A Simple Sales Funnel For Any Business -

4K Shares

Sales Funnels are “hot” right now. Surely you’ve seen the Facebook ads, the blog posts, & the courses.

Sales Funnels ARE important and you should have one in your business but the industry has a way of overcomplicating things so let’s break it down and keep it simple. (Scroll to the end of the post to watch the video!)

Want the shortcut to social media success? Click Here

A Sales Funnel is a process of getting in front of customers and moving them through the sales process.

You DON’T need a fancy funnel with 4 upsells, 3 downsells, 20 Facebook ads driving traffic, and 40 email sequence follow ups. You just don’t. I’ve had some fairly elaborate funnels and I’ve had some incredibly simple funnels that outperform those fancy funnels every day of the week.

Let’s start with what is a sales funnel and what does it look like?

Here’s an example of the most popular and profitable sales funnel in the world:

You see a commercial or advertisement for McDonalds (Getting in front of their ideal audience)
They offer a discounted price on one of their most popular burgers for a limited time (Incentivizing you to come in and take advantage of the deal before it’s gone. – This is called a sense of urgency and it gets you to take action!)
You walk into McDonalds. (They got you in the door. Now, You’re a hot lead and now McDonalds just has to close you on the sale)
You know McDonalds, you like their burger, you’re ready to purchase. THEN, they offer you the most famous upsell in the world “Would you like fries with that?” – Of course you do. (You’ve just been upsold.)

See how that works? It’s a really easy process that takes you through four stages that we’ll break down even further:

1. Awareness
2. Incentive
3. Lead
4. Close

There are unlimited ways you can go about creating a sales funnel for your business. Don’t get overwhelmed. Start simple and improve as you go.

Remember, the main goal:

1. Awareness: Let customers know who you and your business are
2. Incentive: Give them a reason to be attracted them to your business
3. Lead: Connect with them, Get them in your door, to your social pages, on your email list, to give you their phone number
4. Close: SELL them

Here we go….

AWARENESS:

This is where you’re getting in front of your potential clients. These are people most likely to buy your products or services. You want to get crystal clear on who these people are so you know who you want to attract. You are going to put your business directly in front of them so they start getting familiar with who you are, what you do, what your business is about, and HOW YOU CAN HELP or SERVE THEM.

By creating awareness you’re developing a relationship with them. This creates a sense of knowing or like with you. The more they know you, the more likely they are to buy from you.

Here’s my favorite ways to create awareness:

Facebook Ads – The laser targeting really helps you get right in front of your ideal audience.
Pinterest Promoted Pins – Pinterest is my highest converting platform for sales. Their ads can be a bit cheaper than Facebook and have excellent targeting options.
Blogging – Putting content out there that can be shared on social media or found through SEO will bring you awareness.
Videos – Whether you’re showing tutorials on how to use your product, sharing a commercial or hosting a webinar – videos create instant brand recognition because people can see you or your product and it’s easier to make a connection.

Again, knowing where your ideal audience is hanging out is going to help you decide where you need to spend time creating awareness.

Examples:

If you’re selling hair accessories – Facebook or Pinterest would be a great place to drive ads showcasing your hair accessories. You could create a video tutorial showing how to use your product. You could further target your ads to people who are interested in other hair accessories or searching for new hair accessories.

If you’re a realtor – Facebook & Video would be great places for you to talk about recent trends in real estate, share some recent home sales statistics, or offer home buying or selling tips.

If you’re a coach – Blogging & Videos are excellent choices to show off your expertise and get people to learn more about you and what you can offer them. These types of content can be shared on social media and advertised to your ideal audience like people interested in other coaches

Here’s an example of creating awareness! A simple Facebook ad for business cards. This is a good ad that’s placed in front of business owners, like myself – who may be in need of business cards that are unique. It’s an excellent first step in the sales funnel process.

Now that you know how to get in front of people, let’s jump into attraction marketing.

INCENTIVE:

This is the REASON someone would want to connect with your business or your brand. YOU create the incentive.

Again, this can be an unlimited amount of things! In the McDonald’s example, the incentive was to get a cheaper than usual burger. Here are Marketing Solved, our incentives are often times free worksheets or trainings.

Think about WHO your customers are and HOW or WHAT your product or services does for them and choose an incentive from there.

Types of Incentives:

Discounts, Coupons, or Special Offers – This gives someone a HUGE reason to buy from you
Free Reports, Checklists, Worksheets, PDF’s, Video Trainings – This would be something people would be interested in giving you an email address in exchange for
Free Consultation, Free Strategy Session, Free Call – If someone believes you can help them with a problem, they’re going to want to talk with you
Free Shipping, Bonus Products, Upgrades – Can you offer an added incentive to people to get them to take action?
Giveaways or Sweepstakes – People LOVE the opportunity to win free stuff and this creates a great pool of people who are interested in your products

Examples:

If you’re a restaurant, offer free chips and a soda with purchase

If you sell furniture, offer 15% off or free delivery

If you are a personal trainer, offer a free nutrition plan or healthy shopping list with membership

If you sell bath bombs, include a free sample of another product like a soap

If you are a home decorator, offer a free report or pdf with the top 10 easy ways to upgrade your home without spending any money

Ok, I know that’s A LOT of examples but I want you to see how easy it can be to create incentives to get people interested in your business or willing to learn more.

We really want our incentive to draw people to US over another business. Once we get them interested, we can move forward into turning them into a lead.

Here’s an example of an incentive. I saw an advertisement, I clicked it and immediately was given the opportunity to take 10% off my purchase by entering my email. If I decide to buy from them, I want to take advantage of this discount so I would subscriber.

LEAD:

Here’s where we make our connection. We’ve already got their attention, we have an incentive we know they want – let’s turn them into a lead.

A lead can be:

Social Media Fans
People in your store
Email Subscribers – Someone giving you their email in exchange for a discount, pdf, or to learn more
People filling out a form online or in person giving you their phone number or address
Traffic to your website!

A lead is someone you can contact, connect with, and CLOSE.

Here’s a few examples of how to capture leads:

If you sell cars, someone fills out a form giving you their phone number to learn more about your inventory. You can call them and make an appointment to come to your lot and shop for a new car.

If you’re a business coach, someone downloads your pdf to learn the 5 biggest mistakes people make in business and how to correct them. You can get their email address or phone number to follow up with them and close them!

If you sell clothes, someone signs up for a discount or free shipping on their first order. This incentivizes them to BUY from you and get free shipping.

If you sell cookbooks, someone gives you their email address to get your top 3 recipes for free, once they subscribe, they’re on your email list and you can upsell them to a purchase.

Here’s an example of how to use an incentive to turn website visitors into leads. CleanFooodCrush has an option to get a recipe book for free in exchange for an email address. Once I enter my email, I become a CleanFoodCrush LEAD to offer additional products to.

Are these examples helping?

It’s to show you that there’s NO limit to what you can do!

CLOSE:

The BIGGEST mistake people are making in their sales funnel is the close. They’ll run the ads, create the incentive, get the leads – but don’t follow up or close!

If you get a phone number, get on the phone! Leave a voicemail or send them a text.
If they walk in your door, make them an offer!
If they give you their email address, email them.

These are leads that have already told you they’re interested in what you’re selling. If they say no, once – that’s ok! Make them another offer after some time passes.

Some people need to see or hear an offer more than 5 times before they say yes. This doesn’t mean hound them with offers!

Provide them with value, build on your relationships, and make offers as you build trust.

Want to see a sales funnel live? Here’s a quick video that will show you live examples of businesses in all industries using this 4 step Sales Funnel.