#54: When and how to set up your FIRST funnel

Those are not going to be your perfect customer. You have a voice, you have an offer, you have a solution for people that are going to be, you know, attracted to you.

Hey, Coach, my name is Lindsay, and I'm here to help heart-centered women like you build the money-making coaching business of their dreams. I've been coaching since 2019. And this pod is about It's about using your gifts to build a life and business you're 100% obsessed with. I went from working 50+ hours a week as a first grade teacher to building a sustainable business that replaced my job salary and gave me back 30+ hours a week of my time. Tune in to join the ride and learn from other coaches and experts along the way. All right, welcome back everyone to the Aligned Coach Podcast. So happy to have you back, or if you are a new listener, welcome on for the first time. For the first time. So today's interview is with a sales expert and funnel— wait, I butchered it. Tell me again. Tell me again what it is. Here we go.

Sales coach and funnel expert.

Sales coach and funnel expert. You know, we get so picky about our titles and we're like, are we a business coach this week? Or like, are we a mentor? You know, at least I am. I'm like, what am I this week? So thank you. Thank you for that.

No problem.

So I have Liz with us. Welcome on, Liz. Thank you so much for joining us today. I can't wait to dive into all things sales and funnel building and launching businesses that we are wildly passionate about.

Yeah. Thanks so much for having me, Lindsay. I'm excited for our chat today. We're going to have so much fun.

Absolutely. Cool. All right, Liz, so tell us what in the world do you do as a sales coach and funnel building expert?

Yes, it's a, it's a really good question. So primarily my agency offers done-for-you funnel building. So we are creating all of those emails for you. We're crafting all of the conversion copy, writing the sales email, sales pages, designing them, integrating all of the tech. You don't have to worry about getting overwhelmed or overloaded with tech and integrating, primarily serving online coaches, consultants, service providers that have a digital product. So we are in the information business, if you will, helping to really to scale and automate businesses for online entrepreneurs. Really setting you up to be able to scale. And that's really where automation comes into play and why I love it so much.

Amen to that. Like if we can automate it, like, ooh, let's, let's put that baby on auto. If we can automate or delegate, like that's like what I like to live by. Do I really have to be doing this?

Yeah. So that is awesome.

Okay.

So tell us, so, so primarily our audience is mostly coaches. We do have some service providers that listen, which coaches are service providers, but you know, we have some virtual assistants or maybe some OBMs that are listening in. So when is the right time to set up that funnel?

Right?

What is a funnel? Maybe like, how do you know, like, all right, well, like, Liz, am I ready to go in that route? You know, I've mostly been a one-woman show over here. Like, when is the right time to take that step? Like, what would you say?

A funnel is perfect to start from day one, especially if you are a one-woman show because you don't have a team to make sure that your emails get sent out on time, make sure that your message is communicated at the perfect moment to convert that browser into a buyer, right? And if we take it a step back, a funnel in its simplest form is just a flow, a guided path that we take someone on a journey through. Right? If we think about a shopping experience, if you think about an e-commerce shop, we start by going to the website. Then we might enter, we might add something to our shopping cart, or we might put our name on an email list for a 10% coupon code, or we might check out immediately, or it might take us a week, a few months, depending on the price point of that product and how badly you really want it. It might be a quick purchase or it might be something that takes you a few months to get ready to buy, right? And that's just a journey that we are taking people on. When we use a funnel to do this, we are starting, let's say you are starting out brand new from scratch and you're like, how the heck do I get clients? How the heck do I get in front of the right people, attract the people that are going to be my perfect ideal customers? How the heck do I do this? And the funnel is the best, most automated, systematic way that we can do this, take loads off of— take weight and loads off of our own shoulders and allow the funnel to do some of the selling for you. And the first way we can do this is through a lead generation funnel. So if you are someone that is selling, let's say you are a photographer and you want to sell your presets, you have some presets that you— people can use in Lightroom and you want to sell those presets, you know, for under $40. Let's say they're $10 for a packet of 5 presets someone can upload into their phone. Well, you probably will start to have a way for people to get onto your email list. And we do that through a resource, a downloadable, a mini course, a worksheet. Let's see, you can do it through a training series. There's all sorts of ways that you can incentivize people to get onto your email list so that you can then go and sell them your next valuable offer inside of your funnel. So if we think about an ascension funnel upward, we want to create products and/or services that will naturally move people up and ascend them up to your highest offer. So if you're a photographer, your highest signature offer might be that premium wedding package Or maybe you sell a course on how to teach other photographers how to be a really good photographer, and that's your premium signature offer. So that's going to be at the very top. That's the, the most elite package that you offer. To get people warmed up and ready that don't know you yet, we need our funnel to move them and ascend them up a ladder, and we can do that through like I said, getting them initially on our email list through, let's say, a worksheet, a checklist, a downloadable, and then we can start to offer them and sprinkle in other forms of payment at smaller price points to move them up that ladder. And our funnels, our email sequences, and our value ladders help to move people through this journey that we are setting up for them so that we, as the owner of our business, We don't have to do all of that work every single day, right? The best part of automation is that this can happen at the time that's perfect for your perfect customer or that's right for the person reading that email. We don't have to worry about, okay, I'm on the West Coast or I'm on the East Coast. My potential customer's on the opposite coast. What the heck time should I send them this email? Right? We can set it all up in advance and then it flows nicely, systematically to get them to become your high value ticket customer when the perfect time for them is.

Yeah.

That was kind of a lot, but I think it's important to kind of set the stage for what a funnel is and how we can potentially use it inside of our businesses. To take time away from having to manually set up all of those things for every single person.

Yes, 100%. One of my characters— so I do this thing where I do like quarterly characters. So that means like every quarter I'll reflect and I'll say, okay, like this is what I'm going to be leaning into this quarter, right? So last quarter, one of my characters was around automation. So it was like automate, automate, automate. So I actually set up an automation for my flagship, like high ticket offer. Like, actually, I haven't quite finished it yet. I have like 2 emails left to go. And I'm like, come on, Lindsay, like, let's just get some things out. But that was like a huge, like rock, like a huge project that I was working on, was setting up that automation, because like, I know the power of it, you know, and I know that my offer is good. Like, I know it's so juicy, you know. But it does take time to sell it, right. And even as fellow sales coaches, like we know like it takes time and energy to do those things whenever we're doing it one-to-one or even on social media, right? That still takes our energy. So if we can just like type it into our email list one time and then like literally set it and forget it, you know, other than checking in on it, what freedom, you know, like what freedom that is.

Yeah. And I love what you said about, you know, having to write it at one time and then kind of setting it up. Because I think what is important reminder for all of us is that when we are doing something on an individual basis, it takes a lot of energy to create that one email. And if we're doing it at different points in our life, let's say one month we are writing our first sales email, and then two months later we are writing our second sales email. Well, you might run into an issue and a gap in your sales emails because you may have forgot, you know, the purpose of that first email that you were writing. And you forgot that you aren't sure what email 2 is even supposed to say. And so you're kind of just making it up all on the fly. The emails end up not really connecting. You miss the point of the story and therefore you might lose out on the sale.

Yeah.

And so what that sales sequence that you were just referencing allows us to do is take some dedicated time and energy focused on the end goal, which is for a sales sequence, it's selling that thing, selling your offer. And we can set all these emails up at a time when we have really focused and dedicated energy to our messaging, making sure that our messaging is really hitting home inside of each of those emails. And we do that, we do that for you. But it's important, as you know, if you're writing them on your own, that you have some dedicated time and energy and focus on, you know, what is the real purpose of this message inside of the email that I want this person to be understanding when they're reading this email.

Mm, yeah. How did you come into making— how did you come into the creation of your agency? Like, what, what was the inspiration for that? I'm just curious.

Yeah, so the business I started, I was in corporate for about 10 years. I worked with big brands like Ford Motor Company, Stitch Fix, Fabletics, a lot of really cool, you know, female startups as well. I was in ad sales for Hulu for a few years. And I started to realize when I was working with these female startup companies, these female-owned startups, that there was a pretty big gap in the market for people being able to really hone in on their message and feel confident selling their offers. They had all of these amazing offers and products to sell, but they didn't have a way to bundle them together. They didn't have a way to know that their messaging was really going to stick and convert that, that, that person that they were wanting to, to buy the product. And so that's kind of where I found my niche. And really what excites me most We run ads for people on the agency side as well. But it's really finding that area in— you have this thing that you're really passionate about, or you came up with this idea. Now you just need to understand how to create that irresistible offer that we want to be able to sell, you know, and have buyers come in. Because as course creators, the scariest thing a lot of people will ask The scariest thing is I'm going to create this thing. What if no one buys it? Right.

That's reality a lot of time, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

And so I want to make sure that as you are launching your offer for the very first time, or maybe you have launched a few times already and not gotten the results that you want, there's a reason., right? And we can use some sales techniques, we can use some automated funnels. But we also, at the end of the day, want to make sure that your offer messaging and the launch strategy that you are putting into place makes sense for the buyer that you are trying to attract. Not necessarily that makes sense for, you know, how we're packaging it. A lot of people will get hung up in price point or, you know, I need to put this bonus, I need to add this template, I need to add this piece of content. You know, it can get a little bit overwhelming. So we need to kind of take a step back and make sure that first and foremost, your strategy is set up for success.

Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes we like to make it about us. You know, like what does, what do I want to name it? And like, does this feel good to me? And like, how does this content make me feel? Right. And like, at the end of the day, y'all, like, it's not about us, right? Like, it's about the person, the human that's on the other end of that screen. And that's wondering, hey, is this going to help me change my life or not? You know, like, is this worth my time, my energy and my money or not? Right? So I love what you're doing. I love that you're really focusing on that messaging piece, the copy that comes behind it and really speaking to them and to those clients or those potential clients that are out there looking at our content, looking at our sales pages and stuff. And they're wondering like, well, do you have the service that I need or not, right? So I just, I just love that work that you're putting into the world because we definitely need it, right? Because there is nothing worse than like, having this great idea, having this amazing offer that we know can just change so many lives and then putting it out there and hearing crickets. I mean, it's the worst, right? Like, let's just acknowledge that.

Yeah, it's really scary.

Yeah, it is. It is. And it's almost like, I think that every entrepreneur has to go through it. I don't know. I've definitely Have you, Liz?

Oh yeah, it's definitely something that you kind of have to get over and realize that, and this is something that I had to do as well as I was transitioning from, you know, having a corporate identity of like, okay, this is my corporate title. You know, look at me, here's my title to starting my own thing. But it's the same thing when we are creating a course or any sort of product that we are connecting our own identity to. And it can be really easy to get a little bit too close to it and make it more about us. Like, oh, I'm afraid to put this out into the world. I'm afraid what people will think. I'm afraid what— who will judge me for this, right? And we all have to go through that transition phase of realizing that, hey, you're not going to be for everyone. It's okay for if people are judging you, let them. You aren't— those are not going to be your perfect customer. You have a voice, you have an offer, you have a solution for people that are going to be, you know, attracted to you. There are billions of people in the world. You're not going to have something for everyone. If you can have, you know, just a small portion of that, what an amazing gift. Of freedom, of, of wealth that you could build, you know, for you and for your family. And if we can focus on that instead of worrying about the naysayers, we will all be, you know, so much better off if we can kind of start to like move those two pieces of self-identity and our businesses away from each other. I think it's something that women more specifically do. Yeah.

And we're like natural nurturers too, you know, even if we don't want to be like, I remember I take— I took such offense to it. When I was a teacher, the principal were like, was like, Lindsay, you're just so nurturing. And like, I found that so offensive. I don't know why. But I did. But we are. So like, whenever we start our businesses, or even like come up with these offers, or like we start put together, maybe our sales copy and things like that, we want to nurture it. And we want it to feel really good. And we just love it. And I even used to say like my business was my baby. And I've even had to like disconnect that because it can lead to like this super unhealthy attachment that we have in our results and in the metrics and, you know, the sales dollars and all of those things. So my business is not my baby. My business is a boring old business that's predictable and sustainable. And that's perfectly fine, right? So, so it is a shift that we have to, that we have to make as women. And that's okay.

Right.

And again, we still get to be wealthy, right. And we still get to live lives of freedom, like we can have it all.

It's fine. Yeah, I think that's such an important, important point you made about the sales numbers, the revenue, because I share this with my community all the time, because I'm such a data junkie. And I love looking at like launch numbers, how it was successful, what we can do to make it repeat that success and ditch the things that weren't so successful, um, so we can continue to have that sustainable income. Um, but it's an important point because we sometimes attach ourselves, our revenue, our number of followers to our influence or to our impact, right? And a lot of that is, is just data. Like people will kind of knock social media for like, oh, likes, follows, shares, whatever it might be. But, but to me, it's all data and good information to help us steer our marketing strategies, to help us get an indication of what our audience actually is paying attention to, right? Like if we didn't have that information, we wouldn't know that like, oh, that question that I just asked my audience on social media, was really engaging. Everyone was really responding to that. There, there has to be something in there. Let's dive into that a little bit more. Hmm.

So, so true. Yes. Yes. To that, pay attention, you know, pay attention to those things. You know, I think, yeah, that's so true. We're kind of going like sidebar here, but pay attention to that because we like to spend, I think it's safe to say that most of us want validation, right? Like we want that instant gratification that can come from social media, but pay attention to it, you know, pay attention to where you're are they coming from your post? Or are they coming from your emails? Right? Are they coming from your written posts? Or are they coming from you going live? Like what, like pay attention to those patterns. I think that that's, that's so, so true, Liz. So in your agency, at what stage of like the entrepreneurial journey do you typically start helping coaches or service providers set that funnel up for them? Like, would, if you have like a brand new coach that was like fresh on the scene and they're like, hey, I have this really awesome idea. You know, I'm pretty sure it's going to change a lot of lives. Like it's great. Would you say that yes, let's go ahead and put your funnel together? Or do you like to see proof of concept first, like organically? Like what is like, what's like a typical rule of thumb for that? Or is it, or does it kind of depend?

Yeah, it's a really good question. So I like to have some, at least some credibility built on the organic side before people are coming to us for those longer sales funnels. Because if we remember, that's going to be your, you know, 20 to 25 sales emails where you're really selling an offer to a somewhat warm audience. You might have some cold people sprinkled in there. But that's going to be more for people that are already kind of aware of what you do. They already might be interested in potentially working with you. So we want you to have some just self-confidence with your ability to sell your offer because that only helps us to inform your marketing and your copy that we write for you, right? Like you're going to have some, you're going to have more success if you already know who, somewhat about who your perfect customer is, what your offer really does, that transformation that you are promising. Those are some key points that you really want to have dialed in before you're setting up a longer form funnel. Now on the lead generation side, let's say we just want to build our email list and we're just starting out. This is a great funnel to set up for people that are brand, brand new. And maybe you have an offer that you just want to test and see how your audience responds to it. A lead generation funnel is a perfect option for you. And those funnels are shorter, right? Like they're going to be 5 to 7 emails. It's going to be a welcome email to validate your reader, your new subscriber is in the right place. And then we have a pretty strict funnel that we will create in terms of what the next emails will say for you in order to warm up that audience. So that when you do have a sales funnel, you can naturally sell to those people. So if you're just starting out, a lead generation funnel is, is great. Think about what you can, something that you can offer to incentivize someone to get on your email list. You know, maybe it's, if you have a podcast, maybe it's a bonus podcast episode that you haven't shared with your entire audience. And you could incentivize someone to get that bonus episode on a topic that they really care about. That bonus episode could be in exchange for their name and email address. And then you have, you know, your first email can be delivering that bonus content for them.

That is such a good idea. Totally just inspired me.

I love it. It's a great option for people that have podcasts. Because we already, you know, for people that already have podcasts, it's an easy medium for us to deliver content. You don't have to create a video that you might be nervous or having to re-record a bunch of times if video is not your thing. But it's a great way to, you already have that workflow probably already set up for editing and post-production. So it's a great option for you to just extend maybe an existing podcast or create a bonus episode from scratch that, you know, maybe is an extension of your top performing podcast for the last 6 months or something, for example.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. That's so good. All right, Liz. So where can our audience come connect with you? This has been so informative. I think this has been a really good overview of like, hey, like I've been thinking about getting my funnel off the ground or like maybe be, like when is the right time. So thank you so much for answering those questions. Where can our listeners come and connect with you?

Yeah, thank you so much. My website is just my name, LizBoer.com, L-I-Z-B-O-E-R.com. So you can check us out there, see what we are all about. See if, you know, funnels are right for you. If you are interested in more freedom, less work hours, a funnel is going to be perfect for you. And then if you have an offer that you are wanting to sell, we are setting up some Black Friday offers right now at the time of this recording. And then January is, is the next month on our horizon for, for coaches. That's a perfect time to launch your offer. I hang out mostly on Instagram, LizBore_com. And then I also have a Facebook community for my podcast, Marketing to Millions. You can find that it's just Marketing to Millions. Business Podcast on Facebook if you want to check out that community. We just, you know, share tips and strategies about how to scale your business, automate it, and streamline.

Ah, yes.

So good.

Thank you so much, Liz. We will definitely put the links to all of those in this episode's show notes so y'all can check this out. Go say hello to Liz. Let us know what you like. What did you take away from this episode? And what do you want to hear more of? So thank you all for listening, and thank you so much for coming on, Liz.

Thank you.