#32: Fix Your Full Funnel Gaps to Boost B2B Sales

Chip Royce, Flywheel Advisors

When B2B companies start to scale, sales performance becomes a glaring focal point. Revenue goals get bigger, growth becomes the mantra, and the pressure to perform can be blinding.

But too often, when sales stagnate or miss expectations, companies immediately hone in on the wrong culprits: the sales team, marketing campaigns, or even leads deemed “unqualified.”

Here’s the reality: if you’re not looking at your ENTIRE funnel, you’re almost guaranteed to miss the real problems. Because in B2B, sales performance isn’t just about selling harder—it’s about understanding every inch of the process: from initial awareness to the day a customer renews their contract.

So, how do you know if your funnel needs a closer look?

A Funnel Is More Than “Leads and Deals”

Scaling companies—those who are past the startup stage—need clarity on this one fact: the sales process starts long before a lead ever reaches your sales team. Sure, startups can still get away with throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks (hey, we’ve all been there). But for companies at later growth stages, ignoring the entire funnel is no longer an option.

When we say full-funnel, we mean everything:

1. Awareness marketing – Planting the seed. How are potential customers first hearing about your business?
2. Lead generation – Attracting the right audience. Not just anyone who gives you their email or scans a badge at a trade show.
3. Sales handoff – The delicate ballet of transitioning a lead to a “qualified” sales opportunity.
4. Every step in the sales process – From the initial call to nurturing to proposal, negotiation, close, onboarding, and retention.

Every stage influences the next. Miss the details at the top and you’re setting yourself up for disappointment down the line.

The First 3 Red Flags in a Broken Funnel

When I’m called in to diagnose lagging sales performance, there are three red flags I look for almost immediately:

1. Assumptions Masquerading as Facts
   A common mistake? Assuming leads are truly qualified when they’re not. For example, that badge scan at a trade show may represent someone who entered a giveaway just to score free swag. Their contact information is not equivalent to interest, let alone intent. When these “leads” don’t convert, the entire team suffers.
2. Overly Optimistic Metrics
   Ever seen a company use one rep’s stellar close rate or time-to-close as the benchmark for the whole team? While hopeful, it creates a recipe for dissatisfaction. The top performer may close in 30 days with a 40% success rate, but the team average may be closer to 80 days—if not longer. Setting inaccurate benchmarks demotivates teams and leads to poor planning.
3. Gaps in Data
   Missing or incorrect information is a huge bottleneck—and an avoidable one. Maybe CRM updates aren’t prioritized, leading to fragmented and untrustworthy data within the funnel. Or perhaps the team isn’t even clear on which metrics matter most. Without clean, actionable data, diagnosing gaps and optimizing the funnel is like throwing darts blindfolded.

Fixing Your Funnel: What’s Actually Possible

Here’s the good news: a broken funnel is usually not beyond repair. The key is starting with small, impactful wins. Here’s how you approach it:

Step 1: Fix the Information Gap

Evaluate what’s being measured at every stage of your funnel. Where are the discrepancies? Does the data flow seamlessly between tools? More importantly, is anyone paying attention to the right KPIs? Revenue Operations (RevOps) can’t just be a buzzword here—it’s the backbone of effective funnel optimization.

Step 2: Reevaluate Your Sales Process

Not all sales reps are created equal, but top performers in your team can leave a trail of breadcrumbs that lead to company-wide improvements. Look at how your best reps approach deals—what’s their process? Where do they spend their time? Create repeatable practices from these insights.

Step 3: Hunt for Quick Wins

Don’t discount the “low-hanging fruit.” Is there a stagnant nurture sequence that could be reactivated? Are leads being handed off too late—or too early—causing them to drop out? These small fixes often yield outsized results.

The Bigger Picture: Full Funnel Health

At the end of the day, scaling companies need to view their sales process not as individual touchpoints but as an interconnected system. When you fix one part of the funnel, others inevitably improve. Your efforts don’t just lead to more closed deals—they elevate the performance of marketing, sales, and customer success as a whole.

Sales success is less about grinding harder and more about removing friction wherever it exists. And when you start thinking beyond the deal, your funnel transforms into what it was always meant to be: an engine that scales your growth, not stalls it.

Is your funnel holding you back? Let’s talk.