This is either:

A) a really bad trip on an illicit drug
B) a ‘worm hole’ somewhere in Space
C) what Alice saw upon entering Wonderland
D)  a Marketing Hourglass — top view looking down

The answer is . . . “who really knows?”

Personally, I like to think it’s a worm hole in Space!

Like a worm hole, the Duct Tape Marketing Hourglass™ suggests that one side of the funnel, is going to be a mirror image of what you’d find on the other side.

The Traditional Funnel
The typical sales / marketing funnel is depicted as being wide at the top and narrowing at the bottom. That metaphor suggests how you put a lot of prospects in the top of the funnel — thanks to your lead-generation tactics — and then work those leads until you ‘squeeze’ clients out of the other end.

Duct Tape Marketing’s Upper Funnel
In our Duct Tape Marketing hourglass, we have a ‘mirror-image’ or ‘double’ funnel.  It recognizes that you go to work getting people to know you, like you relative to your competitors and trust you (your brand) sufficiently to try you — i.e. find a way to work with you at some level involving, initially, no or little risk.

Duct Tape Marketing’s Lower Funnel
Once you have a client, our funnel continues — to expand — suggesting your new client relationship is adding to a growing base of brand advocates and referral partners whose lifetime value to your firm is realized in the form of up-sells, cross-sells and re-sells as well as referrals to others who can best understand, value and afford your services.

Our marketing hourglass vs. the traditional sales funnel  focuses intensely on building relationships as well as transactions.  If you do that, you’ll generate more revenues!

This approach also requires special attention to the use of systems and processes that move your prospects along the path of know, like, trust, try, buy, refer and return.