Sales Funnel Health - Best Practice Review Process
The following are the questions we are most frequently asked regarding Funnel
Reviews and assessing Funnel health and our response to those questions.
What exactly are the Sales Funnel and the Funnel review
process?
The purpose of the Sales Funnel is to evaluate a sales person’s book of
business. The Sales Funnel consists of all of the opportunities (Single Sales
Objectives for our Miller Heiman clients) that an individual sales person is
working on. All Sales Funnels are different, depending on the business that you
are in. However, generally speaking there are at least four “positions” in the
Funnel that represent what type of work the sales person is doing in that
particular phase. For example, the generic Miller Heiman model recommends
Prospect, Qualify, Cover the Bases and Close the Order.
The Funnel review process is designed for the sales person, and in some cases
his or her manager, to assess the health of the Funnel. A healthy Funnel is one
where there are sufficient opportunities in number and dollars to enable the
sales person to achieve their quota or sales goal. In addition, based on the
shape of the Funnel (more on that later), the sales person can determine what
type of work they should do more of or less of to improve the overall health of
their Funnel.
Who should participate in a Funnel review?
The sales person who owns the Funnel must participate, and may complete the
review by themselves. Less frequently, we recommend that key sales leaders and
operations personnel participate in a more formal review process with the sales
person.
What impact does frequent Funnel reviews have on a
sales person performance?
The Funnel review is meant to determine how the sales person will allocate his
or her Selling Time (face to face or phone to phone contact with an individual
who wishes to take action-Growth or Trouble-talking to them about the
discrepancy that they perceive or asking questions to uncover discrepancy). On
average, a sales person has five to ten hours per week of actual Selling Time.
This being the case, it is imperative that the sales person focus their
attention on getting the actions to move the opportunity to the next position in
the Funnel.
What is the Funnel review or health check process?
The weekly Funnel health check should follow these steps:
1. Input all new opportunities into the sales funnel on your lap top. Include
your next actions.
2. Sort your opportunities into position in the funnel
- Prospect
- Qualify
- Cover the Base
- Close the Order
3. Total the dollars in each position in the funnel.
4. Determine your funnel shape.
5. Ask yourself these questions:
- What is the health of the funnel?
- Am I likely to hit quota?
- Considering my close rate, is there enough business in the top of the
funnel to achieve targets?
- Are there areas in the funnel where sales consistently bottle neck? Does
that mean a new process is required?
- Where do I need to focus my efforts for the next six weeks?
- Is there a shape to the funnel when the dollars are added up at each
macro level position?
- What is the meaning of this shape?
6. Determine your next action that you need to take to advance the sale.
7. Determine, based on your funnel shape how much selling time of the total you
should spend working on each position in the funnel.
8. Assign an amount of time required to complete each action in your funnel.
9. Schedule the actions in Outlook
What are Funnel Shapes?
Miller Heiman has defined Funnel Shapes as the total dollars in each position in
the Funnel. This leads to a Funnel Shape. Below are some examples of Funnel
Shapes from Miller Heiman’s Managers Coaching.
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