The buyer’s journey. Pipeline progression. The sales funnel. As sales and marketing professionals, we refer to these terms a lot.

However: These all imply that the ultimate end goal is the sale — that everything is geared toward the swiping of the card or the signing of the contract.

We understand. It’s what we all learned to optimize for and prioritize.

Meanwhile, there’s little emphasis on the stages of the journey after the sale. And in our opinion, they’re equally, if not more important, if you consider the impact of adoption (or bonding) and advocacy to annual revenue. Let’s take a closer look.