What do you need to bear in mind?
All potential orders and the statuses of those potential orders are recorded in the Sales Funnel. It is important that you keep the status, the probability of winning the business and the amount up to date if there are any changes. Make sure that you enter clear reasons for status changes. This will allow you to understand changes at a later date and analyse your order situation and how has it progressed.
What is the benefit of the Sales Funnel?
The Sales Funnel is the perfect tool for analysing your order situation and how it progresses, as well as for making the best use of your sales opportunities. Make sure that the Sales Funnel is managed correctly and that all potential orders and the statuses of those orders are consistently recorded.
Below, we show you some purposes for which you can use the Sales Funnel:
Forecast based on sales potential
As you record all potential orders in the Sales Funnel, including the amount and status, you have a forecast of your expected sales at all times. The order amounts recorded for orders are multiplied by the probability of completion as per the selected order status and added together. The result shows you the volume of sales you can expect from your current order pipeline.
Example:
Order 1: Amount: CHF 100,000, status: ‘Analysis required, 25%’
Order 2: Amount: CHF 50,000, status: ‘Offer submitted, 50%’
Order 2: Amount: CHF 10,000, status: ‘Chance high, 75%’
Forecast sales: CHF 57,500 (100,000 x 25% + 50,000 x 50% + 10,000 x 75%)
Sales opportunities benefit
The Sales Funnel gives you the opportunity to review your order situation in depth and derive suitable measures from this, which you can use to boost your sales opportunities. For example, you can filter your orders by status and see which have not yet been closed. You can also filter orders that have not been closed by amount. You can use the resulting list to see which orders have high potential and therefore which customers it makes the most sense to follow up with/contact. Such analyses can be created using a variety of filter combinations. For example, filtering by time period can also produce exciting insights. In this context, such an analysis can also be used to create suitable tasks for your employees or colleagues.
Analysing changes in your order situation
The Sales Funnel can also be used to identify why an order has or has not been closed, as reasons for status changes can be considered. Here are two examples of such statements:
· Orders are often lost if it takes too long to make an offer
· Orders are closed above all when regular contact takes place
Managing sales employees
As a manager, the Sales Funnel is the perfect way to manage your sales employees and their order situation. Two examples here:
· Which employee has how many orders in the pipeline with what potential
· Which employee has generated how many orders over what period
