What is sales funnel?
A standard B2B SaaS funnel runs: Visitor → Lead → MQL → SQL → Opportunity → Closed-Won. Healthy funnels have steady conversion rates between stages — a "kink" at any stage signals a process problem. For example, a high MQL→SQL drop suggests bad targeting; a high Opportunity→Closed-Won drop suggests pricing or competitor issues. Modern sales orgs replace the linear funnel model with a bowtie (the half after closed-won — onboarding, expansion, renewal — is just as important as the pre-sales half).
Examples
- →Funnel example: 10,000 visitors → 800 leads → 200 MQLs → 50 SQLs → 12 opps → 3 closed-won
- →Kink diagnosis: 200 MQL → 30 SQL = 15% rate (industry average 25%) — SDR retraining needed
- →Bowtie: 100 closed-won → 90 onboarded successfully → 85 renewed → 30 expanded to bigger plan