An exercise we urge all of our clients to do during a GTM working session is to whiteboard your sales funnel process, in real-time, as a team. I guarantee you will be surprised, and at times, frustrated as the team attempts to document precisely what happens to a lead once it enters the funnel. But, I also know that for every moment of frustration and confusion, there will be invaluable moments of clarity that will inevitably lead to a stronger team and better outcome.
Here’s likely what will happen – the sales folks in the room will be able to provide transparency into the pipeline and closed-won deals; the marketing folks will rattle off a list of demand generation tactics and lead sources are driving new leads into the funnel; and in between discussing the top of the funnel and the bottom of the funnel will be a lot of uncertainty and unfounded assumptions. Work through it – it is well worth the time investment to align around a clear understanding of your process.
To make the discussion as productive as possible, use these questions as a guide:
- What are all the ways MQLs are being driven and captured? Are there channels (i.e. LinkedIn Lead Gen forms) that may live outside of the website?
- Who is alerted when a new lead comes in? How are they alerted? Does the “who” or “how” vary by lead channel/source?
- How are new MQLs being sales qualified? Who is responsible for this and what criteria is being used?
- What happens once an MQL is marked as “sales-qualified”? What happens to leads that are not sales qualified?
- When does an MQL get assigned to a sales rep? Is someone responsible for assigning new MQLs to the sales team or is it happening automatically?
- How does the sales rep attempt to engage with the MQL? What is the cadence of outreach? What happens when an MQL is unresponsive?
- When does a lead officially turn into an opportunity?
- What are the opportunity stages being tracked?
- What happens when an opportunity is closed-lost?
- Do you know what the biggest closed-lost reasons?
TL;DR
Knowing how leads are traveling through your sales funnel is essential to improving performance. While there are likely experts in specific areas of the funnel on your GTM team, it is unlikely that everyone (or anyone) can answer all the questions outlined above. Walking through it together will not only ensure there aren’t any leaks or problem areas in your funnel, but it will also spark productive dialogue on how to enhance and optimize the entire process, from start to finish.
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