How many times have you made a decision that seemed to make sense at the time, but in retrospect, turned out to be less than optimal? Many times, it is not your fault.  Leaders become trapped in a conflicting world. They get mountains of input from everywhere; news events, markets, customers, vendors, and even everyone inside the organization. Sometimes the information is incomplete. Sometimes it is not accurate. Sometimes it is complicated and difficult to understand. Sometimes it conflicts with other information. It is the leader’s job to sift through all this stuff and determine the direction of the organization. Small wonder…

  Funnel cakes, funnel clouds, sales funnels, there are funnels all around us… You’ve probably been hearing this term used a lot lately, along with a sales pipeline. There are many confusing definitions surrounding this area. A sales funnel and a sales pipeline are really two things describing one thing: So let’s land the plane here and make it simple.  A funnel in real life is a mechanism consisting of a wide open top with an open narrow open bottom. It is a concentrating device that takes in a lot at the wide top, but only allows a small amount to come out at…

(The rest if you can also read it if you’d like…) So you think you have this sales and marketing stuff figured out? Allow me to challenge that assumption. Here are some things to think about: Customer Attraction: Why would they want to talk to you in the first place? How well is your name recognized? Who else have you helped? What mannerisms matter? Do your marketing materials really speak to their biggest problems/threats? Do you have a clear target market? Geography Niche Specific problems you can solve Market Size (How many prospects are there?) Company Size (How big do they need to be to afford you?) How do you differentiate your features/benefits? How well…