Digital Lexicon Hub

A simplified model of the stages through which prospective customers progress from awareness or qualification toward purchase.

A defined funnel shows where prospects stall between first contact and closed deal, so teams can focus budget and coaching on the stage with the weakest conversion instead of simply adding more leads.

A B2B firm tracks 2,000 leads, 600 MQLs, 150 SQLs, 45 proposals and 15 closed deals in a quarter; the 25% MQL-to-SQL rate is the weakest step, so it tightens lead scoring and speeds up follow-up.

Real buying journeys are rarely linear; B2B committees loop back, skip stages and research anonymously. Funnel stages vary by company, so benchmark comparisons are often misleading, and the model ignores post-sale expansion.

A funnel is defined by ordered stages with explicit entry and exit criteria, for example lead, marketing qualified lead, sales qualified lead, opportunity, proposal and closed won. Stage conversion rate equals the number of records that reach the next stage divided by those that entered the current one, and stage velocity measures the average days spent in each stage. Both are usually tracked as cohorts in the CRM.