www.market-partners.com
I
Introduction to Vortex Selling
by
Martyn Lewis
Market-Partners Inc.
H
ave you ever noticed how water moves in a whirlpool? A leaf dropped at the
edge of a whirlpool seems to endlessly swirl around. If, however, the leaf is
pushed into the center of the whirlpool there is a vortex where the water and the
leaf accelerate directly down.
After years of research we have found that, all too often, sales opportunities
move about the sales funnel similar to the way leaves swirl in a whirlpool. There
are those sales opportunities that seem to be in the endless swirl. They
consume time, resources and attention; but do not move positively through the
sales cycle to a successful close. There are also those sales opportunities that,
by their very nature, seem to be dropped in the center of the funnel and move
directly and effectively through the sales cycle. And, we’ve also found that - just
as a child with a stick can push the leaf out of the swirl and into the center there are reliable methods for moving a significant number of those swirl
opportunities into the vortex.
I
t was Viktor Schauberger, an Austrian forester, who first noted and theorized about
the motion of water in a whirlpool. Suffice it to say, without getting too far off topic and into
hydrodynamic theory, water at the center of a whirlpool is sucked down with far greater
energy than water swirling around the perimeter. The center, and its associated acceleration,
is today known as the vortex.
Research Findings
F
or some years now we have been studying how sales opportunities move through the steps
of the sales process or, indeed, down through the layers of the traditional sales funnel. Our
practice is heavily focused on measuring and managing these key metrics. Indicators such as
the total elapsed time for each of the steps in the sales process are key to understanding how
to increase sales effectiveness. Through this work we have noticed that, contrary to popular
Copyright © 2003 Market-Partners Inc.
Page 1
www.market-partners.com
belief, most sales opportunities do not flow in a linear fashion through the sales process or, if
you like, down the sales funnel. In fact, most opportunities take a very circuitous route
through the funnel.
Let’s consider a very simple sales process with the following steps:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Lead Identification
Initial Qualification
Discovery
Strategy
Presentation/Proposal
Negotiation
Close
Delivery
I recently witnessed a situation where a large sales opportunity was supposedly at step 5 of
the sales process above. A proposal was submitted to the prospect and the close date was
forecasted to occur shortly thereafter.
In later discussion, when the business did not close, it was discovered that the individuals,
with whom the company had been dealing, did not have the budget or even the authority to
invest in the proposed solution. In this case, the “prospect” was merely engaged in a factfinding process – not a purchase process. The sales representative clearly had failed to
adequately complete steps 2, 3 and 4 and had jumped to step 5. Considerable resource was
wasted on producing an unnecessary proposal and the company’s forecast was overstated.
For the embarrassed sales rep, it was back to step 3 with a new set of players.
This is not an isolated or unique example. Often I’ve seen sales individuals who believe they
are in step 6 (Negotiation) only to discover that they are not talking to the decision maker. In
extreme cases I have even seen step 8 (Delivery) occur before steps 6 and 7 (Negotiation and
Close). Just like playing a board game – it’s back to step 3!
After mapping the course of various opportunities through the sales process, we should then
add the dimension of time. When we start to look at how long each of these various steps
takes, we see some interesting patterns. With a large number of sales opportunities we see a
very wide dispersion of elapsed time for each of the respective steps in our sales process. For
example, we will see that some sales opportunities pass through the Discovery step in a
matter of a few days, others take a few weeks, and still others take many months. But the
successful sales opportunities, i.e. those that ultimately go on to the Close step, invariably are
Copyright © 2003 Market-Partners Inc.
Page 2
www.market-partners.com
somewhere in the middle of the time scale at each step while those opportunities that
progressed through any step in the sales process unusually quickly - or slowly - do not move
on to a successful close. And, those that skip steps tend to be the ones that are going to end
up going back through these steps at a later date.
After studying this “flow” of sales opportunities through the sales process we realized that
the notion of the sales funnel, with all the sales opportunities “falling” though it at an equal
rate, is very flawed. And, of course, this takes us back to Viktor Schauberger and his
whirlpool. The whirlpool, with its associated swirling and vortex is, we believe, a far better
metaphor for the progression of sales opportunities than the funnel.
What are the Causes of the Swirl in the Sales Process?
There are several causes for this swirl in the sales process. They can be summarized into
the following general categories.
1. Lack of a Consistent Definition for Each Step of the Sales Process
Using the simple sales process described above, as an example, what exactly constitutes
step 3: Discovery? Is it discovering where the prospect is located and the correct spelling
of their name? Or is it conducting a six-month comprehensive study of their industry,
their competitors, the organization, history, needs, wants, and desires? Of course, the
optimal answer likely falls between these two extremes but, in most organizations, it
lacks the necessary definition to make it useful to the sales person in the field.
2. Lack of Interlock between the Selling and the Purchasing Processes
As a sales manager one of my own favorite tests in a sales forecasting meeting was to ask
a sales professional, forecasting to close business within a short period of time, if the
prospect was preparing to make the dollar investment required. Hypothetically, if I called
the prospect, would they be at all surprised that they were about to commit to this
purchase? All too often we see that the sales process is out of alignment with the
purchase process. Usually it is the sales process that is significantly ahead of the purchase
process - rarely the other way around. Perhaps this is why so many organizations fall
short of forecasted revenue numbers and few are ever surprised with a significant
surplus!
3. The Myth of Some Selling Activity being Better than Less Sales Activity
Although I am a great believer in managing selling activity, there is a very significant
tendency in organizations to set up an environment where goodness is measured simply
by the quantity of sales activity. In these situations it is clearly better to be working on
five proposals than two, it is better to have 35 leads to follow-up on than 12. This is a
highly destructive myth.
Copyright © 2003 Market-Partners Inc.
Page 3
www.market-partners.com
In this environment we are encouraging our sales force to work on many different sales
opportunities. Rather than focusing attention and resources on a few higher probability
situations, we add other opportunities for the sake of trying to make the numbers or to
look busy. Of course, all we are doing is actually decreasing the chance of winning any
business.
4. The Desire to “Fill the Funnel”
Finally, and in a similar vein to the point above, sales management often put pressure on
their sales teams to “fill the funnel” and to show positive progress. Not that positive
progress is a bad thing, but often such progress is not actually positive, it just gives the
illusion of such. In these situations we “dash to the demo” and we want to get a proposal
out as soon as possible. Surely, once we have a proposal in front of the prospect, we must
be that much closer to closing the business? In fact, this is another selling myth.
The Cost of the Swirl
T
his entire swirl - that is, sales opportunities that are in the sales funnel but are not
progressing positively through the sales process - gives rise to what we call the “fat funnel”
syndrome. The classic shape of the sales funnel is similar to a cone, representing that an
organization has multiple opportunities at the lead step, with fewer and fewer opportunities at
each of the successive steps of the process. The fat funnel syndrome is when this drop-off
from step to step in the sales process is not as sharp as you would expect. Most of the leads
stay in the funnel without being qualified out. An example is where most of an organization’s
prospects receive a proposal, regardless of the status of their internal purchase process.
Instead of winning, say, three out of every five proposals, only some one-in-seven proposals
result in an order in many of these organizations.
A good friend of mine likens the sales process to the manufacturing process and calls this
situation “adding value to waste”. What a great expression! Organizations that have little or
no budget, or that already have a favored supplier, receive a selling organization’s continual
investment of time and resources, only to result in nothing. Indeed, we are adding value to
waste.
If we calculate the cost of our sales resources, and the lost opportunity time, we can show
that this swirl is costing the average organization a significant amount of time and money.
Our own sales process simulations show that sales effectiveness, as defined as revenue over
time that is derived from a sales organization as a function of the total investment made into
all selling resources, can easily be increased by 30% by simply sharpening the shape of the
funnel.
Copyright © 2003 Market-Partners Inc.
Page 4
www.market-partners.com
To return to our metaphor of the whirlpool, we encourage organizations to move their selling
opportunities out of the swirl and into the vortex, or adopt what we call Vortex Selling.
Vortex Selling
The concepts of Vortex Selling are quite simple, although counter-intuitive. We start by
introducing, and indeed emphasizing, horizontal movement across the traditional sales
funnel. So much attention is usually placed on moving sales opportunities through the sales
process, or down the sales funnel. What we want to introduce is the notion of the swirl
around the outside of the funnel, and the vortex in the center. Thus for every sales
opportunity we want to determine if it is in the vortex or the swirl. If it is in the swirl, the
priority should be placed upon moving it metaphorically horizontally in the funnel and into
the vortex, rather than simple dragging it down through subsequent steps of the sales process
and watching it continue to swirl in the sales opportunity pipeline.
If we can’t move an opportunity into the vortex, it should either be qualified out, or left until
a future date when further investment is likely to result in centering the sales opportunity in
the funnel and into the vortex. Here is the big increase in sales productivity - we can then redeploy all the resources and time that would have been invested in these swirl opportunities
into the vortex opportunities.
Moving from the Swirl to the Vortex
A
t this step it is a very valid question to ask how do I know the difference between sales
opportunities in the swirl and those in the vortex?
The answer is not that difficult to ascertain. By examining the sales opportunities that have
been won, in the manner we would wish to duplicate, we can start to isolate, for each step of
the sales process, what factors contributed to our success. What happens at step one of the
sales process? What were the conditions that happened at each successive step of the sales
process that separated those sales opportunities that we won from those that we lost in the
swirl? These are the “Vortex” factors.
For example, many selling methodologies will have executive sponsorship as one of the
“must do’s”. However, we should now look to see at what step of the sales process should we
secure this executive sponsorship. Does it make a difference to get executives on side prior to
the proposal step? If so, this becomes a vortex factor. If this actually is the case, any proposal
that is written prior to gaining executive sponsorship is likely to end up in the swirl. Using
the concepts of Vortex Selling, we therefore need to ensure we have the requisite executive
sponsorship prior to investing in a proposal. Examples of possible vortex factors for each
step in the example sales process above are given in the following table:
Copyright © 2003 Market-Partners Inc.
Page 5
www.market-partners.com
Step
1
Lead
Identification
2
Initial
Qualification
3
Discovery
4
Strategy
5
Presentation/
Proposal
6
Negotiation
Possible Vortex Factors
A company that fits the “ideal customer” profile
A contact that is willing to talk to us
An expressed need that we know we can fulfill
The ability to invest in our offering
Priorities that lead us to believe that our offering is a good fit
Executive sponsorship
A complete understanding of the prospect’s requirements and
priorities
Funding in place
Complete knowledge of the prospect’s purchase process
The prospect’s agreement that our offering meets their needs
A clear understanding of the quantified value of our offering to
the prospect’s organization
An assurance that our offering is totally differentiated from any
other alternative
Prospect’s agreement with our quantified value propositions
Verbal agreement to our approach and buy-in to proceed
All decision influencers on-side
Knowledge of what is important to the prospect
Belief that there is a win/win position that can be reached
5-Step Approach to Vortex Selling
By carefully crafting the sales process and using the concepts of Vortex Selling most
organizations should see tremendous benefits. Although, by its very nature, there is no simple
one-size fits all Vortex Selling process, there are five primary steps to implementing these
concepts.
1. Identify the Vortex Factors
At every step of the sales process, identify the major factors that separate sales
opportunities that are destined for the swirl from those in the vortex.
Copyright © 2003 Market-Partners Inc.
Page 6
www.market-partners.com
2. Swirl or Vortex?
For each and every sales opportunity, take a critical look to determine if it is in the swirl
or the vortex.
3. Horizontal Movement in the Sales Funnel
For sales opportunities that are in the swirl, either move them horizontally - across the
funnel - into the vortex, or move them out and stop investing.
4. Re-deployment of Resources
Re-deploy all resources away from the swirl and onto the sales opportunities determined
to be in the vortex.
5. Abandon the Myth of a “Busy Sales Professional is a Good Sales Professional”
Ensure that the organization does not expect, encourage, or reward “fat funnel” selling
activities. The system should acknowledge and coach selling activity that is effective and
productive, focusing sales activity and resources on those opportunities that have the
greatest probability of closing.
Summary
Perhaps the next time you look at your own sales pipeline, and examine your selling
activity, you should take a leaf out of the forester Viktor Schauberger’s book. Look for the
whirlpool and consider what it is that causes some sales opportunities to endlessly swirl, and
others to be powerfully pulled down through the requisite steps of the sales process.
Copyright © 2003 Market-Partners Inc.
Page 7