What is a Sales Funnel?

In essence, a sales funnel can be imagined like a funnel for customers.

You start out with a broad opening to capture as many leads as possible and then you
gradually narrow those leads down to only the most engaged and interested customers
so that you can sell to them. All the while, you’ll be building trust, building
engagement and priming them ready to make a sale.
 Why Sales Funnels?
There are several reasons why implementing a sales funnel is important, including the
following:
•Creates customers. The point of the sales funnel is to take a business's target audience and
move the members through a series of steps that may eventually result in them becoming
customers.
•Generates referrals. In addition to acquiring a base target audience and group of
customers, a sales funnel also spurs satisfied customers to refer other prospects that
previously may not have fallen into the original target audience.
•Monitors and tracks. A sales funnel enables organizations to see how well each step of
the sales process is working and to make adjustments as needed. This helps ensure efficient
use of time and sales resources. Pushing customers through the sales funnel creates useful
feedback.
 Why Sales Funnels?
•Focuses efforts. A sales funnel narrows the business's focus to a specific group of
prospects. This makes it easier to reach target audience members and convert them into
customers when they reach the bottom of the funnel. A sales funnel can also help businesses
weed out unqualified prospects by requiring potential customers to go through a series of
steps eventually leading to a purchase.
Today, a successful company relies on both sales and marketing to guide the customer
through the sales funnel and to build customer loyalty, taking advantage of content
marketing, customer data analytics and the two-way communication that social media
marketing provides.
 What is a Sales Funnel?

Specifically, you’ll discover:

 Why sales funnels are THE most effective tool for sales
 All the tools and resources you need to construct the ultimate sales funnel
 How to target your audience and bring the right people to the first
stage of your funnel
 How to use persuasive writing to convince people to buy anything
 How to engage your audience and build trust and real following
 How to maximize conversion rates
 How to make people buy from you more than once
 How to utilize an understanding of psychology to skyrocket your sales
 What the different options are for your sales funnels
 How to stand out and be different
 HOW TO CREATE A SALES FUNNEL

1.Define the problem you want to solve for your customers.

2.Define your goals.
3.Create a preliminary offer to generate leads.
4.Qualify leads to confirm interest in the product.
5.Nurture your qualified leads.
6.Close the deal.
7.Track the final results and analyze sales data.
Sales Funnel vs. Flywheel

The modern sales process has changed dramatically in the last few years — and those
changes make the traditional sales funnel obsolete.

Today, customers are in control of the sales process. A modern buyer spends more
time upfront researching a purchase before they engage with a salesperson, reducing
the value of sharing information.

Armed with extensive online information, a modern buyer requires different skills
from a salesperson and frequently exhibits different behavior than buyers of the past.

A modern buyer may get very excited about a purchase and spend a lot of time in the
research phase and then abruptly stop, ending the sales process — sometimes without
any reason at all.
How does the flywheel work?

To get your flywheel spinning you need to add force to it by making significant
investments in strategies to acquire and retain customers.

Once you acquire enough initial customers and you ensure their success and happiness,
they become a force for your flywheel. This is because they either buy from you again or
bring in new customers by promoting you to their network. This is the key to keeping your
flywheel spinning without investing all your resources in acquiring new customers.

In other words, rather than having your sales team explain your products or services, you
use the momentum of your happy customers to drive referrals and repeat sales.

Using a flywheel, you can build a community or ecosystem of customers who help other
customers. For a modern sales process, a flywheel is better than a sales funnel because it
leverages current customers to attract and engage new prospects.
How to Build a Flywheel

Understand your current customers are more powerful than any other influence.

Prospects trust the stories and experiences of your current customer base. In
fact, 84% of consumers trust an online review as much as a personal recommendation.

Leverage this by making sure you have lots of use cases, customer testimonials, and
references that showcase your current clients explaining your product or service’s
strengths.
Have your strong customers create social proof

Social proof is the psychological idea that people determine what’s correct by finding
out what other people think is correct.

Customer reviews are 12x more trusted than descriptions that come from

manufacturers. 

Social media is a powerful tool for creating social proof. Let the stories and experiences
of your happy customers create converting content for you.
Identify areas of force and friction

Force moves the sales process forward. Areas of force include accurate and timely
information, a good understanding of the problem, your ability to listen, and overall
responsiveness.

On the flip side, friction slows down the sales process. Essentially, when your prospect
has to jump through too many hoops or faces obstacles or inconveniences throughout
the sales process, this creates friction which makes your job more difficult.

By identifying areas of force and friction, you can double-down on the activities that
will bring more momentum to your ability to drive the sale, and remove unnecessary
obstacles to create a frictionless experience.

This will keep the flywheel moving forward and make your buyers happy.