The Funnel Tells Only Half the Story

Traditional marketing funnels explain how people discover, consider and convert. But for network businesses, growth often happens through relationships, introductions and connections that cannot be captured by a linear funnel.

Beyond the Funnel

I have spent years looking at funnels.

Lately, I keep drawing maps instead.

Not because I suddenly think funnels are useless. They are still helpful for understanding how someone discovers a product, becomes interested, converts and comes back.

But working on Lab2Lab has made me realise how much of the important story can happen outside that line.

A conversation with one lab manager leads to an introduction to a CRO.

That CRO mentions another team with a capability we have been looking for.

Someone we meet at an event knows a facility manager.

A laboratory joins because of one problem, then becomes useful to three other laboratories for completely different reasons.

A piece of content starts a conversation that does not convert into anything immediately, but six weeks later becomes an introduction.

When I try to put all of this into a traditional funnel, something always feels missing.

Because the question is no longer only:

How did this person reach us?

I increasingly want to know:

What became possible after they did?

That is a very different way of looking at marketing.

People Play Different Roles

You begin noticing that people play different roles inside an ecosystem.

Some are highly connected and seem to know everyone.

Some hold a rare capability.

Some constantly encounter problems that reveal where demand exists.

And some carry trust: an introduction from them changes the way two strangers perceive each other before they have even spoken.

None of these roles fits particularly neatly into “lead”, “prospect” or “customer”.

And perhaps that is what I find most interesting.

For some businesses, growth may not happen only when another person moves down the funnel.

It may happen when a new relationship becomes possible somewhere in the network.

How the Network Actually Forms

This has also changed the way I think about our own GTM.

Cold outreach, events, content and community look like separate marketing channels on a plan.

In practice, they constantly feed into one another.

Content gives someone a reason to trust the conversation.

A conversation leads to a meeting.

A meeting reveals another person we should know.

An introduction creates the first useful interaction.

That interaction becomes a story someone tells someone else.

At some point, it becomes difficult to say where marketing ends and the network begins.

The Graph Beneath the Funnel

I do not think funnels are going anywhere. I still use them.

But I am beginning to think that for network businesses, a funnel tells only half the story.

The other half is the graph forming underneath it.