Sales and marketing teams are geared towards success, but it's how they handle failure that will make them rich. What do we do with the prospective customers who don’t proceed? Those who leak from our funnel? The answer is usually “not much”. They are usually dropped like a hot potato.

The “funnel” is one of the most powerful metaphors in B2B sales and marketing. It describes the passage of prospects through a buying decision process that hopefully will (but often does not) result in your successfully selling something to them.

We’re already into the last quarter of 2012. If you’re in a complex sales environment with lengthy decision-making processes, this year’s final revenue number is probably going to depend on how effectively you can close the opportunities that are already visible to you in your funnel. But what about next year? What could and should you be doing today to lay the foundations for a stronger sales funnel in 2013? I’d like to suggest 3 simple, effective steps that you can take right now to ensure that you enter 2013 (and maybe even finish 2012) in great shape.

I'm working with an exciting professional services company that has earned an amazing reputation and a degree of success. The CEO - one of the smartest people you'll ever meet - wants to change that. There is no point having a brilliant brand if it's not translating into the revenue they deserve. So we're helping them to gain the momentum their service deserves.

Many marketers are blissfully ignorant of the harsh realities of business, revenue and profits, making decisions based on instinct whilst the sales team huff and puff about how marketing live in cloud cuckoo land, not the real world of monthly targets.

How often have we heard sales managers complain that they are generating lots of selling opportunities, but the Sales team just doesn’t seem to be able to close them fast enough? 

Marketing is on a mission to gain control of the Funnel – to effectively manage and predict demand, yet today’s research tells a different story. The story exposes prevailing tensions in every area amounting to a serious disconnect between the vision of what Marketing should be doing and what it is doing in reality.

Do you know what your ideal customer looks like and are you doing anything to help them find their way to you when the time comes to buy? John Sweeney and Ceri Jones teach you how to spot, track and engage ideal customers using lead scoring and nurturing programs at DemandCon 2012.

B2B marketers worship the Funnel. They spend their waking hours trying to design, control and influence its ability progress buyers but how many of us actually know the best to way manage it?

Many selling organisations are submitting an increasing number of proposals, in the hope that this will lead to an increased number of sales. But, proposals don’t always close. So, how can you fix a low propose to close ratio?