Show Notes

When is the best time to create a sales funnel?

A funnel can be quite simple and something that you should be planning and creating WAY before you think you should. I wanted to take this episode (number 30!) and talk to you about how valuable funnels can be, even for those who are at the beginning phase of their business, funnels can absolutely help you scale your impact.

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Hey there. Thanks for listening and welcome to the marketing matchmaker podcast. If you're looking to grow your business, increase your revenue and scale your impact all while staying true to who you are and the people you serve. This is the show for you. I'm Jennifer Tamborski, digital marketing strategists, fractional CMO, and founder of Virtual Marketing Experts. My team and I work with six and seven figure coaches, consultants, and online entrepreneurs who are tired of playing the guru game of one size fits all marketing. They're ready to create a business and marketing strategy that actually builds relationships with their ideal clients creates massive shifts in their business and rapidly increases their revenue. As your marketing matchmaker, I'm going to help you find the perfect marketing match for you. This show will teach you how to reach your ideal client, connect with your audience, build that perfect relationship and generate more revenue. All through a process I like to call dating your ideal client. Now let's go have some fun!

Hey there, welcome back to the Marketing Matchmaker. I don't know if you've ever thought about doing a podcast. This podcast, I'm gonna be honest and say, has definitely stretched me outside of my comfort zone. And the fact that I now have 30 episodes done, and we're moving into six months of creating this labor of love, is amazing to me. I seriously hope that you are getting as much out of these episodes as I am putting them together for you. 

Today, I wanted to talk about sales funnels. Again. I know I've talked about them in previous episodes. And I still think there are so many people out there who think that a funnel is a really complicated, advanced technique, that's made just for people who are further along in their business. And the reality is that a funnel is quite simple. And something that you should be planning and creating way before you think you're ready. 

There is a marketer out there named Jeff Walker, and he has a term “launch before you're ready”. Really what it means is, people plan and think and talk about doing something and don't implement. So with a funnel, you really want to begin implementing that funnel way before you think you should. I honestly think most people begin to plan and create their funnel way too late, which in turn, will stall or slow down their ability, the ability to grow and scale. 

You see, most people think that funnels need to be crazy complicated. And I'm gonna be honest, there are absolutely funnels out there that are crazy complicated. However, a funnel doesn't have to be complicated. So I wanted to take this episode and show you just how valuable funnels can be. Even for those who are in the beginning phases of your business, they can really help you grow your business faster and easier. 

Today, we're going to cover what a funnel actually is. Because I know actually, some people aren't quite clear on that. And we're also going to talk about why a funnel will help your business and when the right time is to add a funnel to your business. So let's start with what a funnel actually is. 

Because it's not what most people think it is, all a funnel really is is taking your marketing and sales process and creating a process and automating it. 

So if you don't have a marketing and sales process yet, now's the time to start figuring out what that looks like for you. Creating a funnel allows you to put all of these steps on autopilot without you having to manually email people. It allows you to create a system of follow up that helps you to begin to build that know, like, and trust with your audience. 

It's just about sitting down and figuring out what is the best case scenario for your ideal customers to go through. What is it that you know that they need to do every step of the way as they go along from introduction through commitment and even your funnel can even include the keeping the romance alive phase of your business. 

Every phase of your business should be mapped out in this funnel and eventually automated. It's just taking people step by step through the process of getting to know you all the way through purchase. They then get the information that they need in an automated fashion and you get to show them who you are, what you're all about and what your service, product, or solution is all about. It really does help to create that connection with your ideal audience that turns them into raving fans and buyers. 

Then when the time is right, you get to make an offer to them, so that they can become that raving fan. Here's the thing, oftentimes, our audience, our ideal client comes to us before they understand maybe what the problem specifically is. I've been saying this a lot to my clients lately, which is that we sell them what they want in order to give them what they need. And what that really means is that they may not know what the problem that they're having is. A funnel allows you to warm up that process, to start to help them see that they have a problem. 

And more importantly, it helps them to see that you can be a solution to the problem. 

It's about taking this mapped out idea of how to introduce yourself, to flirt with your ideal clients, to begin dating with your ideal clients. And then to begin selling or creating a commitment process for your ideal clients in an automated fashion, which means tech tools that allow you to do this on a broader scale. So it's less one to one.

Now, having gone through that whole explanation, there's probably a lot of you out there that are saying, yep, I totally need a funnel. I'm ready right now to do that. And there are also probably some of you out there that are thinking is a funnel really necessary? Why do I want to have a funnel? So there are a couple of reasons that you really want to have a funnel, and we're gonna dive into those now. 

So a funnel will help you to pick a marketing strategy. The sales funnel or a marketing funnel, will help you to be able to better relate to your customers, and helps you to understand what potential customers are thinking and doing at each stage of your customer journey. The information you can get from a funnel will allow you to invest your marketing strategies, activities, and dollars at the right point with the most relevant messages during each stage of a prospect journey into becoming a paying customer.

A funnel also helps you to generate more sales. Depending on the product or service, the purchase cycle, meaning when they find out about you all the way to purchase, can be anywhere from a few hours to months. A prospect who doesn't know who you are, is able to move down your funnel and get to know you better. Now, as they move down the funnel, they do decrease in numbers. So if you're at the top of the funnel, you may have 100. When you get to the middle of the funnel, it may be 50 people. And those people that are still present at each stage of that funnel, are more and more interested in buying from you. 

They're the ones that you want to be the most concerned about to nurture and to move through that process. And it will help to increase your conversion rates. You also get to identify areas where there are problems in your customer journey. 

The data from a funnel can help you to determine where there may be issues in your product, service, or solution or in the funnel itself; in your messaging, in your marketing, in where your clients or your ideal clients are entering that funnel. By understanding the phases and the reasons that people step out of your sales process, you're better able to refine the process and increase your conversions. 

Sales funnels will also help you to predict the number of purchases you get each month. You're going to eventually get a sense of your conversion rate, how many people do you need to connect with, how many people need to enter your funnel, each day, month, week, whatever, in order to make the sales, which means it does make scaling incredibly simple. 

When you know those numbers when you know you need to reach 1000 people to get 100 signups you're better able to figure out how to get those people in your funnel. This then helps you to predict your sales and your cash flow for your business. 

You see, numbers are vital when it comes to digital marketing. It helps to enhance your marketing strategies and to create new funnels if you need them. sales funnels can track the number of individuals that are moving down your funnel. And this data can be extremely beneficial to you in the long run. 

So not having to do this process manually, will also save you so much time and energy and effort. Especially when you are saying the same things to your prospects over and over and over. Think about what you're doing right now. And think about what you can do to automate it, to move it out of your day to day conversations. 

Once you start doing this and saving time, you're better able then to invest that time into other areas of your business that really need the attention. Areas that are designed to help you grow your business and scale your impact. 

And maybe it'll just give you that extra time that you need for self care, and to do the things that you truly enjoy in your business like serving your clients better. Let's be honest when we're trying to do every single thing manually. And when we're trying to do all of the things in our business. We run out of hours in the day. A funnel gives you the ability to scale. It gives you more hours in your day, which will allow you to be able to more easily hit those six and seven figures that you're striving for. 

On top of that if you know exactly what your ideal prospect needs to see, hear, or do in order to be ready to buy from you. It just got a whole lot easier to attract them and convert them into customers.

So when is the best time to create a sales funnel? This answer may surprise you. Or it may not depending on whether or not you really listen to the rest of this episode. 

So the best time to create the sales funnel is sooner than you think. It is when you have validated your product, service, or solution, which means that you have successfully sold your service to people and those people are getting results. This is when you will become aware of what exactly your ideal customer needs in order to buy from you. And at that point, that's when you're going to want to start looking at those funnels. 

You see, funnels can become complicated, because you really do need to be aware of what your ideal clients need in order to buy from you before you can create that. And in order to do that you need to have sold your product, service, or solution successfully and had enough people come through your coaching business to understand what it was that they needed to hear in order to buy.

So, the main point of that is one, created sooner than you think you're ready for and two, make sure that you also are having enough information about your ideal clients. We've talked about this in several other episodes. Knowing who your ideal client is, what it is their struggle with and what it is that you get to say to them in order to help them move through that sales process is incredibly Important. 

The further you are in your business, the more aware you are of what exactly your audience needs in order to be ready to buy. And that's why you see a lot of the larger marketers, those bigger coaches in the industry have multiple funnels, because they have become aware that they have several ideal target audiences. Or they may still have simply one, but that they need to enter the process in a different way. That maybe, maybe one of their lead magnets is simply something that they're gifting to people because it's information they think everybody needs, and those people may or may not be their ideal client. 

On the other side of that, it also means that your funnel may change. And honestly, it probably will change over time. As you start to scale to that next level. As you start to reach that seven figures or even those high six figures, you're going to understand that your ideal clients need to go through a specific customer journey before they're ready to purchase from you. And then you get to provide them with that journey to get there. 

A sales funnel is incredibly important in your business. So make sure that you create the sales funnel before you even think you're ready. 90% of the time, you're probably ready and avoiding creating the sales funnel is going to stall your progress and make hitting those financial goals that you've set much harder.

Thank You for listening to the Marketing Matchmaker podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, I would love to hear your feedback. Please head over to iTunes and leave a review so we can hear from you. And if you are a coach, consultant, or online course creator who are looking to grow your business, increase your income, and scale your impact connect with me at yourmarketingmatchmaker.com. I look forward to hearing from you.