The motors of the entire business world are running on the fuel of a funnel. No, not the actual funnel, but the concept of the funnel. It has taken over almost all the fields of entrepreneurship after its successful implementation in the sales industry. Initiating from the sales people to the technocrats, the recent followers of the funnel model, everybody tends to focus on the wider end of the funnel which includes customer building, business development conversation, or any sheeny prospects who propitiously show the horizon of success.
However, stressing the fact that you engaged, let’s say with 12 business prospects, but failing in getting them through the end of the funnel is a complete waste of time, resources, and energy. Instead, let’s say you kept your left end of the funnel a little narrow and you have just got 4 meetings where you strike with much more enthusiasm and confidence than you did with the earlier instance, there is a probability you may be able to get at least 3 out of them through the end of the funnel. This is what today’s smart entrepreneurs are executing- focusing on the right end of the funnel.
The bottom of the funnel is the one true judge
You must have witnessed the pseudo-busy people, the ones who have innumerable meetings but acquire zero clients at the end. We call them pseudo-busy because their strenuous efforts are not productive. The cause of their unproductivity is their concentration on the wrong end. They try to go after the far-fetched light in the same way the moths do. Moths die of heat in pursuing the shiny light. Here, the unrealistic business goals represent the light and you are the moth that has set that impractical milestone.
The most practical way to make your bottom end of the tunnel more effective and strong is to think about it from the very beginning. Weigh your prospects on different scales such as their requirements, budget, standard, credibility, etc. before you invest the most precious thing, your time in them. Analyze their behavior, market value, and other important things to determine whether they will come through the end of the funnel. The key entrepreneurs give credit of their success to their approach of implementing the funnel model. If you are yet to give importance to the end of the funnel, know why you should do:
A stitch in time saves nine
To avoid overworking later, one should sort out their problems in time, or rather avoid the problem itself. Viewing it from the business perspective, acquiring prospects is the first step of the business development model. For an instance, you have acquired a prospect and he has put forth his requirements, which are unreal and impractical for his business, as well as yours. But, instead of informing him, you try to bend according to him in fear of losing that client. This will create an ugly scenario of customer dissatisfaction and your waste of time. If you would have made that stitch in time and warned him of his missteps, you could have had that client through the end of the funnel.
If you chase two rabbits, both will escape
The most practical reason for entrepreneurs choosing the bottom end of the funnel as their mapping technique is their bad experiences with the so-called probable prospects. No organization is big enough to satisfy all the probable prospects at the same time with the same effectiveness. For an instance, you have had a successful meeting with three clients and their requirements are different in size as well as content. One out of them has a wider requirement which surpasses the business value of the cumulative of the other two. But your focus being just on the top of the funnel, you fail to see the future, the end of the funnel. You try to chase all three rabbits at the same time, which affects your quality and you fail to grab the most important client’s attention. To balance that, you compromise the other client’s work. In the end, there is a possibility that all three rabbits will escape. Know your prospects and choose them wisely.
These are the two most important points of why any business owner should focus on the bottom of the funnel rather than the top of it. To kiss the peaks of success, map your prospects with the probability of them getting through the end of the funnel. There is nothing that can stop you from being a successful entrepreneur if you do so.