The Funnel of Success: Why Your Small Business Needs a Sales Funnel

Hey Everyone, hope you have a good day. I just wanted to talk today a little bit about the concept of ethical selling. I’m not quite sure how this idea has really grown into what it is today, but most people think that they don’t want to be salesy and that any form of sales is in fact, salesy.

I’m not exactly sure what salesy means.

I think it’s got something to do with being pushy or trying to get people to buy your product that don’t need it, and lots of those kinds of behaviour.

I don’t remember, ever being in a situation where somebody was being so pushy that made me want to buy a product that I didn’t need. Now, have I bought lots of things that I don’t need? Yes, I have. Is that the salesperson or the website copy, Is it their fault? NO!

It is simply just me. having some desire to buy something, because I think it’s going to be either cool or fun to work with or play with or use or I’m just in the mood for buying something. Could I afford it at the time? Maybe I could, maybe I couldn’t, but that’s all on me.

The other day I sat down and read a post on LinkedIn and it went something like this,

“self-employed people! You do not need a sales funnel to succeed.”

I’ve never heard anything more misleading

Immediately I was intrigued and I dug into this because I’m teaching the opposite. I think that small businesses and solo-entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs and freelancers all need a sales funnel. So the article goes on to explain lots of different things and then wraps around and says, “Here’s the solution”, which, using slightly different words, is exactly what a sales funnel is.

What is a Sales Funnel?

Now, if you’ve never heard of a sales funnel before, let me just share very briefly what that is. A sales funnel is when you have a product or a service. You have a solution for a group of people. You might have an idea of where they are, so you go out to that place and you talk to a lot of people. As many people as possible and say “I have this thing. I think it’s awesome. I hope you think that too. Do you want to buy it?”

How does a Sales Funnel work?

Now, if there are 1000 people at that place where you go to talk about your product and service to see if they are interested, maybe only 500 of them say “Yeah, I have a similar situation that that product or service sounds interesting to me. I’d like to know more”.

Now instead of 1000 people, now you have 500 and as you go through these different stages of talking to people, where you initially started with 1000 people, you might only sell to 10 people. Yeah, I know those numbers sound weird, but in essence, that’s a sales funnel.

It just means that through your conversation and through your messaging, you may start off with lots of people at the top of your funnel at your initial engagement, and then at the end, when you actually make the sale, it’s far fewer people than what you had started with, making the V shape, the shape of a funnel, and that’s what it’s referred to.

How Does a Sales Funnel Help?

So you’re not squeezing people into your sales funnel. There’s no unethical trying to get as many people into it as possible. The whole purpose of sales is that you believe in your product and you believe that it’s going to help someone. So what on Earth is wrong with trying to get as many people as possible to buy your service, to buy your products, to donate to your cause? What’s wrong with that? If 100 million people bought your product service or donated to your cause, would that not be a good thing?

Why do I need more sales?

If you’re a good person and you’ve been a good person your entire life and you’ve worked hard, chances are if you make more money, you would do good with that money, because that’s the kind of person you are. So trying to get better at sales, and trying to get more people to enjoy the fruits of your work is a good thing.

So I’m hoping that this message will help motivate you to actually invest in a sales funnel for your business and in getting the messaging right, so that more people hear about your business, about your products and about your cause, so that more of the right people will feel that it’s the right fit for them.

Is there more to learn?

If you would like to know more, I invite you to download my sales system. I will share messages like this with you trying to encourage you on your journey to building out your sales plan and the sales funnel so that more people get to enjoy what you’ve built.

Remember, you need to practise that voice. You need to get your message out there because people are waiting for you.