The sales funnel presents, in an intuitive graphical way, how customer resources move from the
prospect stage to the interest stage to the negotiation stage to the deal stage, and their proportional relationships.
The higher the stage, the greater the number of customers. The lower the stage, the fewer the customers. Because the overall shape resembles a funnel, it is called a sales funnel. Its advantage is that it displays sales behavior more clearly, organizes the logic, makes it easier to identify problematic stages, and through targeted solutions, removes obstacles and bottlenecks in those stages and widens the downward opening, ultimately improving sales results.
Formally popularized in 1975, it has since become a mental model widely used in the business world, spawning various versions. But no matter the version, it is essentially an explanation of pipeline-based filtering logic, so the sales funnel is not limited to the field of sales itself. As long as pipeline filtering logic applies, other fields can try to apply it too. For example, improving product yield rates, building a company's talent pipeline, and filtering potential marriage partners can all be analyzed with reference to this model. So the greatest insight the sales funnel offers us lies not in sales, but in the funnel. Its meaning to you lies in whether you can apply funnel logic to draw inferences beyond the original case.