Measure it
An agency sales funnel is a measurement device with five stages, Aware, Interested, Qualified, Proposed and Closed, that shows which stage is losing the most prospects.
Agency Sales Playbook counts a prospect in a stage only when they have done something observable, not when you have done something. That single rule removes most funnel inflation and turns a hopeful series of conversations into numbers you can fix. You cannot fix a funnel you have never measured.
Last updated: · Published by Tim Kilroy
Five stages are enough. The names matter less than the discipline: each one has a rule for when a prospect counts.
| Stage | What it means | Counts when |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Aware | They know you exist. | They could name you unprompted. |
| 2. Interested | They raised a hand: a reply, a form, a meeting with a date. | They took an action, not you. |
| 3. Qualified | Real problem, worth money, and they decide. | You can name the problem in their words. |
| 4. Proposed | Scope, price and outcome in writing. | They opened it, not when you hit send. |
| 5. Closed | Signed. Not verbally agreed. | There is a signature. |
Definition
In the Agency Sales Playbook funnel, stages are defined by what the buyer did. Sending a proposal does not make a deal Proposed; the prospect opening it does. A friendly call does not make a deal Qualified; agreeing out loud on a problem worth money, with the decision maker, does. Half of all funnel inflation in agencies comes from counting your own activity as their intent. When stages are defined by observable buyer actions, conversion rates become honest, and the leak test points at a real problem instead of a feeling.
Numbers
Run the leak test. It is the highest-return twenty minutes available to most agency owners.
Once you know your conversion rates, plug them into the pipeline math calculator to see how many conversations you need each week to hit your revenue goal.
Referrals are wonderful until the month they do not show up. You cannot decide to get more referrals this quarter, because they come from past work and relationships. Tracking a funnel lets you add other channels while keeping referrals as a strong source, and see whether a slow month is a lead problem or a conversion problem.
A useful five-step view for agencies is the funnel itself: Aware, Interested, Qualified, Proposed and Closed. Each stage only counts when the prospect has done something observable, such as naming the problem in their own words or opening the proposal. Counting the prospect’s actions rather than your own activity is what makes a five-step funnel useful for finding leaks.
See this answer in the full FAQRun a leak test. Pull the last 90 days, count how many prospects entered each of the five stages (Aware, Interested, Qualified, Proposed, Closed), and calculate the conversion from each stage to the next. The stage with the biggest drop is your leak. It takes about twenty minutes and a spreadsheet, and it beats buying more leads.
See this answer in the full FAQMost processes group into three phases: before the conversation (positioning, research and getting the meeting), during the conversation (discovery, qualification and proposal) and after the conversation (follow-up, close, handoff and review). Agencies tend to underinvest in the first and third phases. Preparation and follow-up are where most avoidable losses happen.
See this answer in the full FAQA win/loss review is a short, structured look at why a prospect chose you or someone else, ideally asking the prospect directly. It finds the real reasons behind decisions instead of the ones you assume. Run it after every significant decision, record the answers, and feed patterns back into positioning, discovery questions and proposals.
See this answer in the full FAQReferrals are valuable but they do not scale on demand; you cannot decide to get more of them this month. Tim Kilroy cites the RSW/US 2025 Agency Survey, where 75 percent of agencies named referrals their top new-business source and 93 percent said their growth engine was not strong enough. A written process lets you add other channels without losing what works.
See this answer in the full FAQPublished by Tim Kilroy
