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Need to Binge on some Sales Funnel Content - 7 Years into Marketing 6 months into Web Design

Marketing, social media, advertising

AidenRafi

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Hey guys,

Can anyone point me to the best resources they have relating to sales, sales funnels, opening and closing.

I have been working in digital marketing for 7 years, learnt how to build websites in the past 6 months and I want to be prepared for my next steps.

I have built 4 websites so far, all through word of mouth and friends of friends.

I need to learn how to open and close effectively, as well as transition them from website to digital marketing services.

So far i have only worked with businesses that are not very tech savvy or digitally active so it was quite easy, but i want to take a step to the big dogs.

I am decent at finding chinks and solutions in marketing strategies (7 years in marketing with multiple industries), I just want to improve my ability to present those ideas in a captivating manner (previous companies i have been employed at had sales teams who onboard the client and then send the through to me).

Also if there is information about pricing strategies that would be amazing too.
 
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Black_Dragon43

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Hey guys,

Can anyone point me to the best resources they have relating to sales, sales funnels, opening and closing.

I have been working in digital marketing for 7 years, learnt how to build websites in the past 6 months and I want to be prepared for my next steps.

I have built 4 websites so far, all through word of mouth and friends of friends.

I need to learn how to open and close effectively, as well as transition them from website to digital marketing services.

So far i have only worked with businesses that are not very tech savvy or digitally active so it was quite easy, but i want to take a step to the big dogs.

I am decent at finding chinks and solutions in marketing strategies (7 years in marketing with multiple industries), I just want to improve my ability to present those ideas in a captivating manner (previous companies i have been employed at had sales teams who onboard the client and then send the through to me).

Also if there is information about pricing strategies that would be amazing too.
Read as follows:
• No B.S. Direct Response Marketing by Dan Kennedy (to get a fast overview of the direct response industry, which is what funnels are built on top of)
• DotCom Secrets by Russell Brunson (an intro to funnels)
• My Course - 5-Steps to Create a Money-Making Machine (the entire process of building, launching and managing sales funnels, students have built 1MIL+ funnels with it. It will take you step by step through the entire process, and it's the same process we use inside my agency, including our own SOPs)
 
Last edited:

AidenRafi

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Read as follows:
• No B.S. Direct Response Marketing by Dan Kennedy (to get a fast overview of the direct response industry, which is what funnels are built on top of)
• DotCom Secrets by Russell Brunson (an intro to funnels)
• My Course - 5-Steps to Create a Money-Making Machine (the entire process of building, launching and managing sales funnels, students have built 1MIL+ funnels with it. It will take you step by step through the entire process, and it's the same process we use inside my agency.)

Thanks bud, will have a look.
 

Andrew McBurney

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Need a break from my work so going to rant here… hope this is helpful for you.

Like @Black_Dragon43 suggested - Dan Kenndy and Russel Brunson are both excellent sources here.

The only book I'd add on top of his two to get you going - and don't read it until after Dan's book - would be Kick-a$$ Secrets of a Marketing Rebel by John Carlton.

In my opinion copywriting is the most important aspect of funnels.

When it comes to selling high ticket services, crafting a “no-brain offer” - makes sales super easy.

I struggled with selling digital marketing until I discovered a no-brainer offer that rapidly brought in new business.

Also, understanding the idea of an “offer” is also something that will make you stand out against your peers/competitors and crush them. I’ll talk about a “trip wire offer” in this, but dive deep into what an offer is as well - it is important and will really make you shine. Can’t stress this enough. (And remember, a product or service is NOT an offer. And if it is, it’s probably a shit one.)

For digital marketing services, my best funnel is offering a simple “trip wire” (as Russel puts it) and then getting people into the funnel that way.

Selling higher ticket retainer services isn't’ as simple as putting them through a series of pages and upsells in one go - or at least I haven’t figured that out.

What has worked for me: Sell the trip wire. Deliver on it. Then sell to them once the rapport has been built and trust exists.

Be sure the trip wire delivery is 100% systematized so that it doesn’t choke you up or bog you down - and don’t customize the trip wire at all. Be sure it’s the same for everybody.

Treat this like the first date. It’s you showing up with an ironed shirt, a bunch of roses, holding doors open & holding your farts in.

With digital marketing services, the trip wire for you should be a service - not an info product. This is important because you want to actually engage with these people - albeit in a limited manner - to see who is a truly qualified lead, who do you want to work with and then simultaneously build rapport with them. Never hard sell during this process! Don’t even try to sell at all - but be sure they know what you do.

Also, ensure your trip wire and your main offer are 100% in line. If somebody is attracted to your trip wire - they should also be attracted to your main offer - once you show it to them.

Here’s an example of how I systematized one the best trip wire offer I’ve used. My “pipeline” would essentially just getting as many people set up with this mini-service as possible. The tripwire offer in this case was a loss leader. It was a facebook remarketing setup for a dead-stupid price (like $20 /$30) to generate relationships at a faster pace.

Also - for the adspend, I’d tell them “it’s just $1/day!” which people love because it’s a big risk reversal in their mind. No commitment. Turn it off any time. No brainer.

(Just a FYI - I no longer sell these as I have moved out of selling digital marketing services, which is why I am openly sharing this with you.)

Here’s the SOP: Campaign Launch Steps to Take - Facebook Remarketing (Soup to Nuts)

Basically, the end of the SOP is when your ‘sales’ job really begins - and it is very different than selling to someone you just met.

The pitch is dead simple because the power of remarketing is so easy to explain even to complete technophobes. I once literally had a lead that took me up on this send me an email that said “This was the best thing I’ve ever done marketing wise” after a stupid-simple remarketing ad boosted his existing Adword and SEO efforts.

Another really amazing trip wire offer that works better with higher ticket clients (not dentists/chiros - but I’m talking 7+ figure e-comshops, really successful SaaS, etc.) is analytic offerings. I won’t go into detail here - but it speaks to them because they understand small tweaks can have big impact when you’re running large numbers. This also bleeds into conversion rate optimization.


Anyway - with the trip wire angle, you’re playing the long game - you’re not trying to get rich off of selling your trip wire offer.

You move out of the headspace of “OH SHIT I NEED TO CLOSE A SALE RIGHT NOW” to building a list of people that know like and trust you and have also spent money on you and have been delivered what they were expecting. These people will hit you up in their time of need down the road. And of course, you can always hit them up too!

Good luck!


Edit: I forgot to emphasize a bit of the psychology behind why this works so well.

When you're selling this "trip wire" service - there are lots of benefits - but a main one is that it builds trust rapidly. I'll explain why in a moment.

There are a lot (bad acting and good people alike) selling really, really bad digital marketing services. It can almost be assumed that the person you're talking to has a bit of an opinion/preconceived notion that digital marketing is a scary world where you may be scammed in.

In fact, a lot of people have been scammed!

And the ones that haven't?

They've been spammed through email by digital marketers - which gives them a taste of the "sketchiness" just by exposure.

So anyway -most anyone is willing to give up $30, even if they may lose it - if the "upside" outweighs the potential risk of loss. Kind of like a lottery ticket.

Once you smash their expectations and they're singing your praises - you become a trusted, reliable expert in their mind - not just somebody claiming to be a digital marketing pro. They have valid proof and are much more willing to open their wallets and discuss other services, because you walked the walk.


/soapbox
 
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Last edited:

AidenRafi

Contributor
Read Fastlane!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
137%
Mar 1, 2017
70
96
Sydney
Need a break from my work so going to rant here… hope this is helpful for you.

Like @Black_Dragon43 suggested - Dan Kenndy and Russel Brunson are both excellent sources here.

The only book I'd add on top of his two to get you going - and don't read it until after Dan's book - would be Kick-a$$ Secrets of a Marketing Rebel by John Carlton.

In my opinion copywriting is the most important aspect of funnels.

When it comes to selling high ticket services, crafting a “no-brain offer” - makes sales super easy.

I struggled with selling digital marketing until I discovered a no-brainer offer that rapidly brought in new business.

Also, understanding the idea of an “offer” is also something that will make you stand out against your peers/competitors and crush them. I’ll talk about a “trip wire offer” in this, but dive deep into what an offer is as well - it is important and will really make you shine. Can’t stress this enough. (And remember, a product or service is NOT an offer. And if it is, it’s probably a shit one.)

For digital marketing services, my best funnel is offering a simple “trip wire” (as Russel puts it) and then getting people into the funnel that way.

Selling higher ticket retainer services isn't’ as simple as putting them through a series of pages and upsells in one go - or at least I haven’t figured that out.

What has worked for me: Sell the trip wire. Deliver on it. Then sell to them once the rapport has been built and trust exists.

Be sure the trip wire delivery is 100% systematized so that it doesn’t choke you up or bog you down - and don’t customize the trip wire at all. Be sure it’s the same for everybody.

Treat this like the first date. It’s you showing up with an ironed shirt, a bunch of roses, holding doors open & holding your farts in.

With digital marketing services, the trip wire for you should be a service - not an info product. This is important because you want to actually engage with these people - albeit in a limited manner - to see who is a truly qualified lead, who do you want to work with and then simultaneously build rapport with them. Never hard sell during this process! Don’t even try to sell at all - but be sure they know what you do.

Also, ensure your trip wire and your main offer are 100% in line. If somebody is attracted to your trip wire - they should also be attracted to your main offer - once you show it to them.

Here’s an example of how I systematized one the best trip wire offer I’ve used. My “pipeline” would essentially just getting as many people set up with this mini-service as possible. The tripwire offer in this case was a loss leader. It was a facebook remarketing setup for a dead-stupid price (like $20 /$30) to generate relationships at a faster pace.

Also - for the adspend, I’d tell them “it’s just $1/day!” which people love because it’s a big risk reversal in their mind. No commitment. Turn it off any time. No brainer.

(Just a FYI - I no longer sell these as I have moved out of selling digital marketing services, which is why I am openly sharing this with you.)

Here’s the SOP: Campaign Launch Steps to Take - Facebook Remarketing (Soup to Nuts)

Basically, the end of the SOP is when your ‘sales’ job really begins - and it is very different than selling to someone you just met.

The pitch is dead simple because the power of remarketing is so easy to explain even to complete technophobes. I once literally had a lead that took me up on this send me an email that said “This was the best thing I’ve ever done marketing wise” after a stupid-simple remarketing ad boosted his existing Adword and SEO efforts.

Another really amazing trip wire offer that works better with higher ticket clients (not dentists/chiros - but I’m talking 7+ figure e-comshops, really successful SaaS, etc.) is analytic offerings. I won’t go into detail here - but it speaks to them because they understand small tweaks can have big impact when you’re running large numbers. This also bleeds into conversion rate optimization.


Anyway - with the trip wire angle, you’re playing the long game - you’re not trying to get rich off of selling your trip wire offer.

You move out of the headspace of “OH SHIT I NEED TO CLOSE A SALE RIGHT NOW” to building a list of people that know like and trust you and have also spent money on you and have been delivered what they were expecting. These people will hit you up in their time of need down the road. And of course, you can always hit them up too!

Good luck!


Edit: I forgot to emphasize a bit of the psychology behind why this works so well.

When you're selling this "trip wire" service - there are lots of benefits - but a main one is that it builds trust rapidly. I'll explain why in a moment.

There are a lot (bad acting and good people alike) selling really, really bad digital marketing services. It can almost be assumed that the person you're talking to has a bit of an opinion/preconceived notion that digital marketing is a scary world where you may be scammed in.

In fact, a lot of people have been scammed!

And the ones that haven't?

They've been spammed through email by digital marketers - which gives them a taste of the "sketchiness" just by exposure.

So anyway -most anyone is willing to give up $30, even if they may lose it - if the "upside" outweighs the potential risk of loss. Kind of like a lottery ticket.

Once you smash their expectations and they're singing your praises - you become a trusted, reliable expert in their mind - not just somebody claiming to be a digital marketing pro. They have valid proof and are much more willing to open their wallets and discuss other services, because you walked the walk.


/soapbox

Thanks mate, there’s a lot of value in there. The trip wire scenario seems very instinctive to me and you broke it down nicely.

Diving into analytics for higher ticket clients also makes sense. Your bringing more value early depending on the clients potential.

I will keep these in mind and check back in when I use my first trip wire offer :)
 

Black_Dragon43

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I will add here a bit more info that will come in helpful for you.

You want to make sure that you use the right technologies when creating your funnel, otherwise, you'll find that some of the creative things you want to do are simply impossible.

So this can be a paid software - like Clickfunnels or Kartra - or something that is entirely custom-made via Wordpress.

Clickfunnels & Kartra are expensive for a beginner, but significantly easier to set up. You should prefer Kartra for a service business, since the costs will not drastically increase over time. Whereas with an eCom business, with Kartra your overhead will easily go through the roof. So go for Kartra if you're a service business, for Clickfunnels with eCom. In addition, for eCom you can also integrate Clickfunnels with a regular Shopify store so that the products are transferred over automatically via AppTrends.

A custom-made solution gives you the most flexibility and customization, and it also has very LOW overhead. However, it's significantly harder to set up. To do it, you need several plugins: WooCommerce (free), Elementor PRO (paid), Cartflows (paid) (I have licenses to these last two, if you're interested message me and I can help you set them up), and a customer list / email service like AWeber, ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign or similar. The custom solution is the best either for ADVANCED users, for the increased flexibility, OR for complete beginners who cannot take the $100/month overhead of Clickfunnels or Kartra, but want to spend time learning to set it up.

Now that we've gone over the tech, my advice really is to spend your time learning from someone who builds these funnels across different industries, especially if you want to create them for your clients, not just for yourself. This way you will learn the secrets very quickly, and these are things that, believe me, you won't be able to find in freely available public info.

Having an overview of the direct marketing industry as myself and Andrew above have said is important, but that's just the foundation. Just with that, you won't get anywhere. You need to learn what works, what are the best practices, what are the standard operating procedures of companies who do this over and over again and get results. I've built my entire business on building sales funnels for people, and I still believe this is the fastest way to learn - otherwise you have to spend years doing trial and error, just like I did.
 

AidenRafi

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Mar 1, 2017
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I will add here a bit more info that will come in helpful for you.

You want to make sure that you use the right technologies when creating your funnel, otherwise, you'll find that some of the creative things you want to do are simply impossible.

So this can be a paid software - like Clickfunnels or Kartra - or something that is entirely custom-made via Wordpress.

Clickfunnels & Kartra are expensive for a beginner, but significantly easier to set up. You should prefer Kartra for a service business, since the costs will not drastically increase over time. Whereas with an eCom business, with Kartra your overhead will easily go through the roof. So go for Kartra if you're a service business, for Clickfunnels with eCom. In addition, for eCom you can also integrate Clickfunnels with a regular Shopify store so that the products are transferred over automatically via AppTrends.

A custom-made solution gives you the most flexibility and customization, and it also has very LOW overhead. However, it's significantly harder to set up. To do it, you need several plugins: WooCommerce (free), Elementor PRO (paid), Cartflows (paid) (I have licenses to these last two, if you're interested message me and I can help you set them up), and a customer list / email service like AWeber, ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign or similar. The custom solution is the best either for ADVANCED users, for the increased flexibility, OR for complete beginners who cannot take the $100/month overhead of Clickfunnels or Kartra, but want to spend time learning to set it up.

Now that we've gone over the tech, my advice really is to spend your time learning from someone who builds these funnels across different industries, especially if you want to create them for your clients, not just for yourself. This way you will learn the secrets very quickly, and these are things that, believe me, you won't be able to find in freely available public info.

Having an overview of the direct marketing industry as myself and Andrew above have said is important, but that's just the foundation. Just with that, you won't get anywhere. You need to learn what works, what are the best practices, what are the standard operating procedures of companies who do this over and over again and get results. I've built my entire business on building sales funnels for people, and I still believe this is the fastest way to learn - otherwise you have to spend years doing trial and error, just like I did.
Thanks bud, I have used Elementor and Clickfunnels before, my approach with this business will be phone calls/warm leads >> in person meeting >> solution/proposal >> close >> manage account.

As i want to jump in with the bigger players i think the smartest way would be to build the relationship in person rather then through a website funnel.

Open to feedback/criticism.

Cheers
 
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Black_Dragon43

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Thanks bud, I have used Elementor and Clickfunnels before, my approach with this business will be phone calls/warm leads >> in person meeting >> solution/proposal >> close >> manage account.

As i want to jump in with the bigger players i think the smartest way would be to build the relationship in person rather then through a website funnel.

Open to feedback/criticism.

Cheers
Yes, you have what I call a standard consultation funnel in my course:

Some initial offer -> book a call -> sell them on the call -> manage account

Having said that, the gold for you is really in that initial offer, and how you lay out the rest of the funnel. You probably won't get it right from the get-go, but your chances will be maximized if you understand the process and how to transition people from one step to another - as well as what offer to pick for the first one.

Here's the idea with the first offer - the lead magnet offer as I call it:
• It MUST be a 'no-brainer' offer. Literarily, you'd have to be crazy not to take it. The goal is to get your foot in the door.
• It MUST establish you as an authority for a service business, AND it must make you STAND OUT from what is out there.
• It MUST hit a gap in the market that you have identified. In my course for example, we go from Step I - determining the target audience to step II -> analysing the competition, identifying a gap, and preparing the initial offer to step III -> building out your funnel, writing the promotions, etc. -> step IV : driving traffic (you can start by driving organic traffic to test it), and step V: email backend.

The other thing to keep in mind: your backend MUST be strong. People will leak out of your funnel at every stage. You need to have a MASSIVE push to bring the back into the funnel, wherever they leak out. You need to not be a wimp and be afraid that you're spamming them too much, and do MASSIVE outreach to bring them back. The real gold is in this backend.
 

AidenRafi

Contributor
Read Fastlane!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
137%
Mar 1, 2017
70
96
Sydney
Yes, you have what I call a standard consultation funnel in my course:

Some initial offer -> book a call -> sell them on the call -> manage account

Having said that, the gold for you is really in that initial offer, and how you lay out the rest of the funnel. You probably won't get it right from the get-go, but your chances will be maximized if you understand the process and how to transition people from one step to another - as well as what offer to pick for the first one.

Here's the idea with the first offer - the lead magnet offer as I call it:
• It MUST be a 'no-brainer' offer. Literarily, you'd have to be crazy not to take it. The goal is to get your foot in the door.
• It MUST establish you as an authority for a service business, AND it must make you STAND OUT from what is out there.
• It MUST hit a gap in the market that you have identified. In my course for example, we go from Step I - determining the target audience to step II -> analysing the competition, identifying a gap, and preparing the initial offer to step III -> building out your funnel, writing the promotions, etc. -> step IV : driving traffic (you can start by driving organic traffic to test it), and step V: email backend.

The other thing to keep in mind: your backend MUST be strong. People will leak out of your funnel at every stage. You need to have a MASSIVE push to bring the back into the funnel, wherever they leak out. You need to not be a wimp and be afraid that you're spamming them too much, and do MASSIVE outreach to bring them back. The real gold is in this backend.
Hey mate,

Interesting that you refer to an offer, I was going into it from a value perspective.

i.e

Value: Here is what I have done for 8 years - here is the experience i have in your industry - this is what i have achieved in ROI for a similar client to you.

Book meeting: I would love to book in a meeting with you and discuss marketing/digital solutions to solve your current problems and reach your long term objectives - what are your availabilities next Tuesday.

I was planning to run through that within the first 20 seconds of getting in contact with the right person of prospect company.
 

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