The five-number funnel check

What a booking costs you, what it's worth, and whether the first sale pays for the ad

Five numbers from last month: ad spend, calls booked, calls held, sales, cash per sale. The check turns them into sales per booking, cost per booking, and the gross profit left on a first sale after the ad, the sales team and delivery. Your numbers, computed in front of you. Nothing here is a quote.

Ad spend in a normal month

What the ad account billed. Leave agency fees and software out; they come off later.

Calls booked

Every booking, including the ones that cancelled, rescheduled or never showed.

Calls held

The ones where a closer actually spoke to the person.

Sales closed

Cash collected, not contracts signed. A payment plan that never paid is not a sale.

Cash collected per sale

What lands on the first payment, averaged. If half pay in full and half pay a deposit, use the blend.

Sales team, as a share of cash%

Setters, closers and whoever manages them. Twenty is a common all-in number. Zero if you close every call yourself.

Delivery, as a share of cash%

Coaches, support, software, whatever it costs to deliver what was sold. Twenty is typical for a coached program.

Sales per booking

12.0%

Sales divided by every booking, no-shows included. The one number that compares funnels fairly, because a funnel that books easily and shows badly hides behind its close rate.

The first sale covers the ad and not much else. The money in this funnel is in the second payment and the back end, so retention is the number to watch, and show rate is the cheapest lever on the front.

$780

One booking is worth

Cash per sale times sales per booking. Pay more than this for a booking and the ad loses money before anyone picks up the phone.

$300

One booking costs

Ad spend over bookings. Hold it against the number on the left.

$600

One held call costs

Ad spend over calls held. The show rate is what moves this without touching the ads.

$2,500

One customer costs

Ad spend over sales. The ad cost of a customer, before the team and delivery are paid.

50.0%

Show rate

Held over booked. Below half, a confirmation sequence is the cheapest fix in the funnel.

24.0%

Close rate on held calls

The number people quote on its own. Read it next to sales per booking, never instead of it.

$1,400

Gross profit on a first sale

Cash per sale, less the ad cost of that customer, the sales team and delivery. Contribution to overhead, before rent and salaries.

0.6x

Gross profit to ad cost, first sale

Gross profit on the first sale over what the ad cost to get it. Renewals and a back end are what take this past three to one; the first sale rarely does on its own.

$117,000

Cash collected in ninety days

Three months at this rate. The trailing number any partner paid on growth would measure from.

It models one month of one funnel. It does not know your renewal rate, your back end, or what happens to show rate when spend doubles, and it will not pretend to. The slider that moves the answer most is calls held.

Want someone else's pay to depend on these numbers?

The growth offer puts a sales team on every booking and pays us out of the cash above the ninety-day number this page just computed. The terms are printed on the page.

Read the growth offer