I’m going to show you how to sell a marketing funnel, that you then build inside WordPress.
You don’t need any expensive plugins or themes. You don’t need funnel software or expensive automation apps. What we’re going to do is sell a marketing funnel product which we then build in WordPress.
So many funnel builders believe they need to build a funnel, before they sell it. Which is absolute nonsense. If you’re serious about making a living selling marketing funnels, you need to address the wants of a market, before you build something.
First and foremost, the only true, fail-safe way to ever generate ANY kind of wealth, is persistence. Persistence, dedication, willpower. All of those things are what really counts when it comes to finding more customers for your funnel business.
You have to repeatedly ask yourself “if I want to receive big results, am I willing to give big action? Repeatedly, helpfully and persistently?”
If you really want to sell a marketing funnel which you can build in WordPress, then keep reading. Take notes and follow each step. It isn’t hard work, but it is difficult to keep doing.
Choose a market
The first thing you need to clearly define, if you to find a customer, is to choose who you’re going after.
You won’t hit a bull’s eye if you don’t know where you’re aiming.
If you don’t have a customer avatar, I suggest you go ahead and create one.
You want to have a brief physical description, what they want, what their goals are, what their biggest roadblock is, how they buy and how they communicate.
Troy from WP Elevation has the best example in the world for creating an avatar.
Originally from Duct Tape Marketing by John Jantch. WP Elevation – The Definitive Guide To Winning WordPress ClientsWhat we’re writing down and defining, is who can we help the most?
You’re absolutely capable of helping and adding massive value to hundreds of different businesses and industries. And one day, you might just do that. But to start, pick a target and go after that with everything you’ve got.
Persistence, dedication and willpower to your chosen market.
Decide an offer
So what do you help people do? What is your offer? Why are you in the marketplace?
You have to decide what you’re going to help people do. You have to know how you make people’s lives better and easier.
Sure, you’re selling marketing funnels. But so what? What advantage does that bring? What difference does that make to someone who’s already got a website?
Use our Business Purpose worksheet here (no optins or sign ups) to understand and workout exactly what you’re going to help the world become.
It might seem grand and perhaps even arrogant to think you can change the world. But you’re going to change someones world so you might as well define it.
Customers need help, they need freedom and time. They need want more customers, they want more leads and sales. They want more income and they want less time on social.
They want more customers because they want more income. More income gives them nicer holidays with their families and security for their children’s education.
People’s “wants” for their business run very very deep. We don’t make money “just because”. We do it because we want to affect the lives of those around us. You have to help people do that.
Define your offer and what you bring to the market. Sure, your vehicle is a marketing funnel. But are you actually delivering confidence to customers that their product works? Or is popular? Or are you helping them expand into new markets so they can expand their staff and reduce their own hours?
What do you bring to the market.
Persistence, dedication and willpower to your chosen offer.
Prove you’re helpful
Ultimately, we’ll make a sale when someone believes that the help we can offer them, is greater than the investment they’ll make.
That’s when they decide to buy. I want you to clearly look at and think about this model of help.
“A SALE IS MADE WHEN SOMEONE BELIEVES THE HELP WE CAN OFFER THEM, IS GREATER THAN THE INVESTMENT THEY’LL MAKE”
So we want to prove that we’re helpful right? The more helpful we are, the more people see we’re helpful and that we can help them, the easier it is to sell to them.
It’s a very very simple formula. But one so overlooked by funnel builders.
Above, we worked out what you can help people with. What you help them do and what they can do after you help.
So how about this? Help some people for free, using blog content, training, webinars, eBooks, videos, scripts, software, calls, recordings, audio training, video guides, how to posts…I could go on.
The model for sales has changed. It’s completely been flipped on it’s head. Your price and sales rate is directly affected by how much you give away up front.
How much people can get access to for free or a low barrier price, will directly impact your bottom line.
A 4 day training series with webinars, worksheets and email follow up can tip business from 6 figures to 7 figures (we’ve seen it happen).
The more you give up front, the higher prices you can charge. The more specific the content and help, the more likely you are to make a sale.
“But I don’t have time to make content. Besides I hate writing.”
Cool, OK. I totally understand how you feel. Lot’s of business feel the same way. But how much do you want this sale? How much do you want a new customer, who you want to work with?
How much do you want big results? Because if you’re not willing to put in big action, it’s not going to happen.
Persistence, dedication, willpower
I wish there was an easier and faster way, I really do. But there isn’t. It takes momentum and habit.
Do you watch TV or Netflix? How important is that to your goal? How important is Netflix or PlayStation or Facebook compared to your goals?
Find time to write content and be helpful. Find time to create videos and emails. Find time to train people and talk to them.
Stop doing low value work, stop wasting time on meaningless tasks and focus on helping people.
“But I need time to relax.” Cool, and if you feel you’ve earned it, then relax. But we spend more time in front of screens than ever before and I hear people complain that they don’t have time. You do have time, you’re just not spending it wisely.
Persistence, dedication and willpower to helping people.
Split the offer into 4 areas
This step was like “a ha! I get it now!” for myself and hundreds of other funnel builders.
Often, we don’t sell a funnel because it’s a marketing funnel. A marketing funnel, sales funnel, response funnel, CVO funnel – whatever, is really a collection of 4 products.
Traffic.
Subscribers.
Customers.
Repeat customers.
That’s all. Your marketing funnels are just going to help people attract more traffic, they’re going to help convert that traffic into subscribers. Then we’re going to covert those subscribers into leads and customers. Finally, increasing the average spend per customer.
That’s what you’re delivering to your funnel customers. Not a marketing funnel. 4 smaller stages which are much easier to digest.
Focus on one area
If we want a bull’s eye, we have to know what we’re aiming at. That’s our customer avatar.
Our instrument that we make the shot with, is our product offer. That’s the rifle, bow, axe, javelin etc.
We need to focus on one instrument, one tool. We can’t keep changing back and forth (yet). Our job is to help people with ONE of these tools and dedicate ourselves to getting results for that.
Grab a piece of paper, or use our Product Offer Worksheet here (no optin) and write down the products/services that you want to offer.
Think about the thing you deliver to the customer. You can be broad or specific, but focus on one area.
For example we could pick traffic and decide that we offer traffic training, Facebook ads, re-marketing, blog post SEO content and organic social reach.
What are the RESULTS that the customer will see if they buy that from you? Increased traffic, sure. But will their subscriber rate go up?
What about enquiries or followers? Will we grow their re-marketing list? What are the measurable results that will happen if we employ that product into their business and life?
What would happen if you created training on all those products? Would it get the same results? Maybe it would be slower or more complicated, but ultimately, you’re still helping them get the same results.
Now write out the BENEFITS to each result. Why would I care if I get more traffic or more income? How does that affect me? How does that make my life better?
It HAS to affect my life, mental state, feelings, average day and status somehow. It has to make an impact on me as a person and my life. If I repeatedly worked on my Facebook ads, the RESULT would be more traffic. If I repeatedly got more traffic to my website, the BENEFIT would be that I’m finding more leads and subscribers, my confidence is going up because I’m reaching more people and the income generated means I can take some time off.
Work out the product, results and benefits that you’re going to offer. We’ll talk about expanding into other areas later.
Get results for someone
This is where we really start to apply persistence, dedication and willpower.
People will believe you can get them results, if you’ve got the results already. Just like they’ll believe that you can help them if you’ve helped them already.
You need to offer content that shows them HOW to do something. How to find more traffic. How to generate more leads. How to set up adverts.
By getting them results, you’re proving that you can actually help them. We’re moving beyond theory here and into practice.
In order to get them results, you’ll want something in return. An email address.
We call these lead magnets. We’ve helped them see WHAT they need to do with our free content.
Now we’re going to help them more and show that HOW to do something.
We’ve talked about lead magnets before, how to create them. But all you really need to think about is “how can I help someone who has read this, even more?”
What can you offer to help that person get results from what they’ve just read? What is going to help them get clarity and insight on their next steps?
Another method is to reach out to people who you’re prospecting and show them what you’ve created. Show them and give them the guide or training that you’ve got.
Show them how you can make results. Speak truthfully and honestly. Be authentic and talk about how you just want some feedback on whether this is helpful or not.
We’re proving that we can help them, by actually helping them.
And you know what? Most people are never going to get back to you. That’s the truth. This is NOT cold calling. What we’re doing is using our network and the tools available to reach out to people. See if we can help them. That’s all we’re trying to do.
We’re not offering them any products or even to sell to them yet, because we don’t know if we WANT to sell to them yet. We just want to help them.
Accelerate those results
If they sign up to your lead magnet, its out job to accelerate those results again.
If they want more results, they need more action. More heat requires a bigger fire. So we’ll ask for another small investment to help them.
We call these trip-wires or splinter products. Small product offerings designed to ramp up the results that a customer will see.
We’ve talked about product ideas here and also here so you shouldn’t be short on ideas.
But we now want to position a low barrier to entry product to our leads and subscribers. Something they can buy but not have to break the bank.
The idea is that we’re going to accelerate the results they’ll see. Imagine if someone liked your content and saw you were helpful. If they called you up and asked you for 30 minutes over a cup of coffee (I’m a fan of gingerbread latte’s myself), what would you talk about?
That should roughly be the price ($9 – $19) and the topic. That should be the level that you can help. But save on the coffee, calories, parking and fuel and instead, give them something they can use. Something that will help them get the results they need,
Accelerate again the results you’ve been helping them see already.
Book a call
Once your customer has bought a small product or shown some true interest, book a call.
That’s the easiest method to starting having proper conversations. Book a call and have a conversation.
It doesn’t have to be long. 30 minutes on Skype. Just ask them about exploring what it is that they we’re looking for help with.
If you need help booking a call, use our Meeting Agenda Script here (no optins, just a link) and follow that. Note down what they want help with and just ask questions.
Don’t give anything away, don’t give advice, just ask them questions. Get as much as you can from them. The more we know about their world, the more we can help.
Book a call and start a dialogue.
Offer more help
At the end of the call and during subsequent emails, offer more help. Offer to help them further with the problems they’ve outlined.
Offer to get them more results on top of what you’ve done already. Offer to help them get results they want even faster.
Say you’ll send over a proposal of how you can help and leave it at that. They need you and they want your help. No need to act desperate.
Write a proposal
I’m not going to go into detail on how to write a marketing proposal. I’ve written about creating a marketing funnel proposal (and got a marketing funnel proposal template) in this MONSTER post here, as well as writing about it on a proposal software blog, betterproposals.io.
Ultimately, demonstrate that you know who they are by repeating back their current situation. Then talk about the results they want and what you can deliver.
Present the proposal
Something that will separate you from every other business out there, is your willingness (persistence, dedication, willpower) to present your proposal.
Don’t send it over just yet, book a time to speak about how you can help. It should only take 20 minutes. Just go through the proposal stage by stage and hand over the proposal during the call.
Don’t let them skip you to the price, remind them that “I just want to make sure I understand what you want and if we can help.”
Reframe their mindset by talking about where they are. Remind them that they’re not where they want to be and that you can help them get there.
Get the deal
Make the call to action super obvious and explain what they need to do if they want to get started.
You have to be explicitly clear on what they have to do next. Assume they’ve already agreed to the sale. Assume that you’ve already made the sale.
“So that’s about it. When (not if) you want to get started send over the deposit and send back a signed agreement. We’ll get started as soon as we receive both of these.”
That’s a million times clearer than “so…what did you think?”
Set up at least one product
This is FINALLY where WordPress comes in. You don’t even need to build an entire site! Just build the one product that they need.
It might be landing pages. Or a thank you page. Or a blog post. Or traffic. Or linking OptinMonster to their account.
You have infinite ways to help them and get them the results they need. Just set up one thing and make it work.
Explore further results
Finally, you can start to explore other results. If they’re getting traffic, are they optimising their subscriber conversions?
If they’re getting subscribers, what’s happening to them?
You can repeat the exact template above with your customers and expand on the services and products that you’re delivering to them. You can expand the results further and help them develop into a full fledged marketing funnel.
Sell a marketing funnel that you build in WordPress
So we’ve talked about defining your target customer and what you’re going to offer. That’ll help you aim and find more customers. We’ve seen how we’re really just working in 4 topic areas, and our job is to just be as helpful as possible.
The more helpful we are, the more results we get. The more we do that, the more people trust us and believe that we can help them.
“But Mike, that seems like a lot of work.”
I understand what you’re saying. A lot of businesses said the same thing until, they saw that the only way to find more customers is to help more people. If you want a big fire, you need a lot of fuel. That’s hard work, gathering and checking all the fuel for a fire. Chopping the wood is hard work.
But the small spark and careful building of a fire. From tinder, to kindling and to fuel, means you’re much warmer than doing nothing.
If you’re struggling to find time, email me at michael (at) michaelkillen.wpengine.com and talk to me. I guarantee I can find you one hour a week to help people.
My favourite part of the whole process, is helping people when they think I’m going to cold call sell to them. We have won MULTIPLE contracts based purely on the fact that we had specific, useful and targeted content designed to help people. MeBox customers don’t even ask for a portfolio anymore because our content is so consistent and helpful.
What do you need to do to find more customers? Is there something you’re missing from your action plan which is preventing you from finding customers? Is there something I’ve missed out on? Something you want to try? Let me know in the comments below.
