As health coaches, one of the most important tools in building your business is your sales funnel. For newer coaches the term sales funnel may feel intimidating, but once you understand it, it is such a powerful money-making tool.
In today’s episode, I am taking you through the basics of your sales funnel and discussing why an intuitive sales funnel will always be your best bet. You’ll learn what one thing actually sells programs and how to build this within your sales funnel. The beauty of truly understanding sales funnels is that you can easily replicate them when it is time to pivot. So grab your notebook, because I’m sharing lots of gems in this episode. Whether you are creating a sales funnel for the first time, or re-evaluating your current one, everyone can take something from this. Tune in now!
Hey guys! So I’m extremely excited because we are going to be talking about what I call the intuitive sales funnel. We are officially kicking off what will be the launch of the winter Done-For-You programs, our brand new Grain-Free Detox, our brand new 60-Day Weight Loss program, our brand new thyroid program, and we will also be talking about the Meal Plan Membership. Now what is different about what I teach, this is not just the sales funnel, this is about looking at your whole business funnel. Why is that different from just a standard click funnel? Why is that different from a funnel that you actually see that everyone talks about? What I’m talking about is your whole funnel, the entry points, the gateway, the signature, even your Mega programs. Do you have that in place for your business? So if you don’t, no worries, we’re gonna get cracking right now.
Why Every Health Coach Needs A Sales Funnel to Make Profits & Get Clients
When you’re a new coach you think, “Sales funnel? That is so advanced!” That is not true. Whether you’re with a CRM that is advanced, like Infusionsoft, Ontraport, Active Campaign, or whether you’re in a starting place for your hosting and your email list like MailChimp, AWeber and Constant Contact, you’re still building funnels. I want you to think Client A, Mary, opts-in. Do you just have a list there or are you actually having a conversation with her? Client B, Jim, opts in for your webinar. Do you have a follow-up sequence? Think about this – what do people actually need to know about you to build the T factor, trust.
How many times have you seen an opt-in freebie, webinar, or some kind of really great offering, and you’ve hesitated because you don’t know enough about that person? You can have a phenomenal website, have great copy, you could even be rocking Facebook Ads, but the power of connection and conversion is based on people getting to know, love and trust you. So every coach needs a sales funnel.
The Importance of Having Multiple Entry Points
Every coach needs multiple entry points. People say, “Well, I only need one opt-in freebie.” Let’s say your niche is working with busy moms addicted to sugar. So there’s that mom who’s busy, right? Because she’s busy, she’s not going to necessarily read the whole 10-12 page PDF that you have. So what I want you to think about is that maybe she is the kind of person who would rather see a quick webinar, or a mini video series. Maybe that busy mom is one that really just needs a video series delivered in five emails, or maybe it’s just one powerpoint going over how to survive the day when you’re a busy mom. You need to be asking yourself: how is this getting presented? This is applicable for any business you do. Whether you’re building a health coaching business, whether you’re building your business with products, an MLM, anything, there needs to be a conversation. The power and the beauty of your business funnel, as well as your funnel in general, is that you can communicate with people. So you need to feed your niche.
Getting Down to the Core Issue
Remember, a niche isn’t just that you work with people with autoimmune disorders, or you work with people who are losing weight. It’s reverse engineering into what really is that “wake up problem”? We hear this all the time. People aren’t going to wake up in the middle of the night thinking, “I’ve got to change my mindset.” You have to get down to the core issue that relates to mindset. This could be someone waking up in the middle of the night worried about their immune system. Now, the core issue is usually the pain that they’re going through from having a weakened digestive system or a weakened immune toxicity and whatever points that are leading them to an emotional feeling. This is why multiple options is best. This is information that is so vital and you learn their biggest desires by having different options/entry points, so that you can feed to those people exactly what they want and what they need.
The Soap Opera Sequence
A powerful sales funnel leads you into an initial interest. So whether it’s a video, a PDF opt-in, a video series, or a recipe guide, survival guide, or jumpstart challenge, the follow-up email sequence is also called a funnel. So I want you to think about your whole business funnel, and then the funnel that they are receiving, to engage, to interact, to tell the story. One of the typical funnels that you hear is a five email sequence called a soap opera sequence. Take somebody through the story. What happened to you? What is life like? What did you learn? So it takes you through the down and the up, it’s essentially a soap opera. You make it so that the client is dying to open up the next email. So you’re not selling on email one or two, you’re leading them through a journey. Maybe you are even giving a video. What’s necessary for the sales funnel to truly work is for people to have built trust through that email engagement.
The Tripwire & How to Create it Effectively
So they opt-in, but what are you taking them to? Maybe you’re leading them and you’re skipping the 17 to 37. What is that? Often trip wires are about $7 to $17. Maybe it’s $17 for a whole program. That’s a tripwire. Because that person opts in:
Email one: Hey, this is who I am.
Email two: This is what happened to me. P.S. Would you like to have a strategy session?
Email three: You know what, I gotta tell you, I know you opted in to x, because you are maybe dealing with 1-2-3-4. And trust me, I get that because I dealt with A-B-C-D-E so I wanted to tell you about a program that is self-paced.
Email four: What is that about? What system? How did it help you?
That system could be a $17 to $37, even a $7 whole program. Why do we call it tripwire? Because you’re like, “It’s so good that I have to get it. You’re tripped into it. You can’t resist, you can’t say no. That’s where you’re feeding them right here.
The Gateway Program
Some people skip that. When I got tired and realized several people couldn’t afford me in my one on one, this is where my sales funnel came in. Some people never hire you one-on-one, ever. They may not be able to invest, it may not be a good personality fit, or they might be the personality that in order to invest in one-one-one, they might need to download everything, come to every webinar, come to a challenge, and really see you and know your story before they actually hire you.
So some coaches jump right to the $67 to $97. This is what I call a gateway program. That is the sweet spot and it is what defines you. Some people also consider that a signature program and remember price is relative. $67 to $97 depends on the amount of weeks or maybe the online or offline program. $497 to $897 can be your work with me, or maybe higher. $1000 on VIP days. Again, price is relative – these are just some of the standard prices in the health coaching industry. This will change based on your certificates, your knowledge or coaching experience and your authority.
The Power of Opt-In Freebies, Tripwires & Gateway Programs
We need an opt-in freebie to catch someone’s attention. They need to offer benefits that relate to the purpose of why people visit your website, or why they’re finding you on social media. Download 14 recipes right here. Prepping for the holidays with a tendency to emotionally eat? Download this opt-in freebie on the strategies I have to avoid emotional eating during the holidays. Come to this webinar. Download this gift. Download these handouts or this video series. Join this challenge. Prep yourself for x, y, z. For offline businesses, this can even be a flyer that is posted locally. Grab this free gift on your site + the free gift or mascot with a bit.ly link. Essentially, you’re giving your visitors or your potential clients the opportunity to partner with you, to invest in you, and that turns into profits.
Too often, I see coaches that have launched a site, launched their business and they are not getting the people to convert. This is because they don’t know enough about you. You have a gorgeous website and you want to launch a program, but nobody knows what you do. So I want you to think really clearly about that. Are you in the opt-in freebie lacking zone? The beautiful thing about opt-in freebies is that they are gifts but they are also bonuses on even your sales page.
The gateway program is the place where people enter. This is how somebody who is not totally committed, can find out about you and your higher-level offers. They’re not committing tons of time (I suggest 4 to 20 days maximum for a gateway program) and often when you are an existing coach and you’re ready to go that next place, you might even have a two-tier option to come into the gateway. Stay with me for an extra three months. That is the power of the upsell. And some of you also will have the downsell. That is the power of the sales funnel. I call that the greatest opportunity for the non-committal person. Really think about your front end selling.
Selling What’s Worked for You & Your Signature Program
This signature program defines your business. It doesn’t mean that your gateway doesn’t, but it is a part of the entire program. Remember, within that business funnel, your gateway can also upsell to your signature. So the gateway can be the detox and it leads to a sugar program or it leads to the mindset program, or it leads to Revitalize. What is the whole system for success? Why do we buy? We don’t just buy because somebody says this is what’s good for us, we buy because we’ve seen a result with them. We believe, we trust, we know because we have seen that person for long enough come in and talk about the system that got them better. Some health coaches who are trying to sell systems that didn’t get them better are not seeing these results for converting clients because, again, we can only really sell what worked for us.
I can only sell these programs because these are the programs I rocked in my business. I can only teach you what I know. I can’t teach you about Facebook bots because I’m not a master of them. I can only teach you what has worked for me. So I want you to think about the signature program. This is longer than the gateway and this also can relate to your work with me. I want you to think about what your niche actually needs. By just saying I work with women who want to lose weight and get X-Y-Z so they can A-B-C, are you really feeding the different personalities? Is it busy moms, is it corporate women, is it single moms? Each one of those define the message, and also the signature program for you. I didn’t define my business by cleansing, gut health, and the power of the immune system. I had tons of people come to me for a variety of different issues. Their pain wasn’t their digestion, their pain was that they gained weight and had skin issues. Always think about the pain and think about what those different people need from you. That’s really where conversion happens. That’s where you get paying clients.
The Importance of an Intuitive Sales Funnel
There is no special magic sauce to an intuitive sales funnel. That’s why I say intuitive. Everyone teaches about sales funnels. I’m not the only chick in this game. But what I do know is that I had to really listen to myself. At the time, they didn’t want to rock online programs so I used the power of my opt-in freebies offline. I want to show you is how to rock your business offline, how to rock it online, and how to tap into what works for you and create that funnel so that you can replicate, you can rinse and spin. Once you know one funnel, you can use that to create another one.
That might change also as you change in your business. I’ve always had the core mission. I’ve always known it was detox, cleansing and gut health. But there were people coming to me with other pain points, and this is the intuitive part. I had to pivot my business to stay sustainable. I see too many coaches not pivoting. We’re not really hearing and listening to intuitive self and soul and knowing from a deeper place, how to run our businesses. We get into fear mode. I have been there, especially in the early parts of my business. I was scared shitless that as the sole supporter I would really be able to support my family. I didn’t learn how to really intuitively listen, until about year two in. And things just were not working, I wanted to quit. I was really scared and I had to step back. I just stopped listening to just everything and started listening to my gut, my soul, my heart and stepped into a place of not worrying.
Is this going to work? Is this going to get better? Is this going to get right?
Instead, I stepped into a place of how can I be of service? Even if I don’t know tech. I cried over MailChimp. I had all the same issues that I hear from everyone? Right? I don’t know how to do the tech, I don’t know how to launch. Let me tell you. I launched my first two programs on Eventbrite because I couldn’t figure out how to get the frickin’ PayPal button on a site. If you’re in that place, and you’re scared, and we should all admit that because every one of us is scared in any building phase of our business, but I will tell you, you need to tap into an intuitive place, knowing and really listening to what you need and not what everyone else is telling you. What do you need? How can you best serve the people who are following you? Are you really listening to their needs or are you just doing what everyone else is doing? It has to be in alignment. The law of attraction. And if your business isn’t in alignment from the ground up to foundational, how can you truly build? And how can you truly go to that next level? It’s very, very hard.
I can’t tell you how many times I struggled to try to figure out this on my own. And many of you don’t have the money to hire a team, strategist, or virtual assistant. You’re doing this on your own. And that is the sole reason that I started to become a business coach, even in the midst of my successful health coaching business. Nobody wrote the rulebook. You see Facebook algorithms change every day, Instagram changes, the offline market changes, online trending changes. That’s the intuitive part that we have to tap into. If we don’t, we stay stuck just in that right side of our brain that’s all in the Excel spreadsheet or on the launch timeline. What is it going to worry about? And there can’t be as much alignment, comfort and getting clients because there’s so much fear and thinking. Am I doing this right? Is this really gonna work? Can I get to this next place?
So I want you to think about that. I want you to come back and listen to this. I want you to share this. If it really feels right for you. Tag me on my personal page, send me a personal message even on Facebook, or through my site and let me know what you need. Because at the end of the day, I can guarantee you I have been in the exact same place that you have been.
It is you guys that are going to make this change. Not just in the world, but in your business. There are so many brilliant coaches out there in all industries. I’ve learned some of the best things from people I admire, follow, like and love and you know why? Because trust has been built. Because they’ve shown up. They spent less time worrying if it was going to work and ore time fighting blocks or challenges or engaging. So I encourage you to drop the fear. Sit and really think about your funnel, and also plan Q1. What opt-in freebies? What webinars, livestreams, challenges? Where are you taking them? Do they really need this? What do your people need to really hear from you?
Like I said, Too often we get caught up in fear and then we can’t get to that next place. I’ve been there. I know what it feels like. But once you master this one part, rinse and spin. That is the beauty – this is replicable. Once you have that sales funnel, once you have your opt-in freebie, you can see what people are opting into and craft your gateway and your signature programs to that message right now. 365 days from now you may have to pivot, because maybe that’s not working, or the people who have love, like and trust you signed up for that already. So they need and desire something different. That’s intuition.
I’m hella stoked to be able to deliver this to health coaches, and help you alleviate all that time that you spend on doing that stuff. So think about it. Think about your funnel and think about what is missing in your funnel that you really need. Have a beautiful one and I will see you soon.
