In your community, what is the Economic Development strategy to help existing, local businesses sell more?
All businesses must sell.
All businesses must sell to stay in business.
All businesses must sell to pay the bills.
All businesses must sell to earn revenues.
All businesses must sell to make a profit.
Until businesses sell more, they will not create more jobs.
A common planning tool in the sales process is the Sales Funnel. It is a series of steps that lead to the customer purchasing the product. Each step in the funnel has a probability of success or failure. A customer can continue to the next step in your funnel, or walk away and hop into someone else’s funnel, or make no purchase at all. Some prospects will walk away after each step. The Sales Funnel narrows, with fewer prospects at each subsequent step as the end of the sales process is approached.
Success in selling is a matter of persistence and numbers. The wider the funnel, with more prospects going into the opening, the more actual sales that will come out of the end. Below is an example visualization (your vision may vary) of The Sales Funnel.
SALES FUNNEL STEP ………………………….. ………………..PROSPECTS
Sales Prospects __________________________________ 100
Sales Leads ____________________________________ 50
Proposals ___________________________________ 25
Price Quotations____________________________ 10
Negotiations _____________________________ 5
Customer Orders & Product delivery_______ 2-3
For a business, the ultimate goal of The Sales Funnel is a happy, returning customer who will yield revenues and profits. A goal of Economic Development is the creation of jobs. When businesses sell enough of their goods and services to create more jobs, The Sales Funnel becomes The Jobs Funnel.
Below is an example visualization (your vision may vary) of The Jobs Funnel creating more jobs from more sales.
JOBS FUNNEL STEP ……………………………………………………..PROSPECTS
More Sales Prospects ______________________________ 150
More Sales Leads ________________________________ 75
More Proposals ________________________________ 35
More Price Quotations_________________________ 20
More Negotiations __________________________ 10
More Customer Orders & Product Delivery____ 4-6
More Revenues & Profits
More Jobs
The Jobs Funnel is best suited to helping existing, local businesses grow enough to create more jobs in their community. Most communities can do little to help their manufacturers grow. This is because the majority of manufactured products are shipped & sold to customers outside of the community or outside of the state they are actually manufactured in. The primary, target Prospects of The Jobs Funnel are local customers or local shoppers.
The Sales Funnel represents what businesses must do: sell.
The Jobs Funnel represents what businesses must do to create more jobs: sell more.
