breaking down my $100K funnel
WORK LESS, EARN MORE PODCAST EPISODE #222
Confession: I love "hacking" other people's sales funnels. 🙈
In other words, I've spent way too much time watching other people's webinars, reading their emails, and analyzing their sales pages.
I'm just so curious about the strategies other businesses use (especially the businesses owned by people I really look up to) and I want to learn what's working for them.
If you can relate to my insatiable curiosity, then... be my guest. :)
No need to feel bad if you want to snoop! In fact, I'd be happy to give you a guided tour. :)
Want to come behind the scenes in my business and see how one of my most profitable sales funnels works?
It's a funnel that's able to turn our traffic into leads and then turn those leads into paying customers... all without us having to do sales calls or even email back-and-forth with prospects.
In other words, the entire process is automated and all the sales it generates create passive income!
(Of course, just like every money-making strategy, this system took effort to create. But, with that work behind me, the income it brings in each month is now passive income.)
Click below 👇 if you'd rather listen to an episode about the funnel, or keep reading for the broad strokes. :)
LEAD GENERATION
The whole system starts on my website. People get there from all over the internet, but primarily from YouTube, Google, and Instagram, because those are the three platforms I've created the most content for.
After consuming my content on one of those 3rd party platforms, people make their way to my website to learn more... and one of the things they find there is a recorded webinar called 3 Secrets to Reach 1,000 Subscribers in Just 3 Months.
Clicking on the button to "sign up now" takes them to this page 👇 that gives them more info about the training and allows them to sign up for one of the show times.
After signing up for the webinar, they're taken to this "thank you page" that confirms their registration and features a video that encourages them to show up for the class:
SHOW UP EMAILS
Next, they get several "show up emails" to make sure that they stay motivated to attend the class and don't forget to show up at the scheduled time. We configure these emails to send out at various intervals before their scheduled class time in our webinar software. Currently we're using Easy Webinar.
We send a total of four show-up emails. The first is sent immediately after the lead registers for the webinar, the second is scheduled for 1 day before their scheduled webinar, the 3rd is scheduled for three hours before, and the final one goes at the scheduled time of their class.
I'll point out here that this is the MINIMUM number of show-up emails I'd recommend you send, and we often see even better results with an additional email or two sent two or three days before the scheduled event.
Why, then, do we only send four emails? Well, that's because I use the Fast Track strategy for this funnel, so webinar times are only offered over a 72-hour period. So everyone who signs up for the webinar is signing up for a time within the next two days, so it's sufficient for them to only get four emails in that time period.
WEBINAR STRATEGY
Okay, moving on!
At the scheduled time of the webinar they signed up for, they show up and watch the free class. Here's an example of the slides I use for that:
Of course, if you want to see how that whole webinar works, you could sign up to watch it for yourself. :) Or, just read this post, where I break down my full webinar strategy.
And, heads up… in my opinion, the webinar isn’t an “optional” funnel component, since it typically drives at least 50% of our total revenue!
Our webinar watch page looks like this 👇 and we typically see a healthy 30% show-up rate, which is great for an automated sales event like this.
At the webinar, attendees learn about our YouTube strategy program, Creator Fast Track, and get the opportunity to join.
However, we keep the timing pretty tight. Each individual has a personalized 72-hour promo window to motivate them to take action and not sit on the opportunity.
Now, I know you might be thinking, "But, of course, they can always just sign up with a different email address..."
But, actually, they can't. The system we use does an excellent job of creating custom promotion windows for each individual based on their IP address, not their email addresses. That's important to me because I really want to give each person their own, genuinely unique experience, allowing them to purchase the product at the time when they are most interested and most in need.
SALES PAGE STRATEGY
The next part of this $100K Funnel is the sales page. The format we like to use for these is called the "No-Brainer Sales Page." It's a simple format that just focuses on the 20% of sales page tactics that get you 80% of the results.
Keeping with our theme of keeping things simple, we have our sales page build right in Samcart, our online "cart" software. That eliminates the need for an additional webpage and also reduces friction, because people can purchase the product without leaving the page.
And those who are ready to buy do exactly that...
However, of course, there's also a large percentage of people who aren't quite ready to buy yet. And, for those people, we have a compelling series of emails lined up for them to receive over the following 24 hours.
I'm going to do a full write-up on that email sales sequence in a few weeks, so keep your eyes out for that. In the meantime, you can have a look through the emails themselves in this PDF.
PROMOTION WINDOW
Now, you may have noticed that there are timers on a few of the pages linked above, including the sales page and throughout the emails.
These timers, as I mentioned previously, are controlled by an automated system that limits the promotion window. The reason this is important is because "open enrollment" (meaning that the product is always available and people can purchase it whenever they want) doesn't tend to motivate people to buy. Especially for more expensive products, like online courses, people need a reason to buy NOW that helps them overcome their reservations about purchasing.
Well, limited-time promotions give them that motivation that they need -- and including timers throughout the funnel serves to remind the leads that the offer won't be available for much longer.
Many businesses achieve a similar effect by regularly running live promotions. However, that sales strategy requires much more active involvement, so it doesn't create passive income like the $100K Funnel strategy does.
The other big problem with live launching is that, by definition, this strategy means that your product is not available for purchase most of the time. In fact, many businesses only sell their products for a few weeks out of the year.
...which leads to a lot of lost sales, because many people will choose to buy other solutions if your product isn't available when they want it.
Think about it this way: if you got 100 new leads this month and sold to them this month, you could likely close about 10 sales.
But, if you were to wait six months before trying to sell to that same group of people, you'd most likely only be able to close about 5 sales, because many of the leads would have found other solutions, purchased other products, or simply lost interest.
And that means that by making your prospects wait until your next live launch... you're likely missing out on HALF of your potential earnings.
So, here's what we do instead: we meet every single person where they're at right now.
In other words, after they sign up for the webinar (indicating their interest), we give them the opportunity to buy right away and we start a timer specifically for them.
Then, if they don't choose to purchase during that custom promotion, they then get another opportunity to purchase a few months later -- all taken care of by our automated systems. (Let me know if you'd like a breakdown of how we accomplish that sometime!)
WRAPPING IT ALL UP
Of course, the final step of the funnel is that once the customer purchases the product, they automatically get an email that gives them access to the digital product, which looks like this:
The whole system is simple, seamless, and SO effective at turning traffic into leads and, from there, turning the leads into paying customers.
To understand this funnel strategy on an even deeper level, click here to read the next post in this series, where I breakdown my webinar strategy.
Show notes + links:
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE TO HEAR:
The importance of studying and learning from other businesses' sales funnels without directly copying their strategies.
Introduction to automated 100k sales funnels and how they convert online visibility into leads and customers on autopilot.
The step-by-step process of a 100k sales funnel, from attracting internet traffic to webinar signups and sales through tailored email sequences.
Sneak peek into future episodes, including deeper dives into sales email strategies.