According to Salesforce, the average B2B business converts just 13% of its marketing-qualified leads into sales-qualified opportunities. For every 100 leads that come in, 87 go nowhere.

Most businesses respond by generating more leads. And while volume matters, it only works at its best when the funnel is built to convert. Without fixing conversion, the percentage of leads that close stays the same. No matter how many you add.

Somewhere in that funnel, there’s a leak.

Where’s the leak?

The reason most funnels leak isn’t complicated.

A warm lead goes cold because follow-up takes days instead of hours. A sales call happens, but the rep walks in blind: no context, no history, just a name and a company. A qualified buyer lands on the site, doesn’t find what they came for, and leaves without anyone noticing.

One of the best ways to solve this is to understand exactly where the funnel is losing people.

To find that leak, start by asking these five questions:

Question 1: Are we targeting the right businesses?

A lead from a business that doesn’t have the problem you solve, the budget to act, or the right timing isn’t an opportunity. It’s noise. No amount of follow-up or great messaging will convert a business that has no need or ability to buy what you’re selling.

Question 2: Are we reaching the right decision-makers?

The right company means nothing if you’re talking to the wrong person inside it. Know who signs, who influences, and who blocks, then target accordingly.

Question 3: Is our messaging speaking to the right problem?

Even when you’re in front of the right person, the wrong message kills the opportunity. If what you’re saying speaks to a general version of their situation rather than the specific problem they’re carrying right now, it won’t land. B2B buyers don’t act on broad. They act on precise.

Question 4: Are leads being followed up quickly enough?

But even when all of that is right, the funnel can still lose people. In B2B, the window between a lead engaging and that engagement going cold is shorter than most follow-up processes account for. Every day between showing interest and hearing from Sales is a day for a competitor to fill the gap.

Question 5: Is Sales receiving enough information to close?

When Sales does reach out, a name and a job title tells them who they’re calling. It doesn’t tell them what that person was trying to solve, what they’ve already read, or where they are in a decision. Without that context, the salesperson can’t tailor their approach to increase their chances of converting the prospect. They can only run their standard pitch and hope something lands.

How we can help

Knowing where the funnel breaks is one thing. Patching it entirely takes two more things: the right buyers, and a sales team equipped to convert them once they’re in the room.

The thing is, most teams don’t have the capacity to build pipeline and upskill their sales team at the same time.

The Earning Curve solves both in one motion. We find your buyers, book the meetings, and coach your sellers to convert them. By the time the programme ends, your sellers will have closed more deals, while gaining the skills to keep doing it.