Floppy Funnel Syndrome - A Marketing Antipattern

Effective Marketing

Here is a sales funnel: On the left, we see all the opportunities for potential new business. As our target market become aware of what I offer them, I work with them to get their interest and hopefully a decision for them to do business with me.

Good sales strategies will aim to be specific. If we make generic statements about what I sell, it's going to fall flat in the sea of advertising noise. I need to make my value heard, and to do that it needs to be specific.

For example, instead of "David's Incredible Deserts" I could focus on "David's Incredible Chocolate Chip Ice-cream". Instead of a generic statement where I try to catch as many people as possible, I just focus on the people who want some great chocolate chip ice-cream.

Here is an example of how a generic message can fall flat.

And here is how a specific message can have a better impact.

Floppy Funnel

Notice that by advertising chocolate chip ice-cream, I'm potentially excluding people who only like strawberry ice-cream. What should I do? I could call it "David's Incredible Chocolate Chip and Strawberry Ice-cream", but we can see straight away how it loses its impact.

This is what happens when we make our sales funnel 'floppy' and change the story of what I provide to suit more and more people. In the end, everyone feels like there is no difference between me and the ice-cream they can buy in the shop, so why pay more?

My funnel needs to be aimed at a specific group of people or businesses which I know I can bring value to. My offerings need to be tailored to those groups such that I am happy to exclude the majority of people in favour of a few key people who value my services.

If I have a floppy funnel, when someone asks "What ice-cream can you give me", my response will be "Well what ice-cream would you like? I can give you any ice-cream you want!".

I might not even give them any options: "You just tell me what you want.". When this happens, the customer quickly sees I either don't know what I'm doing or I cannot provide anything of quality.

Contrast the floppy funnel response to a more direct response: "I provide homemade chocolate chip ice-cream with Irish chocolate and dairy from the local farmer's market". The person might not like the price I'm charging, or they might not like chocolate chip ice-cream, but that's ok as long as enough people do like it. And because I'm charging premium prices, I can get away with fewer customers.

Business is the same. A business which has Floppy Funnel Syndrome will respond to the question "What do you do?" with the answer "We can do whatever you want us to do". Everyone knows that response is rubbish - no business can do everything. And if they can, they're not going to be very good at anything. If a business responds like this, they lose all trust before starting any real conversation.

Floppy Funnel Syndrome in other areas

Business is not the only area where Floppy Funnel Syndrome can happen.

• Career: You can switch career directions too many times so that you never build a deep expertise in anything. Later in life, you will find it difficult to stay employable.
• Practice: When practising a subject, it can be tempting to switch direction when something gets difficult. Pick a category of work to point your funnel and learn about the things that interest you. As the subject's information gets filtered through your funnel, it will get more difficult. Eventually though, you should have a set of skills that are well-honed.
• Relationships: Don't try to make everyone happy. Pick the people you care about and who care about you and develop those relationships. You don't need to change yourself so that you can get more friends. Your funnel should be focused on the people who care about you for your own sake.