Funnel Building

The Case For FG Funnels…

…and why if you’re going to believe me about anything, trust me with this.

I’m going to be honest.

I’m hella annoyed at myself.

I have a problem, and that problem is called extreme introversion.

Even though I do a really good “fake extrovert” act, when left to my own devices, I hide. Or more accurately, I put my head down and work. I focus on my clients, customers, and people in my immediate sphere, and ignore everyone and everything else.

Sure it has its upside. But it means I am not as loud or visible or outspoken as I should be.

And now, after having my head down for the last 12-18 months, I’m realizing, that there is a consequence to this trait.

Lots of people who look to me for advice, aren’t getting it. Because I’m too busy in my hole to come out and say, “Hey! This is really important. Pay attention!”

But two random phone calls today snapped me out of it.

More people need to know about FG Funnels, why it’s positioned as the BEST solution for every course creator and service provider, and why you’re losing out if you’re not hanging with us.

It’s a bold promise, but I have some good arguments I’m about to put out there. So if you hang with me, hopefully I can make a bit of sense.

But first, let’s talk about you. Your business. Your dream. Your future.

Most online businesses have less overhead than a brick and mortar business, this is true. But where you decide to “set up shop” is as important as the physical location you choose.

There are a lot of options for marketing automation software these days.

  • Kartra
  • ClickFunnels
  • Kajabi
  • Infusionsoft
  • Ontraport
  • Groove Funnels
  • Drop Funnels
  • WordPress
  • Samcart
  • Some combination of tools (Teachable, ConvertKit, LeadPages, etc.)

Most of them have payment structures that increase as you grow.

They all offer landing pages, carts + checkouts, automations, messaging, etc. with varying features stacks, benefits, etc.

Chances are, you have one (or more) of these tools. And once you’re on a tool, it’s a pain in the ass to move. So most people will hang out in a “good enough” tool because they don’t want to go through the headache of a migration.

  1. Maybe you joined because of an affiliate deal from an influencer you follow.
  2. Maybe you locked in some ridiculous lifetime deal.
  3. Maybe a service provider only worked in one particular tool and you just went with it.

Whatever the reason, you are on one of the above softwares and wondering what I could possibly say that would change your mind.

Let’s begin…

#1 – Unlike a “starter” home, you do not want a starter home for your business

I remember when I bought my first starter home. The idea was you bought a small house you could afford, and then later when you had more $$, you would move to a better bigger house. This is NOT the way to do it online. And here’s why….

  1. The larger you are, the harder it is to move
  2. Longevity on domains matter (for Google)
  3. There is nothing more terrifying than running a multi million dollar empire on a software that is depreciated, has shitty support, or requires some expensive specialist to run

Every single (with 100% success) multi millionaire online business owner that has moved to FG Funnels has bemoaned that they wished they had moved when they were smaller and less was at stake.

The time to move is when you’re small…even when the price doesn’t appear to make sense at first (and FG Funnels is at an incredibly affordable $119/m regardless of how big you are so it’s a no brainer).

I remember talking to my client Michelle who was trying to decide when to move off ClickFunnels, and she was terrified since she has SO MANY funnels and sequences and runs a hefty five figures of traffic a month to her domains.

The Takeaway: Move to your forever digital home (meaning your software solution) while you’re small. Every day you get bigger, it gets harder.

#2 – If we know we need to be on our forever digital home ASAP, we want one that can grow with us

Alright, so if you believe me that picking a scalable permanent digital home is the best way to ensure you grow without stress, then the next step is to pick the home that will give you the best most solid foundation. This means the following:

  • A history of pushing out features and fixing bugs quickly
  • A thumbs up from the general market in terms of being a “market leader” (through things like raising money, etc.)
  • A commitment to excellence in the software, not just the marketing of it
  • A system that helps you with the five main things all businesses need (CRM, Funnel + Web Builders, Membership, Email/Text, + Automations)

The only company right now doing this – HEADS AND TAILS ABOVE THE REST – is High Level. This company pushes out features faster than any other system on the market, BY A MILE.

They have raised over $60m in funding.

They have decided not to market their software AT ALL, instead they let white label providers do it (like us) and focus exclusively on the software itself.

They have committed to making the best software in all five areas of marketing automation (plus many more I’m not even mentioning).

High Level has over 180 developers, with two owners that are boots on the ground with some of the best marketers around. They haven’t let their success go to their heads. They don’t create a cult. In fact, you will find them hanging out in hoodies and sneakers at their event, talking with everyday users.

In fact, one of the owners of High Level, turned down a VIP dinner because I had invited him out to a meal and he didn’t want to cancel on me. I don’t think I can vouch harder for a more down to Earth founder than Robin Alex who is the co-founder of High Level.

The Takeaway: For your forever home, pick a software that has a good reputation, ample funding, a commitment to excellence, listens to its power users, and understands the needs of marketing software. 

#3 – Find a High Level provider that will take the big money powerful software and tuck it away into a concierge, “small town feel” solution

So you’re on board to pick a permanent digital home, you know what you need to focus on for a good scalable solution and know that it is in fact High Level, so the next step is to pick a High Level provider that will give YOU the shortcuts you need.

This is where FG Funnels comes in.

We were white labeling High Level as a SaaS before it was trendy to do so. We started in 2020, long before the big and mighty mass migration away from ClickFunnels in 2022. For two years, we’ve been quietly building a solid infrastructure around the software.

What do we mean?

  1. Amazing and easy to reach customer support. In fact, I had someone DM me privately to tell me about her amazing experience with someone from our team. You can just email us at support@fgfunnels.com.
  2. FREE premium design templates. We’ve spent over six figures designing funnel templates that are imagined by a professional graphic designer, complete with tutorials, assets, colorways, logos, and more. We have an entire preview page to show you.
  3. The best education around. People are constantly trying to steal our education about marketing software because it’s so good. We have free and low cost education products that help you take action fast.
  4. An eco-system of providers. We certify funnel builders and build communities that have each others back. You get the power of High Level, with the small town feel of a community that helps one another. Something many of the big players can’t offer.

The Takeaway: Use FG Funnels since it has a 2 year head start in building a solid infrastructure that helps you get the education, templates, and shortcuts you need.

#4 – Avoid the other ‘flash in the pan’ solutions that might not be ready for longterm growth

The big migration away from ClickFunnels is underway. 2.o hasn’t yet come to fruition on its promise and so lots of people are leaving ClickFunnels for a High Level white label provider. Many of the big affiliates in ClickFunnels (yes, like us too but 2.5 years ago) decided to white label High Level themselves and have a go at building our own solution on top of High Level.

What most people don’t realize? It’s not easy. And big names have tried and quit. Because frankly, they are better marketers than they are software peeps. And that’s fine! Everyone should play to their strengths.

But this is why many many people are now affiliating for us vs. running their own version of High Level, because they know we’ve done the work to build a strong infrastructure for our community. This is what we do well.

We started this game before it was “trendy”. In fact, we were running High Level as a SaaS before they even had SaaS mode enabled.

We have had smaller agencies and HL providers come to us and ask to partner with us instead of going out on their own because the infrastructure component of white labeling High Level is not for the faint of heart. So when you sign up for FG Funnels, you’re getting a rock solid stable team of marketers and customer support that will make sure you succeed.

And if you’re an agency or a Saaspreneur that prefers marketing and teaching to customer support and operations, you might be a great fit to partner or affiliate for us. Just reach out!

The takeaway: When choosing a white labeled High Level provider (like FG Funnels), choose one who has been around and has longterm viability.

#5 – Know what you’re getting!

So here’s what you get when you sign up for FG Funnels.

  1. A fully unlimited account. This means that you only pay extra for the things that incur hard costs (like phone and/or texting). You don’t pay more when you have more domains, courses, students, contacts, users, etc.
  2. Live chat, email support, and office hours. All three. Five days a week.
  3. Premium design templates. These are not quick and shoddy templates thrown together. These are original designs, built in Illustrator by Cathy Olson, and then replicated. You get ALL of them… for free as a user.
  4. FGF University. This isn’t just a basic knowledgebase. This is strategy infused training to help you leverage FG Funnels! Just click Learn FG Funnels from inside the app.
  5. Access To Our Automations Shop. Want to skip the headache of building workflows? Buy an automation (with copy built in) and get your automations up and running for a fraction of the cost of a provider to do it for you. Just click Automations on the sidebar inside the app.
  6. Affiliate Commission. Want to sign up and earn 40% lifetime recurring revenue for every person you bring to FG Funnels? Sign up with us!
  7. Education Products + Coaching. For those ready to spend some money learning, all our education products leverage 1 click installs of funnels and templates for FG Funnels.
  8. Community Support. Whether you’re asking in our FB group, attending an office hours, or submitting a job posting on Hire A Marketer, we have people who have your back.
  9. Weekly Release Notes. Keep up to date with what’s happening with the software through our weekly release notes that we send to all our users.
  10. Savings by the thousands! Get rid of all your other software (yes all of it!) and keep your overhead low on your tools so you can spend money on the things that matter most, like marketing and advertising. Our users are saving hundreds to thousands a month.

The takeaway: We’ve spent two years building our infrastructure so our users feel supported and able to leverage the power of FG Funnels to grow their businesses.

#6 – If you’re ready to make the jump and nervous about the migration…

We’re not going to lie. Migrations are tough and annoying. But they are the easiest they are going to be…today. It will only get harder from here. So we’re going to do our best to help!

  1. We have a free course called Move To Gorgeous that you can take for the DIY.
  2. Need some xtra strategy support? Email us at support@fgfunnels.com and we’ll give you some options.
  3. Access our 30 day trial when you sign up for our course, Easy Launch It!

The takeaway: Bite the bullet and do it. This will be one of the only times I say, “Just take my word for it”. It’s your best option, I promise! I wouldn’t be so sure if I wasn’t so convinced for myself and my highest VIP clients.

#7 – Understand just how much you’re getting…

Without rewriting our sales page, here’s what you unlock as an FG Funnels user….

  1. You get a full customer relationship manager to manage your contacts and all their information.
  2. You can also create unlimited calendars (for both teams and individual) for booking appts, taking sales calls, etc. You can add forms and take payments, fully customize the calendar look, etc.
  3. You can email, text, DM, phone, voicemail drop – basically message your leads ANYWAY you’d like.
  4. You can have unlimited courses, products, funnels, checkouts, domains, students, etc.
  5. We have built in rebilling for both texting and email.
    1. Only pay for what you use
    2. You decide how much to put in your “balance” and we charge you per text or email
  6. We have native hosting for video.
  7. Unlimited automations for your courses, funnels, appts, everything.
  8. Do surveys and quizzes.
  9. Yes, you can set up your website and blog.
  10. Yes, you can use the social post planner.
  11. Yes, we’re integrating with Chat GPT to help with AI and content creation.
  12. Yes, we have premium triggers (which removes the need for Zapier) to connect to virtually any third party (just pay as you need).
  13. Yes, we have sales pipelines.
  14. Yes, we have tasks and unlimited users and notes.
  15. Yes, you can hook up any of your custom solutions.
  16. Yes, you can sign up your clients and be added to their accounts as admin for effortless toggling back and forth.
  17. Yes, you can get your account paid for when you sign up 3 or 4 other people.
  18. Yes, you can use all of the premium designs.
  19. Yes, those that run traffic LOVE the more granular reporting.
  20. Yes, you can fully customize the funnels and website.
  21. Yes, it has a built in affiliate program.

The takeaway: When in doubt, the answer is yes.

Okay so this has gone on long enough. I’ve been around the block when it comes to marketing automation software.

I’ve been a power user of ClickFunnels, Ontraport, LeadPages, WordPress, FG Funnels, and too many other softwares to count. We’re running our business on FG Funnels, and we’re ready to help you run yours too.

xx

 

Julie Chenell

Inside the Course Chemist Launch

Today I want to breakdown some of the details about our most recent launch at Funnel Gorgeous.

This was the first time releasing Course Chemist, so those first time launches are always fun, but this one had one big wrench in it.

We basically thought no one would buy because we gifted it to 700 of our most loyal diehard customers. Because of that, we didn’t have super high hopes of an amazing result, we simply wanted to get the content out there because it’s so desperately needed.

So how did it go?!

393 students purchased!

A lot of people are curious how the numbers break down on each day so here’s the cumulative revenue for each day of the cart being open.

  • $15,366 on Sunday
  • $6,895 on Monday
  • $8,405 on Tuesday
  • $9,883 on Wednesday
  • $9,877 on Thursday
  • $24,625 on Friday

As you can see, the first and last day of a launch are always the biggest. This is why you really don’t need long launches. In fact, the longer they are, the more chance you have for mindset trash and other issues to come in and cause problems. Five to six days is our favorite.

Typically our launches have a bigger first day than last because of our early bird special. But we didn’t have one for this so last minute buyers beat out day one.

One additional point about our revenue: We actually earned more than what is listed because we offered Course Chemist for free for anyone who enrolled in FG Society. We had a lot of people interested in FGS + Course Chemist, so it was a chance to finally bite the bullet and dive in for both.

We had 18 additional FGS students join last week, which added an additional $11881 in sales (with more coming due to payplans and the pay as you go nature).

Cash collected –> $77,929 with enough coming in later on FGS to *technically* call it a six figure launch. ????

We’re super excited about our audience’s reaction to Course Chemist and despite our concerns about investing all this time + money into a course that we were giving away for free, it turned out to be quite the profitable launch.

What We Didn’t Do

We didn’t do:

  • Webinar
  • Big affiliate push
  • Paid ads
  • Lead generation leading up to it
  • A challenge

We also didn’t offer a payplan. It was just a straight $197. The nice part about this is there was very little in the way of customer service issues because there was only one option.

The Power of Building A Strong Brand

We had this level of success without one testimonial on the sales page. In part because it’s new, but also because we have a reputation in the industry and people were ready to buy without obvious social proof. Another +1 for strong memorable branding and reputation.

#marketingwithheartisprofitable

We did do a livestream, Clubhouse, design teardown, emails, IG stories, posts, and a plot twist!

The MOST Important Question

Whenever I’m helping someone with a launch, especially projecting revenue, I always ask one question: How many humans do you think you can get to the offer? Most people have no idea about this number.

And it’s not a matter of a simple benchmark. You have to create your OWN benchmark based on your following size, marketing, etc.

So whenever possible, I like to peel back the curtain to show you what Funnel Gorgeous can do. It helps to set expectations.

With our following of 32k on an email list, plus 10k FB group, etc. we were able to get 2990 people to the sales page in six days. If we’d used ads, it would have been a lot more. But some of you reading might be surprised that a following of our size led to 3000 people on the page. THIS is the number everyone overestimates. Learn how to estimate this. (This is something we teach in Launch Gorgeous).

What it means is that the beautiful Course Chemist sales page that Cathy styled converted at 13.1% to our warm audience!

If we cut that conversion rate in half or 2/3’s, that would be a good estimate for cold traffic. Which is between 3-4% – benchmark for a cold conversion rate.

Hope you found some helpful nuggets there!

xx

 

Julie Chenell

The SLO Funnel Stages of Grief

If I could spare even just one more person from this rollercoaster, I would. Which is why I’m writing this post today.

Many of you know that I am a 1:1 private coach to everyone in my Digital Insiders mastermind. Inside my program they get access to my content, an incredible community, some amazing coaches, plus access to me in three ways…

  • 1:1 via Voxer daily (yes I will answer Voxers every single weekday so many of them I speak to on the daily)
  • Weekly audit (I will review one piece of your business a week – funnel, ad, email, P&L, etc.)
  • Weekly group meetings (this month we’re doing a Copy Clinic as we work along the new FG Society Phase 2 Content)
  • Periodic hotseats – Sometimes you just need 20-25 minutes to hash out one particular issue so I’ll do Zoom calls for these moments

This means I’m in the unique position of working with 75 people in a really integrated and deep way on their businesses and their funnels. And if I could give you a sneak peek into my Voxer account when someone is building, launching, starting an SLO funnel (sometimes called a low ticket funnel or a tiny offer), then you would start to see REMARKABLE patterns emerging.

They are SO obvious to me now but that’s the great honor and privilege I have as a coach who is helping others. So now I’d like to outline the typical life cycle of grief that one goes through when building this type of funnel.

I say grief because there is a lot of letting go in this process. More than you might think. And yes, even when things go SUPER well (as you’ll see).

Without further ado, let’s begin.

Before You Launch Your SLO Funnel

1. Someone joins Digital Insiders and sees all the talk about the SLO and gets REALLY excited to build one for their business. Using the Offer Cure and a few other resources, usually within a few weeks – they have a solid idea and a ton of momentum. We are SQUARELY in the honeymoon phase here. In fact, sometimes my job as a coach is to convince them that they shouldn’t build two SLO’s at once. ????

2. After going back and forth on Voxer, and me doing an audit on their idea – it’s time to build. Some people decide to do the copy and build themselves (they use Offer Cure, Phase 2 of FG Society, as well as an FG template and they get it built). It goes through a few weekly audits as Helen (one of my coaches) helps with copy, and then it comes to me for copy review and design review. It’s normal for this to come through my audit board at least 3 or 4 times before launch.

3. At this stage, there’s a bit of ???? going on. Every time they send it to me, there are revisions. And more revisions. And that doesn’t even include building the content itself. If they haven’t let go of the idea that this “tiny” offer is actually mammoth in effort, they will now. SLO’s are some of the hardest types of funnels to build! There’s a bit of grief here. It comes in the form of “How the hell with this thing get launched and I’m never doing this again!” One of my other coaches Jessie, is a huge help to most people who need tech support and automation help as the logistics of the building are taking place.

4. What happens next depends on if you’re a Tatiana type SLO builder or a Ashley type SLO builder. Tatiana (an original Insider) was so busy in her service business, it seemed her original SLO would NEVER launch. At some point, I had major bribes and warnings that if she didn’t get it out the door, I’d stop answering her Voxers. ???? Ashley was different. She was moving at lightning speed because she had an agenda. She was gonna crack six figures come hell or high water because she was ready to be done with service based work. I see all variations of Tatiana’s and Ashley’s in my group – and both really end up at the same finish line, just with slightly different timelines. *Both went on to have six figure funnels*

During The Launch Of Your SLO Funnel

5. This has the same level of excitement and nerves as a wedding day. Again, you’ll notice there are a few types of people here in this moment.

  • Those that want to know EVERY LITTLE DETAIL about ads, obsessing about everything from time of day, to day of the week, to exact budgets, creative, etc. Their desire for information helps quell the nerves about spending (and really – betting $1000) on themselves and their work.
  • Then there are those that can’t bear learning ONE MORE THING and want to just hand it off to someone else. Either way, the butterflies and “moment of truth” feeling is intense. These folks have spent all their energy just getting it built, it’s like asking someone who just finished a marathon to go ahead and run another one with Facebook Ads. Just.No.
  • I’ve gotten late night Voxers where people have decided their SLO sucks and they want to totally redo it, right before it’s done. I also have people who launch it WITHOUT doing all the things I advise, in sort of a “Well if it doesn’t do well, I’m just testing it anyway” type of self-sabotage response. All in an attempt to mitigate their expectation if it doesn’t work.
  • And then there are the people that are sure they will have $100k in their account in just a few days (none of these people are in Digital Insiders because I am working with them 1:1 and I want to be DAMN sure they have reasonable expectations before they switch on ads).

6. Approximately 4-24 hours into the test… everyone in DI knows that they need to spend $1000 in just a few days. I don’t want them to launch with less. So another layer of grief sets in if they hit one of the following scenarios…

  • They have a trickle of sales and realize as much as they mentally prepared for not quite making their money back in the first test, it’s one thing to expect it, and another thing to feel it. The urge to turn off the ads is STRONG. The voxer convo goes something like this, “Send me the stats. Let’s take a look. Don’t turn off the ads yet. We’re not at $1000.”
  • They have a CRAZY amount of sales, way more than they thought, and there is no grief in sight. It’s just “HOLY CRAP!” Screenshots of Stripe accounts, Apple Watches with Stripe dings, and all kinds of excitement. This is insane! My job now is to celebrate with them, but I’m still looking at the stats, wanting to see what about the funnel and/or ads is doing so well. The urge here is to make big decisions quickly because you’re on a high. We work on not doing that just yet. I remember Ashley was ready to close up shop in her other business about a week into her funnel and I was like…HOLY WOW. Okay hang on. LOL (turns out her funnel was a unicorn type and she went on to crack six figures in 30 days).
  • No sales. Heart crushing even if you’re ready for it. The Internet didn’t like it. After 24 hours of no sales if you’re running $300 a day in ads, we pause the ads to see what is not connecting. This is a really hard pill to swallow but it happens more than you think. The only people who really lose in this game are the ones who give up entirely. If you don’t, you’ll eventually get it working. One of our best tactics here is to see if we can find a warm/hot body of traffic to send the funnel to so we can see if it’s a rapport or trust building issue. Grief here is self-explanatory.

Post Launch SLO Funnel

7. This is the part most people don’t talk about. Up until now, you might have expected most of this. But here’s where the rubber meets the road in this funnel game, and what happens here, is everything. Before we dive in, a few things I want to share. Most people post launch with an SLO fall into one of four camps…

  1. They spent $1000 and made $500 back (ish).
  2. They spent $1000 and broke even.
  3. They spent $1000 and made $1200.
  4. They spent $1000 and made $3000+.

8. In the case of #1 + #2, the name of the game is going back to the drawing board, not to redo things, but to optimize. If they’ve got the right mindset that this is a long term game, the horizon is bright. The hardest work is done. Now it’s singular focus on optimization and experimentation. It’s important to note that I work with them to make sure they understand whether or not the funnel was broken or working. MANY working funnels are not profitable. I repeat, many working funnels are not profitable. This is another stage of grief. Recognizing you can have a working funnel that isn’t on its own profitable.

9. In the case of #3, these are the hardest waters to swim in. There’s a lot of grief and frustration when they try to scale because the profit margins are so slim, it’s like just enough candy to think they can hit these crazy goals, but as is true with scaling, scaling typically eats some profit and will push these WORKING funnels into no profit land. If they are working with a FB ads agency and that ads agency isn’t doing ads for any other funnels, the monthly management fee immediately pushes these funnels into the negative as well.

In essence, it feels like a catch 22. If you want to scale, you have to be ready to eat profit. If you want to use an agency, you have to be ready to eat profit. No one wants to do either because the funnel is “teasing” them with ROAS that looks like with enough tweaking, it’ll become a unicorn.

IMPORTANT! I’ve seen funnels (for example Jennifer) who’s funnel started like this and after 12 months of continual optimization (and her doing her own ads) she got it to $20k profitability per month (which is epic for a $27 offer). That takes dedication. And moving through your grief of what you thought this would look like. And it means not giving up when your ad account goes down (which it did for her). It was not a smooth ride and most people would have given up.

Others sort of toggle back and forth between using an ads manager, and then doing it themselves. Each time trying to eeek out a bit of profit while still optimizing. The most important thing I can do here as a coach is work with them to understand lifetime value and to continue to build out a company, not just place all the hopes and dreams on one funnel. We also work to “catch” the fall off with excellent follow up, launches, etc.

I’ve seen funnels like this grow and grow in profitability, and I’ve seen others sort of hang in this minimal ROAS space for months.

10. In the case of #4, this is one of the most fun results, but also – the higher the high, the harder the crash. With these funnels, they do amazingly well for a month or two or even three. But ALL of them, even the incredible ones, do crash and burn. Whether it’s a disabled ad account, rising CPA’s, hiring an agency that didn’t scale properly, or just fatigue, eventually the unicorn funnel stops producing at that level.

The grief is intense here. And it can be mixed with fear because as they funnels grow, so do expenses. The ads team, the customer service, and most importantly, the pressure. So when things inevitably tank, the pressure is on to figure it out and get it back to its heyday fast.

Over time, the people in this camp come to accept that this is a pretty typical lifecycle for a unicorn funnel. And just like in the other scenarios, my job as a coach is to help the person build a company and suite of products that help mitigate a few bad months on a funnel. We build out a whole value ladder. Look at lifetime value.

I remind them the importance of spending to acquire a customer, even if you’re not getting 10x out like you once were.

Many of these people will go back and forth between agencies, doing it themselves, and hiring an in person team. Most importantly, as their business grows, something cool happens…

They stop focusing so much on the metrics of JUST one funnel. They start seeing the marketing budget as a part of a system that feeds the whole. They see the interconnectivity of organic traffic, paid traffic, and multiple offers through a customer journey.

And that’s really the end goal of all of these scenarios. Because once you get here, you can truly appreciate the POWER of a funnel and what it can do, no matter which kind you happen to get.

  • Waking up to sales you didn’t have to personally close
  • Learning that the side benefit of building a customer list vs. a subscriber list is you have people ready to buy further products
  • Developing a system to continue to build funnels in your company
  • The acceptance of how paid traffic works in a company and taking a more holistic view of your business than just one funnel

Funnels are amazing and like children, also a pain in the ass.

Many of these businesses have moved through this cycle, stuck with it, and come out the other side ready to keep building, keep growing, and keep letting go.


A couple last notes…

I have about 10 spots remaining in Digital Insiders. If you’re making $100k a year and ready to scale and invest in a coach/mastermind, I invite you to apply.

If you’re not there yet, but really want to build this type of funnel, make sure you’re on the waitlist for Launch Gorgeous. We’re launching another live experience in September and it’s not to be missed!

Was this helpful for you? Let me know in the comments below!

Inside Digital Insiders With Ashley Buffa’s $70k in 30 Days Funnel


If you missed our interview, you should definitely check it out over on Facebook!


Ashley joined Digital Insiders in May 2019, and there have been some exciting developments in her business over the last 9 months that I want to share with you!

We met at ClickFunnels, where she was working as an agency owner/contractor there, and she was in charge of the messenger bot. We got to talking and one day, she told me she was really hoping to launch an online brand about being a mom/parenting, etc. A few weeks later she joined Digital Insiders to help grow that brand.

And as you know how life goes, just a month or two later, she found out she was pregnant with… wait for it… her 10th child! ????

Now the pressure was on. She had nine months to really light this brand up, because agency work really isn’t conducive to a newborn.

So how did it all go down?

Step one: First she decided to launch her Freedom Moms Challenge internally to her small list of 1000 people. She didn’t have an OTO, so we did a small pressure launch with just one product…and her results were good. People bought it! The market had showed her that yes, they did want this product. But they also showed her that they wanted something else…

That valuable market feedback from her audience was the catalyst for what happened next. Turns out, moms think the solution to reducing the amount of housework they do is to get their kids on board with doing chores. And as is typical with people who have superhuman skills, Ashley hadn’t realized that her ability to get her kids to do chores was in fact a big deal! She had a skill to share!

Step two: We brainstormed the next funnel and out of that came Smart Kids Chores. This was a classic funnel, with an order bump and an OTO. She did a Power Launch (this is a term I’ve coined for launching a low ticket funnel with ads – and is explained IN DEPTH inside of the course Launch Gorgeous). Her funnel consisted of…

  • A $49 chores course
  • A $12 order bump with SOP’s for kids chores
  • A $29 OTO for the Freedom Moms Challenge

Ashley went against the grain in a couple of ways… first she charged more for her front end than is typical for a Power Launch Funnel. Next, she charged LESS for her OTO. Finally she pre-sold this offer (something I don’t usually recommend on a low ticket funnel). Just goes to show that taking chances does pay off (as long as you’re aware you’re taking those risks).

Step three: Design the funnel! She used the Funnel Ink design – and submitted her funnel and copy for an audit inside of DI. We tweaked and tweaked, until we were sure it was good to go for her $1000 Facebook Ad Test.

(By the way, if you’re interested in the types of tweaks I recommend plus the Facebook Ad test, you should check out Funnel Rx – the special offer after Offer Cure)

I wish people could see inside my daily Voxer routine. I have 75 Insiders so on any given day, I’m spending a solid 2-3 hours answering questions on all things marketing, funnels, mindset, etc.

Step four: Do the $1000 ads test. Ashley was nervous. You can hear it in her voice when she described fearing that this funnel thing wouldn’t work for her.

Turns out, her nerves were not needed. She was profitable from day one with her ads!

Step five: Optimize. She submitted the funnel two more times to me for review, and we continued to optimize the page using the checklists I made for DIers (inside Funnel Rx). Her conversion rate slowly climbed, as did her ad spend, and her profit.

  • Her sales page is currently converting at about 3.7%.
  • Her order bump is around 84%.
  • Her OTO is around 45%.

She used the spreadsheet in Module 4 of Funnel Rx to assess her numbers and got three green lights! That means that she proceeds to the stage of micro-optimizations rather than macro-optimizations.

The first thing I noticed when we sat down to look at her numbers was how unbelievably high her order bump was. The solution to that? Raise the price until the conversion is sitting at around 40-50%.

Ashley turned her ads on on December 5th.

At the 30 day mark, she’s spent $20,185 in ads and earned over $71,000 in revenue.

That’s a $50,000 month she just had – and if you had asked her if she was okay spending $20,000 in ads on that first day she would have been nervous. But that’s the thing people don’t realize.

Once you’re making profit, you can roll some of that money back into ads and continue to scale!

At the end of the interview, you’ll hear Ashley talking about how grateful she is for not just the coaches in DI, but the members as well.

I received a voxer message from her about two weeks into this funnel launch. She thanked me for creating Digital Insiders – because she knows it was the pivotal thing that helped her create, build, launch, and grow a product that will allow her to take her maternity leave, enjoy her 10th baby, and not have to grind 24/7 to make ends meet.

Ashley has some big plans for later in 2020, where she’ll be rolling out some new programs for her growing audience. She is one to watch!

If you’re interested in working with me, here are three ways you can…

  1. Start by picking up a copy of Offer Cure + Funnel Rx – where my partner Cathy and I team up to bring you the best in offer and funnel training.
  2. Next, if you’re ready to launch something new, get on the waitlist for Launch Gorgeous. That program is a curriculum created DIRECTLY as a result of working and launching with Insiders for the last two years (plus my experience at ClickFunnels), and is also with Cathy and Funnel Gorgeous!
  3. Finally, if you’re making $100,000 a more a year, and you’re ready to join a high end mastermind and worked directly with me 1:1, you can apply to Digital Insiders. Membership is limited to 100 and we’re more than 75% full.

Hitting the 1 Comma Club With The $1k Facebook Ad Test (Case Study With Tatiana’s Funnel Boards)

As the Voxer message came through, I braced myself for a panicked message.

After all, this is what happens nearly 100% of the time. No matter how many times I prepare and warn my mastermind clients about the feeling of dropping $1000 in 72 hours on ads, all my reassuring words of advice and logic fly right out the window once the ads have been live for 24 hours. I’ve come to expect it, and know that it’s just part of the process.

But this particular morning, I was pleasantly surprised when Tatiana’s message came in (she’s given permission to be featured in this post by the way)…

Believe it or not, this is NOT normal. Usually, it’s more like this…”WHY AREN’T PEOPLE BUYING MY PRODUCT YET?”

I usually login to their account, pull up the stats and see something like:

  • Pageviews = 41
  • Sales = 0
  • Ad $$ Spent = $175

And then I begin my very calming reminder of why we wait 72 hours and $1000 before making ANY decisions about the funnel. By the way, if you haven’t listened to my podcast episode called “In Defense of my Controversial Facebook Ad Advice”  – you should listen. It goes into detail about my advice, why I give it, and what it produces when you do it that way.

But back to Tatiana…

She finally launched her funnel last week.

Important details to note:

  1. When my mastermind students want to launch something low ticket, I recommend a $27 to $37 front-end offer with NO lead magnet in front.
  2. Just a straight-up, GORGEOUS sales page (a la Funnel Gorgeous) to an offer that’s so juicy, I can’t even stand it.
  3. I make sure that their sales page checks off ALLLL the things on my sales page checklist (by the way, Tatiana’s is not complete by my standards yet, but I wanted to feature a real example, not a pretend perfect one).
  4. Once that’s done, I make sure there is an order bump and at least one OTO (I like the order bumps between $12-$37 and the OTO between $77-$97).
  5. Then, after testing and all that blah blah blah, we start the Facebook Ad Test.

What is The Facebook Ad Test?

For this type of offer, I want to spend $1000 in 72 hours…ish. About $333 a day.

Campaign Objective = PURCHASE

Yes, even on a new pixel. It’s scary, but we do it. Because you know what? It doesn’t make sense to dabble with ads. It’s just a waste of money (listen to my podcast). If your offer is good enough, it’ll convert usually at least 1 sale in three days at that price point. That’s what I’m looking for. Just any sign of life on planet funnel!”

You can do Campaign Budget Optimization or the old Ad Set Budget (which is sunsetting soon), but whatever you do, it’s about $300 a day or so….and it spans about 5-10 different audiences. If you have Lookalike audiences, DO THAT. But….whomp whomp, Tatiana has never run ads to an offer and has no list. So we had to do Facebook Interests Targeting.

Tatiana went after traditional entrepreneur audiences because her product are these insanely cool Trello boards that help you keep track of all 800 bazillion steps of funnel building. She knew people who liked Russell Brunson would like the boards.

Here’s the funnel thing: When you know you’re going to spend $1k in a few days, you make sure everything is working…way more carefully than if you dabble. The mindset shift is huge. She made a few ads and had all the ad sets compile onto the individual post IDs.

She was just about ready to go.

Then I got this Voxer message…

My response?

On Thursday at 9:59pm, she had two ads in review.

Not quite 24 hours later… this is what we had (about $130 in).

UNBELIEVABLY promising so soon in the campaign. Again, I’m looking for 1 sale per 100 people that see the offer. This is my benchmark to start. The test is designed to get data from Facebook, not to get rich in 5 minutes. Tatiana was excited!

The next day, the message I showed you at the top came in. $1k in sales in one day on $300 of ad spend.

Do you want to what’s hilariously funny?

The next day she only had one sale and turned off her ads. ???? I didn’t give her too much crap since she’d successfully completed her $1k test, but took a moment to remind her that you need to TRACK DAILY, DECIDE WEEKLY.

Never make ad decisions based on one day. Track the day, decide based on the week. It’s a golden rule of “Not going insane when running ads”.

 

What did her stats look like? Here’s the breakdown.

She had 745 people view the offer and 41 sales. That’s a buy rate of 5.5%. Which is VERY good.

Order bump is 9.9%. Already, super obvious this is the issue in her funnel. It should be above 20%.

Her OTO is KILLING it at 29%. I expect around 10% or so, so that’s amazing.

So at the end of her test, she had spent $1200 in ads which resulted in 24 sales with an average cart value of about $60.

She had an additional 17 sales from organic traffic sharing her product around, and also some of these were from the follow up sequence she created off the funnel. Note to self: Great offers get shared! 

What does she know now?

With a three day test with this much ad spend, she has so much important information she didn’t have before.

First, she has a validated offer…period. She NEVER has to worry again in the market wants it. They do. End of story.

She knows she needs a better order bump.

She needs to optimize the sales page per my checklist.

She needs to spend her time and energy on ADS. That’s the goal.

Isn’t that cool?

And even if she hadn’t had such a successful ad test (like MANY of my clients who don’t break even on the first shot), they at least get market validation.

This is why I advise the way I do. Go all in. Spend hard for a few days, make up your mind that you are paying for data, and get the data you need. Adjust and keep going. Please remember that this works best on a straight to sales page offer of $37 or less. There are other variables that come into play with different funnels. But the general rule is…

Stop dabbling, give it your best shot, and give your funnel the best chance of success!

xx Julie

P.S. I have another mastermind student who did this exact strategy and grossed over $85,000 last month. Too legit to quit. 🙂