My reply to a LinkedIN question was too long for LinkedINs highly advanced tech to support - hence this post »>
🔗 This was the question.
I’ve no idea if this is a generic funnel or one you’re actually using, but let’s start with the fundamental issue: linear funnels aren’t real. Reality is messier. The jump from ‘Appointment Booked’ to ‘Work Completed’ in a single step tells me this is almost certainly generic - which isn’t a criticism of the diagram itself, just a reality check on what it can actually model.
Here’s what concerns me: there’s as much (more>) not asked as asked. You can’t sensibly model a funnel in isolation. Not all SMEs are equal, for starters. Industry matters. Geography matters. Market dynamics matter. Deal size expectations matter … what matters is a long list.
Some will argue that ‘funnels are dead - long live the flywheel’. I’m not in that camp - BUT I am in the camp that you should at least work out intentionally how a flywheel fits in or around your funnel model. They’re not mutually exclusive.
The graphic opens with ‘Lead Comes In’. The first SME question should be how did that lead get there in the first place? That informs everything downstream. You also need to be explicit about qualification - not all ‘leads’ are ‘leads’.
The flow itself is too linear. There are no loops, no decision rules, no explicit criteria for what happens when someone doesn’t follow the ‘happy path’. Reality has friction, objections, false starts, and reversals. In fact the linearity of the model suggests to me that the business is confusing the ‘buyer journey’ of the customer with the ‘sales journey’ of the business.
Most critically, it also seems to assume a one-time transaction. That’s rarely a business model worth optimising for. Where do repeat business, churn, extension sales, retention, cross-sell, and upsell live in your model? If you’re thinking subscriptions or ongoing relationships, the funnel shape changes entirely.
Finally - where’s the data? Today’s numbers and tomorrow’s requirements. If you don’t need much data to manage this funnel, that raises a question about why you’re automating it at all. But if you do need data - which you should - then measurement becomes the whole game. You can’t manage what you don’t measure.
And why do I write all this?
Because for me - until you can bottom out all of this - and a whole lot more - there is no point in looking for the ‘ideal’ technology. As I always say ….
