I do agree with you: There has to be balance and the Sales Funnel should ensure that we remain focused on all three of the critical selling tasks.

Your area of expertise is clearly above the funnel – creating opportunity, and probably the most challenging phase.

I also use The Sales Cabinet, which we designed some years ago – this ensures we retain a balanced perspective, when it comes to sales activity.

Here is a link for you:

http://www.thejfblogit.co.uk/2007/06/11/feast-or-famine-it-doesnt-have-to-be-that-way/

Best

Jonathan

Understand your scepticism, of course.

The Sales Funnel has to run alongside a rigorous forcasting system and all of that has to be managed.

Best

Jonathan

PS: Your book finally arrived in London and I am planning to read it over the next week or so – many thanks.

I’m happy that Nigel Edelshain’s blog led me to discover yours. I took the time to read a few of your posts this evening, including the one about Nigel’s take on the Sales 2.0 conference of course, and have decided that your blog is full of useful information. Thanks.

Regarding your “The Sales Funnel Concept…” post, I recently was asked to present a session covering a previously missing step for an International Selling course in Ireland. (What you call “above the funnel,” they called “Stage Zero” in the selling process.)

Regarding this beginning stage of the sales process, I believe B2B salespeople need move beyond one-to-one tactics, and find more efficient ways to find, nurture and qualify prospects using one-to-many tactics (i.e. e-mail, direct mail, etc.) This will allow them to manage and communicate with more prospects more often, and free up more of their precious time for handling the later parts of the sales process one-to-one.

Or they need to encourage their companies to invest in marketing-driven lead generation programs for them. And to assure a successful outcome of this second scenario, they need to work closely with marketing people to help them understand which are the best prospects to target and what constitutes a sales-ready, qualified lead.

As a marketing consultant who specializes in B2B lead generation I’m probably biased, but I believe that one-to-many approaches to the “above the funnel” sales step should be better addressed in sales training.

Jonathan, what are your thoughts on that idea?

Regards,
M. H. (Mac) McIntosh
mcintosh@sales-lead-experts.com

I enjoyed

As usual Mr. Farrington your articles are on the money. Thanks.

tom

Agree totally. We must always be prepared to go back to basics.

Best

Jonathan

Best

Jonathan