SPEAKER 1 - 00:00.2 Welcome to the Grit Reapers, the podcast for aspiring online entrepreneurs that cut through all the crap in the online business world and dishes out the raw and real truth about what it really takes to have a successful online business.
SPEAKER 1 - 00:15.7 No sugar coating, no get rich quick schemes, just honest advice with a healthy dose of humor and hope.
SPEAKER 2 - 00:23.7 We're your hosts, Gayle and Candice, two online entrepreneurs who've been there, done that, and lived together. Tell the tale. So if you're looking for straight talk, practical tips, and the occasional reality check to get your online business moving, you're in the right place.
SPEAKER 2 - 00:43.9 Let's get down to business.
SPEAKER 1 - 00:46.5 Welcome back to the Grit Reapers. We are very excited to have you here. Today we are going to be talking all about sales funnels. What is a sales funnel? How's it, Gail?
SPEAKER 2 - 00:59.6 Hey, Cand, how are you?
SPEAKER 1 - 01:01.1 Yeah, I'm good, thanks. How are you?
SPEAKER 2 - 01:03.2 Good, thank you. Looking forward to this discussion.
SPEAKER 1 - 01:06.9 Oh, my God. Funnels, Funnels, Funnels. It's like this word that people hear all the time. I think even experienced and like, long timers in the digital world still kind of get like, is that a funnel? Isn't it a funnel?
SPEAKER 1 - 01:22.6 So it is something that you're going to hear all about or you've heard all about. And today we're going to be talking and answering the question on, like, what is a sales funnel? So, Gail, kick us off. Explain to our audience what is a sales funnel?
SPEAKER 2 - 01:37.0 Okay, so I think people get really kind of hung up on the word funnel. Right? And there are other ways of thinking about a sales funnel that I just want to sort of discuss first, because I think the use of the word funnel was really more as a visual representation that, you know, could help people visualize what a funnel is.
SPEAKER 2 - 02:10.2 But sometimes I think that it actually makes people more confused because they think it's this, like, specific thing as opposed to rather just the steps that your audience takes.
SPEAKER 2 - 02:27.0 From the very first time they kind of get to know you, see you come into your world to if they ultimately become your customer, so they ultimately buy something from you.
SPEAKER 2 - 02:43.2 So that is really, in its simplest form, what a funnel is. It's really just that journey from them getting to know who you are to giving you their email address in return for something that you have offered them.
SPEAKER 2 - 03:03.1 Right. That is when they sort of become like, really part of your world, sort of physically, because up until then, they may have just seen your content, you know, watched your YouTube videos, and then to ultimately buying from you.
SPEAKER 2 - 03:21.9 And so that is basically what a funnel is. It's just that customer journey from, hey, this person's cool, to ending up buying something from them. So that's how I understand a funnel. And yeah, cans. What is your take on that?
SPEAKER 1 - 03:37.9 Yeah, I love. I love that word steps. It's like, what are the steps someone's gonna take until they eventually pay you? Right. So sales funnel. The word sales is money. What has to happen or what do I need to do as a business owner to take somebody through the steps to the point where they want to pay me for something that I can do for them, you know?
SPEAKER 1 - 04:08.2 And I think you are 100. Right. Everybody sees this picture of, like, what A funnel looks like, right? And so a funnel is like, kind of like that V shape that narrows at the bottom. And it's, it's, it is a helpful visual.
SPEAKER 1 - 04:27.6 But, you know, the collateral damage of that is that people think it's really formulaic, like A, B equals C. And that's how it's going to work. Okay. And obviously we dealing with human beings and it's. People have minds and feelings and they volatile and they do all kinds of stuff.
SPEAKER 1 - 04:47.2 So think about it rather just as this process, like a process someone's going to go through. Some people do it really quickly, some people take time, but it's just like the process. They're going to go from discovering you till they pay you.
SPEAKER 1 - 05:02.4 And that process is called a sales funnel. Right. So then it becomes like, but what's, what is this top of funnel like? What's a top of funnel? What's mid funnel like? And again, if you're just thinking like, okay, so if somebody doesn't know who I am, they would be right at the beginning of my funnel.
SPEAKER 1 - 05:25.4 Right at the beginning, because they don't even know me yet. So the very first time they see me, it would be like, they're at the top of the funnel. Okay, and now what am I going to do? What can I do to get them to come in? So, like Gail mentioned, things like offering resources and freebies and trainings and are a way that you're inviting people into your funnel.
SPEAKER 1 - 05:50.4 So, so your top of funnel is the beginning of those steps, right? Getting in front of people who don't necessarily know who you are and doing something to bring them in. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER 2 - 06:06.5 100% makes sense to me. But, but I think that, yeah, sometimes people think like, there's only one way to bring people into your funnel, and there are different types of funnels.
SPEAKER 2 - 06:22.6 Even though we are kind of talking about your overall sales funnel, there are sort of funnels within funnels, if we can say it like that. So even something as simple as, you know, putting some social media out, say a Facebook post or an Instagram post that is on a topic that you are an expert on and saying at the end of it, you know, if you've enjoyed this information or if you found it helpful, why don't you come and join my free Facebook group?
SPEAKER 2 - 07:04.2 Okay. That is moving somebody kind of from the very top of funnel. They haven't actually given me their details or anything like that yet, but I've moved them one step closer to me within that Facebook group.
SPEAKER 2 - 07:21.4 Then I know that I can then give more value than maybe I would on my. On my overall socials, you know, so. So you don't have to. Funnels don't have to be these really complicated things. It's just moving somebody a step closer to working with you.
SPEAKER 2 - 07:40.7 So that's. That's what I just wanted to say that, you know, you don't have to because we have this visual of the funnel. We kind of think that everybody goes into one funnel, but that's also not necessarily the case. So that's one type of funnel.
SPEAKER 2 - 07:56.6 So cand. Maybe you can just talk about the next sort of step. Yeah, in. In what we would call our sales funnel.
SPEAKER 1 - 08:06.0 So if we use this lingo, we would think to ourselves, okay, I need to get in front of people who don't know me because I want to expand how many clients coming, you know, would reach out to me.
SPEAKER 1 - 08:22.2 So excuse me. In my mind, we always want to be focusing on their top of funnel. Like, how can I get in front of more people, get more eyes on me, and then do something to invite them to take the next step with me. So our top of funnel in.
SPEAKER 1 - 08:37.9 In like lingo terms is usually like your cold traffic. People who do not know you. Top of funnel is cold traffic. Once you have offered them a way to take the next step with you, we would say that they start to engage with your funnel, they move into your funnel and kind of progress to where almost like I always have this picture in my mind of like a farm, you know, and imagine, you know, at a farm, they've got a place where they keep the horses.
SPEAKER 1 - 09:08.1 They've got a place like a little coop where all the chickens are, the cows are in the field, but there's a fence so that everyone is contained in the space they need to be in. And in my mind, it's like all the animals have gotten out, and now we need to get the right animals back into the right place.
SPEAKER 1 - 09:29.9 So your content that you put out to your cold audience and then invite them in is almost like saying, okay, where are my people? I need to find the right people. Oh, yes, you wanted this download from me.
SPEAKER 1 - 09:46.7 Okay, come. I'm gonna put you in. Like the chickens need to go in the coop. All my people need to come somewhere. And that could be something like an email list. Come. I'm gonna collect all the people that are interested in what I'm doing on my email list or in my Facebook group. So you kind of bringing them and kind of enclosing your people that are interested in what you're doing.
SPEAKER 1 - 10:08.4 And that is what we would call like mid funnel. So you've taken them into a collective space where now you can't ignore them, okay? Because imagine if we now have. We've got all our chickens and they back in their coop, and we don't feed them and we don't make sure they're okay.
SPEAKER 1 - 10:28.5 They will die. They will die. So we need to now look after our chickens. Our mid funnel people become warmer. They become closer to knowing more about us, maybe thinking about us differently. But you got to nurture them. You've got to really take care of them.
SPEAKER 1 - 10:45.1 So our mid funnel is where you would be doing things that in the digital world, they call, like, what is your nurture strategy? Like, what are you doing to take care of the people who have actually taken a step with you? So that's like mid funnel, right?
SPEAKER 1 - 11:00.9 And again, like Gail is saying, there's no one way to reach cold traffic and invite them in. There's no one way to collect your people mid funnel. There are lots of ways you could do it, like a Facebook group or an email list. You could even do it through things like paid advertising, you know, retargeting your ads to your warm people, meaning people that have actually engaged with your content.
SPEAKER 1 - 11:25.6 Your mid funnel strategy would be to retarget those people, right? So there are lots of ways you can do it. And from there, if you thinking about your funnel, like, well, what is the point of all of this? Why are we trying to get in front of people, find the right people, bring them somewhere?
SPEAKER 1 - 11:44.7 What is the point of this? Well, hopefully it's so that you can help them with the thing that you're really good at. So you need them to want to pay you for whatever it is that you can do. So even from mid funnel, we would want to move people from mid funnel to the end kind of process point, which people call the conversion point, which is actually when the person says, I'm ready, let's do this.
SPEAKER 1 - 12:14.0 How do I pay you? That for me, is a funnel, okay?
SPEAKER 2 - 12:18.6 And cand. So where people may get a little bit confused with this is the step between them joining. So maybe joining your Facebook group, maybe, you know, you've offered a freebie for a certain thing and they've come onto your email list.
SPEAKER 2 - 12:38.3 You know, however you've got them into sort of the mid part of your funnel, how does that relate to them buying something? Right? So you've always got to be thinking of that end point, the purchase point.
SPEAKER 2 - 12:57.0 You've always got to be thinking about, you know, the problem that you're. What you can help people with. Like, what is the problem that people are having that you could help them with and then moving backwards, because that's how we've got to think.
SPEAKER 2 - 13:13.4 People come in from top of funnel and eventually end up, as you say, in that little bit at the end. But we as online business owners have to think about it backwards. So we have to think about, you know what, our transformation, our promise.
SPEAKER 2 - 13:31.6 Transformation. I promise that if you are in this pain now, if you work with me, you will be. Your pain will have gone and I will have given you the transformation or the, the solution you're looking for. So there has to be a correlation between top of funnel coming into mid funnel and the end of funnel cand.
SPEAKER 2 - 13:55.7 And I know that this is something you talk about a lot, so I'm going to leave that.
SPEAKER 1 - 14:01.0 I just love you. Love that you made that point. Because for me, it's like everything in your business should have a point to it. Right? Like, every single thing you're doing if you're running a business is about making sales.
SPEAKER 1 - 14:20.2 And of course, it is about helping people. Of course it's about serving people. I'm not taking away from that. But ultimately your business is sales, right? You need to make money to stay in business. And it sounds so simple.
SPEAKER 1 - 14:37.9 I mean, when I started this five years ago, I was like, oh, okay, that's easy. I'll offer this, then they'll come in, then they'll work with me. It just sounds so easy. But where we get tripped up is, so what gailey's saying is 100% right.
SPEAKER 1 - 14:54.3 As a business owner, you have to be thinking backwards. The tricky bit is in not losing sight of what you know is going to help people in how you trying to attract them. It's like it's a very difficult thing to explain.
SPEAKER 1 - 15:10.7 I feel like now on a mic. But where I see the problem is that when you starting backwards and you know, you often lose sight of the person who's standing at the front and how they seeing it. So, yes, this is the skill.
SPEAKER 1 - 15:26.9 This is the skill skill of messaging. How do I take what I know but still communicate it in a way that the person who's right at the beginning is going to understand, Right?
SPEAKER 2 - 15:37.8 Yes.
SPEAKER 1 - 15:38.3 And so many business owners will have an idea of the freebie, but that idea is the idea they think the person needs. Okay, then no one's asking for the freebie. No one's downloading it. Okay. Because it's not.
SPEAKER 1 - 15:54.3 You haven't thought about it from the point of view of your person, you thinking about it as the end point of view, as the business owner. Okay? So that's a skill number one. If you do have a good freebie and people are asking for it. What I see all the time, and I understand it because as a solo one person team, there are so many things you have to do in your business, not even including the thing that you can actually do really well.
SPEAKER 2 - 16:24.0 Right.
SPEAKER 1 - 16:24.2 The thing that you actually only want to be doing is delivering what you can do.
SPEAKER 2 - 16:27.1 Okay.
SPEAKER 1 - 16:27.3 So now you have to be a marketer, you have to be a tech expert setting this all up. It's like there are just so many hours in a day. So what happens is I see these like incomplete funnels. So you've got a good freebie, people are asking for it, you deliver it in an email and that's becomes this dead end, half a funnel.
SPEAKER 1 - 16:51.0 Okay. Because email sequences haven't been written or you haven't thought through what makes sense. Now, what is the next step this person could take? Oh, I've actually got something I could present as a little micro offer here or maybe a tripwire or. You haven't even thought that far. It's like they're just too many pieces and you focused on getting people in.
SPEAKER 1 - 17:12.0 Get the freebie, get them on your list. And then you ignore the chickens. They all die. Or the chickens are there, but now they don't know where to go and they really are hungry. They like clucking around, where can I get this way? And. But there's nothing in front of them to help them take that next step.
SPEAKER 2 - 17:28.6 Absolutely. And I think as business owners, we've all been there. You know, it takes you, it takes you a while to create that freebie. It takes you a while to, you know, do the opt in pages and the thank you pages and you know, set up, you know, actually create the freebie, whatever it is, whether it's a, you know, a PDF or a quiz or a video series or whatever.
SPEAKER 2 - 17:53.7 And then we get it to the stage where, okay, we've got that first one to deliver it and then we kind of lose steam. Or maybe we've just only created the lead magnet and it's just waiting there for people. So yeah, can I think that that is.
SPEAKER 1 - 18:13.3 It's really. I see it all the time. I see it all the time. And you know what it's like. And the business owner knows it. It's like this thorn in this. They know. Oh my God, I'm so embarrassed to tell you, Candace, but like, I haven't even written that email.
SPEAKER 1 - 18:28.6 Like, they'll literally say, I'm so embarrassed. Please don't judge me. I'm like, no, I totally get it because yeah, you just day today running of your business, like, you know, it's, it's amazing that you're even generating income anyway with, without having completed that funnel. And I know, and it's okay, you know, and I'm just going to give a shout out because I know Gail is so humble, but actually this is like a thing Gail helps people with, you know, plugging those holes with incomplete funnels.
SPEAKER 1 - 18:57.6 You know, if you've got that funnel or you've just got the opt in page, but you haven't built out the rest, like, I will help you and I will write those email sequences for you. I will finish the funnel build for you. Because we know, Gail, how many of, of our clients, past clients, people we speak to have this problem.
SPEAKER 1 - 19:17.3 Like there's just a limit on what they can do. They know they want to do it and like looking for the right people to help them. So I know you are like very humble, but she, you are so brilliant at what you do. Do you want to maybe tell people about this skill that you have?
SPEAKER 2 - 19:34.8 Sure. So, you know, my background is in the kajabi space, so I, I love the back end of kajabi. I know not many people do, but it's kind of where I, when I start working on the back end of kajabi, I just kind of relax and I just work through it.
SPEAKER 2 - 19:52.6 Like, I just, I just get it. So with the skills that I've built up, you know, over the last five years, I, I help people get unstuck. So if you've got incomplete funnels, I can tell you exactly what needs to be finished up.
SPEAKER 2 - 20:10.5 You know, what we need to do, the words we need to have on the page. And again, those email sequences. I think people hate email sequences and so. Or writing email sequences. So, yeah, I can help you to write the email sequences.
SPEAKER 2 - 20:26.6 So the nurture through to the sales and yeah, you know, really. And it's not just your kind of simple freebie funnels. You know, if you're having a launch and you're doing a webinar, I can help you with, you know, opt in pages, thank you pages, reminder emails, promo emails, pretty much everything to do with your funnels.
SPEAKER 2 - 20:52.7 So. Yeah, and for. If you're listening to this, in May of 2025, I've got sort of two places open to do that with clients. And if you're listening to this after May 2025, you know, just get hold of me if this is something that you want to do, and I'll let you know, you know, where we are at the time.
SPEAKER 2 - 21:15.8 But at the moment, I'm running a bit of a special on those two services. And the other thing that I wanted to just say is that if you are creating your first freebie, I also have just completed a course called the Two Hour AI Lead Magnet.
SPEAKER 2 - 21:37.0 And it will basically take you from before you've even got the idea, or take you from idea if you've got an idea, refine it with you, and then ultimately create your lead magnet using AI.
SPEAKER 2 - 21:54.4 It'll take you about two hours, maybe less. But it's a very. It's a very strategic plan and we make sure that you don't make the biggest mistake, which I see people making all the time. And that is creating a freebie that they think is cool, rather than a freebie that is going to be the bridge between the person coming into your world and.
SPEAKER 2 - 22:19.9 And the person buying your offer. So with that freebie, we work backwards and we create.
SPEAKER 1 - 22:26.6 Yeah, amazing. Amazing. And we can link that, Gail, because.
SPEAKER 2 - 22:30.3 Yes, we can link that.
SPEAKER 1 - 22:31.6 Okay.
SPEAKER 2 - 22:31.9 Yes. That's already amazing. Yeah.
SPEAKER 1 - 22:34.0 Oh, that's awesome. And I mean, even. Even. I was even just thinking now that is even for someone that's maybe got a funnel that's working really well, that's still a helpful resource, you know, to help you think, what could my next freebies. That's amazing.
SPEAKER 1 - 22:49.4 Okay, so we'll link that for anyone who wants to grab that. And just, you know that when your funnel is in a medal, you know, then Gail is the person who can help you literally get all those bits and pieces in place.
SPEAKER 1 - 23:06.7 And it's like such a relief when you're like, oh, I finally did it. I finally wrote that email sequence.
SPEAKER 2 - 23:14.1 Yeah. And it's all in place.
SPEAKER 1 - 23:16.3 Yes. And I think again, you know, like Gail mentioned how we saying if you just try to take these complex concepts and think about it in a way that makes sense to you, simplify it. Okay. It's just the steps I need to put in place to help people move through just having met me to wanting to work with me, knowing that it takes some people, like I was telling Gail this morning, I met someone three years ago who was not ready at the time, and last month reached out to say, can I meet you again?
SPEAKER 1 - 23:54.3 And they're ready. So people move through funnels or the process at different paces. That's it. A sales funnel is really just the process you're going to take someone through from just discovering you to eventually wanting to pay you to work with you.
SPEAKER 1 - 24:12.0 And there are lots of ways you can do it. There are lots of ways you can bring people in, put them in the right place, nurture them, offer them things to get them to that conversion point. So in a very simple way, that's how we think about funnels.
SPEAKER 1 - 24:27.6 And if there are questions like we see that whenever we speak about funnels on our podcast, like we have much higher like rates. People are listening. More people are clearly interested in funnels. So drop us your questions, we'll answer them. No problem.
SPEAKER 1 - 24:43.5 You can email us at team the grit reapers.com you can DM me or Gail directly. We're available. We're listening. And don't let your funnel get you in a muddle.
SPEAKER 2 - 24:56.3 Amazing.
SPEAKER 1 - 24:57.7 Cool guys, we will catch you next week. Take care and yeah, think about your business cleverly.
SPEAKER 2 - 25:04.1 Okay, have a great week. Rest of your week, everybody.
SPEAKER 1 - 25:07.9 Okay, ciao