Good Read: Drake Morton
 Are You Optimizing the Top and Bottom of the Sales Funnel?
Maria Pergoline
In today’s B2B marketplace, revenue cycle management is all about the sales funnel. But if yours is less than streamlined, you may be leaking more leads than you convert. An effective funnel operating with sales and marketing alignment can create the magical mix of leads and effectively convert them to sales. However, one that misses that collaborative equation can cost dollars, time and effort with less than stellar ROI.
Understanding that the contemporary buyer drives today’s sales cycle is the beginning of the process of building the optimal revenue cycle. To be sure you have created the ideal model for your company, check out the three funnel levels and who should drive traffic in each, when optimizing the top and bottom of your sales funnel:
1. Marketing controls the top. To start the process, marketing needs to generate the best - qualified sales lead. You can load the top end with dozens of prospects, but if you haven’t defined your ideal lead, you’ll lose them faster than you gain them. Create your specific lead definition by:
- Consulting with sales to understand what they consider sales-worthy leads
- Creating a collaborative agreement with sales to determine who follows up on leads, how they are engaged and how fast the process needs to be
- Realizing better leads are worth more than many leads
- Using marketing automation to help measure the effectiveness of your lead qualification with constant and consistent analysis