You Don't Need A Sales Funnel

In today's episode, we are talking about some of the mistakes that I made when I first got into online business. When I first started out, I was running an Etsy business and I really went down the rabbit hole when it comes to funnels. At this point in my adventure, I have figured out that funnels are not the best for service providers. We're going to dive deep into this topic today and talk about how to think of your marketing instead of funnels, if you're a service provider. Do you remember when you first got into business, like your own business, and the excitement that came along with it? Way back when I was working for a small business, I was doing my day job. Everything was great. Wonderful. And then I had a baby having a baby was absolutely incredible. I love my child. I love my family. I love that I'm a mom. These are all things that I love, but, I felt like I was so squeezed. I felt like I went to work where my company owns me. And then I came home and my family owned me and there was nothing left for me as an individual. There was nothing left for myself as a person. And I felt like I didn't have anything that was uniquely. I decided that I was going to start a Nazi shop. I had always been really into crafting. My mother was a crafty person and I grew up watching her do arts and crafts. And every birthday party always had this crap that we would do. It's actually one of the reasons I became an engineer because I love working with my. And even though a lot of that was typing on a computer, there's just something about creating something practical and something useful and something beautiful from nothing. And that's something I have always carried with me. And I carried that over into software engineering when I was designing beautiful, useful products. And now something that I designed. My brand around. I it's come through to my branding business. I'm basically starting with a fresh set of paper and making something useful and beautiful out of it. And all of that came from my childhood and watching my mother create these crafts. So when I decided that I needed something for myself, it was very comforting to me to go back to crafting. I decided that I was going to start my own craft business by started just a part-time Etsy business. I had an Etsy store where I would sell coffee, mugs and shirts. I ended up getting really into baby items because I was creating items for my own baby. I was creating custom ones, used for her and people seem to like them. So I was like, all right, great. I'll sell these on Etsy. And I tried to. Learn as much as I could about selling on Etsy. And I ended up stumbling on Dotcom secrets, which is a book by Russell Brunson. And it really outlined this idea of creating a website and creating a sales funnel. I had hired an Etsy coach. I was in a group program for people who sold on Etsy. I really knew nothing about selling online. At that point. I knew how to create stuff. I didn't know how to create stuff at scale, but I was learning about marketing and it was a really the first time that I had learned about marketing and sales. Because before that I knew I could create a fantastic website, but I didn't know anything else about how to promote a bit. And so I'll never forget reading this book and feeling like I had opened my eyes into this amazing world of online business where anything was possible and that if I had the right sales funnel, I could be a millionaire. And that is honestly what it felt like. That was awhile ago. I shut down my Etsy business when I realized that while I love crafting, I don't love crafting for money because it takes a lot of time and a lot of efforts. And especially if you're selling mugs, it's a lot in shipping costs to ship a mug. I just realized I wasn't passionate about it. After my daughter sort of outgrew the baby items, I was still trying to sell the baby items and realized I don't really want to do this because now she's a toddler and now she's into toddler stuff and I would rather be making that. And I was like, wait a minute. Then when she outgrows the toddler stuff and she's a kid, I don't want to change my business every couple of years because she's outgrown it. And I'm really interested in it because of her. So it was not a good business decision for me. I learned a lot and I've learned things that I applied to my business today, but it's not something that I would say like, oh yeah, this was a super successful business by any means. But all that to say, I will never forget the concept of funnels and how it just made me feel like anything was possible, which makes this next part really hard for me. I don't believe that service providers need complicated sales funnels in order to succeed. I don't think you have to have them. In fact, I think in a lot of cases, thinking about your business as a funnel actually can severely hurt your business and can severely hurt the growth that you have in your business. There's a lot to unpack there. Do I think all funnels are bad. No. Do I think they're a horrible visualization? No, but for a service provider, I think it's often more complicated than the simple sales funnels lead us to believe it could be. So the idea in a sales funnel is that you offer something that is free. At the top of your funnel. So that's the biggest part. So you get a bunch of people that kind of pass by and they see your free thing and they go into your funnel. If they're like, yes, I'm saying yes to this. And often you will collect an email address because you've offered something free. And I say that with quotes around it in exchange for an email. And then you start sending them emails because now you have their information. So then you, you send them to sort of this middle of the road package or this sort of entry level where they have to pay for something. So now they pay for it and they get a little bit more information about you and less people are going to pay for things. So some people are going to kind of drop off. And this is where that upside down triangle starts to take shape. Then you offer another product or something. It's a little bit more expensive, less people are going to take it and so on and so forth until eventually they get to your highest level and they drop out of this sales funnel. However, it is not always the best visualization because what happens when somebody drops off the bottom of your sales funnel? Are they never going to hear from you again? Of course. Also not for nothing, but I have had clients who have bought my highest level of service. They've bought that biggest package. And then I've turned around and sold a very small workshop at a much smaller price. And they'll go and they'll buy. That's like going upwards through the funnel, instead of viewing things like that, upside down triangle in the sales funnel as a service provider, it is much different to think of things as a system and every business model for a service provider is going to be a little bit different. I offer something called a lead product. I require every single client to go through the lead product process. So that means you cannot buy a package from me. My typical package is called an action brand. You cannot purchase an action brand until you have gone through the lead product, which is called the clear brand. You have to do a clear brand interview before you're even given the opportunity. To purchase an action brand. So some could say, well, that's a funnel because you're going to have a lot more people buy your clear brand and not everybody's going to go onto the actual brand. And that's absolutely right, but it's a system and those action brand clients could end up purchasing another clear brand product if their business changes a few years later. Let's say they could go backwards and now they could buy the clear brands again, because based on what you get on this interview, I can make my own adjustments to my brands. They may go that way. I may end up offering a workshop or a masterclass where I may charge something for it. They may choose to go and do that. It's happened in the past. It could happen again. So it's not a cut and dry funnel. And often I hate the idea of when we lose people. We just assume that they're gone forever. When in reality, those people can then become referral partners for us. So for me, my best source of new clients, which in the funnel model is the top of the funnel. They actually come from the people at the bottom of the funnel. Idea that people just kind of fall through doesn't account for those referrals that come back up to the top. I've had people that have left in the middle of the process that have turned around. One of my best referral partners right now is somebody that did not do an action brand, but did a clear brand. And she has sent several people my way at this point because she got so much value out of it. So as service providers, it's just one of those things where our services are so varied and the services really don't all have to depend on each other. And we can have people that go forwards and backwards and they can do all sorts of crazy things that I think you limit yourself. When you think about these funnels, there's also different types of sales funnels. So there's the freebie lead magnet funnel. There's the webinar funnel. I heard one the other day called the anti-fungal webinar. And I was like, no, it's a funnel. They're just calling it anti funnel. There's all these different funnels. Go look at Russell Brunson at his funnel cookbook. And I swear this, thing's got to have like 50 different funnel recipes. There's all these different types of funnels that you can put in your business. But I think often service providers get so caught up in this model, which may be works well for coaches and maybe works well. If you're looking to get this type of expert business, because after you read.com secrets, then they push you towards expert secrets, which is an information type of funnel situation, which not every service provider needs to do. Not every service provider needs to become a coach. Not every service provider needs to have courses and write books and sell from the stage. Not everybody needs to do that. And we shouldn't be encouraging every service provider to do that. Some of the best service providers should stay and still be service providers. Absolutely. It's a very valid and very meaningful business. People get so caught up in these complicated funnels that they failed to take a step back to say, wait a minute, does this make sense for my actual clients? Does this make sense for my business? They're going to promise you the world again. I can make a million dollars selling Etsy products. If I just get this funnel right. How many people have failed at business because that's what they thought. And it's so easy to do. It's so persuasive. Every single sales manipulation tactic is used here. There's just so much psychology that goes into it. It's designed that way. But the reality is as a service provider, you don't need these complicated funnels and there is no silver bullet. There is no one thing. There's no one funnel that's going to turn you into a millionaire. There's no one thing that's going to propel your business to success. The reality is it's a number of things that you have to have going right for you. Most of them are in your control. Some of them are not. And anybody that tells you that you're 100% in control that somebody that's not living in reality, the reality of the situation is that your business is going to have to depend on a little bit of. And a lot of know-how and a lot of mistakes will be made and a lot of mistakes will be hopefully learned from, and eventually you end up with this amazing business and you finally figure out what works for you and what works for your ideal. And it's amazing when that happens. And all of a sudden, all these puzzle pieces just fall into place and you can see the photo and you can see the picture and what it's supposed to look like. And it is the most amazing feeling in the world, but it often does not start with a sales funnel. Thanks for listening and letting me get up on my soapbox to talk about funnels for a bit. I've wanted to break this down for such a long time, and it feels cathartic to get it out there next week. We're going to be talking about hiring coaches for your business. I'm going to talk about my experiences hiring for my business so that hopefully you can avoid falling into some of the traps that I certainly did when I started this whole crazy journey. I started hiring coaches to try to shortcut some things and it didn't work out the way I thought it would. So buyer beware, if you enjoyed today's episode, make sure you follow along readings and reviews are another great way to show your appreciation as they help other people find this podcast as well until next time.