Fill the Funnel - Your Market

If you’re looking to increase sales, take a new look at the sales funnel. The funnel concept survives because it’s simple and brilliant. Potential customers flow in at the top of the funnel and the process of qualifying prospects begins. Some leads progress down the funnel and turn into opportunities. Other leads decide they’re not interested and evaporate. The speed of progress depends on the urgency of the buyer’s needs and your team’s selling skills. Some opportunities turn into orders and cause dollars to drip out at the bottom of the funnel.

Do You Serve a Big Enough Market?

Customer needs, geographical reach, and your ability to create awareness all place practical limitations on the size of the market you serve. If you can’t reach customers, they won’t buy from you. Your ability to create awareness combines with the buyer’s willingness to consider you as a supplier. Those two factors set boundaries and limit your reach.

Awareness is critical when selling. Many people may need your offering, but unless they know you exist, they won’t consider buying it from you.

If there aren’t enough potential buyers in the area you reach and serve, you must expand your territory to pour more into the funnel. If there are plenty of local buyers, but too few know you exist, your problem is creating awareness.

Some companies have a tougher problem to solve. There are plenty of potential buyers and loads of them know you exist, but they still aren’t interested in purchasing. Then, the problem could be your value proposition. Simply put, your value proposition states the benefits the customer gets when they pay your price.

Customers believe a price is “fair” when they think rewards justify costs. When too few customers are willing to buy at your price point, you have two options. You can increase the number of benefits offered so they get more for their money. Or, you can reduce the price to fit expectations.

Constructing Your Value Proposition

To construct your value proposition, a good place to start is by writing out the features, advantages and benefits of your offering.

Feature: A specific characteristic of a product or service. This is what the customer gets when they make a purchase.
Advantage: What your product or service does better than the competition. Advantages describe comparative value.
Benefit: What the customer gets from choosing this product or service. This is the "What's in it for me?"

Once you construct your value proposition, conduct this test:
If your customer heard it would they say, "So What?" OR "TELL ME MORE!"

Value

What determines the worth of a product or service? Your answer comes from how your customers answer these questions:

What's in it for me?
What does it cost?
How does your product compare to the competitor's product?

People buy products because of the benefits they deliver. In its most basic form, a value proposition says, "We can do this for you because we're great in this specific way." Value propositions connect a customer's desired benefits to your core competencies. For best selling results, be sure your value proposition appeals to your customers' strongest decision drivers!