Reviewing your funnel once a quarter in under an hour

4 days ago
3 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

Introduction

Funnels are built during a burst of enthusiasm and then left. Three months later the numbers are stale, six months later nobody remembers the stage definitions, and the whole thing is quietly abandoned — not because it was wrong but because nothing put it in the diary.

Quarterly is the frequency that works for most small businesses. Monthly produces noise, since a business doing thirty enquiries a month sees swings that mean nothing. Annual is too late to correct anything within the year. A quarter is long enough for a real signal and short enough that a problem found is still worth fixing.

1. Reviewing your funnel once a quarter needs a fixed date and an owner

The reason it happens at all.

A recurring appointment with a name against it. Reviews that depend on somebody remembering do not survive the second busy quarter, which is invariably the one where the review mattered. Put it a fortnight after quarter end so the numbers are complete but the period is still recent.

2. Compare against the same quarter last year, not last quarter

The seasonality correction.

Most small businesses have a seasonal shape, and quarter-on-quarter comparison mistakes it for performance. Year-on-year for the same quarter is the comparison that means something. Keep both on the page if you like, but make the year-on-year figure the one that drives the discussion.

3. Look at four numbers per stage

Enough, and no more.

Volume in, conversion to the next stage, median days, and cost. Four numbers times four stages is a page, and a page gets read. Resist adding a fifth, because every extra column reduces the chance the page is looked at properly.

4. Identify the single biggest change

Focus over completeness.

Whichever number moved most, in either direction. One finding per quarter that is actually acted on beats twelve observations that are noted and forgotten. Improvements deserve the same attention as declines, because knowing what worked is how you repeat it.

5. Ask what caused it before deciding what to do

The step most often skipped.

A conversion rate that fell could be the source mix, a person leaving, a price change, a competitor or the weather. Acting on the number without the cause is how businesses fix things that were not broken.

6. Check the stage definitions still hold

The quiet corruption.

Definitions drift as people interpret them differently, which makes this quarter incomparable to last year's without anyone noticing. Ten minutes confirming what each stage means protects the whole series.

7. Review the source mix as well as the stages

Where a hidden change lives.

Total volume can be flat while a high-converting source has collapsed. This is one of the most common findings and it is invisible in the stage numbers alone.

8. Decide one change and write it down

The output of the review.

One change, an owner and a date to check it. Reviews that end with a discussion and no decision teach everybody that attending is optional.

9. Start the next review by checking the last one

The loop that makes it compound.

Did the change happen, and did the number move? This takes two minutes, and it is the difference between a review process that improves the business and one that describes it.

Be careful about drawing conclusions from a single quarter in a low-volume business. Where you have a few dozen records per stage, look at the direction across three or four quarters before acting on anything short of a dramatic move.

Conclusion

Put it in the diary quarterly with a named owner, because that is what stops it lapsing.

Compare against the same quarter last year rather than the previous one, track four numbers per stage and no more, pick the single largest movement rather than reviewing everything, establish the cause before deciding the response, confirm the stage definitions have not drifted, examine the source mix alongside the stages, end with one written change with an owner and a date, and open the next review by checking whether that change worked.