B2B sales funnel, follow up and estimate future revenues

The sales funnel

For a B2B companies, following customer contacts and opportunities is a crucial activity.
Many people advocate for classifying customers but without giving a scale to do it...

I think scale may differ depending on the company, but here is the one I built:
  1.  Awareness
  2.  Interested
  3.  Qualified Lead
  4.  Asked for evaluation
  5.  Signed NDA
  6.  Evaluation Sent
 -1. Discarded

It leads to the following sales funnel representation (sorry it does not look like an actual funnel !). Click enlarge it.

What should you do with it ?


1. Keep a centralized version of the funnel (on your favorite CRM, or even on an excel spreadsheet), input each lead into, and input the date at every change of status.

2. Input ALL leads : the ones you get meeting with, but also the visitors of your website (you are using google analytics right ?!), the followers of your twitter corporate account, people you meet at trade shows...

3. Review it every week, sort all leads based on their status: the higher the score, the more recent the last change of status => the higher the priority

4. Take action with the most leads possible (based on their status), obviously starting with the highest priority. Call the evaluators to know how you could help them, send gentle reminders to the one who did not yet send the NDA, keep in touch with interested people...

5. Discard ! When you think there is nothing more to be done with a lead, just discard it... You need to keep your energy for the others.

6. If you need to take a break with a lead (like they say: "ok I am busy now, please contact me in february", or you say "ok, I will send you our next version to be released in one month"), do not forget to add a comments in your funnel, or to set a reminder.

7. Derive metrics from these data. They will help you to track your progress when trying different markets or sales methods. They will also be useful if you try to raise money and want to present the evolution of your company over time...



What could you measure with it ?


More important than the actual figures, you need to track the evolution over time.


1. The number of people entering the funnel.


2. Conversion rates : how many interested people ask an evaluation ? how many evaluators actually buy your product ?

3. Length of your sales cycle : what is the mean time between an expression of interest and a deal made ?

4. Average customer value. How much money do they spend at the end of the funnel ?

Given all these metrics, you will be able to estimate the average value of your sales funnel, and anticipate your future revenues.


What about you ?

Do you have a different sales funnel ?
Do you use it for other purposes ?