Find the leak in the funnel

The five stages and how to read a rate

A prospecting funnel reads top to bottom: contacts attempted, conversations held, meetings attended, proposals sent, customers signed. Each stage divided by the previous one gives a conversion rate: 60 meetings out of 400 conversations is 15%. The overall rate, from first contact to customer, is the product of every intermediate rate.

A rate is never judged alone. It is compared with your own history, with the rest of the team, and with what the stage allows: a close rate is read over a quarter, a conversation rate over a week.

Volume leak, rate leak

Two readings of the same column of numbers. The volume leak is the stage where you lose the most units: often right at the top, between contacts and conversations, because that is where the numbers are big. The rate leak is the stage with the lowest percentage: that is where one point gained changes the final result the most.

The two do not always point to the same stage, and that is the whole point of the exercise. One point gained at a 20% stage lifts the result by 5%; one point at a 60% stage lifts it by under 2%. The priority lever is almost always where the rate is low and the volume still meaningful.

Go further

• Sales funnel calculator Your volumes, your rates, the leak and the levers, computed for you.
• How many calls does your target take? The reverse path: start from the target and work back to the calls.