Reading The Leaky Funnel from cover to cover rewards the reader with a step-by-step understanding of what is required to change a company so it can adopt to the modern customer focussed world. The hero's of this story  are the directors who chose a CEO from the customer base and gave her the time to understand the problems and bring the staff with her in devising the solutions. In Australia, we saw Southcorp do the opposite - to quickly revolutionise without understanding the skills they needed in the business or what was motivating their retail customers, particularly those in the UK. What a pity they did not have the chance to read The Leaky Funnel.

Robert Gottliebsen. National Business Commentator, The Australian

A radically different but highly relevant look at one of today's most critical topics, how to bring sales and marketing together.  A journey that every organization needs to make. The Leaky Funnel focuses on the real issues of bringing sales and marketing together with a customer-oriented, planned approach; all in a highly enjoyable approach that you really can't put down. You'll recognize your associates and cohorts on every page as they work through a truly useful, highly relevant, easy to implement approach to bringing sales and marketing together. Get it before your competitor does.

Don Schultz. Professor Emeritus-in-Service, Northwestern University, USA

Thank you for writing a thought-provoking business book in such a reader-friendly style! The information I've gleaned from the book is perfectly timed. It coincides with a shift in beliefs that the marketing communication to customers needs to change from a 'features and benefits' model to a customer-needs model. Thanks again.

Jennifer Webster. Channel Marketing Manager, Computer Associates, Australia

Hugh Macfarlane's new book turns the idea of selling on its head. In Macfarlane's experience, it's the buyers that determine how much you sell, not the salespeople. So if you base your company's revenue projections on the sales projections, you may be struggling to just keep going, and you are certainly limiting your growth potential. What businesses need to do is look into the buyers' perspective, open up their company to a more diverse market, pitching themselves as more than a supplier of whatever, in this case HardBits of plastic. Companies need to be able to add more value, and margin, to their products, and they need to do that from the buyers' needs, not their own expertise. Macfarlane takes us through a fictional process with a realistic challenge - how do you get the people across the company to embrace the challenge of growing the business and its revenue, rather than sheeting it home to the sales and marketing people? Within the framework he provides, Macfarlane shows the way to engage the sales and marketing teams in the process of growth. Getting those two groups to work in concert rather than in conflict is a welcome recipe for many CEOs. His process provides insights that can be applied across most businesses and, thankfully, you don't need an MBA to understand it.

Michael Ward. formerly VP of Corporate Relations, OzEmail and CEO, ECOS Corporation, Australia

New Book Spotlight: "The Leaky Funnel"
Building a strong and integrated relationship between sales and marketing can unlock huge profit potential for many companies large and small. Marketing profitability is dependent on effectively and efficiently moving customers and prospects from initial brand awareness through various stages of the buying cycle to achieve closed sales and satisfied customers. Success within a specific stage in the cycle, such as lead generation, brand awareness, or inbound response has value only when those customers continue through the entire sales cycle. Those who "leak" from this funnel provide no return and potentially detract from your profitability.

Hugh Macfarlane's recently published book "The Leaky Funnel" offers an engaging and informative perspective on integrating the sales and marketing funnels. His fictional story takes the reader through the process a new CEO encounters with her executive team to make the company more customer focused throughout the sales process. This team's journey unlocks the company's profit potential as they establish a process and mindset that better serves the marketing organization, sales organization, and customer.

There are several innovative concepts that Macfarlane presents very well. First of all, his approach of mapping the sales cycle from the buyers' perspective is essential to aligning the efforts and investments that marketing and sales might otherwise develop independently. It is critical to move past the handoff of leads from marketing to sales that too often ends up being a disappointment for both groups.

Next, Macfarlane makes it clear that allowing prospects to leak out of the funnel only to be dumped back into the top of the funnel for the next marketing campaign is a missed opportunity. Those leaking out of the funnel must be immediately "recycled" back into the sales cycle. Done right, the investments to motivate customer progression can generate much higher returns as strategies are developed to capitalize on this concept of recycling.

Marketing ROI Pathways bulletin - March 2004 issue. Lenskold Group, New Jersey, USA

The Leaky Funnel bravely takes on the most relevant business problem that faces all leaders - how do I improve my revenues and margin? Most business books offer theory with no clear advice on practical application. The Leaky Funnel reads like a novel. I just kept turning the pages wanting to know what happens next. This book does not try to give you answers, it teaches you how to work out what the real questions are, find your own answers and then work out what to do on Monday morning. The moment I finished the book, I grabbed a notepad and started to apply my new knowledge to my own business. If only I knew this stuff five years ago... The Leaky Funnel is world class and should be read by the whole management team. Hugh Macfarlane is in a class of his own.

Mark Braithwaite. Director, Braithwaite Steiner & Pretty

Hugh brings a great perspective on mapping the buyer’s journey in relation to managing the sales cycle. He talks about a tactical approach to establishing rhythm, where you sustain your perceptions in the market until the prospect is ready to buy. This is radically different from repeatedly pitching the prospect until the right time arrives. The prospect relationship approach to customer acquisition is about progressing prospects down a path and recognizing their position in the sales cycle. It is much different than the typical approach where, as Hugh describes it, we are jumping out at the prospects and screaming "I’m ready to sell are you ready to buy?"

CRM Today - editorial 9 June 2004

Spotlight - News, reviews and sites on selling
If you're trying to make sales to business customers - particularly complex sales in mature markets - you'll find The Leaky Funnel fascinating reading.

The fundamental drivers of B2B and consumer businesses are like chalk and cheese. Any seasoned B2B or industrial marketer will tell you that consumer marketing tactics - the ones that are taught to all newly-minted marketers - just don't cut it in B2B sales.

And that's why this is such an important book.

Many B2B companies struggle with sales and marketing teams that are on different planets, tactics that are arbitrary and not aligned with the way customers buy, and indicators that don't really measure the most important issue - whether you're really earning more customers or just paddling round in circles.

Many B2B companies struggle with sales and marketing teams that are on different planets, tactics that are arbitrary and not aligned with the way customers buy, and indicators that don't really measure the most important issue - whether you're really earning more customers or just paddling round in circles.

In The Leaky Funnel, author Hugh Macfarlane argues for a major change in the way businesses organise and manage their combined Sales and Marketing resources.

I spent many years in B2B marketing roles with major organisations, struggling with most of the issues raised by Macfarlane in this book, and found his approach both refreshing and simple to follow.

Robyn Haydon, The Winning Pitch, Aug 2004 issue

A new book worth reading is The Leaky Funnel by Hugh Macfarlane. Hugh takes the reader on a journey of discovering the importance of alignment between sales and marketing and the profound effect it has on business performance when a company focuses on 'earning' customers.

Sales and marketing people taking their profession seriously, should read The Leaky Funnel to increase their sales and generate happier customers. It is easy to read and common sense all the way through by taking the reader on a journey full of examples of how to achieve true solution sales.

Runi Nielsen-Candido, Managing Director, Pragma Consulting

Macfarlane tells the story of a fictional plastic bead manufacturer called HardBits to demonstrate a valuable lesson in marketing - Good companies build needs. Poor companies pitch products. And in the process, he creates a consulting methodology that can be replicated by almost any company.

The journey of the HardBits Executive Team, each created to represent a corporate function (and often a workplace stereotype), is structured to highlight and hopefully resolve a common business dilemma - how to plug a leaky sales funnel (how to stop the progressive loss of potential customers over time as they migrate from a "lead" to a paying client).

The answer, according to Macfarlane, is to integrate sales and marketing.

Macfarlane turns traditional sales and marketing logic on its head, suggesting that the Sales/Marketing function of any business should build its activities around the buyer, and not the sales cycle. While this may seem common sense, it flies against the general practice of most sales people, who spend their time trying to convince the potential buyer that the solution offered is the best available at that time, rather than focusing on the buyer's problem from the outset, and developing an appropriate solution.

This means that marketing professionals should not only spend their time developing leads for the sales people to close, but also recycling the leakage from failed sales by gaining a better understanding of the buyer's needs.

Macfarlane would be the first to admit none of his strategies is original. However, what Macfarlane does is create a framework - a model that can be quantified and measured. Macfarlane, in fact, has followed his own advice. While acknowledging all his sources of information, he has positioned himself to offer something both original and useful to his customer (the reader) - a consulting methodology that can be replicated.

Issue 5, Anthill Australia - Australian Venture Capital magazine

I bought 15 copies and have the sales and marketing depts reading it. I have begun funnel workshop discussions, and expect to have the last one completed in a few weeks. Starting immediately, our company will be using the principles introduced to make customer-buying centric marketing the foundation on which we will build all future marketing programs and strategies. This concept is starting to spread across the organization. Wish me luck. Thanks again.

Mary Rapaport, Global Marketing Director, Minco

Have you read it?
Send us your book review, feedback and thoughts by email to marketing-strategy-book@leakyfunnel.com. We'd love to hear from you.

Buy your copy of The Leaky Funnel

About The Leaky Funnel | About the author | Buy Now | Reviews | Home
Sue's library of marketing strategy books

© 2005 MathMarketing, Level 10, 390 St Kilda Road, Melbourne Victoria 3004, Australia
(Producers of the free online sales funnel calculator tool - Funnel Calculator™)