The document describes Ray Leone's Sales Funnel® process, which is a 3-dimensional, scientifically designed selling system. It focuses on engaging customers before they fully understand their needs through deficit questions that uncover latent pain. The process emphasizes defining problems accurately rather than just providing solutions. It has helped companies increase their closing averages dramatically, from 14% to over 70% in one case. The document advocates training salespeople in this process rather than intuition-based selling approaches.

1. The Sales Funnel®
by
Ray Leone

2. You can take it easy when you become
a Sales Funnel® Salesmaster
2

3. History

4. Good News
I have no talent

5. Skill
Not Talent
5

6. Ray Leone’s Sales Funnel®
Matching modalities, spatial
selling, monetizing, the WITY,
three-level questions, land mines,
deficit questions, latent pain,
buyers grids, DISC, resonating &
position statements are what Sales
Funnel selling is all about

7. .It is a 3 dimensional,
scientifically designed
process that is not
dependent on
guesswork or
intuition

8. It is a system that is
teachable, measures skills,
allows the effectiveness of
the presentation to be
monitored as it is given, and
dramatically increases
closing averages.

9. Compass Case Study
Closing average 14%
to 60% first year.
Currently closing
average is 71%.

10. Retain 97%
Managed volume
from $800,000
to
$13 Billion

11. Top Down Commitment
• They have not changed
process for 17 years.
• Aware – Understanding
• Competence - Mastery

12. How do we do it?
• Follow the process
• Recruit & retain winners
• Increase account
retention
• Sell achievable results

13. Recruit
TriMetrix Benchmark
When in doubt,
don’t hire.

14. Recruiting Top
Talent
We hire great attitudes
and teach them the
skills they need
Herb Kelleher –Southwest Air

15. Great salespeople are
scarce and getting
scarcer
Teaching Sales HBR
We are filling that need

16. SAP Study
It cost $678,000
every time we
lose a top
salesperson

17. Recent article from
Harvard Business
Review discusses
techniques we
developed years ago as
new 17

18. Solution Selling
is
Commodity
Selling

19. Solution vs Insight Selling
• Solution
• What need is customer
seeking to address?
• Insight
What unrecognized need
does the customer

20. Sales Funnel®
We have always done
that.
It is called Deficit
Questions that uncover
latent pain

21. Learning is Fun
Please stand up

22. Deficit Questions
• What is your knowledge asset to
book value ratio?
• How does your engagement
index compare to the global
average?
• How accurate is your success
probability formula at predicting

23. • How many of your contracts are
based on a single relationship?
• What benchmarking process are
you using to assure that new
hires will perform at a high level?
• Can your sales team deliver the
agreed upon responses for the 5
major objections?

24. We do not puke!!!
• Solutions to problems are
easy. The real skill is in
accurately defining the
problem.
• We differentiate ourselves by
providing a better solution to
a more well defined problem.

25. Solution vs Insight Selling
Solution
Engage after a customer has
identified a problem.
Insight
Engage before the customer
has identified a problem

26. Orgs need to fundamentally
change how they teach
sales – Corporate Executive Board
•You are ahead of
the competition if
trained on SF

27. Reps must engage
customers well before
customers fully
understand their own
needs. To win, you’ve got
to get ahead of the RFP.
RFP
27

28. Sales Funnel®
Requires
engagement
pre-RFP

29. • Customers no longer need a
salesperson to learn about a
company’s offering or to
place an order. Sales now is
more about helping
customers define the problem
they are trying to solve and
assemble a complete 29

30. Chally Group discovered
that 39% of B2B buyers
select a vendor according
to the skills of the
salesperson rather than
price, quality, or service.
30

31. A recent CEP study of more
than 1,400 B2B customers
found that they completed
nearly 60% of a typical
purchasing decision before
even having a conversation
with a supplier. 31

32. Traditional reps are at a
distinct disadvantage in this
environment, a select group of
high performers are
flourishing. These superior
reps have abandoned much of
the conventional wisdom
taught in sales organizations.
32

33. They seek out a different
set of stakeholders,
preferring problem owners.
Coach those problem owners
on how to buy, instead of
following the company’s
purchasing process
33

34. These sales professionals sell
differently. This means that boosting
the performance of average
salespeople isn’t a matter of
improving how they currently sell; it
involves changing how they sell. To
accomplish this, organizations need to
fundamentally rethink the training
and support provided to their reps.

35. Deal Analysis
• Fishbone timeline
• Buyers Grid/WITY
• Must win issue/Triggering event
• CBI/Dollarized impact
• Next step
• Murder Board
35

36. Success Formula
• Identify CBI – Critical
business issue
• Link your solution to the
impact on the CBI
• Monetize the value of that
solution 36

37. Success is no accident
• Commit to the process
• Practice
• The process will not
abandon you.

38. Have your best
year ever.
Thank you