Your sales funnel is the process that guides your prospects from awareness to action. It's a crucial tool for measuring and improving your sales and marketing performance. But how do you learn from your sales funnel failures and successes? Here are some tips to help you analyze and optimize your sales funnel.
The first step is to define your funnel stages clearly and consistently. Different businesses may have different stages, but a common model is AIDA: awareness, interest, decision, and action. You need to know what criteria and metrics you use to move prospects from one stage to the next, and how you communicate and follow up with them.
Long before you give the customer a proposal, you need to visit the customer and find out what they want and how much budget do they have. Make sure your boss have reviewed your estimate and proposal to make sure you have everything needed to get the job done with a profit margin that Corporate has approved. When that aspect of the process is done, then you can give them a proposal. Customer's will try to get you to lower your price by saying there is not enough money in their budget to get the job done. Your job will be to negotiate with the customer a way to get what they want by doing the job in phases so they can have time to appropriate more funds to get everything done.
The next step is to collect and analyze your funnel data. You need to track how many prospects enter, exit, and convert at each stage, and how long they take to do so. You also need to measure the effectiveness of your marketing channels, campaigns, and content in generating and nurturing leads. You can use tools like Google Analytics, CRM software, or specialized funnel software to help you with this.
The third step is to identify where and why you are losing prospects in your funnel. You need to look for patterns and trends in your data, such as high bounce rates, low conversion rates, or long delays. You also need to look for gaps in your funnel, such as missing or weak content, unclear value propositions, or lack of trust signals. You can use tools like heat maps, surveys, or user testing to get more insights into your prospects' behavior and preferences.
The fourth step is to experiment with different ways to improve your funnel performance. You need to test and optimize your funnel elements, such as headlines, images, copy, calls to action, forms, landing pages, emails, etc. You also need to test and optimize your funnel strategies, such as segmentation, personalization, automation, retargeting, etc. You can use tools like A/B testing, multivariate testing, or split testing to compare and measure the results of your changes.
The final step is to learn from your sales funnel failures and successes. You need to review and evaluate your data, tests, and feedback regularly and systematically. You need to identify what works and what doesn't, and why. You also need to apply your learnings to your future funnel actions, such as scaling up your best practices, fixing your mistakes, or trying new ideas. You can use tools like dashboards, reports, or analytics platforms to help you with this.
I started in the field and worked my way up the ladder to become a Top gun salesman. I went through an Electrical Apprentice program and had my Masters License in my fourth year of the Appreticeship program.
Never let the customer talk you into breaking corporate protocol. Complete site survey is needed to be sure you have all aspects of the job included. I always put in contingency dollars to cover anything that may have been missing during the walkthrough and discussion's with the customer.