The Sales Funnel

Sales 101 = there is the marketplace where you find leads, identify interested prospects, and hopefully convert them in to sales. In this online dating scenario Match.com is the marketplace (with 15+ million users), the faces and profiles you come across are the leads, the prospects are people who initiate or respond to contact with you, and a “sale” is the date. Hell - I suppose a relationship is a loyal customer.

It’s not just the straight-up numbers you need to consider. It’s the conversion rates.

Marketplace to leads:
How many profiles come across my plate? The way Match is setup, five new profiles are sent to you each day. Signed up for 3 months, so that’s 450 leads pushed at me. Not to mention any extra profiles I view…. So to make this a round number and reflect the reality of my online usage, let’s say in 3 months I will come across 1,000 leads. Calculate 15 million by 1,000… that makes this conversion rate far less than 1%.

Leads to prospects:
Here’s the acid test. Am I being forward and winking or emailing? Am I responding to those who give me attention, or am I being critical and stingy? It’s too early to calculate a true conversion, but I would guesstimate out of 1,000 leads, we may convert 5% into prospects. That would be 50 people in 3 months that we communicate with.

Prospects to sales:
If magic happens and 50 interesting prospects fall across my Raggedy lap in the next 3 months, how many will turn in to a date? I would like to set a goal of 10. Ten dates in 3 months.

As would any good sales manager, I will monitor my numbers and conversions rates to see if anything needs tweaking along the way. Here’s to hoping at least one of those 10 dates turns into a loyal customer.