

A webinar funnel is designed to move leads through the funnel with the
help of useful available contents that provide values.
Webinar is a strategy used in selling valuable contents, products and
services. It also serves as an online training avenue.
A webinar funnel walks lead through a simple step of registration which
lead into a qualification video sequence.
Webinars are proven to have high conversion rates in a relatively short
time.

A Real Estate Funnel

Real estate funnels are used to get prospects, qualify them and convert
them. An example of a real estate funnel is a real estate website.
A prospective homebuyer clicks through the real estate website and then
sign up or fill a form, qualifying him/her as a lead. The lead is nurtured and
move down the funnel until he/she finally buys a house (converted into
customer).
The objective of the real estate funnel is to get prospective homebuyers
into visiting the website and converting them to homeowners.
With good nurturing, real estate funnel is a powerful funnel to generate
homebuyers and close deals.
E-book Funnel
E-book funnel is another great way to capture leads and generate sales. E-
book websites such as Amazon has generated a large number of leads and
provided a lot of sales.
To generate even more leads, offering free e-books generate more leads
because more people will visit the website because of the availability of free
books to download and read.
As leads walk down the funnel, offers are made available where a leads
need to pay a little amount to get some special books or best sellers.
Using this strategy, a lot of leads are generated through the availability of
free e-books which are later converted to customers.

The Product Launch Formula Funnel

The product launch formula funnel is pretty straight forward and has
generated a lot of leads. It is one of the highest known converting methods.
In this funnel, prospects visit a website, views a product/service and then
sign up to be able to partake of the product/service.
The product/service can be in the form of a physical product or a service
offered.
The leads that want the product/service will have to pay a particular
amount of money to get the product/service.

An Advertising Funnel
Advertising funnels generate leads and convert customers in a relatively
short time because they are targeted.
This funnel provides just enough information to pre-qualify leads and are
easily converted into customers by sales call.
Targeted advertising like Google Ads, Facebook Ads and so on are used to
generate leads in their thousands and millions.

An E-commerce Funnel
An e-commerce website is a practical example of an e-commerce website.
E-commerce websites are one of the most popular sales funnel used in
generating leads and making sales.
A typical e-commerce website displays products that are available for sale.
A prospective buyer goes through the products and checks for the one
he/she wants to buy.
The prospect then adds the selected items into a cart. Doing this has
converted the prospect to a lead. The lead signs up to create a personal
account for payment.
A payment method is selected and they lead pays for the items that were
added to cart. These process has taken a visitor through the stage of a
prospect to a customer.

The Fishbowl Funnel

This is a sales funnel aimed at using free offers to capture prospects before
providing a payment channel.
A good example of this type of funnel is Spotify. Spotify generates paying
customers by first providing free music streaming.
Though you enjoy free music streaming, you are interrupted with adverts. If
you don’t want to be interrupted, you are provided with a premium plan
where you pay a particular amount of money to enjoy uninterrupted music
streaming.
Spotify successful generates more prospects using a free music streaming
offer but end up making more money as its users pay for uninterrupted
music streaming.

Couch, Consultancy and Agency Client Generating Funnel

Couching and consultancy agencies generate their clients through this
funnel.
They provide a valuable offer or a service that people needs. Prospects then
click through the website to read what services they offer.
Prospects are then directed to a signup page so they can have a personal
account and be a part of the system. Prospects that signed up have then
been converted to leads.
The agency talks more about their services by making available videos and
contents to leads. Leads are then qualified by filling up a form.
The leads that want the service of the agency or consulting firm are then
booked or they schedule a meeting. A lead will need to make a payment for
consultation and services provided. This is the process of a typical coaching
or consulting funnel.

A University Sales Funnel

The website of a university or a tertiary institution is another example of a
sales funnel.
Prospective students go through the website for courses the university
offers, tuitions, departments, etc.
A prospective student that is interested in a particular course the university
offers fills up a registration form. Filling up a registration form has
automatically converted the prospects to a lead.
Then prospective student applies for admission. When the admission is
granted, the student pays the tuition and registers for classes. Paying the
tuition as qualified the student as a customer.
A SaaS Sales Funnel
A SaaS company provides software or tools to other companies or
individuals. They provide services that other companies or individual’s
needs.
The sales funnel begins from when prospects click through their website to
learn about their products and services.
Prospects then sign up or fill a form to get personalized contents. Prospects
are now converted to leads.
Qualified leads make payment to get the software or services provided.

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