Are The Days Of The Sales Funnel Generating Sales Over?
If I was to give you a short answer based on my experience over the last 7 months of marketing my business, it would have to be…YES, it’s over…but…a statement of this nature on a process that has worked so well for years, deserves more explanation than that.
To justify making that statement, I will have to start with the process of lead generation and the reality is, the world is changing, marketing is changing and 90% of marketers are not. It’s not easy to provide one reason for this but it is a combination of:
- Using incorrect targeting and content strategy.
- Lack of valuable and varying content.
- Landing pages that are not effective in capturing leads.
- Not having a follow-up email series for the leads generated.
Lead generation has been around for decades but with the evolvement of technology, so did the techniques to generate leads evolve. With the Internet, smartphones, social media, and automation of online systems, lead generation has not only become more complex, but competition grows monthly if not weekly. Lead generation is described as attracting the attention of a person who indicates they are interested in your content and will provide you with their contact information. The best way to attract the attention of a prospective customer is to ensure you are using the Conversion Equation of Interrupt, Engage, Educate, and Offer.
Following this equation will ensure you are getting into the minds of your prospective customers, talking to their pain points, providing them with valuable content on how to solve the pain, then offering them a product or service that keeps the pain away.
Therefore, I make the statement that the days of sales funnels generating sales are over because, in my view, this process of converting leads to customers should be called a Relationship Funnel.
When you are successful in nurturing the relationship, you are starting to build with your prospective customer as soon as you have obtained their contact information, you create trust which will in time, when the lead is ready, convert into a sale. This is called the Buyers Journey which is an important concept many markets forget or possible don’t know. There are only 1%-3% of visitors to your marketing that are what we call ‘Now Buyers’. The majority are on an information-gathering journey.
It was only when I started to see my sales funnel as a relationship funnel, that I turned my focus from selling to following the conversion equation which, in turn, accompanied my leads on their buyers journey.
Once they reached the point of the buyers journey where they were ready to buy, I became the obvious choice as I had provided them with the content they were looking for to make the buying decision.
My sales funnel very quickly went from 100’s of leads a day with no sales, to generating 40-60 prospects per day, then converting 6-12 of those a day to leads from which I was able to book 8-12 consultations a week, providing me with all the clients I needed.
The best part of it all is that once all the pieces of the funnel were in place, which is not complex and any business can do it, I was generating leads on call without spending a cent on marketing or advertising and…I was feeding my relationship funnel with fresh prospects with just 45-minutes a day work online on one social media platform.
I can turn the process on and off when I want. If I have enough consultations booked, I simply stop feeding the funnel until I have completed my consultations and follow-up with my new customers.
When my new customers are being taken care off and I have time available to book more consultations, I simply turn on the process again, feed my relationship funnel and in no time, I am booking consultations again. This lead generating process is now the only strategy I use to generate all the leads my business can handle.
It works for any business no matter how much or how little technical knowledge you have of the Internet and online systems because you can now copy the exact same process I use. I have created a step-by-step video training program including all the templates you require to set-up your own lead generating machine. If you are sick and tired of the hype, promotion and wild claims made by many of today’s so-called lead generation professionals then visit this page to find out exactly how you can achieve the same if not better results.
Carlos Batista
Business Turnaround Specialist