The Secrets of Product Management Podcast by Nils Davis: tips for product managers, covering storytelling, go to market,innovation, resumes, job interviews, PRDs, working with developers, persuasion and influence · Nils Davis

143: Sales Funnels For Product Managers

·21 min·1 clip

Product managers influence the funnel by improving targeting, qualification, persuasion, and customer stories.

1. The Secrets of Product Management Podcast episode 143 focuses on sales funnels for product managers. 2. Nels Davis hosts the episode, and he says he is a senior product manager who has “never set up a sales funnel.” 3. The episode asks what a sales funnel is and why product managers should care about how leads become customers. 4. Davis defines the funnel as the process a person goes through after clicking an ad, responding to a salesperson, or taking a free offer. 5. He says top-of-funnel activities include product-led growth, free trials, freebies, and newsletter signups. 6. He uses his own white papers and cheat sheets on storytelling, retrospectives, and discovery questions as examples of funnel entry points. 7. He says leads become prospects after qualification, and disqualified people are usually kept for future review rather than deleted. 8. He describes the sales process as the stage where a prospect is persuaded to buy, but can still leave or be rejected. 9. He contrasts a simplified funnel with a real funnel that narrows as prospects are qualified out or decide not to buy. 10. He says the ideal funnel is a cylinder where every lead is a perfect prospect and every prospect buys. 11. He says a bad funnel is wide at the top, slow to narrow, and very narrow at the bottom, with lots of unqualified leads. 12. He links funnel shape to episode 131, “How to Make More Money,” and its five ways to grow revenue. 13. He says one revenue path is winning more existing deals by persuading prospects that the product is the best solution. 14. He says another path is getting better leads into the funnel and fewer bad leads. 15. He says selling more to each customer increases average deal size and depends on showing more product value. 16. He says entering a new segment requires marketing campaigns directed at that segment. 17. He ties bad sales processes to poor lead selection, weak qualification, poor objection handling, feature-heavy demos, and weak customer stories. 18. He says his minimum viable product knowledge framework gives sales and marketing the inputs they need for a repeatable sales model. 19. He speaks in a practical, conversational style and repeatedly uses enterprise-sales examples alongside occasional coaching and consumer-sales references. 20. Product managers who work with sales and marketing on targeting, qualification, and objection handling would get the most value from this episode.

As heard by us

A practical bridge from product strategy to how selling works.

Sales funnels are treated here as a product-management problem: if the product has to sell, the PM needs enough working knowledge of leads, qualification, persuasion, and deal size to make sound decisions.

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Why you'd press play

You want a plain-English bridge from product work to sales-funnel thinking.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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