Aaron Hoos

The Weekly Sales Funnel Challenge is a week-long challenge for business owners to focus on a specific aspect of their sales funnel for one week. It’s a fun way to keep you focused on one of the most important parts of your business. A new Weekly Sales Funnel Challenge is published every Monday and a wrap-up post is published every Friday.

Okay, last week’s Weekly Sales Funnel Challenge was a real challenge! It was a lot of work for you to squeeze into your already busy days.

So I’m going to go easier on you this week. For this week’s challenge, we’re going to choose a competitor and we’re going to write down THEIR sales funnel. Knowing your competitors’ sales funnels will help you keep tabs on what your competitors are up to so they can’t blindside you, and you’ll find ways to differentiate your business.

Writing down one of your competitors’ sales funnels doesn’t have to be complicated:

First choose one competitor. Be specific about who it is. (Don’t generalize by saying “most of my competitors are similar).

Second, list “Audience”, “Leads”, “Prospects”, “Customers”, and “Evangelists” down one side of a paper.

Third, write down all of the elements in each stage of your competitor’s sales funnel that you’re aware of. Maybe do a bit of digging to discover any additional channels or products or tactics that you aren’t aware of.

Email me to let me know how it’s going! I’d love to hear if you find this week’s challenge enlightening.

Have fun!

When I was just starting out in sales management, I was completely blindsided by something that really hurt the financial health of my branch. My manager gave me a useful piece of advice that I have tried to adopt ever since, no matter what business I’ve been in. He said: “Know your business well enough that there will never be any surprises.”

As a business owner, this comes naturally for me and it probably comes naturally for you, too: If you’re a sole proprietor, you likely know exactly what is happening in your business.

The same should apply for your sales funnel, your most important and strategic business asset. If you know your sales funnel inside and out, and are aware of its general health and operation, you’ll be in great shape to keep it “well-oiled”. Nothing will surprise you and you’ll be more likely to grow your leads, prospects, and customers.

So, I’m introducing a tool to help you: It’s the Monthly Sales Funnel Check-up, and I’ll post it at or near the end of each month so you can work through it.

Download the Monthly Sales Funnel Check-up PDF here.

It’s a simple chart that outlines your sales funnel and prompts you to fill in what you’re doing to reach contacts at each stage in your sales funnel. For example: What marketing and sales channels are you using for each stage? What key messages are you using in each channel? And, how many contacts did you have. Plus there is a place to include your own observations and ideas to make next month even more effective!

It’s very simple so it shouldn’t take long (maybe a little longer the first time you do it, but it will get faster as you gain experience) and the value it provides will be noticeable the very next month!

Download the Monthly Sales Funnel Check-up PDF here.

Building a sales funnel is fun and easy. Yes, there’s some work involved but most entrepreneurs like working in their business (and working on your sales funnel isn’t as tedious as some of the other things you could be doing!).

So the very first step depends on whether your business has sold something before or whether it hasn’t. Below, I’ve written answers for both:

IF YOUR BUSINESS HAS SOLD SOMETHING BEFORE
If your business has sold something before, and you are just wanting to articulate and improve your existing sales funnel, then your very first step should be to look at your customer(s) and trace them backwards as far as you can:

• What was the final action that made them become Customers? (A “buy now” button? A phone call? etc.)
• What were they thinking about and asking you about before they bought? (How did you interact with them? Where did you interact with them?)
• What did they do to reach the point where you could present to them? (Did they click to a sales page? Did they telephone you? Did you meet them at their office?)
• How did they find you in the first place?
• What are your customers like, demographically? (What was similar about them?)

If you have sold something to other people before, your goal here is to figure out who those people were, why thy bought from you, and how they progressed through your sales funnel. That doesn’t mean you can’t create a new sales funnel; rather, it means that you have a sales funnel starting point… but a sales funnel starting point you have not articulated before.

IF YOUR BUSINESS HAS NOT SOLD SOMETHING BEFORE
If you haven’t sold something (in this business) before, then your very first step should be to list your potential sales funnel (Audience, Leads, Prospects, Customers, Evangelists), and decide on at least one form of media to go in each stage. For example, your Audience might be collected through Twitter; your Leads might read your blog; your Prospects might read your newsletter; etc.).

The goal here is to create a starting point. You will build off it and improve it as time goes on, but you need a foundation and this is a fast way to build a sales funnel and focus your sales funnel strategy.