MBA2187 Are Funnels Better Than Websites? + Free Ride Friday

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Hey oh. Welcome to the Hundred Dollar Ba Show. Business strategies and advice you can depend on every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an innovative software company. I started my co founder back in 2014 and today's episode is Free Ride Friday. On Free Ride Fridays we're giving away access to the hundred dollar MBA. That's the all new 100 MBA live program. Two days online to become a better entrepreneur. Just leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and listen in on Friday just like today to see if you want it's that easy. We announce today's winner a little bit later in the episode. In today's episode you will learn Are funnels better than websites? This is a question I get asked from a lot of our students and community members and I don't blame them. There's a lot of narrative, there's a lot of marketing behind different types of funnel software preaching this idea that funnels are better than websites and that you don't need to website and you just need a funnel and your business will boom. Well in today's episode we get to the truth. Are funnels really better? Do they actually help you make more sales and convert more customers. Is it all you need to run your business? Do you just trash your website? You don't need it anymore? Are websites just old news? Well, we find out in today's episode. And my answer might surprise you because it does surprise a lot of the students that ask me this question. But once they implement my take on it, they thank me for sharing my perspective. This one is a juicy one. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business.

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I could be happy with anything even.

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So many of us have heard online through marketing and ads and videos that funnels are the thing you need to have a funnel. A funnel will replace your website and help you convert better. And I'm here to say stop with all of this. You have to remember that most people that are saying this have a vested interest in you buying a funnel software. They're biased, and I don't blame them for promoting what they believe in or what they're selling. But the truth is, is that no, funnels do not replace websites. Now, that doesn't mean that funnels are worthless. I'm just saying that it's not one or the other. It's a false dichotomy that they're presenting. They're saying funnels are better and you only need a funnel and websites are trash. No, I'm here to tell you that funnels have their place and they're useful in combination with your website. And I'm going to give you real examples of what I mean. But before I do that, ask yourself the question. Think about any business that you admire. Businesses that you're a customer of, do they only have a funnel or do they have a website? For example, I'm recording this podcast on my MacBook. I bought this MacBook on apple. Com. It's a website that has a navigation menu that has different pages that I can explore. I'm not forced down a funnel. Now, it doesn't mean that Apple or companies like Apple don't use funnels. My point is that the website has a purpose. What's the purpose? Well, funnels make a really bad assumption that I don't think is very smart as a business owner. It Assumes everybody starts at the same place. So if you only have a funnel and you don't have a website, that means you are forcing your visitor to start at the same starting point as everybody. So when they go to your website, your URL, because it's a funnel and there's no navigation menu, it's not a website. You have to dictate what the first step is. This is assuming everybody that comes to your website is starting at the same place or are at the same stage and need the same thing as everybody else. Now this makes complete sense when you have a very simple business that sells a simple product. We sell one product, right? Let's say you have one thing for sale, like an online course. You don't have nothing else for sale. It's all you sell this one course. In this case, it makes sense for you to have a funnel because. Because that's the only thing you sell. You're gonna lead people to that one thing. But what if you wanna sell something else? You have to force people to go through the funnel and buy that something else at a certain stage in the funnel. Let me break it down. Let's take a look at a typical funnel. A funnel has a homepage where people have to give their name and email address in exchange for some freemium, like an ebook. They sign up for the ebook, they get it via email, they read the ebook. Then via email you send em to another page to buy maybe a low ticket offer like a $7 course. And then from there they might buy the course and then you offer them another thing down the funnel like a full fledged course for let's say $500 and so on and so forth. But what if I don't need all those steps? What if I don't need the freemium or the $7 course, I just want to buy the $500 course. I'm ready for that. I'm sold already. There's no way to do that in a funnel because you're forcing somebody down a path. This is why companies like Apple don't do it, because they know some people need AirPods and they're going to want to buy AirPods and some people want to buy a $5,000 computer. So you might be listening to this and saying, oh wow, Omar, are you saying that funnels are garbage and they're a waste of time? No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that if it's the only thing you use, it makes the journey for your customers very prescriptive and limits your options and Your offerings. Now, funnels do have a great purpose when you are controlling the traffic. For example, when you're running ads. So whenever we run an ad, or whether we're sponsoring a creator in their newsletter, we have an ad in the newsletter or we're doing a Google Ad, we don't just drive traffic to the website. That's a real waste of money. We actually use a small little funnel that we create which sends them to a landing page that allows them to give us their name and email address in exchange for some value. And we have a dedicated funnel for the ad that's hyper focused. And in this case, funnels are really powerful because I do want the customer in this situation to go down a prescriptive path because I'm running a specific for specific people and I know exactly who I'm targeting. So therefore I know exactly what to provide. Brilliant, right? And funnels are fantastic for those. It allows me to optimize my ads, allows me to get more bang for my buck for my ad spend, allows me to increase my conversion rates, all that wonderful stuff. Right now, if for any reason somebody wants to check me out, they can go to my website and they could see everything that we offer. But for the purpose of the ad, I want to direct traffic. I want to send them to specific pages and specific calls to action. This also applies to any direct calls to action that are not ads. Like, say, for example, you're writing a book and you want to give extra materials like workbooks or cheat sheets or worksheets. Right? It makes more sense to set up a small funnel with a very easy to remember URL like x.com worksheet. And they go and they can find a way to download that worksheet, give their name and email address, and then you can nurture that lead through that little mini funnel versus sending them to x.com worksheet. And that's just a page on your website. They can easily be lost. Click around, leave the page, get distracted. So when you want somebody to take a direct action, I mentioned the example with a URL being mentioned in your book. But this could be also if you're being interviewed on a podcast or you're sharing materials on stage at a conference, you want to send somebody to a very targeted page with no distractions that allows them to go through your little mini funnel. Now the question a lot of people ask me is, well, okay, Omar, I get it. This makes sense. Keep my website, use funnels strategically. I like it. Do I need a separate software to run my funnels? And a separate software to run my website? Well, it depends on what you're using to run your website. The vast majority of people that run a business have a website that they can customize. It's on WordPress, for example, or they're using a website builder like Squarespace or Wix or Weebly. And if this is the case, you could probably customize the pages to create your own funnels. Now, remember, a funnel is just a series of pages and emails and links that tie together. It's not proprietary software. Here, you don't have to buy a piece of software that creates funnels. You can create your own. Just like you don't have to go to McDonald's to eat a hamburger. You can make your own hamburger at home. Once you know what's in a hamburger, right? A bun, a patty, some lettuce, some tomatoes, some cheese, throw on a couple pickles. I got myself a hamburger. Same thing with a funnel, right? So you might have just a simple page with no navigation menu with an opt in box so they can give their name and email address that leads to a thank you page or a confirmation page. They then get an email that then shows them where to get the freemium that you gave them, like the ebook, and so on and so forth. So one of the best ways to build your own funnels is just to analyze the steps and the pages and the moving parts are involved in a funnel that you enjoy, a funnel that you like from another company, from another business. And obviously there's different kinds of funnels for different kinds of purposes. And this is what I recommend to my customers, is that you can build your own funnels inside of your own website if you know the steps. And if you Google the call to action, like let's say, for example, you want to funnel for an ebook. Just Google funnel for ebook. What are the steps? You can take a look online, people will outline it for you, and you can just take that outline and construct your own funnel inside your website, or have whoever's running your website do it for you. And there you go. No need for two pieces of software. It's all in one place. You get the traffic going to the same place. You can manage everything in one place. And yeah, there's a little bit more work and a few more steps, but it's not like you're creating a funnel every five minutes. You probably have a few key funnels in your business. You set them up, you optimize them, you tweak them. That's pretty much it. Pretty simple.

Oh, could this vintage store be any cuter?

Right?

And the best part, they accept Discover.

Except Discovery in a little place like this?

I don't think so.

Jennifer.

Oh, yeah, huh? Discover's accepted where I like to shop. Come on, baby, get with the times.

Right? So we shouldn't get the parachute pants.

These are making a comeback, I think.

Discover is accepted at 99% of places.

That take credit cards nationwide, based on.

The February 2025 Nielsen report. To wrap up today's lesson, funnels have a purpose. They are great for driving specific traffic to a call to, but they're not a replacement for a website. There's a huge thing that websites do for you that a lot of people forget. They provide organic traffic. When you have a website with a navigation menu and tons of pages and blog posts and valuable information, Google loves this. And you could show for search terms and you can get organic traffic from people searching on Google because Google's job is to provide the correct answer or valuable information to people that are searching. And websites tend to do that better than a funnel. Funnel kind of gives you minimal information. And that's fine when you're owning the traffic, like through ads, but when you want to leverage SEO, websites are king. That wraps up today's lesson. Thanks so much for listening to the 100 MBA show, but today's episode's not over. It's Free Ride Friday. Let's see who won this week's free ride to the 100 MBA Live program over at 100nba.net live. And the winner is. Old Man River. Old man river says insightful and actionable. Add it to the regular rotation and you should too. Thanks Old man river for the amazing review. Your mission is to email me at omar00mba.net so I can hook you up with the lifetime membership to our live program, the $100 MBA live online over at 1-000- MBA net live. Can't wait to see you there at the two day training where I'm gonna show you how to become a better entrepreneur, 100% guaranteed. Well, you didn't pay anything, so it's all gravy for you. If you want to order a free ride just like Old man river did, just go ahead and leave us an Apple podcast rating and review and you enter our weekly random draw we call Free Ride Friday. It's our way to say thanks for showing us love on Apple Podcasts. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Anytime you think about tools and software and what it means for your business and sales. Understand there's always strategy behind these tools, how these tools are leveraged. You can take the strategy and implement it in a different way, in your own way. Now, the best tools are the ones that just do it better than we can do ourselves. That save us time, save us money, save us headaches. So if you do find a tool that does that for you alongside your website, go for it. Personally, I love tools that save me time because time is my biggest asset, even if it costs me more money. But it saves me time. I'm happy to do it. I'm happy to invest in that tool. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in Monday's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

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