Which is More Important Quantity or Quality in the Sales Funnel?

Blog-Hourglass

Which is more important, quantity or quality? It seems like everyone has their own opinion about which one is “more” important. I think it’s asking the wrong question and seeks to justify an excuse. Yes, you need quantity because not every prospect is a good fit for your organization and yes, you need quality to ensure that your leads are qualified and likely to convert. It’s not one or the other, it’s both.

Most of your client journey is outside of your control. With all the modern technology and tracking capabilities, we like to think we have more control than perhaps we actually do.

Businesses focus on building sales funnels, running ads, and posting on social media—all activities that are aligned with the traditional sales funnel. This modality focuses on creating demand to attract new prospects in a hands-off transactional style instead of fostering the client journey. Lead generation tactics are important, but they are not more important than your client journey if you want referrals.

The traditional sales funnel is broad at the top and gets narrower at the bottom, until they become a client…as if that is the end.

Is that where you want it to end?
Or do you want repeat clients?
Do you want referrals?

Did you know that it is up to seven times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to keep a current one? The probability of a sale from a prospect is only 5-20% whereas the probability of a sale from an existing client is between 60-70%.

So why do we only emphasize the funnel part? If a business truly understands their client journey, they can then build something that is more in the shape of an hourglass where the top is focused on creating brand awareness and attracting prospects that haven’t heard of you, yet. And the bottom is focused on cultivating better relationships with existing clients and understanding how to provide more than just transactional value to them.

When a business doesn’t understand their client journey, they’ll attract the wrong prospects and won’t be able to retain the few that they do attract causing high turnover, high client acquisition costs, and a poor or bad brand reputation.

Going back to the hourglass shape concept, the top part is all about the know, like, and trust factor. Your target market needs to know you exist so it’s about establishing brand awareness. The next step is getting them to like something about you—your website, your colors, your humor, your approach, something! This is your responsibility, not theirs. It’s at this stage that they are narrowing down their options to businesses that provide similar answers to their questions. Your clients and prospects are busy, so give them a reason to remember you. Trust is all about social proof and giving them little wins so when they have a bigger problem, they think, “I wonder if Brand X has anything about this.”

Trust leads to trying. During the trying phase, they may sign up for a free eBook, a free trial of your membership or software, or even a low-dollar consultation. This is often the make-or-break phase. For some, they want to see how easy it is to do business with you on a low commitment level, for others, it’s about the quality of that low-level give-a-way. Either way, it’s a test.

The center of the hourglass is when they buy from you the first time. After that, it is about repeating and referring. Repeating is about making it easy for your client to know, understand, and see value in other ways that you can help them. So for many businesses, there is a sales journey and a client journey. The client journey establishes a path for them to go from one product or service to another based on how they are currently working with you.

Referrals are easy to say, the reality is your clients won’t refer you if they don’t like doing business with you, or if you don’t ask. They must have a positive client experience through the first stages of their client journey.

Referred clients tend to be less price-sensitive and have a shorter sales cycle. They also tend to be more loyal and refer even more people. By not having a system in place that generates those referrals, you are simply leaving money on the table.

It’s our responsibility to help guide clients through each of these stages in a way that fosters stronger and more trustworthy relationships with the right target audience and weeds out the ones that are not a good fit. So, let’s make it easy for your target audience to do business with you.

Omicle delivers brand clarity, marketing strategy, and operational efficiency to prepare leaders to scale their business. If you are ready to scale your business, contact us today to get started.

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