Statistically, your greatest sales funnel leakage happens at initial point of contact the buyer makes with you or your business. Did you know that? And if you are a business owner, is this the case with you?
You may lose some sales at close but you lose significantly more at the top of your sales funnel. This is where sales funnel leakage becomes particularly expensive, because many of the people you lose never get far enough into the process for you to know you lost them.
This top could be an article like this I am writing where I do not tell you what I am writing about from go, and instead meander like I am building suspense — like it’s a thriller novel I am writing. If I did, you would likely move on elsewhere.
And that, in a nutshell, is how sales funnel leaks happen.
Your first point of contact is part of your sales process
The top of the funnel in professional selling is your email contact, typically info@…You would be amazed how many emails go to die in the inbox of info@… or are responded to a week, even months later—or never.
Same thing your social media accounts and, for e-commerce businesses, your online sales page not set up to offer a simple, local mobile money payment option. “Now what’s this PayPal thing? How do they not have MPESA. Are they serious? Argh! Moving on…”
You have just created sales funnel leakage without saying a word to the customer.
By the way, friction at payment is where you will lose 80% of your buyers. And here’s the uncomfortable bit: the customer won’t send you a memo explaining why they left. They will simply leave.
Face-to-face selling has its own leaks
For face-to-face selling leakage is how you simply show up. “He wasn’t confidence” ,“He was dishevelled”, “I struggled to understand her” and such first impressions that repel.
If you offer a point of contact, man it
If you offer a point of contact, man it. Physically or digitally. And today, AI offers an opportunity which, before, only an auto-responder was your option. Some AI tools filter (qualify and disqualify) your potential buyers in almost human like fashion. You feel like you are talking to a person and, in fact, save for the immediacy in response— a plus— you may not even know it’s a machine you are ‘talking’ to.
It’s truly remarkable how fast AI is moving. Used properly, it can help reduce sales funnel leakage.
Sales funnel leakage: Audit the point of contact
If you are a business owner or sales manager and have someone manning the point of contact, auditing the potential leads coming in is not a nice-to-have, but a must-do. Some have the info@…mirrored on their computer, others, record and review select conversations. Still others expect daily reports of contacts made, as per statements for calls, and actions taken.
And then there’s a major telco that has everyone from the CEO and all levels down to middle management, do a day and night shift at the contact centre every month. Not only does this demonstrate the importance of stemming sales funnel leakage, it also sends a clear message to the people manning that frontline: What you do matters. And someone at the top is paying attention.
Don’t just audit people. Audit the process.
The objective is not to audit the person but the process. The objective to continually work on eliminating friction and therefore leakage, from the initial engagement. Friction could be caused by the person responsible overwhelmed (or indifferent-sales is not my job), there are no defined response time or there are unnecessary layers— every enquiry has to pass through three people before somebody can answer it.
Or perhaps nobody actually knows who owns the lead (enquiry). This last one is particularly dangerous. When everybody is responsible, nobody is responsible.
For example, this response from info@…, even when sent immediately with customercare@… copied, in response to a query, looks responsive but is useless. There is no ownership—and this is proven when no follow-through happens.
Hi Team,
Kindly assist the Customer.
Kind Regards,
Corporate Affairs & Liaison Department
Even if there’s genuine interest in helping the customer, everyone assumes someone else will take it up —and a potential sale is lost. And you may never even know you lost the sale.
That is the nasty thing about sales funnel leakage at the top of the funnel. You don’t see what you lose. A sale that never enters your pipeline doesn’t show up as a lost sale. It simply disappears.
This is why businesses obsessing over closing techniques can sometimes be looking through the wrong end of the telescope.
You can spend thousands training your salespeople to overcome objections, negotiate better and close harder. But if your prospective customer cannot get hold of you in the first place, you are polishing the tap while the water is leaking through the pipe.
Sales funnel leakage: Test your own business
So, clandestinely test your own business for any sales funnel leakage. Send an enquiry to your website. Call your published number. Send an email to info@…Message your social media account. Try to buy something online. Ask a question. Then sit back and watch what happens.
How long before someone responds? Does the person know what to do with your enquiry? Are you asked the right questions? Does the interaction make you want to continue? And, most importantly, is it easy to buy?
You may discover that your biggest sales problem isn’t your salespeople. It is the hole in the bucket before the salesperson even gets the chance to sell.
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