#12 - Behind the scenes of going from 0 to 6-figures with a funnel

She wanted to be able to scale her business and to, you know, she'd done the sums in her head. She knew that to be able to earn the kind of revenue that she really wanted to be able to earn, the number of clients you'd still have to be working really closely with and giving a lot of energy to was quite high. And then obviously the number of sales calls she'd have to do to get that number of clients was higher again. And I think there was a bit of an energetic disconnect right off the bat because she didn't want to do this business that she was trying to do. So it kind of was no wonder that it wasn't working.

This is the Doing It Online podcast with your Host, serial entrepreneur, 6 and 7 figure funnel strategist and super nerd Kate McKibben, where every week we're here talking nerdy and sharing the things that actually work to help you do what you do online. But better, easier, and with a ton more profit, too. Are you ready? Let's do it.

Hey. Hey there, guys. It is Kate McKibben here from hello, Funnels, and welcome to episode 12 of the Doing It Online podcast. Now, today, I want to do something a little bit different and I want to pull back the curtain and show you what it really looks like to go from having your courses barely selling ready to give up to making more money and more sales than ever before. Totally on autopilot, because I get asked all the time just how long will it take to set up my funnel and what's involved and how tricky is it and complicated. And the answer is always, it kind of depends. You know, I have some clients. You know, one of my best ever success stories is she went from, you know, her course wasn't selling to making $10,000 of sales in a single day. And that was done in two weeks. And then I've had others who take, you know, six months or more to get the pieces into place. So there are so many factors that can affect how quickly your funnel gets set up. The my program, we break it down into four, but, you know, sometimes you've got a launch coming up or, you know, just like any part of your business, there are so many factors that can affect how quickly you're able to sort of get in and get it set up and running and scaled. But one thing that all my students always say is that no matter how long it took, once it's done, it's oh so worth it having that regular and reliable revenue coming in every month, week Even day is a game changer. So I wanted to take you behind the scenes today of probably one of my most funnel phobic clients and how we took a real step by step approach to setting up her funnel. I'm going to literally walk you through the steps, the conversations, the setbacks, and the mindset shifts. That had to happen to take one of my lovely 5k funnel formula students. From pushing and pushing and pushing and barely making any sales to making up to $40,000 worth of sales a month. Totally on autopilot. So to start with, I'm actually going to share with you a message that she sent me right as we started working together. So the message says, you know, spoke to a bunch of people on my list last week and all they want is freebies. Same old story. And it's been for four years. I can't see how it's going to change. Maybe my market is too flooded and I've missed the boat. Or maybe people don't want what I have. I just don't know. I feel like my life is on hold. I don't think I have the skills to make it online. Is it too early for wine? So this is the first message that she sent the writers right off the bat, right when we started working together. And you can, you can feel the frustration in that message. Right? You know, she's been trying for years, four years in fact, and it still feels like she's, you know, stuck at this starting point. Like she's tried everything and nothing's working. And, you know, this is where I was kind of excited to come in and help because I knew she had a great product. I knew she was someone who was passionate about what she did, that, you know, she loved her audience and we just needed to tweak something, some things and as I said, step through a couple of things in baby steps because I think particularly when you're at this point, you kind of, there's a lot of fear that goes on. People don't, you know, you already feel like you've tried everything, so what's the point? You kind of don't believe that things are going to work. So it can be good to break it down and do it piece by piece.

So this is where, you know, the first thing that we looked at was did she have a funnel friendly offer? Because currently when we started working together, she was trying to make a high level offer, like a $5,000 plus offer work. But the thing was she didn't like doing sales calls and people on the sales calls could tell. And she also didn't really want to be delivering this product at this level. Like she liked to work with a couple of clients, you know, in a more one to one, hands on fashion. But she wanted to be able to scale her business and to, you know, she'd done the sums in her head, she knew that be able to earn the kind of revenue that she really wanted to be able to earn. The number of clients you'd still have to be working really closely with and giving a lot of energy to was quite high. And then obviously the number of sales calls she'd have to do to get that number of clients was higher again. And I think there was a bit of an energetic disconnect right off the bat because she didn't want to do this business that she was trying to do. So it kind of was no wonder that it wasn't working. So this is again, one of the things that we always look at when people, when I work with people is first thing off is are you trying to create a business and an offer that's actually going to work for you, that's actually going to be something that you want to sell, that you're going to be excited to sell. Because if not, sure, you might be able to get some money through the door for now, maybe for the next six months, even 12 months. But down the track you're going to hate it. You're not going to want to show up, you're not going to give your best, you're not going to want to get people the, the best results. It's not going to be good experience for them or for you. And you're probably going to sabotage yourself somewhere in there or you're just going to one day go, oh, I'm over this. I'm going to blow it all up, start again.

Hey guys, it's just Kate here. So first of all, I just had to quickly stop by and say thank you so, so much for listening to and supporting my brand new podcast. It really means the world to me. And to help kick this puppy off with a real bang, I actually have an amazing free bonus just for you guys, which is I'm giving away access to my 5 day mini business accelerator workshop worth $97 totally for free to everyone who leaves a 5 star review of the Doing It Online podcast on itunes right now. This five day workshop walks you through creating your own killer online business plan for your online course business. One that is scalable, profitable and enjoyable too. It's chock full of my very best lessons and strategies from over 13 years online. And today it's yours for free. All you have to do is step one, open up iTunes, click on this podcast, click, write, review and then click those little five stars and share what you love most about the show. Step two, head to katesbonus.com that's K A T E S B O N U S.com Kate's bonus and pop in your contact details and iTunes account name so we can know the review is from you and we can send you your login details for your bonus. It's that simple. Step one, leave a five star review. Step two, head to katesbonus.com and send us your details. And that's it. And as an extra little thank you, I'll be choosing my favorite reviews every week and sending that lucky reviewer an exclusive I do it online mug so you can sip along in style while you listen to your favorite show. So what are you waiting for? Hit pause, go leave that review, then head over to katesbonus.com pop in your details and claim this amazing five day workshop for yourself. I'll see you inside.

And as you know, there's no winners in that situation. So very first thing we did was like, okay, well let's go back to the start. Let's go back to what does your dream business actually look like? Like, how are you wanting to serve? How many people are you wanting to serve and in what kind of ways? And we kind of came back to that. Actually what she wanted to do was be able to have a handful of clients at a higher level that she worked with quite closely, but she still wanted to be able to help a lot of people. So what she really wanted was a more leveraged offer and an offer that, you know, she could have hundreds of people going through that she could, you know, that was covering a pain point that could be delivered in that way and delivered really well. That allowed her to, you know, to be checking in a couple of times a week, but not be spending the majority of her time doing one on one calls. And particularly the work she did, it could get quite emotionally heavy. It was would, you know, it kind of allowed her to again, not have to have that kind of energetic drain as well. So again, just having a little conversation.

You know, I said to her because, you know, she was really trying to go for this sort of higher level program. I'm like, well have you ever tried to sell, you know, a lower priced offer, like, you know, something around like the 500 to $1,000 mark because you know, in her Kind of niche that's particularly one automating. And when you're setting up a funnel, it's like a price point that tends to sort of work really well. And it's kind of normally got enough of a margin in it that you can do some Facebook ads, but it's not so high that people sort of feel they need that higher touch selling sort of experience.

And she was like, no, oh, hang on a second. Yeah, I did. Only to my list, though. And she's like, I couldn't sell them from a webinar or anything. And I was like, oh, okay, so you tried to do a webinar? She goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, I did a webinar. I'm like, and what did it convert at? And she went, look at the stats. And she's like, oh, it only converted at 15%. And I'll. But, you know, she said, oh, sorry. She's like, I only sold 10. And I was like, okay, how many people were on there? And we figured out that it actually converted at over 15%. And my benchmark for people when they're setting up, you know, when they want to see whether or not a webinar works for their offer, is you want to convert 10% of the people who attend. So 10% attendees turn into buyers. And she had 15%. And I was like, oh, okay. So actually, you have already sold a program really easily in a possibly leveraged way, and you've already proven that it sells and it sold beyond the milestone, beyond the benchmark. I'm like, maybe you are actually good at this whole online business digital marketing thing. And you could see us sort of sitting there going, oh, oh. And the thing is, this is, again, this is something I see happen a lot. I think that when people get really, really focused on trying to make something work in a certain way or trying to make a really specific thing happen, or they're just focusing on the things that aren't working exactly how they want, and then they just don't even notice when there are bits that are working really well or they just forget. They just dismiss them like, oh, that was fine. Next. Or they don't actually know the numbers that they need to be focusing on or aiming for to know if it's actually working well in the first place. So I think a lot of people think, oh, if I didn't make like $200,000 worth of sales, then my product is a flop. But if you are converting 15% of people to your product, actually, your product is amazing. We just need to get More that in front of more people and in a more leveraged and more automated way. So that was the first piece of the puzzle. We kind of decide, you know, she decided to flip what she was focusing on, save that, you know, that higher priced, higher value offer for her really, really perfect clients and to be able to go out there and serve more people in more leveraged way with a $500 program.

So next up, you know, she decided to, as we always get do, first thing is always to test your webinar. So she wants to make some changes to her program. So, like, okay, let's test that webinar first before we automate it. And she also had this real belief that automating didn't work for her. She. That was the other thing she said to me. She goes, oh, okay, well, you know, it sold okay when I did it live, but every time I've tried to automate, it never sells. And again, we sort of have to go, okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, back up a second.

You know, we need to look at the numbers here. We need to look at how you automate it and stuff like that. But so we decided again, take it. Let's take it step by step. So I said, let's just do it live. Let's just run this webinar live, you know, with your new updated offer and your new price point, and let's just see what happened. So she did that, and it worked. It worked really damn well. I think she converted about 20%. I just like, okay, this is excellent. I'm going to do that again. So then she kind of got almost like a bit hooked on running these webinars live. And so then she was doing a live webinar a week. I think she started actually out with two, and then she was getting really burnt out, and then she was doing one a week. And she sort of said, oh, that's fine. That feels leveraged to me. I just have to show up for an hour once a week, and then I make my sales and then I'm good. And so I was like, okay, okay, I'll let you. I'll let you do that. And, you know, I was in there going, wait till you come back to me and tell me that you're sick of doing the same presentation every single week. And, you know, not being able to travel and not be able to work your week around the things you want to do. So sure enough, about six weeks later, you know, on our call, she's like, yeah, I'm getting a little bit sick of doing these Live. But I still don't believe that they will work automated. So I'm like, okay, well let's, let's go a half step. Let's do them as a hybrid. Because she'd also been having some Internet issues. And so hybrid webinar is something I recommend to people who are somewhere where their Internet is not ideal or where maybe there's going to be a lot of background noise or it's quite difficult to particularly, you know, Covid times. Hybrids are perfect where it's kind of hard to be able to go and hide away from the kids perfectly for 90 minutes to. To run a live webinar. So let's do it hybrid. So what hybrid is, is basically you just record the middle section, like the teaching part and the pitch part. So the bit that needs to be perfect, you prerecord it and you can even take it from an existing one that you've done. And then you jump on live at the start and you tell people that, hey, this middle bit's recorded because I've got bad Internet. They're usually fine with this. But, hey, I'll be in the, I'll be in the chat box answering your questions and we'll do live Q and A at the end. So we did it. Did it. Hybrid. She was really worried. She was like, it's not going to convert as well. They're going to know because it's automated and it's not me. It's not going to convert as well. Guess what? It converted exactly the same. Exactly the same. So again, so I'm like, okay, we're getting closer. Do you. Having an automated offer here, like now at least, you know, you just have to get up and say hi, answer your questions at the end. And that middle hour, which I feel is really like the kind of like heavy draining part of the webinar. For people who find, you know, a lot of people find webinars energizing. Other people find them draining. If you find them draining, this can be a great way around it. So, like, okay, we're nearly there. We're nearly automated. How can we sort of get her over the edge of seeing, you know, just trying, because now she's become used to having a certain level of sales every week and she doesn't want to risk it. She's really liking having regular money again and, you know, being able to actually go and buy stuff and, you know, starting to get a few people on her team. And so she just doesn't want to risk it. And it feels like automating things is a big risk. So I said, okay, well let's. Okay, what's the next step? Next step is let's keep your, your hybrid one that you're doing and let's add some Evergreen ones so you can have two sets of ads. One is going to. So by this point she was running ads because you kind of, your list gets a little bit sick of hearing about the same thing over and over. And she'd been doing this for about three months I think almost by this point. So she was running Facebook ads by now. But that's fine because it was tested and proven and you know, so it felt like a safe thing to invest in. Cause she knew she was going to get a return. So I'm like, okay, let's just test. And this is what I believe in everything. Let's never turn off an existing revenue source to replace it with something unknown chest. Run them side by side for a little while and if one does better, keep that one. Or maybe you keep them both. I was like, okay, we will keep you with your hybrid. You can keep that day as you have one. We're gonna have a second set of ads that goes to Evergreen. Let's see what happens. And guess what, you guys? Evergreen converted exactly the same like. So one thing a lot of people don't know about the difference between live webinars and evergreen webinars is there's, the numbers are different, but it generally, if you've done it right and if it's a really great webinar and a great offer, it generally all works out in the wash. And what I mean by that is when you run a live webinar, you normally promote it for like seven to five days out. You know, you get a bunch of people signed up, but your show up rate isn't going to be great. Like maybe it's 15%, 20%, I've heard as low as 10% of people actually showing up because they registered seven days ago and they forgot about it and they've gotten busy and something else has come up or they've seen another ad for something else. You know, that's just standard. But the people who do show up, they're normally the ones who are the keenest ones who are the most excited, the warmest, they get that great live experience. And so you're of the percentage of the smaller percentage of people who show up, a lot more of them will buy. Whereas with an Evergreen webinar, it's kind of the opposite. So because your evergreen webinar, when it's set up it normally when people go the registration page, there'll be a time that they can join in the next, if not hour sometime that day. There's a lot less chance of them forgetting about it, being distracted. So you'd get a much higher show up rate, up to like 50, 60% show up rate. So you know a lot more people on the webinar. However, those people probably not quite as warm again experience because it's not fully live. They're not directly engaging with you, they're not getting a question answered one on one by you. The experience not quite as great. But even with a lower percentage of people who buy it kind of works out in the wash because you had so many more people go through it in the first place. And here's the other thing. Those people who watched that webinar and didn't buy, they still got all that great information. They still got really educated about you and, you know, your system and what you've got going on. And if you then continue to warm them up and give them great value and great content, they can be a lot warmer next time if you do have a launch or if you have another Evergreen offer. So anyway, that's just a little side note. So back to my client. So she now had tested step by step from fixing a broken offer, well, not a broken offer, but finding a better offer, an easier to sell offer, a more of a hells yes offer, which is what I call a funnel friendly offer. She had then found a way that she could sell it regularly and reliably. And initially we did that live because that felt safest and like was most likely to work for her. And then we did it sort of live with a hybrid because again, she didn't, you know, was just so worried about everything going backwards. And now she had this business that was how she wanted it and she didn't want to let that go. And then, you know, the final step was, let's just see, can this Evergreen, can this work, you know, good enough or as well as, or just, you know, slightly less than the one that you're doing live. So you can completely be leveraged so you don't have to be showing up every week and doing the same presentation and you know, and having that sort of energy drain because if you're doing the same presentation every single week for, you know, 52 weeks a year, you're going to lose some of the sparkle by the end of it because it's going to feel a little bit repetitive to you. So you Know, we got to that point and she found that, yes, for the same investment on her Facebook ads as what she was doing for her live ones. She was getting the same number of sales with an evergreen and now, which meant she didn't have to do them at all anymore. So this happened, I said about, I think it was over about a four to five month period. Went from, you know, really, really about to give up, like, tried everything. Nothing works. I can't do this, you know, last ditch effort kind of thing. And we slowly, step by step got her there. This could have been done a lot quicker. Like she probably could have done this in four to five weeks. But I understand sometimes people, you know, everyone is different, everyone's situation is different. And sometimes you have to do it step by step so you can see it for yourself and you can believe it and trust it. And that allows you to sort of let go and allows you to allow it to happen. So four to five months from, you know, pushing, pushing one to one sales calls, trying to make a product that she didn't even really want to sell, sell to delivering to hundreds of people every month, a, you know, a much more leveraged offer that is still getting raving reviews. Like, her clients love her, they get such great results. And, you know, she sent me a message from the beach one day going like, hey, I was just at the beach, I went for a swim, I came back to my towel. I'd made $3,000. Like, this just feels too easy. And that's, that's another mindset shift. And that's a whole other story. And that's, you know, that's like the next step of stuff that people kind of have to dig into once they get their funnel set up. But it's that she now, you know, it's such an amazing and important moment. I think in any online business when you cross over that sort of threshold from the, I don't know how I'm going to pay for everything. Everything feels really unstable. Things will fall down at any minute if this doesn't work. If this doesn't work, you know, I'm kind of, you know, stressed out and, you know, maybe I'm no good at this. I'm doubting myself. And all of those awful things running around your head. That moment that you cross over the threshold to having financial stability and feeling like, you know, you've got this and that, you know, that next, you know, next week and next month and you know that it's all going to be fine, is it's life changing it really, really is. And it's why I am so passionate about funnels. It's why I create my whole business around funnels. Because I love see either seeing the look on someone's face when it happens or hearing it via DM that like, wow, I didn't realize it could be like this. And as you seen from the example I gave you guys today, sometimes it's not like this sexy, shiny quick fix thing. Like, you know, you see all these things out there, they're like, get five new clients tomorrow for, you know, with this one simple script. Okay, sure. But the thing is with the a funnel and one of the reasons why I love them so much and why my clients love them so much is that this is creating an asset, a really, really important asset in your business. And sure, sometimes these things take a little bit of time, sometimes they don't. Sometimes couple weeks, bam, you're done. Other times, as you've seen, sometimes you have to do it step by step. You have to kind of get there at your own pace. But every single client that I've had who's got their funnel set up, it's running, it's making sales, they all say that no matter how long it took, it was well worth it and they wish they'd done it sooner. So I hope this has been helpful, guys. I hope this has kind of allowed you to see like a little, as I said, a little bit of a peek behind the scenes of what really goes into sometimes setting up these key pieces of a business. It's not always straightforward, but it is so, so worth it. And now one last thing guys. If you like, my client was and your offer is just not selling how you would like it to. I'm actually running a totally free 3 day offer overhaul challenge called Sold out Success and it all kicks off on October 12th. Inside it, I'm going to be walking you through my top three steps and tweaks that you need to make to your courses and programs and offers to take them from, you know, sort of selling to that shut up and take my money kind of selling. So if you would love my help to make your own sold out success offer and I would love to help you do that, make sure you come and save your seat. Now it's free. Just go to kateschallenge.com that's Kate with a K, Kate's challenge.com or you can grab the link from the show notes below. So keep doing what you do, lovely ones. And I will see you all for our next episode next week. Bye.

Thanks so much for listening to the Doing it online podcast. If you love this episode, don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. And if you're ready to take your online course sales to the next level with your own six or seven figure funnel, let Kate show you exactly how today@Stealmyfunnel.com.