Cross-Applying The Sales Funnel

As I was reading about the sales funnel model, I realized how well it can be applied to interviews for startups. Using the sales funnel model to build interview questions for different customer segments is a smart way to direct the flow of the interview and glean the information necessary to your startup’s success – or show pivoting that needs to be done.

With Need Analysis, just as in the context of a regular sale, the interview will begin with wide questions about the broad topic being addressed by your startup. It’s an opportunity to find more pains that your startup can handle, or find more customer segments that might not have come to mind. Need Awareness is similar, and begins to steer the interviewee in the direction of your startup’s product or service.

Need Solution is where things change but still follow the sales funnel closely. Instead of catchy phrases, stories, or explaining why the benefits should matter to the customer, in a startup interview you would use this section of the funnel to pull out the interviewees specific thoughts on the product or service. Instead of convincing them that this is the solution, you’re looking for whether it is the solution or not. Similarly, Need Satisfaction isn’t convincing them that this will satisfy them, rather it poses that as a question. You’re learning what the interviewee likes and dislikes about your idea, what they would change, what they wish the product had, and using that to pivot. Success is the information you gain from the interview as a whole! Sales techniques can be cross-applied in so many different fields, and this had such a similar skeleton that I couldn’t help but notice the parallels between the sales funnel model and startup interviews.