194: Traditional Sales Funnels Are Dead (Here's What's Next)

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Hi there, Destiney here and I'm super excited about today's podcast episode. I want to let you know that in my newsletter I announced that I'm going to be taking you behind the scenes as I continue to build hobby school for a 1 million plus exit in the next two years. And I'm going to be doing this only for my creator MBA newsletter readers. So if you want to see how a million dollar digital product brand is built and sold, I'm going to be giving you a front row seat. Now I have to say I am very nervous about announcing this to the world, but I also know that doing this will help me stay accountable to the plan and the growth flywheel that I have put in place to make this happen. If you are not familiar with my hobby school brand, I did a podcast episode earlier this year where I talked about how I grew this business from a domain name purchase to over a hundred thousand in revenue in less than two years. So that episode is definitely worth checking out and I will put the link to that in the show notes. But basically what I wanted to do today was take you behind the scenes of the business model that I use to grow these digital product brands. Now the growth flywheel that I have for hobby school is basically the same business model that I'm using to grow one of my new brands, which is the newsletter Profit Club. So that's a membership and it's also a collaboration app with free lifetime access right now. Here is what I've realized over the year. That traditional kind of sales funnel model is fundamentally flawed. It is built on this constant push energy so you have to kind of like feeding that machine just to maintain your current level of success. And quite frankly, I think this is why a lot of digital product creators out there get burned out. And when you think about that traditional kind of sales funnel model, and I'm sure all of you have seen the pictures, you know, you have people coming in at the top where they're just getting to learn about you, you're nurturing them, and then eventually some of them are going to turn into a customer. And then kind of out the funnel they go, the growth flywheel model. And I'm going to walk you through exactly what that is. Today, you may be asking Destin, that sounds good. I'm definitely interested in learning about this. But what exactly is a growth flywheel? So here's what I want you to picture. I want you to picture a massive wheel. At first, it definitely takes some effort and time to get it moving. And I am experiencing that in the newsletter. Profit club brand that we are launching, we actually launched it earlier this year. But once it starts spinning, once this big massive wheel starts spinning, it creates its own momentum. So each turn makes the next one easier, building more and more energy, if you would, over time. And that is how successful digital product businesses grow. So let's talk about the five parts of this growth flywheel. So your business growth works as a continuous cycle, with each of these parts kind of flowing naturally into the next. In the first part of this growth flywheel is what I call the attract stage. So this is when people first discover your brand, they first get to know about you. Maybe they're finding your content on social media. Maybe they're getting recommended by a friend. Maybe they're discovering your lead magnet somehow. Maybe it was in a bundle collaboration or you were speaking at a summit and they got to know about you there. Maybe they've been reading your blog post or saw something that you posted on Pinterest or YouTube. So something about you and what you had to offer there attracted them to you. And then in the next stage, this is the engage stage, so they know that you exist and they're going to start interacting in your world. Now, it may be they're joining your email list or following you on social media or commenting on your content, or maybe they joining one of your free communities. Now, depending on how you have your business set up, maybe engaging with you automatically in like an offer. So maybe they signed up for your free gift. On the next page you had this tripwire type offer that they purchased. And then in the next stage that is when you are delivering value, that is where you are going to wow them with incredible content and experiences. So this may be your weekly newsletter where you're sharing actionable insights, you're providing them quick wins, you're offering them unexpected value, you're helping them solve real problem. I do this with my newsletter, but I also do it with my podcast content. So I use my podcast in more of the deliver value section of the growth flywheel than the attract stage. So they may find me in that attract stage, but I continue to deliver value to them in this growth flywheel, in the deliver value stage, in the next stage. This is what I call the retain stage of the growth process flywheel. So when people get value, they're going to stick around, they're going to stick around in your world. So they're going to open your emails consistently, they're going to engage with your content on a regular basis, they're going to buy your products, they're going to participate in your community. So in my world, we'll use the newsletter Profit Club as an example here. So in that world, participating in the membership, they're engaging in the community, they're attending the workshop. And then in the next stage, which is the advocacy stage, that is where the real magic happens. So happy customers become your marketing team. They're sharing their success stories, they're recommending you to their friends, they're posting about their results, they're becoming affiliates for you. And then what happens is those recommendations attract new people. And that's what we call the compound effect with in a growth flywheel, when a wheel like that is in motion. Here's what happens. Marketing becomes more effortless. Doesn't completely go away, but it definitely becomes effortless. So your satisfied customers are doing some of the heavy lifting for you. Word of mouth becomes your main traffic source. Trust transfers through personal recommendations. And I would say that in particular in our hobby school brand, this advocacy stage has been extremely powerful. So what has happened there in hobby school? We have people who come to our events, come to our summits on a regular basis, they love them. And we have people who buy that VIP pass every single summit that they come to and they're telling their friends about it. The other thing that we're finding in hobby school is we're getting a lot of goodwill from our speakers and our affiliates. So they have enjoyed success. We've been able to promote them, which has grown their business. They have earned money. If they're just on the affiliate side and maybe not the speaker side, they are earning money on a regular basis from our events and they love them, their audience loves them. So they're promoting them on a regular basis. So it is definitely helped us in terms of kind of that growth, if you would in that business. The other thing that happens when your flywheel gains momentum is sales feel more natural. So people become they basically come to you pre sold through recommendations. Trust is built even before they meet you. Your conversion rates typically increase and your sales cycle can shorten. So when a friend recommends you or somebody like in hobby school recommends one of their friends come to our summit, they're like, it's great, I've been to them before. That makes selling that VIP pass and any related products that we have in that sales funnel much easier. And in that case also the other thing that happens here is that growth becomes predictable so you can forecast results more accurately. I can about tell you almost to the T how much we are going to make in an event for hobby school because we know how many speakers we have, we know what our reach is going to be in terms of our sales. So income becomes more stable and scaling happens more smoothly and that just makes business feel less stressful. So let me talk a little bit more about the growth flywheel that we're putting in place for the newsletter of Profit Club because I want to give you a very specific example here. So this particular membership, I launched this membership in July. I didn't do a big lunch about it. I basically just launched it to my email list and that's all I've done so far. Now I think we have a very clear understanding because it's been four, five months since it's been out there. I have a very clear understanding about what people want to get from the membership. And the other thing we did about a month or two ago, launch the newsletter Profit Club collaboration app. So basically what this is, this is a website database that people can go to and input information about their newsletter and they can find other newsletter operators to collaborate with. Right now we're doing free lifetime access because I know in order to make that extremely valuable for our members, because I had originally created it for our newsletter, Profit Club members. But I know in order to make it extremely valuable to them, I need a lot of people using it. So basically what I've been doing for the newsletter, Profit Club, to get it out into the world, if you would, I've been doing some speaking at some summits, I've been doing some bundle collaborations. Obviously I've launched it to my own audience here but the big thing is going to be the newsletter profit club collaboration app. So that's going to be one of the ways that I can attract other newsletter operators who are interested in actually monetizing their newsletter and growing their newsletters. I also have a very valuable lead magnet. It's called the newsletter profit calculator, where people can go in and calculate the monetization opportunities for their email newsletter. So that's another part of that entract stage. So basically, when somebody signs up for that lead magnet on the next page, we have a tripwire for the membership. So we're engaging them immediately and in terms of delivering value, every single week, I'm sending out a weekly newsletter for the newsletter profit club. So both for the members and also for the people who have signed up for the newsletter profit club collaboration. And then moving into that retain stage, we're building that supportive community environment with the membership. And now the next stage of this. And I haven't gotten to the stage yet, but we're getting there. We're starting to get the member testimonials and kind of building up that advocacy. And I definitely have members who are interested in promoting this membership to their audience. So we're going to add in that affiliate part of that growth flywheel in the advocacy. So the result is going to be a thriving community that grows largely word of mouth, with members consistently referring new people because they're getting results. And that is the point that I want to get to in the newsletter profit club. So let's talk about kind of the secret to making all of this work. And I would have to say, based on the brands and businesses that I have built, is I would suggest, if you're just starting out, is to focus on one section of the flywheel at a time. So don't try to perfect everything at once. And for most of you, that's going to be starting with a strong lead magnet and kind of building out that initial funnel. So you'll have your lead magnets and then you'll have like a tripwire funnel. So, like in the newsletter profit club, like I mentioned, the lead magnet that we have there is the newsletter profit calculator. And the tripwire goes into the membership. So that's the initial funnel that we have built out there, and that is working very, very well for us. And then you have to create that consistent, valuable content. And like I said, for this particular brand, I don't have a podcast. I don't even have a website that has a blog on it. I'm not doing any YouTube videos. So I haven't done all of that yet for that particular brand. So there's still a ton of opportunity there. But I am doing that weekly, consistent, valuable content, both for the members and then for the general free email newsletter. Still sending that out because you have to stay on top of mind with everyone. So like I said, optimize one section of the flywheel before moving on to the next. And for most of you, just to recap what I said there, you're going to start with that strong lead magnet and then once you get that set up, you're going to add on that initial wire type funnel. And the beauty of this system is that you can start small and you can build momentum over time. So I didn't build all of this from the get go for the newsletter Profit Club. I first started with the lead magnet which led into the membership. And then later I added that newsletter Profit Club collaboration app and I started the weekly newsletter for it. There's still a ton of opportunity here. We still need to add our affiliate programs at some point in the future. You can add a podcast to it or maybe a blog or YouTube videos. I think there's still a lot of opportunities there. That's how a growth flywheel works. So if you are ready to build your own growth flywheel, I would say that understanding the concept is just the first step. The real transformation happens when you implement it in your business. And that's why I am hosting a free training is called say goodbye to Sales Funnels and build a self sustaining growth flywheel that frees up your time and scales your business. So in this free training, you're going to basically learn the exact steps to create a growth flywheel that keeps your business expanding with every new customer, collaboration or community member. I'm going to walk you through the power of moving beyond funnels for long term business success and I'm going to give you some behind the scenes insights into growth flywheels that I've created for hobby school, the newsletter Profit Club and also my personal brand. So I'm going to walk you through these exact strategies and how I have transformed these brands and how this growth flywheel can work for you. So what I want you to do is go to destinycock.com flywheel and I'll put that link in the show notes. I'd love for you to join me in this training and if you have any questions whatsoever about growth flywheels, send me an email back or DM me on LinkedIn. I'd love to learn a little bit more about you and your business. Bye for now.