#90 - My 3 fave funnels - which will be best for you? (Encore Episode)

When you have all three and you have three funnels that are serving these three different purposes, it becomes like an ecosystem.

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?

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Hello. Hello everybody. Welcome back to the Doing It Online podcast. This is Kate McKibben here, your host from hellofunnels Co. And today we have episode number 37. We are talking nerdy, you know, my favorite thing to do. So today we are talking funnels. I of course love funnels more than most things in life, more than probably is reasonable. And I try not to talk about them on every single episode, although I probably definitely could. But today I want to totally geek out with you and share my three favorite funnels, what they do, the purposes they serve in your business and how you can know which ones are going to be right for you. I think, you know, a lot of people think when it comes to funnels that, you know, really that the main point of them is always making sales, right? It's just how to make more sales, how to make more money. But actually, and this is not something everyone knows, is that funnels actually serve different purposes and more specific purposes than that. And I actually think that every online business, particularly if you are a coach or a course creator or, you know, you sell info products of any kind, if you are showing up and selling your knowledge and expertise online, there are actually three funnels that you need. And that actually when they all kind of, when you have all three of them and don't panic, you don't need to set them all up at once. You can do, literally you could do like one a year if you wanted to. Like, it doesn't have to be some big crazy, mind exploding kind of thing, but when you have all three and you have three funnels that are serving these three different purposes, it becomes like an ecosystem. Like they actually feed each other, they feed the growth of your business. They like, you know, as one grows, the next one grows and that kind of thing comes around again and again, it's quite. Well, if you're a nerd like me, it's quite a beautiful thing to watch. And those are the three funnels that I'm going to talk about today. So funnel number one is you need a funnel that is your core funnel. So this is what people typically think when they think of funnels, is what I call a core funnel. And there's different types of core funnels as well, guys. Like there's webinar funnels, there's application funnels, there's, you know, our mini but mighty funnels, you know, and all three of these we kind of go through inside the ecosysempire program. But the core funnel, the purpose of that core funnel, it's not just to make sales. It is, of course, yes, to make sales, but it's to make sales with a purpose. So the core funnel, the purpose of it is actually to make enough sales every single month on autopilot. So whether you're launching or you're running some kind of list building thing, or you're having a holiday or you're sick on the couch, whatever it is, every single month, reliably, the aim of this funnel is to make enough sales and enough revenue on autopilot to cover what I call your financial freedom checkpoint. So your financial freedom checkpoint. And if you've done any of my free workshops, you may have already calculated this and know what this is. But the financial freedom checkpoint, this is where you add up your. All of the expenses in your business, including paying yourself a salary that covers all of the expenses in your life, so you're actually able to live and have spending money and all that kind of stuff. I'm not saying like your dream amount you want to pay yourself, but so that right now everything is covered plus 20%. So for example, if your business expenses are maybe 2 to 3,000amonth and you pay yourself about the same, you know, plus 20% on top of that. My gosh, don't make me do math on the fly, but let's just say it's about $7,000. So that would be what I would call your financial freedom checkpoint. So normally we do a little bit of reverse engineering of the maths there and say, okay, well, to make $7,000 a month on autopilot, how many sales of my product do I need to be making? Therefore, how many leads do I need to be getting, et cetera, et cetera? We don't need to go into that here, but just know that, that your core funnel's purpose is not just to be making some sales. Yes, any extra sales are always good. But when you can go, yep, tick, this funnel is working how it's supposed to, and it is serving its purpose in my business. That's supposed to, that's going to really help me to grow is when you've got that financial freedom checkpoint ticked. When it, you know, month after month, you know that, yes, everything is paid, everything is covered. You don't have to stress. You don't. And the reason I find this particular milestone or checkpoint or everyone call it so important and why it's like the number one thing we celebrate it so hard when the people in our programs hit it is because it changed. Like it fundamentally changes who you are and how you actually show up in your business. Because imagine how different that feels. Most people when they're starting their business like you are in this phase of like struggle, struggle, struggle, stress, stress, stress. And it's exhausting. And it's really hard to be creative and it's really hard to be have those big ideas and to be showing up. David, it's like, it's just hard. It's not. I mean, we do it like it's worth it, but it's hard. And it. When that weight lifts and all of a sudden you don't have to stress about that anymore. It's amazing. Like your vision changes all of a sudden. You can start to see this bigger picture. You can start making these bigger, more exciting, more daring plans. You can start thinking about scaling, about bringing on team. It's like fully, it's my favorite thing. And when I hear people and they've hit that point and then they're like, oh, this is what you've been talking about. Oh my gosh, like, things are so different now. And you know that. So this is why it's so important. So like I said, that core funnel, your meat and potatoes kind of funnel that you want to set up, it serves that purpose of getting you to that financial point reliably over and over again. And its purpose really is to relieve the stress from you so that you don't have to worry about how you're going to pay the bills this month. So that's funnel number one. The second funnel that is again super important as part of this like three part ecosystem thing is what I call lead generation funnel. So this is a funnel and its purpose is to get, go out there and find more like dream clients and get them into your core funnel and to allow you to grow that core funnel beyond that, you know, financial freedom point and, and beyond. Because obviously once you sort of hit that point, you're going to move the mile, you're going to move the check post, right? You're going to be like, hey, well now I want to bring on this team member so now this core funnel actually needs to make $10,000 a month or whatever it is. So for this core funnel to be able to grow and for you to be able to grow your team and invest in other parts of your business and still have that financial freedom checkpoint ticked, you need to be able to get more people into that core funnel and you need to be able to do it in a way that's not going to be eating into your profit. At the end of the day, it's not just about spending more money and not necessarily getting more back. So this is where the lead gen funnel comes in. And there's a couple of different types. There's what we call a mini but mighty funnel or self liquidating offer is kind of like the old school term for it. It's also called a tiny offer or tiny funnel or anything that means small. Basically someone's called it that at some point, so. Or there's also the option of just the, of a tripwire funnel. They both work the same because what they are is it's going out there using paid ads and it can be Pinterest, Facebook, lots of different places you can do it, YouTube, attracting people into a small priced offer, a low ticket offer. And the purpose of this funnel, it's not about, you know, making you a millionaire by selling however many hundreds of thousands of things for $27. It's about actually making sure that the cost of getting that new lead is equal to or less than whatever the, you know, the average sale price is. So if you're selling something at $27, you can go out there and happily pay $27 or less to get people onto your list and then you can reinvest that back. So means that you know, you're going to Facebook, you're giving them $10, yet Facebook's giving you back $10. Not really much going into the, into the back pocket. But it allows you to grow your spend to feel more comfortable spending more on Facebook, on Pinterest or wherever it is that you're doing your ads because it's not actually costing you anything. The sales are covering the cost, so it comes out cost neutral. Now if you do it right, you can make a little bit of profit, but it's usually not a lot to get excited about. But the real, where the real magic comes in is that yes, it's allowing you to, you know, go out there, probably do more aggressive list building than you normally would consider and to grow your list a lot faster than you'd normally be able to because it's paying for itself. But that said, the real magic is when you then have your core funnel sitting behind your lead gen funnel. So those people who are coming in, not only are this not costing you anything, they a percentage of them are then going to jump in and be dream clients and perfect for the offer in that core funnel. And that's going to help, you know, with your financial freedom checkpoint and to grow that portfolio portion of your business as well. So that's funnels one and two, funnel number three and this is what I said, these like, these go together, they're like little puzzle pieces and everybody's particular setup is going to be slightly different and it depends on what, who your target market is, what your offers currently are, what their price points are, what you sort of like doing and don't like doing your business, how you want to shop, all that kind of stuff. Like one of the things I love about our helping clients with is going, okay, yes, we need to tick these three boxes. What is the best way that we can tick this for them for you, for your particular set of needs and the things that you are going to help and work best for your business. So everyone's going to have a different, yes, everyone wants these three puzzle pieces but everyone's is going to be slightly different. Also why I don't recommend funnel hacking just as a side note because.

Any, that's a whole nother story. But you know, trying to copy someone's funnel when you don't really realize the purpose that it's truly serving and how that kind of actually impacts business and all that kind of stuff, it's just, it's recipe for disaster. But so this third funnel, the third piece in the funnel puzzle is a profit funnel. So the purpose of this funnel is to help you to as is more money in the bank basically. Like if you think about it this way, if your, your lead gen funnel is paying for your marketing and then your core funnel is paying for your business expenses and they are both growing and growing each other so they allow you to grow in the business as well. Okay, how are you now going to be able to take more money out of your business? And there's a few, like some people go, okay, well that's what my launches are for. My launches are for my profit. And you can do that as well. You can have launches on top of all of this because all of this works really well and helps to actually make your launches work better when you have these running in the background and they also take a hell of a Lot of pressure off your launches, of course, because you know, you've got everything covered. And so, you know, launches, I said they can be the cream on the top, the cherry on the top of the cream, whatever works for you. So this third funnel, its purpose is profit. And how do you do that? Well, that is by having a further offer. Usually I said this a few different ways of doing it, but normally what this is is about finding either another offer or an upsell or some live component or something else that you can offer to your existing customers so that they, the people that it's right for, the people who got great results, the people who, you know, loved your first offer and are ready for more, giving them a next step. You don't have to pay any extra for that. You don't need to go out and do Facebook ads for them again. You know, they're already in part of your world, part of your. They're following you on social, they're on your email list. You know, they're already fans. So this is coming up with like a what's the next step offer. What makes the most sense now to offer to these people? And the purpose of this not only is of course to further help, you know, these clients and these amazing people who you, your skills and your expertise are designed to help and to transform. Um, but it is to add profit, it is to have sales come in without additional expenses. So those are my three favorite funnels, guys. I said they are a three part pack, they go together, they work so beautifully together. But you don't need to go and create them all at once. But these are, and I would say pretty much every, if you look at any of the big names in the online world, they would all have in one form or another these three funnels. At least one of each, if not multiple. So this isn't me coming up with some crazy new shiny thing. This is tried and tested online marketing strategy that just freaking works. Like takes, you know. Yes, you gotta do it the right way around. Of course, as with anything but it's once it is all together, it is super powerful and it game changing business, changing life, changing all the things. So anyway, that is my nerd out session for this week. Thank you for putting up with me talking nerdy. I hope you got a few gold nuggets, some big ahas. If you did, make sure you let me know, shoot me a DM or tag me over on Instagram at hellofunnels. I can't wait to hear what your biggest takeaway was. And of course, if you've got any questions or you wanna know anything else about funnels, hit me up. We've got a Q and A session coming up again very soon, but until then, guys, thank you so much for hanging out and talking nerdy with me today. I hope it was super valuable. Looking forward to chatting with you all same time next week. Until then, keep doing what you do and I'll see you online. 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.