F the Funnel

Book excerpt: MARKETING TEAMS ARE THE CREATIVE HEARTS OF ORGANIZATIONS. We bring products to life and connect them to living, breathing customers. Without us, our companies would crash and burn. And yet it often seems we don't get the respect--or the budgets--we deserve. Where is the love? The reason our companies don't love us is that they see us as cost centers rather than revenue centers. So how do we change that perception (and that reality)? How do we become provable, dependable sources of revenue? By changing our relationship with our customers. By turning them into raving advocates and long-term clients. We need to stop viewing customers through the lens of the traditional sales funnel. F the Funnel offers us a new model for thinking about the entire customer acquisition cycle--the Loop--which focuses on building relationships of trust rather than closing sales in a one-off way.