Kate McKibben breaks down the six components of a scalable business for 2026: a cheap gateway offer, a funnel to sell it, a higher-ticket backend offer, a conversion mechanism for the backend, one organic traffic source, and one paid traffic source. If you have 2,000 email contacts, start with the backend; otherwise, build the gateway offer first and spend Q1 getting all six pieces running.
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Have you ever been told to just focus on one offer, one traffic source, one audience, until you hit a million dollars? Yeah, me too. But here's why I think that's actually terrible advice, especially going into 2026, because the truth is, modern businesses need more than one thing working, but not a hundred things, which seems to be the other alternative. In fact, they need just six. So today, in part two of our end of year planning series, I'm breaking down the six steps step scaling system. Try saying that 10 times fast. What you actually need to build in 2026 to scale profitably without spreading yourself too thin. Let's dive in. Hey. Hey, everybody. And welcome back to the Doing It Online podcast. I'm your host, Kate McKibben from HelloFunnels. Co, and this is part two of our end of year planning series. And today we're talking about focus. Because if you did part one, the traffic light audit, you probably now have a list of green lights, orange lights, and red lights. And you might be wondering, okay, so what do I actually focus on in 2026? How do I put this all together? Well, today I'm giving you the answer. It's called the six step scaling system, and it's my version of the very popular framework you might have heard called the five ones, or sometimes the four ones, sometimes the six ones. It really depends on who you're listening to. But basically it says this. You're going to pick one audience, one traffic source, one conversion mechanism, you know, like a webinar or a free challenge, and one offer. You're going to focus on those things, master them, and you don't add or do anything else until you hit a million dollars. And look, the promise is solid and it's catchy. I get it. The idea of focusing on mastery over dabbling, yes, absolutely. That's what makes you successful. But here's the problem. That advice is just too simplified for today's market. Because if you're in an expensive niche or if your offer isn't cold, traffic friendly or you don't already have a big, warm audience, that strategy falls apart really quickly and you're left feeling frustrated and probably broke. You can't just pick one offer and one traffic source and expect it to scale profitably anymore. If you. It doesn't work that way for 99% of people. So I've created a slightly extended version, and it's actually what we teach step by step inside our program, the 100K Funnel Club. All right, here's what you're actually going to focus on in 2026, you need six things. Number one, you need one cold traffic friendly offer. I call this a gateway offer. This is that front end offer, that first taste, something that people will buy without having to know you first. Usually this is priced between $27 and $97. Next, you need one cold traffic friendly funnel. This is how you convert cold traffic into buyers of that first gateway taste test offer. This is a simple funnel that is designed to convert as quickly and at as high a conversion rate as as possible. Number three, you need one profit friendly offer. This is your back end offer. This is usually a higher ticket, higher investment, higher touch program, or just a natural next step from your gateway. This might be 1000, 2000, $5000. And this is where your profit comes in. Fourth thing is one profit friendly offer conversion mechanism. This is how you convert people into the buyers of your backend offer. Bonus points if it's automated, but it doesn't have to be. It could be a webinar that yes, could be automated or that you run weekly. It could be a challenge that is run live once a month or once a quarter. It could be a launch sequence. Whatever works for you. Number five is one organic traffic source. Pick one. One Instagram, LinkedIn, a podcast, YouTube, whatever makes the most sense for you. But just one so you can focus on it so it doesn't take up all of your time. Figure out what works, create a system around it, just get it done. And then the final piece is pick one paid traffic source. Now, the reason I don't say pick just one traffic source is I don't like leaving all your eggs in one basket. I think that it is very dangerous to rely on just organic traffic, just like it is very dangerous and also very expensive to rely just on paid traffic. That's why I recommend you use them both. So again, pick just one. Is it Facebook ads, Instagram ads, YouTube, Google, TikTok, whatever makes the most sense for you and your audience. Pick just one though. That's it. That's six things. And the goal is to master these six pieces piece by piece. And when you do, they will all work together to form a rock solid, profitable and scalable ecosystem that is going to smash all of your 2026 goals. So now you might be wondering, how do you choose your six? So if you did the traffic light audit in part one, this should be easier because hopefully you can see which offers worked, which traffic sources worked and which conversion mechanisms worked. So now you can sit back and just slot them into this framework. So which of your green light offers is cold traffic friendly? Great. That's your front end offer. Which of your green light offers is your bigger ticket? More profit driving offer. Wonderful. That's your back end offer. Which traffic source felt the most natural and effective for you? That's your organic source. Which paid source gave you the best results? That's your paid source. And then you're going to build out the conversion mechanisms and the funnels that connect all of this together. So the next thing you need to figure out is where do you start? So here's the thing, you can't build or master all six of these once. It's not practical. So you have to prioritize. And how you prioritize depends on just one thing. Do you already have an audience? If you have an existing audience of at least 2,000 people on your email list, then you're going to start from the back. So you're going to start with the backend offer, your profit friendly offer, build out the conversion mechanism or the funnel for that offer and test it to your existing audience first. Run it, see if it works, optimize it, make your first sales. Because if you already have people who know you and trust you, you can start making profit right away. But if you don't have an audience of at least 2,000 people on your list, flip it around. Start instead with your front end offer and your cold traffic friendly funnel. Use that front end offer and your paid traffic source to grow that audience. The goal here isn't to make a ton of profit yet. The goal is to pay for itself so that you can grow your list essentially for free or close to it while you're building that list of buyers and subscribers. Once you've got that running, then you build the back end and that's when the profit comes in. All right, so now you know the plan. I'm sure a lot of you are thinking, but how long does this actually take to set up? And the good news is a lot less than you think. And it really does depend on what you already have, how many green lights you already had. So ideally, I would say if this is your goal to have this system set up and running and growing itself and scaling profitably, then you're going to want to dedicate the first 60 to 90 days of 2026 to make sure you have all of the pieces in place, that they are optimized and that they are growing. For some of you, it won't take anywhere near that long. It really depends on where you're starting from if you already have an offer and you're just building the funnel around it, that's going to be much quicker. If you need to create an offer from scratch, test it, refine it, that's obviously going to take more time, but it's also the most important part, so don't skip it. My recommendation is spend that first quarter of 2026 getting your missing pieces built and running and spend, then spend the rest of the year optimizing and scaling them. Because here's the truth. The businesses that are going to be successful in 2026 need to have all of these pieces in place. You need a front end offer and a front end funnel that covers your ad cost and grows your audience for fast. And you need a back end funnel and a backend offer that delivers true profit. But you can't build them both at once. So pick one, build it, then build the other. Look, I know this might sound like more than you were hoping for, but this is what's required if you want to scale and grow profitably. You can't just rely on one offer and hope it works forever. You can't just post organically and expect to hit seven figures. And you can't just throw money at ads without a system to convert that to traffic and then profit. You need both pieces. You need a front end and a back end. You need organic and paid. You need good offers and a good funnel to sell it. That's what's working, that's what's going to keep working. And the businesses that have built this are the ones that are going to thrive in 2026. Okay, here's your homework for today. Look at your traffic light audit from part one. And based on what worked, choose your six things. What's your cold traffic friendly offer? What's your profit friendly offer? What's your organic source and what's your paid? Write them down. And if there's any gaps, that's fine as well. You just know that that is one of the first things you need to fill. And then decide, are you going to start with your front end or your back end? Do you have an audience of 2000 or more? If so, start with the back. It's usually more profitable. If not, start with the front and then come in. This is your game plan for 2026. And look, if you're sitting here thinking, I really am going to need some help building this, I'd love some templates. I love Kate's eyes on what I'm doing, I'd love someone to walk me through exactly how to set this up so I know it's going to work right from the start. This is exactly what we do inside our A Hundred K club. We give you the systems, the templates, the support, and the strategy to build both pieces, and so you can do it in just eight weeks. So if you're ready to make this your reality, just DM us @hellofunnels on Instagram and let's chat. All right, that's it for part two of our end of year planning series. Choose your six, commit to them, and get ready to build in 2026. Part three drops next, we're gonna talk to you about how to set revenue goals for 2026 and how to make sure that you hit them. So make sure you're subscribed and I'll see you in the next ep.
