A sales funnel is the path a qualified prospect follows from opportunity to closed deal, including stages like discovery, proposal, and negotiation. It tracks how deals progress and where they stall. Unlike a marketing funnel, it focuses on the active selling process after a lead is qualified.

Your sales funnel is where forecast accuracy lives or dies. Each stage should have a realistic conversion rate so that you can predict revenue from the current pipeline. If deals consistently stall at one stage, that is a fixable process problem, not bad luck. The funnel turns hope into a forecast you can plan against.

Example:

 20 opportunities enter discovery, 12 reach proposal, 6 reach negotiation, 4 close. Each stage's conversion rate lets you forecast revenue from deals still in flight.

What is the difference between a sales funnel and a pipeline?

 They are closely related. The funnel emphasizes conversion rates between stages; the pipeline emphasizes the value and status of deals currently in progress.

How does a sales funnel improve forecasting?

 Known conversion rates at each stage let you estimate how many current opportunities will close, turning the pipeline into a revenue forecast.