How to Create a Powerful Sales Funnel for Your Wholesale Business

Is your sales process set in stone, or are you just winging it, living day by day? After all, you don’t have a business without sales, only a very expensive hobby.

What propels businesses forward is a repeatable sales process reinforced by sales funnels. A successful sales funnel gives you a constant stream of new customers who need your product. A neglected funnel, on the other hand, leaks customers left and right.

By neglecting your sales funnels, you’re leaving an awful lot of money on the table. Successful businesses pay top dollar for high-value funnels for their ROI. Just think: how nice would it be to attract pre-qualified leads instead of spending hours cold calling to get one “maybe”?

If you want to take control of your B2B sales process, this article is our crash course in sales funnels. Here you’ll learn what they are, why they’re essential for every business, and a few proven examples to get you started.

What is a sales funnel?

The term “sales funnel” describes the journey people follow from being unaware of your brand to becoming customers. It’s called a funnel because of its shape and function.

A sales funnel starts wide at the top to capture as many people as possible within a target niche. It then sifts people out by asking specific questions or introducing content relevant only to your ideal customers. This way, it allows you to pre-qualify your leads without wasting time on those who aren’t interested or aren’t a good fit for your business.

For instance, let’s say you’re selling winter apparel. The top of the funnel would start with everyone looking for winter clothes and accessories. The middle of the funnel would include information like pricing, type of clothing, and demographics. After all, a man looking for snow boots and another looking for a new coat aren’t looking for the same things. Your winter clothing funnel should do its best to help them find what they’re looking for. Ideally, they reach the end, wanting to buy what you offer.

The power of sales funnels lies in how effective they are at sorting your potential customers and convincing them to buy a specific product. There’s no need to aggressively sell to someone who doesn’t know what your product does (or worse, doesn’t even need it).

At the same time, effective sales funnels save you time. For example, if someone has purchased something from you in the past, you don’t have to spend as much time selling to them: they already know what they want and trust your brand.

By doing this, sales funnels are vital to generating predictable and consistent business growth. But, of course, that’s if you keep connecting customers with solutions they’re eager to buy.

Why is a sales funnel important for business?

If you’re already making money, you probably have a few sales funnels that work and some that aren’t fully formed yet. Even if you scramble to reach new customers by cold calling, that’s still a funnel. A common pitfall is businesses relying on random chance to close a sale. So, thoughts like “Maybe this next random person I’m calling will be the person to say yes” do not reflect the most productive or savvy B2B sales strategies.

Understanding sales funnels and their metrics takes out the guesswork: you can use this information to analyze where potential customers drop out of the sales journey and optimize your process.

In a sense, you can say goodbye to relying on pure luck to sell your products or services. Instead, you can actively control your sales process when you build sales funnels and track their performance. In turn, this allows you to home in on what’s working and eliminate what isn’t. Even better, a successful funnel hones itself; it increases sales efficiency, drives costs down, and saves you from unnecessary stress.

How to build a sales funnel that works

In the words of leadership author Rory Vaden, “Funnels aren’t easy to build but they are simple to build. And you only have to build one successful one to be able to change your life.”

Funnels can be as straightforward or intricate as you wish, but their fundamentals are always the same. Consider these steps when formulating or adjusting your own sales funnels:

• Determine who your ideal customers are, those who will benefit most from your products, and be most excited to buy them. Also, these customers can potentially build trust and loyalty with your brand.
• Identify where you can reach these customers to get them interested in your solution. Advertising in places your target audience is absent is like buying a billboard on a desert island.
• Understand their main pain points and position your product as the ultimate solution to their problem. Remember to talk to them so they can connect with you and pique their interest in your offering.
• Build their excitement and work toward convincing them that your product is the perfect solution for their needs.

Importantly, pay attention to each step in your funnel while measuring performance. This way, you can refine the process later, making your sales funnel much more efficient.

Wholesale sales funnel examples

To showcase how a typical sales funnel works, we present a few examples specific to different wholesale businesses with various models below.

Even if you can’t  find your business in the examples listed below, you can still tweak these funnels to what fits your business best. Remember the core principle of supporting potential customers to find what they want in your store.

All the following examples work in the same way: at the top, you need to create traction for your business so that people get to know you. In the middle, you show prospects what they can get when they buy from your wholesale business. Finally, at the bottom, prospects are convinced you’re  the perfect solution for their problems and are ready to purchase from you, and you want to convert them into recurring customers.

Medical supplies and hospital equipment

Medical equipment supplier with a strong B2B eCommerce presence at the national level.

• Top: Cold calling/email campaign targeting different hospitals, clinics, and professionals, participation in events or expos where decision-makers are present (hospital admins, doctors, and even insurance executives).
• Middle: Discussion regarding the quality of equipment, recurring order bonuses, and keeping costs low for hospitals.
• Bottom: Fast transaction process, informative UI, incentives for recurring bulk purchases.

Food and restaurant supplies

Food & restaurant supply store with B2B eCommerce presence at the state/province level.

• Top: Social media marketing focused on local restaurants, leveraged on places like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
• Middle: Discussion of quality, supporting local (especially with farm-to-table), low supply chain cost, and fresher ingredients/better equipment.
• Bottom: Fast transaction process on eCommerce site that makes it easy to buy and order immediately, further reinforced with coupons, discounts, or return customer perks.

Workwear, tools, and safety equipment

Workwear and tools supply company with minimal B2B eCommerce presence at the local level.

• Top: Word-of-mouth networking and referrals, participation in trade shows and other local organizations and events, and connections from previous work within the industry.
• Mid: Discussion of deals, quality of equipment and supplies, low supply chain cost due to local transportation.
• Bottom: Direction to either eCommerce site (for one-off sales) or contact information with a sales rep to finalize sales contract (recurring sales month-over-month).

What do you do when your sales funnel isn’t performing?

Rome wasn’t built in a day: the beauty of having a well-defined sales funnel is that you can see what works well and what needs to be tweaked. But, especially if you’re new to funnels, you’ll most likely make mistakes in the first ones you build. That’s not the end of the world, though: note what isn’t working and test new ideas. For example:

• Is the top of your funnel not capturing enough people or only catching the attention of the wrong leads? As Aaliyah once said: “Dust yourself off and try again” until you make it work.
• Is the bottom of the funnel failing to close prospects who should be buying your solution? Maybe your messaging is a bit off, or your value proposition needs to be more precise for potential customers.

Bottom line: Testing and optimization are the cornerstones of a successful sales funnel. The more you improve your funnel, the more you’ll understand how people go from strangers to buyers.

And, of course, having the right tools will help you build your sales funnel faster and more effectively. With B2B Wave, you can create a sales funnel that works on autopilot to generate a constant influx of new customers. Sign up for a free demo today to harness the power of our integrations and maximize your results.