What is a sales funnel?

Since majority of my audience are female coaches and course creators, in most of my teachings I concentrate on funnels promoting a digital product, a program or coaching services.

If you don’t know me yet, I’m a girl who worked behind the big launches – multiple 6 and 7 figures … yeah baby!!! I still work behind the scenes but slowly showing my face

So here is the thing, you do need funnel in your business, PERIOD.

Just so you know, some business solely rely on sales funnels and making big bucks.

If I grabbed your attention and you just had aha moment this is what you need to set up a funnel:

1 // an irresistible funnel entry offer aka lead magnet

This can be either free or paid. With the recent changes happening in online word and marketing I’m leaning more and more towards offering no brainer paid offers for anything like $7, $11, $17 or $27 whichever will work for you.

And when it comes to creating your lead magnet or ethical bribe, I’m a huge fan or reverse engineering which I talk more about in my ‘7 Secrets of High Converting Sales Funnels’ and you can grab for free HERE.

Lead magnet can be anything that is easy to quickly digest, preferably comes in more than one form and offer an huge value people will happily pay or if it’s already paid offer, the value is sooooo much more that the price you were asking.

The most important thing to keep in mind when creating your lead magnet is to woooooow that new human who believed so much in what you are offering that it will help her to solve that big problem she facing. Remember that she’s new to your tribe so you need to position yourself as someone who she can trust and become hungry to learn more.

2 // freebie (or no brainer) delivery system

This is how I call it myself but in fact it’s a part on the sales funnel where you have a whole system set up the way it delivers your lead magnet and nurture your new lead to make her to buy from you. More about it below

3 // your main signature offer

Because you are in business to help others but also to earn money, you will need something to sell. This will depend on what is your offer but in most cases if you are a coach or teaching something online you will be able to create an online program where your personal involvement is limited to minimum (eg. one weekly group coaching session) and the majority of content is in a form of pre-recorded tutorials or weekly live lessons delivered in a group environment that later you will repurpose as a pre-recorded material. This way you’re creating very sustainable business model where you don’t need to be involved that much simply because your time is so precious!

What Exactly is needed to build a sales funnel?

By now you probably understand that you need a funnel in your business and you also have an idea how powerful it is. Now the question is what do you need to build one?

Because I like to simplify things and based on my 12+ experience building funnels, here is what I recommend:

Here’s what you need for your funnel:

– lead magnet – can be pdf of checklist, blueprint, audio, video, meditation, mini training, you name it! The key is to make it so good everyone who sees it, will have no doubts just to sign up to get it. And with tools like Canva* you can easily create beautiful pdf in no time!

– optin page or mini sales page – a simple page telling what is it that you offer, what problem it will solve and why she needs to do to get it. Keep it short and to the point. The times of pages long optin and sales pages are over!

– thank you page – it can be a simple page where you are setting the expectations and telling her what will happen next. So it can say something like ‘Go to you inbox and look up for xyz’, ‘Click on the button to join my group’, etc. And, which I’m a big fan of, it can also be an upsell page (also called a tripwire or self liquidating funnel when you run ads – because it helps you cover your ads spent) where you offer something that’s a no brainer, a one time offer available only on this page. But do make sure it’s true! So many times I see upsells, a super exclusive deal that is also available at exactly same price on that person website … hymmm what type of irresistible offer it is then?

– delivery email, follow up nurturing and sales emails – for this part you will need a set of a emails. The first one – delivery email – is an email that will deliver what she signed up for. It is super easy to set it up in email marketing systems like Active Campaign* or ConvertKit*. If you don’t know how to do it check out my mini program ‘Build Your MF List’. Next you will need a few emails for your funnel. These emails should introduce you, your zone of genius, make them relatable so she will begin to trust you and want to learn more about what you’re doing. Have testimonials from your previous clients and success stories. Invite her to follow you on social media and join you live inside your FB group. Then in an email 4 or 5 you can start talking about your signature offer and include links to sales pages.

– your main offer sales page – this is a page where you offer your main signature program. I will not go into much details here, as it a separate topic on its own but the main thing to remember is that the sales page is all about helping your client with the problem that keeps her awake at night. It’s your chance to explain why you, why what you are teaching will help her and present it the way that’s simply the next logical step from your funnel entry point. By the time she will get here, she should already be warmed enough thought your sales funnel emails, chatbot messages and other activities that she will be begging you to take her card details!

– checkout page – you can use anything like Samcart or ThriveCart or even simple Paypal button. It’s a way to collecting payments, yeeeey! If you are curious about my opinion, I think that if you are serious about running your online business, investing in ThriveCart* is the best decision you will make! It so easy to create a beautiful checkout and set up the delivery process. But also if you run ads you will be able to track and retarget those who visited your checkouts and not buy. What I really love about it and i think it’s such an unutilised feature is the cart abandon actions. Basically what you can do, is set up a follow-up emails and everyone who fill up the cart form but not complete the purchase will get them. The study show that 70% people abandon carts … imagine if you can retrieve even a part of it… (SIDE NOTE: tutorial how to set up the cart abandon campaign is available in my free Facebook group, you can join here)

– offer welcome page – a simple page that says congratulation and informs her what to do next, perhaps join your Facebook™ group, Telegram™ channel or login to your courses platform. You can also include a welcome video which will be a nice touch especially of she just invested quite a bit $$$.

– offer delivery – depending how complicated your offer is and how much you can invest in the setup, you can either deliver it via email, chatbot or inside Facebook™ group. If you have more time or money, you can build a platform that will hold you program. There are many tools that you can use for that. Starting from Kajabi, Clickfunnels, Teachable, Teachery etc. But you can also deliver your program or course on your WordPress website with a LMS plugin (My fav and what I use myself for Glam Biz Club courses is Thrive Apprentice*). I’m a huge fan of that simply because there is no huge monthly cost (which can be a thing with the other well known solutions) but also I know this way I’m in charge of my content and in case I will not be happy with any of the 3rd party platforms or simply decide its no longer what I need, I’m saving myself time and headache.

– traffic – the main fuel for your funnel! You can get people inside your sales funnels in 2 ways: organically but posting on your social media, talking to your connections about it, advertising on your website etc. But what will really up you game is paid traffic. This of course will cost you money but you also need to remember if your funnel works well and your offer converts, you should easily get your investment back plus more, much more! Because the purpose of having a funnel is to earn money on autopilot

What I can advise you, if you are completely new to this – set up your sales funnel, promote it for about 4-8 weeks organically and if you offer converts then go all in and invest in ads. If you already have a proven offer then definitely start advertising! This is the only way to scale your business and reach people who you would normal never reach.

That’s about it what you need for a simple sales funnel. Now you need to create it. Then put the word out about your entry offer on all you social media channels, to your existing list, add everywhere on your website eg: blog sidebar, blog footer (look below ) and as an exit intent (I know it’s annoying but it works!), run ads, retarget, use all the available tools we have like Instagram™ DMs, messenger bot, WhatsApp™ automations, etc.

The world needs that what you offer!

Lastly, please remember, everything you do to market your business is a test. You need to get your sales funnel and offer out, promote it (organically or with ads) get the results and adjust as needed. Only then you will achieve great results. No matter what people tell you and what you read online, no one ever get an offer out and make millions right away!

So be patient, give yourself time and don’t draft away from the course, collect data, assess and correct the course if needed but keep going!

Now it’s your turn!

 Take those tips and implement. Simply because knowledge without implementing will make no difference.

* These links are affiliate links which means if you sign up for the offer I will receive a small commission. Money I earn this way is my budget to keep learning and improving so I can share my knowledge with you