#185 - How She Did It: Behind the Scenes of a Naturopath’s 7-Figure funnel with Vesna Hrsto

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Hey, everybody. It is Kate here from hellofunnels, and welcome to a very special episode of the Doing It Online podcast. Today is actually episode number 185, and it is the very first time we are ever having a guest. And it's not just any guest. This is actually one of the very first people that I helped to set up a funnel, my amazing friend, Vezen Hursto. She is a phenomenal naturopath. She's built an amazing business, and five years ago, we worked together in a very unofficial, overwinds kind of capacity to help get her sales systemized and automated. And that funnel is still running today, and it has made such a huge impact on her business. So I wanted to chat to Besna today to really open up the curtains and take you behind the scenes of, first of all, what it is like, what it actually takes to set up a funnel that just works so beautifully, the differences and the impact it can make on your business, and what it actually takes to maintain a funnel for that long, a funnel that has worked for five years plus and has been such an amazing engine to help her build the amazing business that she has today. So it's going to be a really, really great episode. I hope you love it. Let's dive right on in.

Alrighty. Hi, everybody, and welcome back. So today I'm here with the lovely Besna Hersto, and we are going to be doing something a little different. Vesna, you are actually the first. First ever guest on this podcast. So welcome and thank you very much.

Thank you. I feel very privileged. Thank you.

And the reason that I really wanted you to be the first ever guest is because you're also informally the first ever person that I sort of helped go through the process of setting up a funnel. We were friends helping each other out, and so it wasn't like an official coaching capacity, but it was one of the things that really got me excited about helping other people and so setting up this process inside their business. And that was now five years ago.

Five years ago. I think it was about five years ago, yeah.

Wow.

Yes. I still remember our little sessions.

Yes. I really wanted to chat to you today because something I think is really interesting for people to see is the kind of progression of a funnel inside a business, and particularly one that's been running in some capacity for such a long period of time and being able to sort of look back now at sort of how that has really impacted your business and maybe the same things you have done differently or anything like that. So basically, we're just going to be nerding out on all things funnels. But I wanted to start at the start. If you want to go back five years ago, if you can remember when you sort of got to the point of going, okay, I'm going to try a funnel. Do you remember what sort of like your main frustrations were inside your business?

Well, I didn't have any consistency. I didn't have a system. So back then I was offering one on one packages and so I didn't have a system for them to go through to then get onto a phone call with me. So I was just getting the wrong people on the call and there was no way to automate it. So it was a lot of work involved. So it just kind of felt a little bit all over the place, a little bit haphazard, like, okay, that worked. What worked? I have no idea, you know, so it was not something I could scale. It's not something that I could be like, okay, this week, well, this is what I can project I'm going to be doing in the next six months or whatever. Right. So it had no consistency and it was really frustrating.

Yeah. And those sales calls and things like, were you loving them? No.

No. You know why? Because it wasn't right for them and it wasn't right for me. And so there's a total mismatch of people, you know, signing up for the calls. And so I guess we're both frustrated in the end. And yeah, that whole process was really just felt hard. It felt hard to grow a business from that place and it felt so confusing and I didn't know what to do. And yeah, that was back then.

Yes. All in the past. And so had you at this point tried to do any other sort of like funnels or automation for your programs? Can you remember?

I did a launch. I wouldn't call it a launch, but that's what I called it at the time. And I launched the Buhae burnout program. And so I was basically, I launched it, sold it and then I had three people join and I built it after I launched it. Right? Yeah. And three people got great results. Then I parked it and left it there and didn't look at it again for I think maybe almost two years.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think I remember that conversation where we were sort of thinking about like how to do something in a bit more evergreen way.

And.

And I think I sort of just very off the cuff said like, do you have anything that could sell for about $500? And you're like, oh, I have this program that got amazing results. It was 4, 9, 7 or something like that. I could just sell that. Like, is that kind of. Yeah, so it's been a while. So that was kind of my.

So my. Yeah, so I do remember that conversation and I also remember my hesitations because I really felt like that in order for people to get results, they need to speak to me. You know, we need to have one on one sessions. It needs to be personal and all of that. And so I think it took me a little bit of time and bit of convincing to get that program back out there and to be proven wrong on that because it works extremely well in a community with people doing it together in the same place, helping each other along.

Yeah. And so how many people have you had through that program now?

Over 5,000.

And you would say that from having run this now for five years, thousands of people through it, you're still seeing that same, you know, those great results even though you're not doing the one.

On one, like, oh, absolutely, we see some phenomenal results. So, you know, I remember saying to someone recently, like, I just, I truly didn't believe that you could get these results from the online program. And I was, I was very wrong. So we have people who have, you know, been to functional medicine doctors for 10 years, people who have struggled with their symptoms of thyroid or adrenal fatigue or burnout for like, you know, 10, 15 years and come through this program and it's completely transformed from their lives.

Yeah.

So I would never have predicted something like that could happen. But it shows, you know, the method is really effective and it shows also the power of a community doing it together and, you know, me getting out of the way and allowing people to do the work.

And I think like, obviously all of these things are done sort of gradually and I'll still go back to the final part, but I did want to just talk about like the actual delivering an evergreen program coming from someone who's done one on one, because I think that is something that people get really stuck with as well. So do you remember how you sort of transitioned it? Because I know it's been a bit of a journey.

Yeah. Like, I've now certainly optimized it a lot, a lot, a lot over the years. But to me, initially it wasn't hard to map it out because I looked at the process that I took my clients through and I could see the pattern of, okay, first we do this and then we do this and then we do that. Right. And so Then I just structured it, broke it down into smaller pieces, and then delivered it that way.

Yeah.

And then after getting some people through it, some of the things were like, okay, this is too clunky. In the beginning, people are finding it really hard to do that piece before they can really get stuck into things. So it's just as people came through, it was like hearing what people were saying, okay, we need to change that. Let's move that to week two so they can get started and do this and do that and really just optimizing and to make it easier for them to execute. But the method is still the same.

Yeah. Awesome. And you had years and years of experience as a naturopath and helping people. So you have that sort of, I guess, really good clarity of what those steps were. Have you got any advice for people who are sort of thinking that maybe they've done a few years of working with clients and they're wanting to have something more leveraged? How do you know when? I guess you're ready to go? Yep, I can pack something up into a more leveraged experience, I guess.

Yeah. Well, I would look at what you're getting results with. Like, number one, look at what you're dealing with regularly. Whatever complaint or problem that you're solving, do you like to solve it? You know, is that something that you would like to specialize in? And then look at the results that you're getting and the process that you're taking clients through. Like, it probably won't be exactly the same, but there'll be some things, some core things that you would be doing with everyone. You know, for me, it's addressing stress, it's addressing gut, it's addressing deficiencies and liver function. Like, there's core things that we address for each person. And so I would suggest for them to have a look at one of those core pieces.

Yeah. Awesome. And before we go back to the funnels, I just wanted to talk about the support and how you support such a big group because you've got a very big community now. What stage did you sort of get to before you went, okay, I need to get help with this? Like, it's getting too big?

Yeah. So initially it was me in the group for a short time, and then I did get help. It was quite early days of the program. And so now with the amount of people that we have in the group, so we have two people on support, and we do a lot of things to optimize. So we've got FAQs, we do some regular posting in There to remind people of what's what in the program, we do two weekly posts. To leave your question under these posts, because the thing is with Facebook groups is that your questions get completely lost in there. So we do a lot of things to optimize so we can answer everybody's questions. And then the other thing that we do is what we're doing at the moment is that we'll do a live round every three months. And so that way, if people have kind of fallen behind or not move past module 2 for whatever reason, this is a chance that they can do it live with the health coaches and move through the program.

Yeah. Awesome. Okay, that's delivery. Let's go. Scoot back to the funnel. Because I love your story of how you created your funnel because I think you were very resistant to it. And I think that was just a lot of like, because you'd hadn't seen it work for you before. So like you said, it has to be live, has to be working with you, has to be talking directly to you. Like, there was a lot of those beliefs. So when it actually came to setting up your funnel, which is a webinar style funnel, do you want to go through what the process was for, how you went from your first webinar, I guess, through to it being an automated webinar.

So the first webinar was terrible. So it was the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth. And mainly because I didn't know, like, I followed some guidelines on how to put a webinar together. So this is going back over five years ago. Yeah. And it was not working. Like, people love the webinars. Like, great, I know exactly what to do now. Full plan. Like, it was just like a giveaway on the webinar, which is good, but doesn't get you people into the program where you can actually really help them. Right. So giving them the deep dive into everything. So I did a lot of live webinars and I really got a lot better at it. So that was, I think, for me was really important because so the live webinar, I heard all the questions where people were not understanding what I was talking about. Hearing people's different unique stories, like, oh, I can't do this because I'm still so stressed, was like, okay, so we talk about. So all those things we talked about in the next version of the webinar and then the next, and then the next until eventually it was really optimized. And so then I would run it live every week. I even tried testing it, running it twice a week, sometimes twice in one day or then twice in a week. And that was just exhausting. But that was, you know, it was consistent. So every week that's what I did. I ran a live webinar. We did the follow up sequence to it. We invited people into the group, got people started. Then, you know, the next week we did it again.

And at this point you were using Facebook ads to get people onto your Facebook ads.

And then I tried a hybrid version, which I didn't do much of. Yeah, I felt, it felt clunky to me.

Seem to remember you saying, I'm just sick of the sound of my own voice.

And the thing is, I would mess up the webinar because I was like, oh God, I'd say it a little bit differently, you know, just to spice it up for me. And then obviously that's not the right, right thing to do because you got it down pat. So I just was. I just got sick of talking. Yes. And hearing my own voice and saying the same thing.

Yeah, yeah. So for anyone listening, a hybrid version of a webinar is basically where you pre record the bulk of it. So you did like a live welcome. Was that right? And then you switched to the slides and the slides was all prerecorded, the content was pre recorded, the pitch was prerecorded, and then you could come back and do the Q and A live at the end and answer everybody's questions. So it was almost like that, sort of like 45 minutes and an hour in between. You're just kind of sitting there listening to yourself present.

But while, you know, grabbing everyone's questions and stuff like that as well.

So yeah, I didn't do that for too long. I don't know why. I think it just felt clunky. And I think by that stage you were like, just automate it, do it. Just do it. And I was like, okay. So I did. And it was like, oh my goodness, it was so amazing.

Yeah. And how quickly, obviously the mastering the webinar, all this stuff takes time. But from when you had that webinar working and sort of converting at the rate it needed convert, and you'd set up the evergreen. How fast did you start to see results?

Really fast. I think pretty much straight away because the webinar was optimized. It was just a case of it ran every day now instead of once a week.

Yeah. How long did it take for you to trust that that would be what happened every week?

Yeah, I think that was initially because I was like, okay, so I'm not going to do the weekly ones. I'm just going to put everything into this Evergreen system, which may not work and it means that you're not having anything coming in from your weekly and money's going out for advertising for the Evergreen. Yeah, but yeah, it's just, it's one of those things you have to test.

Test, test, test, test. And yeah, just close your eyes and cross your fingers and cross your nose.

Ye, you have it optimized once you know that it converts and you're in a safe place to go. Okay, we can test this on Evergreen now, but if it's not converting on live.

Yeah, no, that's one of my sort of must haves. Like you gotta do it live even if you hate doing it live and you have to do it multiple times and it feels awkward or whatever. Like it has to convert live because Evergreen traditionally converts at a slightly lower percentage than live does, but you get more people watching it because it's at a more convenient time and things like that. So now like five years later, you're still running a version of this kind of setup, aren't you?

Yeah. So it's a really optimized version. So we're always looking to optimize everything. Another 1%. Another 1%. So at the moment, yeah, the webinar, it's. I mean it's at its most optimized that it's ever been, but it's still the same version in Sense of Ads, masterclass, offer the program, get them into the program, sign up and then we do the follow up sequence, all of that kind of stuff. So it's still the same structure, just all those little components are optimized.

Yeah. Awesome. After sort of like a few months of seeing that this was working and was going to keep working, what did that sort of change in your business view?

Oh, so much. So consistency with income, a scalable product. And it gave me time back to work on other projects and other programs. It gave me time to optimize the program, make it even better. It just gave me more time back while the business was still running. Like I didn't feel like if I wasn't showing up for the webinar, the business wasn't making any money, whereas now it felt like more of a business.

Yeah. And you've been able to go on like multiple month trips overseas and all kinds of things which I'd imagine would be. Would have been quite a different story.

Yeah, like oh my goodness, like I remember just trying to work when I traveled somewhere and it was just like cash flow was just a nightmare and stressful and. But I think, you know, like, my lesson out of all of that is really taking the time. Like, if you decide that that's, you know, you're going to do this online course and you're going to build, whether it's a webinar funnel or whatever it is, really take the time to optimize it because they work very well. But they do require testing, refining, testing, refining.

There's unicorns out there who might get it first. Go. But it's a small number and I think, yeah, it's definitely worth putting the reps in to get good at it. One other thing I want to ask you about because, again, I think there's a bit of a misconception about funnels online. Well, there's lots of misconceptions about funnels online, but one of them is that you set it up and then you never touch it again. And I would imagine from five years ago, things start working to now. Obviously you've had a lot of great growth, but that was definitely not a straight line. So has there been any advice around maintaining a funnel over such a long period of time?

Yeah, well, I think it would be optimizing it. So even when it's working well, I guess with business and funnels, you know, there'll be peaks and there'll be dips, and that's just a normal part of the process. But I find in the dips is when we go, okay, let's optimize, let's get back in there and what have we got to tweak? And it's the best thing, right? Because then we tweak it and it's better. And yeah, just to kind of really do the work, to optimize it is really the key. It completely changes your business, but it does. It just requires the work. Like it's. The funnel is more optimized now than ever. And so it was like a growth and then it was like, really steady for a while, and then it went through a massive growth. Again, my experience, you have to get good at each part of the funnel. The ads, the copy, the emails, the webinar, all those elements.

Yeah. And would you say that it's probably like once you've got a webinar, it's working well and you've got your emails and everything working well. It's probably the ads that would be the thing that varies the most.

Ad is the things that you have to keep on top of. That is what you need to update because they will fatigue. And, you know, sometimes you can do a whole bunch of ads and they don't work, so you got to do more again. But then when you get a couple that work, they could run like, I had a couple running for like a year. With the amount of traffic that we get, it's actually amazing. So, I mean, it's not set and forget, but there's definitely time in there where it can be set and forget. You go work on other things, and then you come back and you optimize. You go work on other things, but it's not as if 24, 7, you're optimizing and keeping on, but when it dips, you're back in there.

It's kind of like a car. Like it's, you know, it needs its maintenance. You can't just drive it every day and expect that it won't need its oil changed or it won't need its tyres replaced. Like, it needs to be maintained to keep it running.

Well, yeah. And I think things in the marketplace change. I don't know what those things are, but somehow it affects your funnel. And then you just got to go in there and update it and just see what works. See what's working now.

Yeah, now. Have you ever had an instant where you're like, oh, something, it's broken. It stopped working. I need to throw it out?

Yes. It was before COVID would have been about six months before the lockdowns. And it was mainly because of the ads. We had issues with ads and we couldn't get them working. So it just dried up, the traffic going into the funnel, and so it's easy to go, okay, none of that's working anymore, the funnel, so let's just throw it away. But I've learned enough to know that that's not the reason.

That we really kind of do an analysis. And it tends to be. Most of the time, the ads are fatigued.

Yeah. Damn ads. Why can't they just work forever?

Oh, my goodness. A dream.

Two more questions and then I will let you go. So, because again, this is something I see happen with some clients who the funnel is working and then it almost. I don't know if it's a subconscious thing or what, but it's almost because it's easy or easier and you're. At some point, it's like, don't touch it. Just let it do its thing. I find people get bored and they want to break it. It's almost like it's too easy. So let's go change Everything. Did you ever have any instances?

No. Because it was so hard in the beginning.

Yeah, you earned it.

I earned that. No, I didn't. I don't know. I don't know why people do that. I have heard of people doing that. I think, you know, you've definite, definitely gotta. In the testing phase, you've gotta leave it. Right. If you're looking at your data every day or five times a day like I used to, then it's gonna drive you crazy because, you know, you've gotta see it over time. And so it could be easy to go, okay, this is not working. I'm gonna change this and change that. But you really need a bigger snapshot and to just not touch it and let it collect data and see what the metrics are.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so final question for anyone listening who is on the fence about creating a funnel. They're like, it's 20, 23, you know, funnels aren't going to work anymore. Do you have any advice for that?

That's just not true because it's working better than ever now. You know, you hear people say funnels don't work, webinars don't work, these things don't work. But they're really the foundational things, the core things that really do work and have stood the test of time. No, I think that completely works. I think that kind of. Whoever's saying that doesn't have a working funnel that they can optimize.

Yeah, they haven't optimized. Yeah, that's it. They haven't done the work because it is, it's work. Right. I think if I can emphasize that one more time, put the work in, you get the results.

Yeah, amazing. Well, thank you so much for jumping on and sharing your story. I love geeking out about funnels with you. And yes, we'll have to do it in person over a wine sometime soon. But yes, very generous of you to share it with everyone and I hope it's been helpful to everyone who's been listening to see the other side. It's not just me going, yep, funnels are great. Do funnels. But you know someone else who's got a good working funnel, a five year plus working funnel. So yeah, thank you so much, Bez and pleasure.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you so much.