Inside A New Funnel We're Building: The PLM Funnel

Welcome to Million Dollar Grit, the podcast that dives deep into the world of entrepreneurship, where tenacity meets strategy and dreams meet reality. My name is Julie, and I explore the raw, often overlooked truths of what it takes to succeed in business and in life. It's not just about the glossy success stories. It's about the grit it takes to get there.

Hey, this is Julie, and today I want to talk to you about one of my favorite funnel types and a little bit behind the scenes of what's coming. In Funnel Gorgeous, the company that I co-run with Kathy Olson. So first and foremost, I've done every type of funnel that you can imagine. And I think I have a sweet spot in my heart for the low-ticket funnel. It was funny. I was going through old funnels that I had built, and really the low-ticket funnel is the funnel that everybody thinks of. When they think of the word funnel, at least in the internet marketing world, right? It's something that's not that expensive, you know, $30, $40 or less on that first page. And then when you get to checkout, there is the chance to click a button to get an order bump, which is like a little extra. It's like when you go to ice cream shop and you ask for an extra topping, you know, so that's the order bump. And then you go to checkout and you hit submit and then it says, wait before you go, I have a one-time offer. Do you want to add this to your order? That is the low-ticket funnel that I'm talking about, and it has been known in the past as a self-liquidating offer funnel, which is a pain in the ass name. And then people shortened it and they called it the slow funnel, and that didn't really make a whole lot of sense because even though they were saying an acronym, people were like, what do you mean the slow funnel? The truth is that low-ticket funnels are actually quite fast, not necessarily fast to build, but fast to grow your business and grow your visibility. So Kathy and I set out to teach this funnel. We're actually going to teach it. We've taught it once or twice in the past, but now we're going to teach it again. 6 years after our first low-ticket funnel went kind of mini viral, we sold so many copies of the course. Offer Cure, which was our, you know, breakout low-ticket funnel. And so Kathy said to me, she's like, you know, I really think we should change the name of the funnel type. And I said, why? She's like, well, because think about it, like nobody knows what self-liquidating offer means until you explain it, and then they call it a slow funnel and people think you're describing the funnel. She's like, I want to call it a paid lead maker funnel, a PLM funnel. And I said, okay, give me the pitch. And she said, well, because it's the funnel that pays you for the leads instead of you paying for the And I was like, good, that's awesome. It has a second meaning, which also means you're getting paid leads, meaning the leads that you're acquiring in your business are very high quality because they are paying to get on your list. It's not like they're taking a free quiz or downloading a freebie and they may or may not be great leads, you know, so they're, they're actually becoming a customer. So we are going to attempt to change the slow funnel the self-liquidating offer funnel to a PLM, which is a paid lead maker. And when I sat down to plan out how we're going to teach this in the fall, so we have a coaching program, it's called Launch Gorgeous. We launch it twice a year and each time we launch it, it's a different funnel. So I was going to say, let you know, let me go looking at all of our old funnels and Offer Cure is the, is the OG, right? It was one of our original funnels. Maybe we just teach that. But then through either sheer stupidity or just wanting to make our lives more difficult, I thought, what if we build a brand new PLM funnel in 2 weeks to prove that it can be done in 5 weeks, which is what we're going to be teaching in the fall. And let's use all the training materials and all the strategy that we're going to teach. Let's use it on ourselves. Build the products, build the funnel, launch the funnel, run ads to the funnel, and then turn around and give all of it to our students. So I sent this proposal over to Kathy, and this is one of the reasons why I haven't been recording a lot of podcasts, because I'm just neck deep in content. And she's like, this is amazing. We should do this second one. I said, you mean the one where we don't just use everything we already have and we build everything from scratch brand new and make our lives miserable for a couple of weeks? She's like, yes, that one. So we have been building a new PLM funnel and we've been going through the same process that we're going to take all our students through. So it's very— it's like on the one hand we're killing two birds with one stone, but on the other hand, everything we're doing, we're having to kind of double up and triple up because we're building an actual funnel and then we're building a template version of it that can be modified, right? So it is a lot of work. And if you've ever been in our coaching program, you know that we really follow a very, the very similar pattern for each funnel. Doesn't matter. We start with offer, we move to copy, we move to design, we move to tech, and then we launch. And one of the nice things about this funnel is that you don't need an audience to launch it because typically it gets launched with paid ads. So a lot of the times when we're coaching people and we're teaching them funnels, we say to them, yeah, so you're going to have to build a funnel and you're going to have to build content, but you're also going to have to grow an audience all at the same time. Right? So they're juggling 3 separate initiatives. They're juggling like the social media building initiative. They're juggling the funnel building initiative. And then they're also juggling the, hey, I'm a course creator initiative. Right? That's a lot. So with the PLM funnel, you actually can let go of the social media growth audience piece and just focus on the funnel building and the course creation or the product creation. And then when it's time to launch, then you turn your attention to social media. You do have to use ads with this type of funnel if you don't have an audience. If you do have an audience, you can just, you know, send the funnel out to them, see how it converts, and then turn ads on. So we are launching, I believe it's September 16th, and you can join our coaching program. You can get access to all the coaching, all the training around the ads, the funnel, the offer, the copy, etc. And Launch Gorgeous has a great reputation for being a really fun and intense and affordable way to build a funnel because funnels, when you, when you outsource them, can be quite expensive. So I bet you want to know what our PLM funnel is. And I have been teaching sort of productivity and time management for a long time now. And actually in my last podcast, I have this, you know, episode all about sacred time. I have added and amended to my project— or not project management, my time management system. and I've been teaching my private clients my, my system for managing myself, managing my time, and quarterly planning for like the last 4 years. And I've been sort of refining this. And so I thought, you know what, it's a, it's about time that I get this into an easy-to-consume, quick course that I can give out to people or sell to people. So that they can learn the system because I've taught it a zillion times. And so I first decided I'm gonna just teach it again and I'm gonna make it free. And I sent it out to my email list and you guys, 500 people signed up for this class. I was like, okay, clearly people want to understand the way I manage my time. I did the class, I got great reviews. It was not super, uh, like well-designed. It was just one 90-minute class, you know, and I put up the replay inside of our Funnel Gorgeous school. I made it $7 and said, hey, if anyone wants the replay, it's $7. And over 150 people bought the replay for $7. So I said to Kathy, I said, I think this has legs. Let's turn this into an official product. When I taught it, it was Time Management for Business Owners, literally the most boring title ever. And so Kathy— I gave Kathy sort of the idea of the product, what problem it solves, what the solution is, and she went to town thinking about a name. And so the name that she came up with was About Damn Time, which I thought was funny, but we also didn't want to get in trouble with Facebook or Meta, so We changed it to About Darn Time, which sounds a little bit retro and a little '50s, so we went with that theme. So the course is called About Darn Time, and it's all about solving the problem of time management for business owners. That means you learn how to estimate your time accurately, prioritize your tasks accurately, and manage your focus. And I, I believe the course is maybe 90 minutes start to finish. And so we, we got going on that. She went and made a logo and we're getting a domain. I wrote the copy and I recorded myself. So all the Launch Gorgeous students will be able to see, will be able to see how I wrote copy. And I wrote it in about 2 hours. I'm gonna be giving the copy to all of our students so they will be able to use the copy and watch how it all unfolded. The course is coming with 3 small bonuses. It'll be a $37 product. Kathy went and designed it as a template. Our design team got it all designed, like templatized, and then we are using the template for our own product. And the fun part about this type of funnel is that once you have an idea and you have a theme, you can make the order bump and the one-time offer, which are the 2 other products, you can make them sort of fit in the theme. And again, we could have made our lives easy and we could have gone and said, you know what, let's go find products that match time management and just throw them on the funnel. But we didn't want to do that. We wanted to show like, here's how you can make your products sort of mix and match. You are building products for the funnel and you're building products with the marketing hat on of like, this is going to sell to cold traffic. So I came up with an order bump that is Hey, once you get through About Darn Time and you learn how to manage your time, your tasks, and your focus, the order bump is going to help you hire someone who will, will come on board and help you manage this system and make you more productive. And so Kathy kind of with her alliteration and her theming, she came up with the name Right Hand Plan. And so when you go to check out for About Darn Time, you're going to pay $37 and there will be an order bump for Right Hand Plan. Which is basically how to hire an assistant and then all the training to get your assistant to work the plan, basically. And that'll be— I'm not really sure what the price is yet, you know, $17, $27. Okay. So then they check out and now there's a one-time offer. And I was thinking about the fact that when I taught about Darn Time, I realized that many of the tasks business owners do in a given day have to do with writing. Whether you're writing to your team or you're writing a sales page or you're creating courses or writing a book, doesn't matter. You're just writing. You're just constantly writing. And I thought, you know, they have this great time management system and they have an assistant to help them manage it. But what if I could teach them to produce faster so that the time they do have is more productive because they're producing? And I thought, you know, I'm not really exactly sure how I'm gonna teach this, but I knew from a marketing angle it was going to be good. And just in case I was wrong, I threw up a post on Facebook and I said, hey, if I could teach you to write faster, what would you want me to teach? And I was just covered in comments, awesome comments, with many of them saying, take my money, I want to learn this. So I went ahead and I gave Kathy the general problem and solution. I said, go build an OTO page. I'm going to go in my closet and figure out how I might teach this. Good news is once I took my marketing hat off and I put my curriculum designer hat on, I did have a ton of ideas. And so I've come up with a 6-module course that teaches you how to write faster with a bunch of bonuses that will make it even, even, you know, more quick, more fast. I don't know how to say that. And so that product is going to be $77 inside the funnel. And then $97 outside the funnel. And so I sent it over to Kathy. I said, do your thing. And she came up with a brilliant name called Speed of Write and W-R-I-T-E. And it's a play on the phrase speed of light. It also, if you hear the 3 products together, you can see how well they blend, right? You have About Darn Time, Right Hand Plan, Speed of Write. And they are a trio of companion courses. And from a strategy perspective, it's really important to understand that you don't ever want to add an order bump or an OTO that feels like it should be in the main course, right? So let me give you an example. About Darn Time is about time management, and we're going to use Google Calendar. Well, at first we were like, hmm, should the order bump be all about you know, using Google Calendar. And then Kathy said no, because you should teach that in About Darn Time, right? So if someone doesn't know Google Calendar, they need to understand it. So that would have been a bad example of an order bump because the person checking out is like, well, wait a second, if I'm buying this thing, how come this is the order bump? Shouldn't that be included? I see this a lot when people want to put like workbooks or templates that really should be in the main course. They want to make them the order bump. Because they're just lacking in a little creativity. So you want to solve either an adjacent problem or the next problem. And so in the example of the order bump, it's kind of an adjacent problem, right? So someone is trying to manage their time, but they also want to have a VA or an assistant with them. This is an adjacent problem. Like, how do I make this work with a second person? And so that's why the order bump is positioned the way it is. And then Speed of Write is the sort of next level, right? So you get your time management under control, that's awesome. You understand your task prioritization, that's awesome. But then when you actually sit down to write your book or build your courses or whatever, you might be like, my Lord, this takes me forever to write. And so I'm solving a problem like, hey, you want to make that time more effective and more impactful, go ahead and purchase Speed of Write. So This funnel is almost complete as of today, and one of the reasons why I've been so MIA on my podcast is because I had to build 3 courses. So the About Darn Time was something that I had taught so many times before, and I have tested on so many people, it really, it really did come together pretty quickly. It's 3 short classes and 3 bonuses, so very simple. Right-hand plan, I knew I didn't want to make it longer than an hour. I want it, you know, it's going to be 17 or 27. I want someone to be able to grab it, watch it in a sitting, know what they have to do, and go out and get their assistant. I wanted it to be that simple. So I broke it up into 6 mini modules, and that is going to be, like I said, 17 or 27, and you can finish that in 60 minutes. And I'll give you the job description, so that's awesome. And then I went and built Speed of Write. Now Speed of Write is a little bit bigger and a little bit meatier, and there's a little bit more to it. So I went and built the presentations, but I'm actually going to teach that program live. So when you purchase through the funnel, if you happen to be listening to this when the funnel launches, you'll notice that the OTO is going to show that it's a live class you're purchasing a ticket to. And then as soon as those live classes end, we will switch the copy around and it will become the OTO. That's really the only way we can get a funnel like this at the quality we want and at the transformation we want in 2 weeks. And so we will be teaching this in Launch Gorgeous. We will be teaching you everything about the offer creation process, the naming process, figuring out the stacks and the bonuses and the pricing. Then we'll teach you how to write. But the good news is we'll give you the copy that we've already done so that you're not having to start from scratch, which is the worst way to start. And then of course we'll give you the funnel, the funnel that we've actually built, a brand new funnel. We almost never do this because we want our funnel to be like unique, but we're like, nope, we're gonna do it. So we're going to give you the funnel, you can customize it for your own products and get the funnel out the door. So why, why do I love the PLM funnel so much? Well, in marketing you have to pay to get leads, right? So if you set up a freebie, you're going to pay $30 a day, maybe you're going to pay $5 a lead, and you're going get 6 leads a day, okay? And you're going to spend $30 to get those 6 leads. The PLM funnel is different because you are acquiring leads that are actually customers, but it's a low-ticket offer. You are spending more money per day typically to get those customers, but you're earning money. So let's say you're spending $400 a day and you're getting 10 customers a day, you are going to get almost all that money back, which means you will have acquired a higher quality lead than just a freebie, and you will not have spent any money because you will have broken even. And that's why self-liquidating offer is the original name, because the offer is liquidating the cost of the ads. And now think of it, if you can get 500 new leads, new customers for free, are you better off as a business than someone who had to pay $10 a lead and spent $5,000 to acquire those same customers? Yes, you are better off. So I think, you know, when the low ticket funnels came out, because they were new, people were actually making a profit, right? They were, they were making $2,000, $3,000 a month sometimes on these funnels. And that's amazing, but that was never their intent. And over time, you know, meta costs go up, you know, competition goes up and people weren't as profitable. And so a lot of people were like, yeah, the low ticket funnel, I'm going to go do high ticket because I'm going to get more money and I'm going to have more wiggle room. But the low ticket funnel can run indefinitely because of that break-even aspect. Or even if it doesn't break even, even if you lose a little money, you are still getting higher quality leads for less expensive when you run a PLM funnel. So Offer Cure, which we launched in 2018 or 2019, I can't remember, has been running for 6 years. We've been advertising with that funnel for 6 years. We have used those products in a bajillion ways, whether it's, you know, as a bonus in summits and bundles, bonuses in other courses, running on ads, running off organic, doing flash sales. We spent probably 4 to 5 weeks building that funnel, and it has been performing for us ever since. And so if you are going to spend the time and energy and the money to get a low-ticket funnel out, you want to do it right. You want to think like a marketer. You want to think like a long-term marketer. So if this is interesting to you and you're like, I really want a low-ticket funnel and I want the shortcuts, I want you to go to launchgorgeous.com and sign up for the waitlist. We are going to get this program out. This is a coaching program. It launches September 16th, and we will be giving you everything that we have done over the last couple of weeks here in August. We will also have some results for you to show you kind of how the funnel performed, and then you will be able to launch your own low-ticket funnel. The curriculum is designed in such a way that you can Have your team do it with you. You can do it yourself. You can, you can start the project on any given day and it'll walk you step by step through everything that has to be built from an offer copy design and tech standpoint. And like all our coaching programs, we provide hot seat support for the offer itself, the most important piece, which is getting that offer suite right. So that's what's going on over at Funnel Gorgeous. And that's why I've been kind of MIA because I've been building products and building funnels and also getting ready to teach this fall's round of Launch Gorgeous. So I look forward to working with any of you who are going to be coming on board. And I hope this was an interesting and insightful episode about the PLM funnel. And I'll talk to you soon.

And there you have it, folks, another dose of Million Dollar Grit. I hope today's episode has left you feeling inspired, equipped, and ready to face your own entrepreneurial journey with resolve. Remember, until next Until next time, embrace the struggle, harness your grit, and keep pushing forward. You're stronger than any challenge you face. I'm Julie Chenell, and this has been Million Dollar Grit.