UnSelling: The New Customer Experience

Chapter 3Funnel Vision

Many of us in sales and marketing came up learning the traditional sales funnel. This was how we were supposed to think about and treat other humans—as they moved, or were converted, from hot leads and prospects to customers.

That was before social media shifted more information into the hands of our market and a negative review could spread around the world in a matter of hours.

The traditional funnel focused on sales and conversions. Once customers moved through the funnel, they were off the radar.

Today, 60 percent of all purchase decisions are made before customers enter your funnel. Consumers come to you prepared and educated, with trusted referrals in hand before they ever hear your sales pitch. Today, we can't have funnel vision. We need to look past the funnel and into what I call the sales cloud. With 74 percent of consumers relying on social networks to guide purchase decisions,¹ it's just too big to ignore.

Here we see the sales cloud. It's made up of all the ways customers hear about your brand: blogs, online reviews, trusted referrals, social media sites, your website. These are where your market may or may not be hearing about you—for better or for worse. This is where most of the purchasing decisions are made. In fact, once someone is in your ...