In today’s episode of the ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction, talks with guest, Liz Heiman, the CEO and Chief Sales Strategist for ‘Regarding Sales’. Liz primarily helps B2B companies that are trying to grow the sales infrastructure and drive revenue. In today’s episode they discuss tips and best practices to master your sales funnel.

Episode Highlights

• 02:00 – Liz says her dad wrote a book called ‘Strategic Selling’ hence she grew up in the sales business environment, so it’s a natural thing for her.
• 08:08 – Liz’s first job as the Head of Department was to go to Australia, meet two Australian men, and convince them that they should be selling conceptual selling, not just strategic selling.
• 10:30 – Liz talks about how she got her next big deal while meeting with the VP of Coca-Cola, Japan. How her 15-minute conversation turned into a 45-minute conversation.
• 15:05 – Liz states that typically if you ask people, what's their priority, almost everybody says that it is closing business. 
• 17:10 – If you look at your funnel, and you know what your ratios are, how much you qualify out, etc. then you can prioritize.
• 19:20 – Liz tells her clients to put their prospecting time as an appointment that's busy in their calendar because everybody will schedule over it.
• 21:15 - It's as important to qualify out as it is to qualify in, mentions Liz.
• 23:25 - If it's not an ideal customer, there's got to be a good reason for it to stay in Liz’s file/list.
• 27:30 - No one person decides on a multimillion-dollar deal just doesn't happen, it impacts too many parts of the organization.
• 29:35 – There's a difference between asking tough questions and beating people up, we're asking tough questions because we're looking for solutions, says Liz.
• 32:56 - The reason the deals are falling out, or pushing back is that nobody did the work up in qualifying and cultivated when they were supposed to be doing.
• 35:30 - When you are looking at the funnel, you need to be able to make those decisions with leadership or by yourself about what makes sense and what doesn't, says Liz.
• 41:40 - If we want to have the freedom to be creative, we need to put the pieces in place that help us make sure that critical work gets done.
• 43:20 - So I hit my numbers consistently and have the life I want because I've got the revenue coming in to support it right?
• 46:20 – Liz thinks process supports the creativity, takes the stress away, and it makes selling a lot nicer.

Three Key Points

1. When we create a funnel, or a sales process, which is the step of the funnel, the very thing is to think about what is a qualified lead versus a non-qualified lead. The first thing is to look at the process of qualifying not just in that stage of qualifying but throughout the entire funnel so that you can prioritize in and prioritize out those leads that are not helpful. So by understanding our funnel, we can prioritize our work, make sure that we get the stuff at the top of the funnel that we do the work to qualify.
2. We want to make sure that the customers share the values that we have as a company. If they're not talking the same language, if the product isn't a good fit, if it's going to require a tremendous amount of change in their organization that they're not going to be able to do then maybe they're not your ideal customer. Hence, you should qualify them out and move on. If they're interested then tell them what the qualifications are for them to be able to work with you successfully.
3. There are two kinds of funnel reviews, one is when we