#17: How to Put Your Sales Funnel Into Action

Hello Hero Makers, it's Marketing Made simple co host April Sunshine Hawkins here. So many of you have been taking action to create marketing that works and we want to give you the microphone and feature your stories of success on the podcast. Maybe you've had a small victory or a huge win from using the story brand framework or building your sales funnel, but no matter the case, we want to hear it. So we're calling you to action to call us literally at 615-649-0705. Leave us a voicemail telling us your story by Friday, October 22nd and you could be featured in an upcoming episode. So call us at 615-649-0705 and tell us what happened when you used the Storybrand framework. Can't wait to hear from you.

Being able to focus your message and make it clear and make the story about the specific customer or client you want is so key. Otherwise you're just confusing people. This is the time to get started, to pull out that sales funnel and take your business to the next level. I'm about to start the show.

Hello Hero Makers. Welcome to the Marketing Made simple podcast powered by StoryBrand, where we believe your marketing should be easy and it should work. I AM your host, Dr. J.J. peterson and I am joined by my co host, April Sunshine Hawkins.

Hi jj.

April, we have come to the end of our Sales Funnel series which the Marketing Made Simple Sales Funnel is made up of five essential pieces of marketing that you need to connect with your customers and grow your business. So we have gone through how to create a one liner, how to create language for your website, how to create a lead generator, how to create nurture emails and how to create sales emails.

Just a few things.

It has been meaty. I will tell you that we give a lot of information, we give a lot of application that you can use to directly apply to your marketing sales funnel, creating those so you can sell more product and grow your business.

And if you haven't listened to all of them, go Back to episode 11 and start there and listen to the series from start to finish.

And now that you have all of the individual tools for creating a sales funnel, you are going to want to create an implementation strategy that will ensure that you follow through and bring your sales funnel to life. Because you might have listened to all of these episodes and now you're going, how do I make this happen? It might feel a little overwhelming, that feeling of overwhelm.

Completely normal, completely normal. Because you might be faced with a blank page and a cursor Blinking at you on your computer screen and you're going, okay, what did they say again about nurture emails? What am I supposed to email out this week? And we get it that that is a very normal thing to have happen. And so we want to help give you a plan so you can actually get it all done.

So really there are six meetings that you need to have. And when I say meetings, I just mean carving out time to create and implement the sales funnel. So you might say, who all needs to be in this meeting? Well, it can be yourself or maybe it can be up to 10 people with leadership and marketing and sales. You want the right people in the room who are not only going to give you the language you need to go in the sales funnel, but also the people in the room who are going to execute it. So here are the six meetings that you are going to want to create. The first one is what we call a goals and product meeting. So it's the opportunity to sit down and identify what product are we creating the sales funnel for and what are our goals. So who is our audience, what are our goals, what are we actually going to try to sell? And this may be the shortest meeting you have. It's just a short, quick what are we selling, who are we selling it to and what are our goals?

So once you've established your goals and what product or service that you're marketing, it's time to get down to business with your second meeting of creating the brand script and the one liner for that product or service. And the brand script, as you know, is your roadmap all through the parts of the story brand framework, you fill out a brand script and when you do that, you have it in one place how each part of the story brand framework applies to to your business. You can be keeping track of all of your brand scripts@mystorybrand.com so in your second meeting, you pull open my storybrand.com and start a new brand script for this particular product or service. Once you're done doing that, that's going to help you pull out what your one liner is. Then you can use that one liner everywhere in your marketing.

Then the third meeting, you want to create your wireframe for your. And when we say a wireframe, what we mean is you want to pull out your blank piece of paper from the marketing made simple sales funnel and you want to create language that is going to go in the different sections of your website. And really that's all this meeting is dedicated to, is creating language for your website. And you get that language from your brand script. So in meeting three, create your website.

Then in meeting number four, you're going to determine what is the lead generator that is going to be on the landing page of your website, or that you're going to do ads to get people to download or engage with. And then you're also going to determine what are the emails that you're going to send after somebody has given you their email address. So if you do this, you're able to nurture that relationship along and hopefully send out an effective sales email sequence that will make them want to take your call to action.

Those first four meetings are about identifying the product, setting your goals, and then actually begin the process of creating those pieces of collateral. So maybe in between the meetings, you are assigning somebody, it might be yourself, to actually create these pieces of marketing. Because then in the fifth meeting, what you're going to do is content refinery. And in this meeting, what you're looking for is to make sure that the story is consistent throughout all of the pieces, because you may have created these pieces separately. So you want to just look at everything all together and say, did we talk enough about the customer's problem? Did we position ourselves as the guide? Did we give them a clear plan? Have we done that in all of the different pieces of collateral and make it just tighter and tighter and tighter? And this meeting shouldn't take really long because at this point, you've already created everything just doing a meeting where you look at the content and refine it.

So after meeting number five, you're going to launch the sales funnel into the wild. You're going to have customers interacting with it, and then you're going to schedule meeting number six after somebody is moved through the entire sales funnel so that you can actually analyze what's happened. Is this sales funnel converting people from curious potential customers into actual buyers?

Exactly. And that meeting number six, you actually may do two or three times a year. You may go back and look at your sales funnel and refine it, analyze how it's doing, see if you need to create another email, a better lead generator, and just continue to make it better. One of the things we say at storybrand is we don't laminate anything, right? We put it out there, we see how it does, and then we refine it and we fix it and we make it tighter. And so if you're feeling overwhelmed about creating a sales funnel from scratch, we have just given you six meetings, six times that you need to carve out either as a team or as an individual to create a sales funnel. First, meeting is identifying the goals for the product that you're creating. Second, you're creating your brand script in one liner. Third, you're creating the content for your website. Fourth, you're creating your lead generator and emails. Fifth, you're going to refine the whole thing after it's created and then launch it. And then sixth, you're going to analyze it and make some refinements until it gets tighter and tighter and tighter. That's all you need to do. Now, it will take some work. It's going to take some work, but the results that you're going to find in this are going to be incredible. This is what can take your business to the next level.

All right, Hero makers, up to this point, you have heard so many stories of success from our story brand certified guides. And of course, they are the best marketers in the world who help clients build sales funnels. And so this week we have story brand certified guide, Julie Biddle and her client. We thought it would be so fun for you to hear straight from the source what happened when Julie and Brent, her client, worked together to build a sales funnel for Slate Building Group. So, jj, take it away with Julie and Brent.

Julie and Brent, thank you so much for being with us today.

Thanks for having us.

Now, Julie, you are a story brand certified guide and you work with Brent. We actually have you and your client on today, which is so fun, so cool. And Brent, I would love to hear from you. First, what do you do? Does your business do?

My company is Sleep Building Group and we work with experienced investors to build and rehab construction for them so that they can rent them out or sell them. But our niche is completely experienced real estate investors in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Yeah. What kind of things were you struggling with or frustrated by before you started working with Julie? What drew you to her?

We have kind of a unique situation. We were actually trying to get fewer clients, but more specifically the clients that we were exactly wanting. Julie and our work together was instrumental in putting out there who it was we were after and what we could do for them to grow their business. And that's what our whole focus was during this marketing program with Julie and all the way through the long term program as well to gain those clients.

The idea behind focusing in your message on the ideal client is so huge because you actually get to build the business you want and make it a playground and not a prison.

Absolutely. And that started at the very beginning kind of defining what our ideal client was defining us. Now I have marketing not only that I can use externally, but internally. We repeat our one liner every week.

I love that. So, Julie, when you first came in and started working with them, what was your approach to try to help them build a sales funnel that actually reached the clients that they wanted to reach?

Yeah, I think the key was really honing in on the message. What they were saying before was just really wide. And that was the problem that he came to us with. He said, you know, we're wasting a lot of time. I'm wasting a lot of time on these calls, right. I get these people that are contacting me, but they're not the type of client I really want to work with. And so, you know, when you're running a lean business and you want to continue to grow it, like, you don't have time to deal with, you know, clients that, like, I mean, you want to be nice because you're local, you know, you might run into them on the street or something like that, you know, and you want to give all this great information. And Brent is a natural guide in his business, the type of character that he has. And so it was really a matter of focusing his message in on who is that ideal client. And let's just say it, we want experienced real estate investors. We don't want any real estate investor. Let's be really specific. And so I think. I think being able to do that and then capturing the success for him of, like, you know, we want you to be able to go, we'll take care of everything for you so you can go find your next great investment. You know, I mean, that is like picturing that futurist epic thing of, of course, like, I don't want to sit on the construction site of my rehab project or my new build, right? Like, I want to be looking at new projects. I want to be going after my next investment. And so the messaging and the website, that's really what we hone in on, is saying specifically who it is we want to talk to and then letting them picture what their life could be like next.

And it's funny, we've been able to really hone our business in because of our efforts with the marketing side of it, because we've been focused on. Let's get this out there on the page, that these are who we're after. I got some feedback from a client recently that was really exciting. And it was a client that actually we. We've done work with for about a year and a half now. And he said, you know, the One thing that you won't get credit for, because most builders and the investor world are just a nuisance. We don't really want you to be part of the process. We just want to go from that, that purchase to that sale and never have to deal with you in between. But he said, had you not been a part of my business, my business would not have grown over the last year like it has. And that's what our ultimate goal is, is let's find five, maybe six really, really quality clients that we're growing their business. And as we do so, we're growing our business. And that's what Julie really helped us with, is narrowing that message out there so that we're not just talking to a lot of people that we shouldn't be talking to. No business can serve everybody and doesn't want to. And when you narrow that down, you serve those people so much better than you would have served.

A broad spectrum, being able to focus your message and make it clear and make the story about the specific customer or client you want is so key. Otherwise you're just confusing people. And so what I love is, Julie, you started essentially with the brand script you identified right off the bat, what is it that their customer wants, their specific customer. Because you could have been very broad and just say, you know, we help people flip houses, you know, or something like that. We help people build their investment portfolio, which is very broad. And you're going to get too many people on the phone and trying to answer emails from them that just don't lead to a sale. But coming in and honing in on that very specific client, getting that message clear is so important.

Yeah. You know, the reason why I love the sales funnel, especially for a lot of the businesses we work with, have a local focus. Right. And they do a lot of local marketing. So, you know, they do the do good kind of marketing. Right. So they're, you know, sponsoring a local event, they're buying a banner on the football field of their high school. Right. And it's like the sales funnel really allows you to leverage your marketing because ultimately what they're doing is when they see you in those places or in those spaces, they're going to your website. Right. Because they don't have, they might not have a friend that knows about your business or they don't know where you're located, so they're going online. And so for me, that's why the website is key to start there. Hopefully your one liner or a portion of it was on some of those marketing efforts that you did. Right. I mean, because that makes it even better. But then when you're on the website, you're not sure where people are in the purchase process. And so for Brent specifically, you know, that's where the lead generator came in place. Because we had a really strong call to action. We wanted them to schedule a discovery call with Brent. That's his strong call to action. But for those that are not ready to have that conversation yet, because we know experienced real estate investors are busy people, and so they might not be ready yet for that. They're in the midst of some other homes that they're working on or whatever, we wanted to give them something else. And so at first it was a rehab budget calculator. And so we developed that lead generator. Since then, it's interesting because Brent's business has pivoted a bit with COVID And so that's the other thing that about the sales funnel is that when you have those pieces in place, it's so much easier to pivot when you need to.

I love that so much. And that is also just for our listeners, that is such a huge point to make, is that once you get kind of the foundational messaging in place and the sales funnel in place, then as your customer's problems change, because you're in business to solve your customer's problems, when the problems change, all you have to do is tweak a little bit of language on the website, maybe a little bit in the one liner, a little bit in the emails, and you can be up and running again so fast. So, Brent, I would love to hear your one liner.

So our Slate Building Group one liner. When experienced real estate investors get pulled into the day to day of each project, scaling their businesses becomes impossible. At Slate Building Group, we direct the construction of each project so they can be free to find their next big investment.

I love that. Oh my gosh, I love that so much. So clear. Like, that is so clear. And what is amazing about that, let's say I'm not in the space right now to be able to do that, but I know people who are. And because your one liner is so clear, if somebody says, hey, you know, I've been, been frustrated by this because we all talk about our rehabs. I mean, when any rehab is happening, we're sharing. What's going on is, you know, oh, they're this, they're late on this. The quality isn't great and people are sharing. And if somebody was to share with me their frustrations, I immediately go, you know, What I know somebody. And Julie, you mentioned that even with narrowing in the message that they're actually getting more hits on the website. What other successes have you seen through this sales funnel beyond, you know, obviously, like narrowing your focus and getting in the right customers and be able to deliver for those customers. But what kind of successes have you seen through the entire sales funnel process?

Well, I know for sure that Brent is more confident and his team is probably more confident in directing people to the website because we've seen an increase of almost. I mean, almost. His website visits have doubled since last year. And then from there, you know, probably at least 5 to 10% of them are turning into some sort of a contact. And so those are key things. I mean, that's the best thing that happened on this project in working with Brent is we launched the website and a week later we get on the call to start talking about the lead generator and talking about the next steps. And Brent says, so I've got a success story for you. Right? And we're like, what? You know, when I say we, my husband and I are certified guides and we own the business together. And so we're on this call and he's like, I've got a success story for you. I got on, I had my first discovery call and they started talking, and they were the exact type of client that I wanted to work with. Yeah, I mean, cue the confetti, right? So there is just nothing, there's nothing better than when a client comes to us and they have this problem. And his specific one was, you know, I want to talk to the people that I want to talk to, that I know that I can service well and that can grow my business. And so then when you launch even just the first part of the sales funnel, right? I mean, we did the one liner, we did the website, we launched that first part, and a week later, it's a success. Like it worked. Sometimes I think clients can get really overwhelmed because we tell them, hey, we need these five pieces and this is what we want to put in place. And I think as a business owner, you think to yourself, I don't have time to do all that. And so what we've done with Brent is we took it at the pace that made sense for him and for his business. And I think that's the key. And every element that you implement, you will see success. And so that has been just the greatest part of this.

Oh, man. Hearing these clients stories of success is so powerful. And we didn't want to just stop with Julie And Brent. No, no, I got to talk with another story. Brand certified guide Horacio Gutierrez and his client, Vicente. So let's jump into their sales funnel success story right now.

Hello, Horacio. Oh, I'm so glad that you're joining us on the podcast today.

Thanks for having me.

April, you actually brought a client with you today.

Yes. Vicente Lozano is the executive director of rimsa. RIMSA is in the energy sector and they specialize in the procurement and manufacturing of quality pressure components.

Welcome, Vicente. We're so glad you're here.

Thank you.

Thank you, April. Thank you, Razor, for the introduction.

Absolutely. So, Vicente, what problem were you experiencing in your marketing before you met or started working with Horacio?

Well, basically, one of the things that we were looking to solve with Rasio is exposure of our company in the US Market. I remember, Vicente, at our first meeting, you know, you said, all I care about is that we're able to tell the world what we do in a clear way. And it was great to see the whole process go. How we started defining their target market, then working on their brand script, then figuring out, all right, what piece of content we could provide that is of extreme value, but at the same time very specific that could help RIMSA segment the customer and get qualified leads. And it was great because we had about six people from their sales team participate. And it was wonderful to hear everybody express their ideas and arrive at the conclusion at the end on what was the best way to have their messaging.

Absolutely. So the number of inquiries that you were having before was about how much?

For example, it was one or two per month.

Now we're talking about seven, eight per month in our business. That's a lot of increase. Our contracts are normally 2 to 3 US million.

Right.

So getting inquiries is kind of a big deal.

Yes, definitely.

So those extra inquiries that come in, if you're able to close any of those deals, it's worth. Worth millions of dollars to you?

It is. Correct.

Wow. Well, I'm so grateful that he was able to help you clarify your message. Using the story brand framework to educate your clients in the way that they need to be educated to move them faster through your sales process so that you can make millions of dollars.

I love hearing from people who have implemented this so practical, such amazing results. It just makes me so happy to see people who have taken this marketing made simple sales funnel and actually applied it to their business and seen results. If you are stuck trying to figure out how to create a marketing made simple sales funnel, you can hire a Story Brand Certified Guide. Just go to marketingmadesimple.com to hire a guide that will show you how to clarify your message and create marketing that works. And if you would like to become a Story Brand Certified guide, you want to be somebody who helps people create sales funnels and helps them grow their business and really become the ultimate guide, the ultimate guide to your customers who are the hero, then you can apply to be a story brand guide@storybrand.com guide. Well, hero makers, this entire episode and really this entire podcast is about actionable steps, practical steps that you can take from each of our conversations that you can immediately begin using to shape your marketing and clarify your message. This entire time, we've been walking you through the Marketing Made simple sales funnel and we've given you a Marketing Made simple sales funnel plan that you could download at Marketing Made Simple. Just click on the Download the Sales funnel plan if you don't have it already. And you have been creating your pieces of collateral along with us. If you have not, this is the time. This is the time to get started to pull out that sales funnel and put your meetings on the calendar. That is your actionable step for today. Put the meetings on the calendar, carve out time to create this. Imagine a year from now that you have created one or two sales funnels that will grow your business. What does your life look like, what does your revenue look like, and what does that revenue allow you to do? If you follow the plan we've outlined for you during this series, you will see results. And while we know there are other aspects to marketing, these are the basics and everybody needs this. This really is Marketing Made simple and it will work for you. April, that wraps up our Marketing Made Simple Sales Funnel series.

Wow. I cannot believe it so much.

And these tools are going to be so effective for everybody who uses them. And we say that a lot, right? We say it's going to work for you. And the reason we say that is because we know it will work for you.

It absolutely will.

But the number one question we get, and I'm not even going to tee you up, what is the number one question we get but will it work for? Yes.

That is the question we get. Will it work for me? And so in our next series titled Will Story Brand Work for Me, what we're going to do is actually go through different types of businesses and show you how our guides apply all of this. The brand script and clarifying people's message and the Marketing Made simple sales funnel to specific types of businesses. So if you're a B2B or a B2C or you are both a B2B and a B2C or you're a nonprofit or you're an artist or a luxury brand or a personal brand. We're going to walk through and show you how this specifically applies to your type of business. And I promise you, when you listen to these episodes, you are going to get a ton of ideas. You're going to have a light bulb moment. Ding. Yes. While you are listening to the different, different types of businesses that have applied.

Story brand, you'll take those light bulb moments and you'll turn them into actionable steps that will grow your business. And I can't wait.

I can't wait either. That's all for this week's episode of Marketing Made Simple. Thank you so much for listening and for believing, like us, that your marketing should be easy and it should work. Follow Marketing Made simple wherever you listen to podcasts. And don't forget to to rate and review the show, letting us know how these tips are clarifying your message and growing your business. We'll see you next week.

You cannot stop me. You cannot stop me. Go.