In episodes 165, 166 and 167, we talked about what a sales funnel is and what it isn’t over the next few episodes I’m going deep into the components of a sales funnel – so if you haven’t listened to that go back and listen to episode 165 and then I’ll meet you right back here.
Go ahead, I’ll wait.
So we talked about Awareness and how to generate it, we talked about what Interest REALLY is and how to create it, and about what it takes Decision and how to lead our customer to making one that’s right for them.
But just because I was able to get my ideal customer to make the decision that YES, they want to become a customer doesn’t mean they’ll actually follow through.
I’m totally guilty of this. I’m shopping online, I put a bunch of stuff in my cart… but my credit card is all the way over there!!! I’m so not getting up right now to go get it. Do I even really need new yoga pants? Squirrel!”
And then I’m off to something else.
Or that online course that I really think would help me with something I’m really struggling with in my business. I’ve been meaning to enroll in it for YEARS. No joke. It’s a 100% yes. But every year when it opens, I don’t actually put my money where my mouth is. What if it’s just all fluff and I don’t learn anything new and I just wasted two grand?
And I even hear from my own customers. Yes, I want to join Serious Side Hustlers, but…
Now’s not the right time.
So what can you do to make now the right time?
Or make it really easy to complete the transaction?
Or remove the fear of buyer’s remorse?
Like, legitimately. Not because you want the sale, but because you believe that you can really help someone and you want to help them get out of their own way.
So there are a LOT of tactics to help people make a decision.
Can I pay with PayPal or ApplePay so I don’t have to walk across the room and get my credit card? Can I actually BUY online? Can I even see the price or are you going to make me talk to you to find out how much?
Are you making me give you my life story just to check out – or are you only asking for what you really need to complete the transaction? Are there too many steps in your checkout process?
What are your guarantees? What’s your refund policy? Is your refund policy designed to protect you from scammers – or is it designed to make your customers feel really good about their decision to buy. Because no matter what, scammers are going to scam, so why focus on them when you can design a refund policy that helps your ideal customer over the hump of making a decision?
How can you incentivise taking action today without gross pushy tactics?
And the most overlooked part, right after they take that action you want them to take, how can you reinforce that it was a great idea and give them the instant gratification of knowing they made the right decision.
This process doesn’t happen in an instant. It doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time to generate awareness. It takes time to develop and hold an interest and inspire people to believe it’s possible to overcome this problem they are having. And it takes time to coach people into making the right decision for themselves.
The final thing I want to leave you with is that you don’t just get one shot at it. Just because someone wasn’t interested last week doesn’t mean they won’t be next week. And if the time really isn’t right at this point, in 6 months it might be, and that’s why you continue to create awareness and interest even if the decision was no. Because someday it might be a yes – and at any time someone can say hey, I’m no longer interested in hearing from you and unsubscribe. That’s a good thing because you know you are talking to the people who resonate with you.
So that’s it, that’s the theory behind a sales funnel – and you can see how you could automate everything, from ads to generate interest, a website to enter your name and email, email marketing software to send the freebie and a prewritten sequence to curate trust and interest and ultimately a sales opportunity, and then a website that delivers whatever it is you just sold.
So that’s the dream and the promise of passive income – like Pat Flynn says, you work really hard now to figure out the right mix of pieces and parts, the perfect funnel for YOUR unique customer, you build and test it, and then eventually it will run on its own and you get to spend your time doing what I think is the fun stuff, creating awareness.
So what about you? Do you have an intentional sales funnel in your business? What’s the path you lead your customer down? Go to shannonmattern.com/168 and leave me a comment and let me know!!
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