WORK LESS, EARN MORE PODCAST EPISODE #209

As promised, I'm back this week with the final installment of the Big-Picture Business Strategy series, and today we're getting into 5 things that will MAKE or BREAK your sales funnel.

Quick recap: Over the past month, we've been talking about the 3 essential ingredients for any business to be profitable. Those include a great product, people who want that product, and a sales system that sells your product.

Last week, I broke down the basics of what a sales system is, how it works, and how to create an effective one.

But there was a lot more detail that I didn't have time to share with you.

So, today, that's what we're doing -- going over those details that make the difference between a profit-less funnel and a profitable funnel.

#1 Incremental Validation

Sales systems always have lots of moving parts... which means they have lots of points of potential failure.

Now, I don't mean they're prone to breaking (though that can happen). Rather, it's that if ONE part doesn't work correctly, then the whole system won't work at all.

So, here's what happens to a lot of the funnels people try to build:

They plan the funnel.
They build the funnel.
They turn it on.
It doesn't work.
They don't know why.

Sounds frustrating, right?

Yeah, it was. I went through that process at least 3-4 times myself.

Now, don't get me wrong -- it's a very instructive process that can ultimately lead to success... if you don't give up.

But it's frustrating and can make it take years before you finally start earning passive income.

Here's how to avoid this cycle: incremental validation

In short, incremental validation means you build just ONE thing, and then you test it to make sure it works before building the next step of your system.

Notice: this is still a process of experimentation and iterative testing. You're still learning by doing.

BUT, using this method, you're able to minimize the amount of back-tracking you'll have to do, saving gobs of time.

For example, like I mentioned, I built at least 3-4 entire funnels that didn't earn me any money at all. Eventually, I figured out all the problems with these funnels and was able to build a profitable funnel, but that process took a couple of years.

Contrast that with the process we guide the students in $100K Mastermind through:

They conceptualize a product.
They test their product idea.
Once they have a winning product idea, they try marketing it.
Once they find marketing messages that their target market is responding to (AKA their product starts selling), they create their mass marketing materials.
Then they test their mass marketing materials.
Once their mass marketing materials are working (AKA selling their product), then they build their evergreen funnel.
Once they have that funnel that they know works, they build an evergreen lead generation system to fuel it with traffic.

The whole process takes less than six months and EVERY student who goes through the process ends up with a profitable funnel at the end of that time.

Is there still experimentation? Yes, absolutely.

But is there guesswork? No, because we're working through a strategic funnel-building system.

#2 Win/Win Marketing

When it comes to selling, most people tend to gravitate to one extreme or the other.

Either, A) they'll do ANYTHING to make a sale, or B) they'll do ANYTHING to avoid offending or bothering anyone.

Either they sell HARD or they're scared to sell AT ALL.

And while the middle-ground of "moderation" when it comes to selling is vastly superior to either of these two extremes... it's not the ideal option.

The ideal, in my opinion, is what I call "Win/Win Marketing."

As you probably know, a "win-win situation" is one that benefits both parties. And that's exactly what we want out of our marketing!

We don't want "moderation." We don't want to only make a few sales and only bother people a little bit.

We want to make as many sales as possible AND have people love the experience.

We want to win as much as possible and we want our audience to win as much as possible at the same time.

This all started about 5 years ago when I was working with a copywriter for one of my funnels and I told her, "I want people to LIKE these emails. I want them to enjoy going through this funnel. I want them to get so much value from the funnel itself that they feel like they should have paid for it!"

And, ever since then, that's been our #1 goal with all of our marketng.

One of the main ways we apply this in $100K Mastermind is with the webinar strategy we have the students use.

You've probably been on the wrong end of an annoying, spammy, slimey-sales webinar before, right?

But not only is that 100% not necessary, when a webinar can be an amazing, FREE educational experience... it also doesn't create the best results.

It's crazy, I know, (hear that sarcasm in my voice?) but people are actually MORE likely to buy from you if they like and trust you.

#3 Perfect-Timing Sales

We're told we need to pick between two options:

A) Live launching
B) Evergreen sales funnels

Both have downsides. Live launching is more work and more stressful and only lets people buy your product a few times per year... which might not be when they need or want your product.

Evergreen sales funnels, on the other hand, generally don't have enough urgency to convince people to buy. They know they can just "join the waitlist" later, and then they'll get the chance to buy when they finally feel like it.

But, as usual, I refused to settle for this dichotomy and invented a third option.

This new sales strategy involves including links throughout your email newsletters (which you can automate, by the way) that "trigger" special promotions for individual leads.

In other words, when one of your leads indicates that they're more interested in buying your product soon, they get (automatically) pushed into a funnel that gives them the opportunity to buy.

This system ensures that each lead gets sold to at exactly the right time -- the time when they're MOST likely to buy, which ensures that YOU see the maximum number of sales.

(And, in the win/win marketing spirit, this strategy also means that your leads also have an optimal experience, because it saves them from ever having to go through promotions they're not interested in!)

And yes... we teach the perfect-timing sales strategy in $100K Mastermind. ;)

#4 Verbatim Messaging

Pop quiz: What words are most effective for selling your product?

"Now"? Nope.

"Best"? Nope.

"Limited-time"? Wrong again.

"Guaranteed results"? Still no.

The answer? Their own words.

What do they say they want? How do they describe the challenge they're trying to solve? What words do they use to describe the outcome they're looking for?

Saying your target market's exact words back to them is the surest way to write a sales message that will "resonate" with them; the surest way to get them to understand what you're talking about; the surest way to "convince" them.

It's also one of the EASIEST ways to write your sales message, because it doesn't rely on your own genius, marketing savvy, or creativity.

It is, however, a bit of a process. You have to first talk to your target market, asking them the questions that will get them to give you the words you need.

And, then, you must extract those words out of all the words they said.

Finally, you need to take those words and plug them into your marketing messages.

It's simple, but it takes a little bit of leg work.

Personally, though, I think it's worth it... a few hours of work to get the perfect words... that can end up doubling your conversion rates.

I mean, 200 sales in a year, instead of just 100? That works out to a pretty good hourly rate on the time you put into that message mining.

#5 Lead Generation System

Too many people put in all the work to build an evergreen sales funnel, only to give up when it doesn't immediately work.

The problem? They only built HALF of the machine.

As I'm sure you've heard me say more than a few times at this point, "Nobody can buy your product if they don't know it exists."

Your funnel can't generate any sales if you don't send leads into it.

BUT, if you try to find the leads and send them into your funnel manually, then your income will never be passive... and you'll wind up burning out long before long.

So, instead, only consider your sales funnel to be 1/2 of the system you need to earn passive income online.

The other half of your system is your lead generation system. And this, too, needs to be a passive system!

After building their sales funnels via incremental validation (see point #1 above), every $100K Mastermind student finishes off the program with Phase 5, where they build their lead generation systems -- ensuring they have a complete machine that can generate thousands of dollars of passive income each month.

We run $100K Mastermind cohorts just twice/year, and our Spring 2024 cohort is starting up in just a few weeks. Would you like to join in to get your own $100K Funnel built with our methodology?

The cohort is limited to just 40 students, so get your application in now while there's still space.

APPLY NOW

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Show notes + links:

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE TO HEAR:

How to STOP trading your time for money
The importance of a functional sales system for online business profitability
Strategies for finding profitable products and identifying the RIGHT audience
Practical steps to attract, develop, and close sales, while building audience trust