How To Build An Automated Sales Funnel For Your Business
Imagine spending more time doing something you enjoy and then *ding ding* your phone chimes with another sale.
With an automated sales funnel for your business, you can experience the luxury of doing less and earning more, just as my best students inside The Legacy Leaders Academy do.
My intention and hope for you are that you'll have clarity on how you, too, can start to build an automated sales funnel for your business by the end of the episode.
This is part 7 or a multi-part training series designed to help you work less and earn more in your business.
Today, we will briefly discuss what an automated sales funnel is and why you need one. The 3-phases of an automated sales funnel, and then we're going to break down the steps you need to take to build an automated sales funnel for your business.
WHAT'S AN AUTOMATED SALES FUNNEL & WHY DO YOU NEED ONE?
Firstly, a sales funnel essentially is the customer journey experience—the journey you take your targeted ideal client through from cold prospect to red-hot repeat buyer.
Whether you've been in business one day or many years, whether you realize it or not, you already have a sales funnel for your business.
Now the goal is to streamline and automate your sales funnel using intelligent online marketing and sales strategies so that you can attract new paying clients to your business like a magnet around the clock.
Sales funnels can be simple or as complicated as you choose to build them.
When you're starting to build your automated sales funnel, you only need a handful of helpful online tools—many of which you access for free.
Attractor - YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat, to name a few
Lead Capture - Convert kit
Info. Presenter - zoom / Facebook group / ever webinar
Payment processor - PayPal / stripe
If you can navigate Facebook, you can figure out how to click these sales funnel tools into place.
One of my favorite things about building an automated online sales funnel is that these days, you don't have to be tech-savvy or have any startup capital to start clicking your sales funnel in place. *note as your business grows, you'll want to consider investing in more robust software
If you're curious to know what software I use and how much I spend each year using it, you can learn more here:
3 SALES FUNNEL STAGES (AWARENESS, CONSIDERATION, DECISION)
As previously mentioned, sales funnels can be as straightforward or as complicated as you choose to make them. Regardless, you need to take a cold prospect through three primary phases to convert them into a red-hot buyer.
The 3-phases of the sales funnel are:
Awareness - get the word out about your business (youtube, podcast, guest speaking)
Consideration - nurture phase, educate them further on who you are and how you can help (ebook, audiobook, workshop, challenge, a freemium digital download checklist)
Decision - this is where your prospect is presented with your paid offer and is to make a decision exchanging dollars for your product or service.
HOW TO BUILD YOUR AUTOMATED SALES FUNNEL
All great builds need a strong foundation. Your automated sales funnel no different.
To build your automated sales funnel, we will be reverse engineering your sales funnel by focusing on building our strong base first.
0. Know what you're selling and the result it provides (physical or digital).
Get clear on the results-driven, paid-to-offer you'll present. I'd recommend that before you turn to intelligent online automation sequences, you first prove to yourself that your new product idea is profitable by using mostly offline sales techniques. *link to pip sequence youtube playlist
You can learn more about this by binge-watching the playlist I'll link to in the show notes or join us for the next round of The P.I.P. Launch Lab, where I'll work with you directly to ensure that your paid offer is packaged and priced perfectly.
1. Outline your upsell offer. Your upsell offer could be a lower or higher ticket priced item that smartly complements your main offer—coaching call, a digital download, audio file, for example.
If you're selling physical products, let's say it's makeup, for example. If the foundation is the primary purchase, your upsell offer could be a foundation application brush or makeup removal wipes.
You want to not only be thinking about making that first sale but how else you can support your client on their journey.
Ask yourself, once they have my first paid offer, what else do they need or need to know to succeed?
2. Think through how you'll ask for a referral once your happy, paid clients have achieved their desired results from working with you.
If you've never launched your new product offer, then yes, I'm asking you to future vision here.
See yourself making the sale and, more importantly, your client being happy with the results.
Now take a few minutes to think through how you might capture their enthusiasm to be used as a testimonial and encourage them to refer your business to a friend.
To capture the testimonial or potential referrals, you could invite them to jump on a short interview call with you, one that you record, and get their permission to use for marketing purposes.
Or automate by queuing up an email sequence asking them to reply or complete a simple survey.
You don't have to have every detail figured out right away, but it is essential to spend some time thinking through how you'll ask for the referral, an often overlooked opportunity.
3. Define the Awareness Phase. Focus on getting the word out about your business.
Ideally, it's something that your ideal clients access so that they can discover you and your business around the clock.
Again there are many ways to do this; a few of my favorite resources to use are youtube and podcasts.
4. Create a lead magnet. A lead magnet could be a digital or physical product. We're talking about an ebook, audio file, workshop, challenge, or a pdf freebie like a checklist if we're thinking digital. My favorite and most effective are the downloadable audio file and a workshop that has been pre-recorded and plugged into an automated webinar tool. *if you've been through my paid program, The Income Amplifier, you'll already have these assets. You will now be able to plug them into your automated sales funnel.
5. Prepare your point of contact capture page. Provide a place for your prospect to enter their name and email address on your lead magnet capture page. *convert kit or *everwebinar + zapier to convertkit
6. Navigate them through the Consideration Phase. At this point, your prospect has collected information and now must decide whether they will do business with you. Present the opportunity and lead them towards the decision phase.
7. The Decision Phase. The sales page. By now, your prospect should have all of the details they need to make a well-informed decision about your paid offer.
If it's something they need, want, can use, and afford, the chances they buy are high.
If not, then they'll self-select out by not making a purchase. Because you established your contact capture page, you still have the opportunity to continue to nurture them and, when appropriate, re-present your offer or introduce them to a new paid request.
If the prospect says yes, I want to do business with you, you can know to move them to the checkout page and collect payment. On this page, you have the opportunity to introduce your upsell offer as they are already in the primed purchasing mindset; if your upsell offer provides additional value, then here is your chance to serve your prospect further.
8. Once the payment process is complete, you'll send your new paid client to an automated thank you page and then access your offer.
When the time is appropriate for you and you believe that your paid client has had time to use your paid offer, you can send a follow-up email sequence asking for their feedback. [testimonial, referral, following recommendation]
What paid offer will you build your automated sales funnel? Tell me about it in the comments below. I can't wait to hear about it.
If you've got an idea about a new paid offer, but you haven't yet proven that it's profitable, then I want to invite you to join us inside of the P.I.P. Launch Lab. The P.I.P. Launch Lab is a self-paced guided course and lives training session where you'll have to opportunity to get direct feedback from myself and your fellow launchers to ensure that your offer is enticing enough for your prospect to click buy now.
If you're clear on your paid offer and now you're ready to get the word and begin attracting a steady stream of new clients into your business, then be sure to tune into the next episode.