Sales Funnel or Sales Process refers to a systematic approach to selling a product or service. [more on sales process]
Whether you run a small business or part of a large corporation, chances are, you heard about Sale Funnel. Understanding & analyzing your sales performance from a Funnel point of view is a great way to learn more about your sales processes.
About 2.5 years, we published an article on how to create Sales Funnel Charts using Excel. It shows, how you can tweak regular Excel bar chart to create a funnel chart.
Today, I want to show you a dead-simple way to create funnel charts using In-cell Charting Technique.
Take a look at the in-cell sales funnel chart:
Ready to make your own sales funnel chart? Well, lets get started then.
Step 1: Arrange your Sales Data
This is the easy part. Just arrange your sales process data in this fashion.
Step 2: Use an empty cell to define re-sizing factor
Since sales funnel numbers can be quite large, we need a way to reduce the numbers to meaningful size. I used 50 as my resizing factor (and entered this in cell C17). You can use 100 or 10 depending on your values.
Step 3: Generate In-cell Charts
In the column next to sales process numbers, we use REPT formula to generate In-cell charts. We will print | symbol ‘n’ number of times, where ‘n’ is sales process value / re-sizing factor.
For ex. this is the formula for first row:
Step 4: Change the font for In-cell Charts to “Playbill” size 11
The default Excel font (Calibri or Arial) produces an ugly looking in-cell chart. To fix this, we just need to change the font of in-cell chart cells to Playbill, size 11. (You can also use Script font, size 8 with Bold).
At this point, our funnel chart looks like a skewed funnel:
Step 5: Align Center to make the funnel chart
Now, just select all the in-cell chart cells & align to center. That is all. Our funnel chart is ready.
Download Sales Funnel Chart Template
Click here to download the sales funnel chart template & play with it. Go nuts analyzing your funnel or wowing at the simplicity of this technique.
How do you analyze your Sales Funnel?
Since I run a small business, understanding how my sales process works is important for me. However, since my sales process has only a few steps, I use ad-hoc funnel analysis. For example, I have these stages for my sales process:
- You visit Chandoo.org (casual visitor, possible thru search)
- You become a lover of Chandoo.org (loyal visitor, spends more than 15 mins per visit)
- You visit one of the product pages (designated sales pages)
- You click on purchase button (measured by the number of sales)
I do not track these at individual level, instead, I only measure the numbers at monthly aggregates and then do simple analysis like measuring conversion %s to see if everything is alright. Also, quite often, regular visitors of Chandoo.org convert to customers only after visiting us for a few months.
What about you? How do you analyze your sales funnel. What kind of charting techniques you use? Please share using comments.
15 Responses to “A Gantt Chart Alternative – Gantt Box Chart”
That's a great idea.
Maybe the planned End Date should be highlight more.
I don't know how it would look like (nor how to do it yet), but what if instead of finishing the bold line to the best case End Date, it finishes to the realistic End Date?
The idea is ok, I think other project management tools have this, already? Maybe not.
Gantt charts in my view are about the signal most unless thing in the world, theres no way you can look at one thats more that a little complex and understand what it's telling you. I'm going to write a diatribe on project management at some point, its one of my pet areas I think!! 😉
The issue I have with this chart Chandoo, is that Tasks need to be linked to each other, so they should inherit the uncertainty, which would mean the as you moved down chart the lines would be miles apart for later tasks, and you might have to add lots of lines for subsequent tasks to cover the various outcome of it's parents.
Having said that, for the high level board summary, it's a nice way to go, it it appeals to the management 😉
thanks Chandoo, great post.
Ross
Whoooa !!! That's a very clever idea Chandoo. I really love it.
I think i'll update my gantt project sheet with that idea soon (remember my template ?)
@ross : you can link start date to the end date of the previous task in your data. The only problem I still se is to which end date (real ? planned ? best ?) in order to have average amount of information.
If best end date, you'll tend to increase uncertainty at the end of chain, although if you link to real end date, uncertainty will be decreased too much, leading in both cases to wrong management direction.
Maybe planned till the task is finished then real will do the job ?
Hey chandoo, this looks good and this would definite add value in production planning / scheduling. Uncertainity in finishing a task is very high in production scheduling and this could give an insight or a bird eye view of possible shipments we can have....
I've always been frustrated by the limitations of gantt charts. Will definitely use this, I've always struggled with how to succinctly communicate the uncertainty of certain tasks without confusing stakeholders.
I like this, I think it's a very effective way of showing how a timeline can change and which parts of a project need close attention.
@Cyril / @Ross: I would intially link the the start date to the planned end date of the previous task, with the chart updating when a task has been completed to reflect the true end date.
Or what about giving a drop-down selection box to allow the user to see the chart based on planned/best-case/worst-case end dates?
Like the idea. Have found that Excel is more flexible than MS Project for graphical solutions. The "Best Case"\"Worst Case" metrics are theoretically appealing but once the project and\or phase commences their reliability diminishes. A chart like the above that showed Planned Start, Planned End, Replan End Start, Replan End Date, Number of Replans the Start and End Dates, and Actual would provide an active, actionable view of each task\phase. It would also highlight the areas which are riskiest.
It is always amazing how flexible excel can be.
My question is how would the chart show a scenario where the date moved up? If a task is dropped or the duration of the task is significantly reduced by applying more people or machinery to the task, the dates will move up.
The gantt chart has been around for a long time, but it is still quite useful to show progress.
Cheers,
B
I like the idea but seems bit complicated in case of long projects involving numerous activity.
Also, reading and explaining is required hence not feasible where plans are just send to audience for approval.
Cheers
SY
Great idea Chandoo,
When I was reading this idea regarding delivery dates, another thought popped into my mind, how can you show the uncertainty with MONEY!!
In this case, applies to cost management or even a normal budget, you think?
Would Box Chart and Gannt Chart help to understand the best case, middle case and worst case when money is spend or planned with these three risks are involved?
I imagine that this chart could help people who write their budgets get a better understanding of risks affecting their spending.
Peter
Chandoo,
I like it. How would you display an entry once it has been completed (actual)?
Thank you,
Matt
From what you have shown so far I think that this box Gantt chart is awesome! I think that this could be an extremely useful tool.
I can't wait to learn how to make my own charts in Excel.
Will the methods that you are going to teach us work in 2003 as well?
[...] Firday, we proposed a new chart for showing project plans. I chose an ugly name for it and called it Gantt Box [...]
You need to read Eli Goldratt's Critical Chain. The uncertainty you are looking for should be accounted for in a project buffer. Not at each task level.
Further you should spend time understanding Agile Development. This would have you plan only in 1-3week iterations. This allows you to embrace changes to work not yet started, and for your customer to re-direct your course at regular intervals (after each iteration) throughout your project. keyword search: Agile Scrum
These items will show you that you are solving a tracking problem for something that you can entirely avoid!
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