Sales Flywheel: The New Growth & Revenue Model for Businesses

In a world where it’s harder than ever to get noticed, the approach that stands out is creating a sales flywheel.

If you want your business to stand out from everyone else, this guide will show how you can use the sales flywheel for maximum gains and turn potential customers into paying ones.

What is a sales flywheel?

A sales flywheel is a system that helps generate leads and sales. It’s a cross-functional selling mechanism that focuses on the buyer and the stages they go through. A flywheel can be defined as a “cocoon that nurtures buyers at each stage of the B2B buying cycle.”

The sales flywheel is a marketing term that describes how multiple functions work together to generate momentum. For example, the flywheel focuses on customer acquisition and retention, whereas the funnel focuses on an aftermarket product sale.

What are the benefits of using a sales flywheel?

The flywheel model is a marketing strategy that helps nurture customers. It is based on the idea that companies should focus on enhancing customers’ journeys even after they’re established as customers. The flywheel model’s main advantage is that it allows users to focus on improving the customer’s experience.

A sales flywheel is advantageous because it efficiently identifies causes of friction in marketing, sales, and service. This information can then correct these issues and improve the customer’s journey. In addition, the Flywheel Model can be used to measure the success of your marketing strategy. Therefore, it is essential to know what activities are propelling your flywheel and which are slowing it down so you can make necessary changes.

How does a sales flywheel work?

The sales flywheel is a highly efficient sales process that assists your team in directing their efforts where they will yield the best return while maintaining the customer’s happy experience.

The flywheel is made up of four moving elements. Your marketing, sales, and service departments are on the outskirts. Customers make up the inner core.

Another approach to looking at the flywheel is in terms of the acts required to make the wheel spin:

Components of the flywheel

If we disassemble the flywheel as indicated in the diagram, each component represents:

Customers are the lifeblood of any firm; keep them pleased, remove friction, and you will maintain momentum.

Attract: You cannot force attention; you must earn it. Attract customers by providing helpful content and making it simple for them to learn about you and your items.

Build relationships with consumers and engage them frequently rather than just closing agreements. Contact them through their preferred channels and modes of communication.

Delight: To keep your customers pleased, link your success to theirs. You grow as they do. In this manner, your resources will be better aligned to provide the best possible client experience.

Hubspot describes the flywheel in motion as follows:

The actions taken by each team at your company impact each other. Your marketing inputs affect how quickly prospects move through your sales process. Your sales motion affects how likely it is prospects will become happy and successful customers. And of course, your support and service activities impact whether your customers become promoters — people who recommend you to their colleagues — or warn their networks to stay away.

The flywheel ensures that the sales process runs smoothly. Instead of viewing each prospect as having a clear beginning and conclusion with your organization, consider each prospect a long-term opportunity. They can become brand promoters and supporters and long-term customers who continue to work with and purchase from your sales team. This collaboration allows your firm to grow more quickly and efficiently.

How to Take a Flywheel Approach

Shift your resources

Changing from a funnel to a flywheel can be difficult, but it’s worth it. Reach out for a no-obligation assessment and quote from MakeWebBetter to learn more about how we can help you make the shift.

Once you’ve made the shift, your business can take advantage of increased revenue and a higher ROI.

You can use the flywheel approach to increase revenue by reaching more customers and providing them with an excellent experience.

Because the process doesn’t require upfront costs, it takes off quickly and generates large profits in the short term. That means that you don’t have to wait long before reaping the benefits of this powerful marketing tool.

Apply strategic force

To achieve business success, it is vital to apply strategic force. You must focus on multiple areas simultaneously to create momentum and increase velocity. A flywheel approach is one way to do this.

To attract customers, B2C companies often use spinoff products, loyalty programs, and influencer marketing. These strategies help build an ecosystem where customers have more value over time. All team members must be involved in the decision process for a flywheel approach to work.

The “carrot” should be something that employees want, and the “stick” should be something they fear. This will help increase customer loyalty by rewarding reps and employees who have successful sales tactics. Additionally, lead scoring can help determine the success of marketing efforts by measuring how likely someone is to buy.

Eliminate friction

There are many ways to identify areas of friction in a company. Companies can view their company analytics dashboard and record poor customer experience stats. To eliminate friction, companies should automate repetitive and complex tasks to remove friction. They should also ensure that teams do not have conflicting goals.

The flywheel approach requires a focus on the same objectives throughout all departments. Finally, companies should create marketing materials that streamline the buying process, educating potential customers on their proper use. Regular evaluation of your efforts is required to determine whether or not the flywheel is bearing fruit.

What are the different types of sales flywheels?

There are three types of sales flywheels: the classic, inverted, and service flywheels.

The classic sales flywheel is a model that most people are familiar with. It starts with generating awareness of your product or service, leads to potential customers getting interested, convincing them to buy, and finally turning them into loyal advocates.

The inverted sales flywheel flips this process on its head by starting with leads who are already interested in what you have to offer. This saves time and energy since you’re not spending resources trying to convince people who may not be interested in your product or service.

The third type of sales flywheel is the service flywheel. This approach focuses on retaining customers rather than acquiring new ones. It’s all about providing an excellent customer experience, so they’ll keep coming back for more. And as we all know, happy customers lead to positive word-of-mouth referrals, which can help attract even more business!

How do I choose the right sales flywheel for my business?

There are various options for businesses to consider when it comes to sales flywheels. But, first, it is essential to understand what a sales flywheel is and how it can help your business increase velocity while decreasing risk.

A sales flywheel is a three-step process that helps companies increase their velocity and decrease their risk. This process includes needs assessment, market fit analysis, and product launch.

You must first conduct a needs assessment to choose the right sales flywheel for your business. This will help you determine which features are most important to your company and which vendors can offer you the best solution.

Once you have completed your needs assessment, it’s time to do market research. First, you’ll want to determine if there is a market for your product and whether or not people are interested in what you’re selling.

Once you have determined that there is a market for your product and that people are interested in buying it, it’s time for the final step: product launch! With the help of a TCF vendor, you can successfully launch your product into the market and start seeing results quickly.

How do I implement a sales flywheel?

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, as the sales flywheel will vary depending on your business. However, there are a few key steps you can take to get started:

1) Define your stages – The first step is to define the different stages of your sales flywheel. This will help you understand how customers move through their relationship with your business.

2) Identify your marketing tactics and engagement levels – Once you know the different stages, you need to identify the marketing tactics and engagement levels that work best for each stage. For example, at the top of the funnel, you may want to focus on building awareness, while at the bottom of the funnel, you may want to focus on re-engaging customers.

3) Allocate resources accordingly – Once you have a plan in place, it’s essential to allocate resources accordingly so that you’re putting your best foot forward at all times. This means investing in activities that generate demand (like building awareness) and lead capture mechanisms (like opt-ins or forms).

How to make the most of the flywheel model?

The flywheel model is a great way to ensure that the customer experience and service are consistent. It encourages employees to feel empowered, in turn increasing productivity and satisfaction. Help agents help your customer by knowing the customer journey. By understanding a sales funnel and pipeline, you can create better strategies for marketing and sales.

The HubSpot flywheel

The HubSpot Flywheel is a model that helps businesses understand and improve their customer interactions. It encompasses your company’s interactions with any customer, no matter what stage they are in the buying process. The flywheel has three main parts: leads, prospects, and customers.

The flywheel is powered by your leads, prospects, and customers. As they move around the wheel, it creates energy that powers your business. The modern consumer wants to gather their information and make their own purchasing decisions–the flywheel empowers them to do so. And it’s not just marketing and sales teams who need to be on board! Your customer service team also plays a vital role in delivering the information and service necessary for customers to decide their needs.

How the flywheel killed HubSpot’s funnel

HubSpot’s co-founder and CEO, Brian Halligan, coined the term “Marketing Flywheel.” It is a wheel with a stand attached. The marketing flywheel works like any other wheel by having teams rotating in and out of different stages of the content marketing process, marked by color-coded rings on the wheel.

A flywheel is an excellent metaphor for how to grow your business. It talks about the idea of momentum, which can be applied to business and help make it more successful.

However, HubSpot’s funnels didn’t work as well as they thought they would, and their flywheel metaphor killed their funnel.

The HubSpot customer code

HubSpot has always been about customers. They were founded on the principle that businesses must invest in things that increase the overall customer experience rather than just grow.

When it comes to growth, we believe there are many ways to get there – but the best way is always through your customers.

That’s why they put together The HubSpot Customer Code. According to the company – It’s a set of values and beliefs that guide how they interact with their customers and help them stay focused on what’s important.

Some of the tenets of The HubSpot Customer Code include:

• We’re in this together – it takes a village to raise a customer
• We focus on the entire customer journey, not just individual touchpoints
• Friction kills flywheels – it’s important to remove friction before you can grow your business
• Companies need to invest in things that increase the overall customer experience rather as opposed to grow

Replacing the sales funnel with the sales flywheel

The flywheel is a metaphor for how the sales process has evolved to be more efficient with less friction, and it will continue to evolve in this fashion. In a flywheel-based sales process, there is more emphasis on word-of-mouth and less reliance on traditional sources such as advertising. The funnel is no longer the right tool to capture momentum in a digital world.

A “standstill” in marketing is no longer the norm, as marketers have assets they can leverage. Resources that were once seen as only “inbound” now have more tangible value.

For example, email lists can be rented or borrowed from other organizations to create targeted campaigns. New visitors and leads are also coming in, even with a vacation for the marketing department. New visitors and leads will be referred by existing customers so that momentum can continue even without marketing efforts.

Growing your business with a flywheel model

The Flywheel Model is the opposite of a sales funnel. A funnel focuses on acquiring more and more leads with the hope that a few will make it to the end of the process and become customers. The Flywheel Model puts customers at the heart of marketing and sales instead of putting them in the background as a funnel does.

The Flywheel Model creates a better customer experience by providing excellent service and ensuring steady conversions. This helps businesses track their customers, ensuring they’re satisfied and encouraging referrals. In turn, this allows companies to see if they are growing rapidly or not.

Why it’s time to ditch the sales funnel for the sales flywheel.

The sales funnel is a great tool, but it’s not perfect. Keeping leads engaged in the process can be challenging, and customers may be abandoned if they’re not ready to buy. To stay with a sales model based on quarterly quotas, it would be necessary for the company’s sales team to ditch leads before they are ready because those closest to the end of the funnel are more likely to close.

This traditional sales model encourages companies to do well with whatever they have at any given time, making them unable or unwilling to take advantage of new opportunities. The flywheel model is a better model for today’s consumers. It focuses on providing high-quality service to customers from beginning to end, and it requires keeping leads engaged in the process, so they’re not abandoned if they don’t complete the sale.

Flywheel vs. Funnel:

The funnel is an outdated way of marketing and sales. It’s less flawed than the flywheel, but it still contains one major flaw: It considers customers as afterthoughts instead of a driving force behind growth.

The flywheel model is a more comprehensive, unified way of representing the forces affecting your company’s growth. It takes into account how each team at your company impacts each other. For example, actions taken by each team at your company impact each other–marketing and sales impact support and service activities as well.

Overall, business trust is plummeting due to declining customer sentiment/trust. In addition, a funnel doesn’t account for factors like social media and third-party reviews of your company, which buyers increasingly rely on when making decisions. The flywheel is the mental model that integrates momentum, a great product, and customer experience; it reveals the importance of an inbound methodology paired with internal processes for frictionless growth.

Though the funnel chart will continue to be used, its limitations will become more apparent as buyers become savvier and less trusting of businesses’ self-promotion efforts.

How does the flywheel give sales teams an edge?

Output vs. Input

There are two primary schools of thought regarding sales strategies: the funnel and the flywheel. The funnel is about the output- getting customers in, making a sale, and moving them along. On the other hand, the flywheel focuses on input- widening the funnel so that more customers fall in and out for every sale made.

The goal is to have customers stay on the flywheel after purchasing from them. This helps companies retain customers who will eventually become promoters for future sales.

Start and stop vs. ongoing

The start-and-stop mentality is a common problem in sales. This occurs when the salesperson gets “hot” and focuses all their efforts on closing the deal, only to go cold again afterward. The problem with this approach is that it’s not sustainable – eventually, the salesperson will run out of potential leads to pursue.

In contrast, the flywheel eliminates this start-and-stop mentality. Instead, the flywheel has a clear start point, an endpoint, and continuity throughout the process. This allows leads to remain in the system, even if they’re not a good fit. Additionally, fewer people dropped from the sales funnel, so more deals can be closed overall.

The flywheel helps sell more deals because there are fewer people dropped from the sales funnel due to its highly efficient design. In addition, companies grow faster and more efficiently with continuous input from marketing and sales teams working together in harmony as part of a flywheel relationship.

Siloed teams vs. genuine teamwork

Too often, companies are divided into siloed teams. Marketing does its own thing, customer service does its own thing, and sales does its own thing. This lack of communication and collaboration between departments leads to several problems:

• Lack of understanding about what the other teams are doing
• Inability to support prospects effectively
• Lower quality leads and customers
• Less profit

The flywheel is designed to eliminate these silos by bringing all employees together under one umbrella. The flywheel encourages alignment between sales and marketing teams so that they can support each other in the pursuit of common goals. When this happens, companies see an increase in revenue of 208%. It’s challenging to switch from a siloed team structure to genuine teamwork, but it’s well worth the effort.

Start with small changes and work your way up until the entire company is on board with the flywheel strategy. HubSpot offers services that can help you do this successfully. Flywheel is also a great resource for sales teams looking to increase their speed and achieve better returns on investment

5 Ways to use the flywheel marketing model to deliver better customer experiences and exceed customer expectations

Step 1: Re-educate yourself about various flywheel stages

The flywheel model is a helpful guide for customer journey mapping and defining focus areas that help drive customers along. To successfully apply the flywheel marketing model, it is vital first to understand each stage of the wheel:

In the first stage, you want to ease non-users into becoming new users or beginners. You can provide helpful resources on your website or blog that teach them about your product or service. Make sure these resources are easy to find and navigate and visually appealing.

In the Adopt stage, you want to create a high-converting website or provide free trials or high-value free-forever plans. This will encourage more people to try and become familiar with your product. Make sure your solution is getting the most attention possible by focusing on customer support and keeping new users coming back. Use search engine optimization tactics in this stage to increase traffic and social media marketing tactics to keep users engaged with your service.

In the Activate stage, you want customers who have adopted your product to start using it regularly and getting real value from it. Provide detailed product tutorials and walkthroughs to help customers love your product. Share success stories of people who have used your product, especially regular users. Let people know that you’re going to focus on customers by sharing helpful posts and resource posts related to them specifically, as well as highlighting new or overlooked features for them.

In the Advance stage, you want to focus on turning Regulars into Advocates. This can be done by incentivizing customers with a premium plan if they complete a survey or feedback form that compels them to upgrade.

The fourth stage of flywheel marketing is often user-generated content, reviews, and testimonials as advocates help market the product by bringing in new customers. Customers are incentivized to promote your products through affiliate programs or reward systems. Flywheel marketing creates a customer advocacy loop by rewarding customers for their efforts at every stage of the customer journey. The result better experiences for both consumers and businesses alike, with more repeat business and referrals from advocates

Step 2: Set Proper Metrics for Each Stage of the Flywheel

Once you understand the flywheel marketing model, it’s important to set specific metrics and goals for each stage. This will allow your company to deliver better customer experiences.

The five stages of the flywheel are:

– Identify pain points (identify problems)

– Create urgency around those pain points

– Introduce new solutions which alleviate those pains and create a “flywheel” effect on your product or service

Metrics should be tracked across all stages of the Flywheel marketing model. This will give you an idea of how well your company performs at each step. Make sure to measure friction, which will slow momentum and make it difficult for customers to progress through the model. Measuring engagement can help identify areas where customers are getting stuck.

The flywheel model aims to improve customer experience by having all silos on the same page. To build a successful flywheel, companies must already have a funnel. Shifting metrics from the funnel to the flywheel can help maximize your customer experience.

Crafting content that would delight existing customers instead of just those searching for trends could be helpful in the long run when using this framework. When using the flywheel marketing model, staying true to your brand’s values is best, and avoiding seeking outside validation.

Apply metrics to the flywheel to identify areas of friction and create a plan for reducing them. In addition, Hubspot offers helpful resources to help teams shift their marketing strategy toward the flywheel model.

Flywheel marketing is a framework that promotes synergy between marketing and sales, so goals are essential for both departments. Hubspot provides an overview on how to use flywheel marketing in a helpful video.

Step 3: Pinpoint and Address Areas of Friction in your Flywheel

The Flywheel Model helps identify friction points in the customer experience. Once these are identified, it is important to address them so that customers have a smooth and enjoyable experience with your brand. Some of the ways to address these friction points include:

• Ensure all departments work together and align with new promotions, features, and announcements.
• Use retargeting campaigns to increase the likelihood of conversion for prospects still in the “Activate” stage.
• Keeping onboarding files up to date ensures that prospects have a positive experience when visiting your website or app before buying something.
• Encourage content marketers to focus on personalization, ease of support, renewals and billings, and new product benefits.
• Incentivize user-generated content from current and past customers.
• Recruiting, onboarding, and managing employees or product affiliates and ambassadors as part of your flywheel marketing model

Step 4: Conduct CRO tests and experiments

Once you have your flywheel in place, it’s time to start testing different campaigns and processes to see which works best. This will help improve the customer experience while increasing sales.

Consistency is key to creating CRO tests – you’ll want to test the same thing multiple times on different pages or groups of customers to measure results accurately.

Test campaigns and see which works best to improve the customer experience while increasing sales. The flywheel is a model that helps companies measure the progress of their marketing campaigns. Flywheel Marketing aims to improve results for each stage of a company’s marketing campaign to create more customer experiences.

It is important to refer back and forth between your KPIs and areas of possible friction and experiment with different processes and campaigns that may help improve results for each stage.

Step 5: Track and evaluate your results

Now that you have implemented your Flywheel Marketing Model, it’s important to constantly monitor and track your progress. This will help you identify any potential problems or loopholes in the model so that you can fix them quickly. You should also track referrals and up-sells to make sure you’re reaching all of your goals. Additionally, survey customers regularly to get feedback on their experience with your brand. Use this information to improve your marketing strategy and keep your customers happy!

FAQ’s

What Is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound marketing is a strategy employed by companies to attract customers through content creation and distribution. It focuses on creating and publishing valuable content that will interest customers instead of bombarding them with advertisements. The ultimate goal is to create a strong relationship with the customer, which can eventually lead to conversions and sales.

What is the flywheel concept?

A flywheel is a mechanical device specifically designed to retain rotational energy efficiently.

The moment of inertia of a flywheel resists variations in rotating speed. A flywheel’s energy storage capacity is proportional to its spinning speed and mass square. The rotational speed of a flywheel can be changed to modify its stored energy without changing its mass.

How the flywheel concept applies to sales and marketing?

The Flywheel Concept is a term coined by Jim Collins in his book ‘Good to Great’ to describe businesses that can be compared to a giant flywheel.

The primary notion behind this concept is that it takes a lot of effort to get a massive flywheel moving. Even after it has gained momentum, the counter joints on the exterior of the flywheel provide more force and power. As a result, the flywheel may travel more quickly and efficiently while exerting less effort.

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The Flywheel Concept turns this notion into a business model. According to Jim Collins, firms gain incredible power from constant improvement and the delivery of outcomes.

As a result, the Flywheel Concept demonstrates that organizations expend significant effort to achieve incremental improvements. Even after all of these improvements have been made, employees in the company sense this force and adapt to it, resulting in faster and less work in achieving outcomes.

According to the Flywheel Concept, small, medium, and large businesses put a significant amount of time into their organizations to succeed. But, often, the results of time spent are not visible, or, more significantly, they are not evident immediately in organizational outputs.

These individuals or teams typically continue to devote time to the business until a breakthrough moment occurs. This is the point at which the company’s revenue outcomes become more apparent. As a result of the great force, organizational performance will continue to improve at an increasing rate.

Furthermore, Jim Collins contends that a flywheel effect will always occur in all great and successful firms since no great company can execute substantial transformations without first taking incremental moves. A corporation can have a big goal, but the only way to get there is to set small goals and ensure they are met.

A vital component of the Flywheel Concept is that firms must look from the inside out. Jim Collins’ concept is to relate a corporation to an egg in which a chick is hatching. Then, consider how this egg would appear to the general population.

Everyone thinks it’s just an egg until the chick breaches the eggshell and ventures into the world. Then, the chick cracking the eggshell gets public attention because of the breakthrough moment.

However, while the general populace went about their regular lives, the chick went undiscovered through several developmental processes. Unfortunately, this is also true for many organizations. Often, these businesses take developmental steps unnoticed by the outside world until they reach a tipping point.

What is the product-led growth flywheel?

Product-Led Expansion Flywheel is a framework for accelerating your company’s growth by investing in a product-led user experience. In this paradigm, the experience is meant to promote user pleasure and advocacy, which leads to compounding growth in new user acquisition.

It illustrates four consecutive user segments (evaluator, novice, regular, and champion) that correspond to stages in the user journey from awareness to evangelism, as well as the critical activities that users must complete to advance to the next step (active, adopt, admire, and promote).

The purpose is to direct company- and team-level initiatives toward maximizing the user experience to transition users from one stage to the next. The flywheel will spin faster as the number of users completing each action increases, increasing the rate at which users progress from one section to the next. This produces a positive feedback loop: as more users become advocates, they encourage more acquisition, and growth accelerates.

Use the sales flywheel approach to boost your business.

The sales flywheel is an effective tool for boosting your business. Using it can improve customer relationships, create more leads and close more deals. This guide reveals how to use the approach successfully for different types of businesses. From understanding where to start to get the most out of it, this guide will help you take your business to the next level with content governance.