Funnel Building

Inside Funnelhacking Live 2018


-To see all the Instagram Story highlights of FHL 2018, check me out on Instagram at https://instagram.com/juliechenell and peek at the FHL 2018 highlights on my story profile.


I really hope I can do this event justice. It’s going to be hard to capture the depth and breadth of emotion that I experienced over the last two weeks, but I know if I don’t write it down, the intensity will fade and I will have no record to remember!

Quick review if this is the first blog post you’re reading about me – I’m Julie. I run an online digital marketing business with a membership, course, and a mastermind group, and I’m also part of Russell Brunson’s Justice League.

This was my first Funnelhacking Live as an “insider” – and my oh my, what has changed in just one year.

In fact, last year I went to FHL 2017 in Dallas, and barely ANYONE knew me. It was an amazing event and I left super inspired and pumped up. So much so that over the next 12 months, I would go on to make a million dollars, win the dream car award as an affiliate, get a 2 comma club award, join his Inner Circle, explode my business, and then join Russell’s team as a coach and writer.

Funnelhacking Live is the best Internet Marketing event in the world…largely because it’s not JUST about marketing. It’s about business, life, relationships, heck even God. It’s incredible. And you should go. If you take nothing else from this post, take this – you do not want to miss next year.

Prior to arriving, I knew that I would be split in a million directions because of how many hats I was wearing…

  • I was there as a Clickfunnels team member
  • I was there as an attendee who is Inner Circle, 2 Comma Club Member, and Dream Car Winner
  • I was there as an entrepreneur with a business and following of people who’d want to come by and say hello
  • I was there as a 2 Comma Club X coach
  • I was there as a wife to my husband Alex
  • I was there as a mother to my son William
  • I was there as a Disney addict

Needless to say, this produced MASSIVE amounts of excitement, anticipation, AND some definite stress because I was never sure which “hat” needed to be on my head at any given time…and frankly…how many I could wear at once.

Day One – Monday

We arrived in Orlando around 12pm and William was completely over stimulated by the plane, buses, and monorails we took to arrive at our resort. He did something he never does – he fell dead asleep in my arms.

Carrying a sleeping William across Disney World is super fun.

We managed to transfer him and ourselves to our room at the Port Orleans Riverside Resort, and then had a nice afternoon swimming and shopping. The rest of the Clickfunnels team was due to arrive on Monday night, but we weren’t able to get a room at the Coronado (where the conference was) so the first day was just about Alex and I enjoying the amenities with William before the madness began.

Day Two – Tuesday

On Tuesday morning, I was hankering to get to the Coronado to see all my people, to get the scoop, and to be a part of all the planning. It didn’t go quite as planned since #1 – I wasn’t really in the loop with all the prep meetings, and #2 – Every time I tried to leave William for a few minutes, he would dissolve into ridiculous screaming.

This was the first moment where I felt a bit like “Which hat am I supposed to wear right now?”

It was so odd. I was worried about William adjusting to all the new people, worried about Alex feeling like a babysitter, I was in the lobby saying hi to anyone and everyone I could recognize from my tribe, I had lunch with Inner Circle Peeps, and meanwhile I had this bizarre feeling like I was missing some important prep meeting with the CF team. FOMO is such an annoying thing to have.

 

On top of that, we had to perfectly choreograph the following:

  • Get our luggage from Port Orleans to Coronado
  • Unpack and get my clothes out and ready for the VIP dinner
  • Shower and do makeup and hair for VIP dinner
  • Register for the event and get all our badges and all access passes
  • Keep William from napping so he’d fall asleep at EXACTLY 6pm so a stranger babysitter could come in and watch him
  • Get the shuttle for the VIP dinner by 7pm

It was tight. We basically hung out in the lobby until 4pm, got our room and luggage by 5pm, and yes – William did go to sleep and the babysitter was very nice and we made it to the shuttle in time for the VIP dinner.

The VIP dinner was AMAZING. 

Amazing peeps at the VIP dinner!

Russell and company took all the IC members, 2 Comma Club winners, and executive team to Hollywood Studios for an Indiana Jones dinner.

This was the first moment where I started to really feel the energy and excitement of the event, and I knew- the next several days would be amazing. I was able to relax and thankfully, William stayed asleep the whole time and there were no frantic texts from the babysitter.

Day Three – Wednesday

Wednesday morning, Alex, William, and I took an Uber over to the Polynesian…where we had a Mickey breakfast with a delicious all you can eat family style meal…complete with Mickey waffles.

His first encounter with Mickey!

We also rode the monorail and a boat, just to give William something to do (we both knew the afternoon would be dull for him).

We got back to the hotel around 11am and that’s when I got a little bitchy with Alex.

Here’s why…

I am MOST comfortable barefoot, in jeans and a t-shirt.

I get SO STRESSED at the idea of putting clothes on. For real. It’s so annoying. Especially in a situation where I knew I’d be recognized.

And with every shirt I tried on, I got more and more annoyed because they were too big or too tight or too frumpy or too…I don’t know.

Alex knows this about me, so he just let me be until I could figure out what I was going to wear.

I finally settled on just wearing all black. My black Clickfunnels jacket (that I love), black leggings, cute shoes…end of story.

Alex and William stayed behind and I went downstairs to the main room, and h..o..l..y…c..o…w. I had no idea how many people would already know me. That was super cool and fun and really unexpected.

I got to talk to a ton of people and then…the event began.

Russell did two incredible presentations —

  • Conversation Domination
  • Funnelhackers – We See Things Differently

And even though I knew a bunch about the presentations because I got a preview, I still loved to watch it all unfold live.

Wednesday night was the Vendor Speed Dating Event, and this night was so much fun. I hung out with a bunch of my mastermind members, and we ate and drank and chatted until it was time for the documentary showing of Operation Underground Railroad.

Some of my most favorite people – Digital Insiders!

The documentary was intense. And that isn’t even the right word to describe it. Everyone was in tears by the end. It documented Tim Ballard’s mission (with O.U.R) to stop human trafficking around the world, and it was crazy — Clickfunnels and all the attendees raised OVER $1,000,000 for the organization. That’s insanity!

I left that night feeling so damn proud to be a part of the Clickfunnels team.

Day Four – Thursday

Thursday’s presentations were SO good.

My favorite of course, was Russell’s Funnel Audibles. You could see the room frantically scribbling down notes. You could hear the aha! moments. My phone was going off with my students and clients around the room pinging me “I get it now!” It was so fun. He did an amazing job.

There were some other memorable presentations – Alison Prince from $0-100k, Dave Lindenbaum’s Redemption Funnels, and then Todd, Ryan, and Russell unveiled the updates to Clickfunnels and the new Actionetics MD.

If that wasn’t enough for one day, there was also an impromptu proposal and performance by a broadway star. Never a dull moment is 100% true when you come to FHL.

 

I think Thursday was the day I finally felt like I was able to wear my “CF team” hat. Up until this point, I had missed all the meetings, not even had a moment to say hi to anyone on the team, and just felt a bit disconnected. I hate that feeling. People who know me…know that I am the personification of the word community. I love being a part of something I believe in.

It was during the break – I went to go eat lunch with the crowds, and I started to feel a little stressed. I couldn’t really walk more than 10 feet without being stopped, I was also trying to see Alex and William during the break, and it was hard to find a moment to breathe.

James Friel said to me, “Why don’t you go in the staff room to have lunch?” – and yeah, this whole time I had no idea that was even a possibility. Thank God for James.

Lunch was quiet and delicious, I got to see everyone, talk to a bunch of people, and work with Russell to help finish out a presentation. I hung out in the green room with him, Todd, Ryan, Jake, Dave, and Melanie and watched the presentations from backstage. It was awesome.

Thursday night we had a babysitter (again) and Alex came out to take photos and support me during the Round Table event. This was so crazy fun. I talked for 3.5 hours straight with a full table, and got to meet and hear so many peoples’ stories and questions. I love this stuff!

Thursday night round tables!

The only hard part was Alex and I had now gone nearly two days without connecting so I could tell he was tired. He’d been with the baby all day, and now couldn’t even find a seat next to his wife in this crazy crowded room. He gets husband of the year award for sure.

One last thing to mention about Thursday. I had an experience which can only be described as spiritual.

Forgive the momentary rabbit trail…

My whole life…I’ve been attracted and attached to the continent of Africa. I can list at least a dozen events and moments that connect me to that part of the world, and in recent months – this connection has resurfaced.

  • I had two Africans join my mastermind
  • I had several Africans buy my course
  • I was a key speaker in the Marketing Summit to support clean drinking water in Uganda
  • I donated to African charity organizations after the Expert Secrets contest
  • I connected with an African charity at a retreat this past fall and became their top donor

So…on Thursday, one of my clients in my mastermind – from Africa, she came up to me and gave me a gift. It was a set of spoons with intricate beading on the handles. The woman who made them had her name printed out in pen on the back. And I literally….burst into tears.

A gift from South Africa – from Carol

No idea why. I just sat in my chair crying.

Not five minutes later, Russell got on stage and presented Stu Mclaren with an enormous check for World Teacher Aid – an organization that builds schools in Kenya. Then, by chance? I happened to meet Stu in the hall where he mentioned there might be an opportunity for me to go to Kenya. I don’t know if it’ll pan out, but I talked about this series of events with James and Yara over lunch and they both said, “How many more signs do you need Julie?”

Good question. None.

Day Five – Friday

I will never forget this day as long as I live.

I don’t even know where to begin or how to start. Maybe in the middle.

I’m now officially a part of Russell’s Justice League.

I can’t remember much about Friday morning except that I was again – super stressed about what to wear. But this time, it was times ten because I knew I’d be up on stage in front of 3000 people.

Oh wait! I do remember one presentation. Peng Joon’s. He brought the house down with value, content, as well as great storytelling and vulnerability. I’ve never seen him present before and was incredibly impressed.

Otherwise, I spent a lot of time in the staff room, alone and concentrating on memorizing all the things I wanted to say during my portion of the presentation.

After lunch, the award ceremony began. I got to take the stage twice – once for the dream car – once for 2 Comma Club. In the flurry of preparing for my presentation, I forgot to tell Alex to come to this portion so I didn’t actually get many photos!

Then, Russell, John Parkes, Stephen Larsen, James Friel, Alex Charfen, and me – Julie – took the stage for the 12 Month Millionaire presentation.

 

It was the one BIG sales presentation of the event and so nerves were SUPER high. We were all about to sell the 2 Comma Club X Coaching program and damn…pressure was on to do a good job.

When we walked out onto the stage, I couldn’t believe how many people there were. I thought I was going to pass out.

I tried hard to hide my nerves and focus on the person talking in front of me.

Don’t slouch Julie… Don’t forget to smile – your concentration face is a resting bitch face and that won’t go well…

These were the things I kept saying to myself.

And then…it was my turn.

I don’t remember it all that well (thank God my friend Renee recorded it). All I knew was this…

  • I wanted to make sure I could communicate in a way that would stir up hope and belief – not just facts
  • I wanted people to have a core nugget or aha! moment they could remember
  • I wanted to give 1000% because I had a team (and mentor) depending on me
  • I wanted people to come away feeling, “Julie is no one special. If she can do it…I can too.”

There was no timer, so I realized after I went five minutes over – which sucks. I hate being late or not timely, but I got a standing ovation that seemed to go on forever…and I nearly broke down on stage.

It’s hard to explain what 3000 people screaming and cheering feels like…it’s exhilarating and scary and awesome and also…there is a ton of pressure. I wanted so bad to be able to help them have the breakthroughs I’ve had myself.

When all of our presentations were done, Russell did the stack and the close…and I decided…

Speaking on stage alone is cool. But speaking on stage with a team is the most incredible feeling in the world…especially when the leader of the team takes time to tell everyone just the exact reasons why you’re the best person for the job.

I didn’t hear it live because I immediately went to the back of the room and proceeded to answer questions for 3 hours. But Yara recorded it and I was so grateful.

Funnelmindset captured this shot which I think depicts how intense this day was. I talked for HOURS!

Then we hopped back on stage for hotseat coaching, talked some more, and then talked some more.

Friday night was the first moment where I felt like I might need help getting out of the building.

Thankfully, Alex’s tired Romanian stare worked well. He managed to help me find a hamburger at 11pm after talking and being “on” for a million hours straight.

When all was said and done, Russell and the Justice League sold over 600 coaching spots for 2 Comma Club X and it didn’t really sink in what happened until the next day.

Day Six – Saturday

William woke up…not okay.

This day was hard, not gonna lie. I could tell William was feverish, Alex was delirious, I was exhausted and excited at the same time, and a LOT was about to go down.

  • I wanted to make sure I saw Myron and Russell’s presentation
  • I was hosting a lunch for all the new 2CCX members with the team
  • I planned to meet the people from Create Your Laptop Life for coffee in the morning
  • Tony Robbins was going to speak
  • Alex and William had to transfer AGAIN, to a new hotel
  • The big kids were flying into Orlando for a vacation

In hindsight, I shouldn’t have planned all this in one day. It was insanity…especially with a feverish kid.

But we did it. We got through it intact and alive!

I carried a sick baby downstairs so I could see my CYLL peeps. It was great to catch up!

The CYLL crowd!

Russell and Myron’s presentation was off the chains.

The 2CCX lunch was super fun! This is when it really hit me what we’d accomplished and the incredible adventure I was about to go on as a coach.


-Do you want to see what 600 coaching students look like at a lunch? Go to https://instagram.com/juliechenell and peek at the FHL 2018 highlights on my story profile.


Tony Robbins did a great job. It was my first time hearing him (last year I left before his presentation). He’s really good at what he does. I will say that based on the way people talk about him, I think I expected something a bit more intense and emotional….and I didn’t get emotional during his talk. So that was surprising to me. But it could just be my expectations.

The only major bummer of the day was that I didn’t know about the post-FHL CF family dinner at Epcot and I was super sad to miss it. I really wanted to be able to debrief, but I had to go to the airport to get the kids and couldn’t change plans at the last minute.

Leaving for the airport was not fun because I couldn’t say goodbye to all the people I wanted to! And then…I forgot my license and the kids were texting me in flight that their ears hurt, and there was literally NOTHING I could do. It was their first solo flight, and so I was nervous.

The whiplash I felt having to transition from FHL to family vacation was intense. I definitely cried on Saturday.

I was SO EXCITED to be on a Disney vacation with my whole family. I was also missing my FHL people. I wanted to debrief. I wanted to spend several hours just reveling in what all went down. And I didn’t get that chance. So I cried in the bathroom for about an hour, then got my shit together, and kept going.

Once the kids landed in Orlando, my excitement about our Disney vacation took effect and then I went into FULL Disney mode. Finally I would get to spend time with Alex and William and the three big kids.

It was the first time going to Disney in four years…and realistically, our first blended family vacation.

 

The next four days were a whirlwind. Except for one really bad sick day, we had a blast. What we did would require another 3000 words I don’t have right now.

Now…I’m home. I’m still so pumped up and excited about the future of this year, the next 12 months, and what the next FHL will bring. I learned a ton, hugged and met so many people, bonded with members of my tribe in a deeper way, and got the distinct honor of speaking on stage with some amazingly talented humans.

Everyday I wake up so grateful that I LOVE my work. That is not a given for a lot of people, and I don’t ever want to take for granted that I don’t wait for the weekends to have fun…because the work I do…is fun. And I love it.

I love FHL, Clickfunnels, the Funnelhacker family, and my Inner Circle of people who know all my ups and downs.

I am supremely blessed and think God has given me such abundance that I could give 100% of myself for the next 40 years and not tap into the depth of the blessings I’ve been given.

I’ve mentioned many of them in this post, but I want to shout out a word of thanks to the following people who really supported me and helped make this event what it was…

  • Alex Stoian – Thank you for supporting my entrepreneurial endeavors and being my rock while I pursue my dreams. I love you to the moon and back!
  • Alison Prince – Sister from another mother!! I can’t wait to catch up more with you! Love you lots and lots!!! xx
  • Yara Golden – I love you. You’re amazing.
  • James P. Friel – I’m so flippin’ glad I get to work with someone with your wit, wisdom, and creativity.
  • My Insiders (Stephanie, Renee, Carol, Allie, Chris, Dani, Arianne, Jamie, Rose, Tatiana, Esther, Cathy, Dallin, Elise, LJ, Heather, Matt, Roota, Alecia, Tamarah…and all the ones who couldn’t make it too!) – When I hang around you all, I feel like I can kick off my shoes, drink a beer, and just BE myself. You’ve become like family to me. xx
  • Create Your Laptop Lifers – Even though it was a New York Minute, I was grateful to be with you all and love our community so much.
  • Stephen Larsen, John Parkes, James Friel, and Alex Charfen- My fellow Justice Leaguers – so honored to be working with you!
  • Dave Woodward – I honestly thought you WERE Indiana Jones. LOL
  • Dave and Roni Lindenbaum – It was so fun getting to know your family better. I hope we can do it again soon!
  • Melanie Knueven – You put on an amazing event. In awe of what you pulled off!
  • Nick Sanders, Jake Leslie, and Karen King – You guys are some of the most amazingly helpful and funny and awesome people to work with ever.
  • Myles Clifford – Your energy and positivity  – well it’s just infectious!
  • Brent, Todd, and Ryan – I feel like I finally got a chance to know each of you a bit better, and I can see why the Clickfunnels company is the best place to work ever. It has an amazing leadership team.
  • Collette Brunson, Carrie Woodward, Amber Coppieters, Ashley Dickerson, Andrea Montgomery, Vanessa Parkes – Six of the most smart, supportive, beautiful and amazing women that enable the executive team at Clickfunnels to do what they do.
  • Russell Brunson – For being the best example of true leadership I’ve ever seen. Behind you 100%.

-To see all the Instagram Story highlights of FHL 2018, check me out on Instagram at https://instagram.com/juliechenell and peek at the FHL 2018 highlights on my story profile.


 

Pre-Funnelhacking Live Adventures

Pre-Funnelhacking Live Adventures

If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you can’t go one post without seeing my excitement about this year’s Funnelhacking Live Conference. I’m heading down there tomorrow and in mad prep mode right now.

I’m going as a part of the Clickfunnels team, an Inner Circle member, Dream Car winner, 2 Comma Club winner, as an entrepreneur and business owner, and as a Funnelbuilder Coach for Russell Brunson’s training programs.

Phew!

The crazy part of this whole adventure is that just ONE year ago, I barely knew anything or anyone!

I had my business, but that was it.

What can change in 12 months…

That’s kinda my point of today’s post. I want you to think about what can happen in 12 short months when you put your mind to it.  Whether you’re going to FHL this year or not, you can still decide TODAY – that 12 months from today, things will be different.

 

Here’s my short list of what to do, so that 12 months from now, things look nothing like they do right now:

  1. Get a mentor.
  2. Put some skin in the game (money works great, crisis is another option but I wouldn’t force one if I were you).
  3. Let go of your ideas of what you want, and find a hot market that you can serve.
  4. Do not despise small beginnings.
  5. Get used to failure.
  6. Write down attainable goals that are measurable.
  7. Make the “selling of your thing” the most important part of the thing.
  8. Attach yourself to an audience, not one particular product.
  9. Don’t compete on price.
  10. Create irresistible offers that TRULY solve problems.
  11. Once you have a plan, see it to the end, even when you bomb (and you will).
  12. Stop looking at everything through your financial lens.
  13. Money is everywhere, time is limited (not the other way around).
  14. Don’t take advice from broke people.
  15. There’s one skill above all that you need to be successful in business – Digital Marketing – period.
  16. Learn how to piggyback on other software, events, and crowds.

Last thing…and this one is really important…

When you make excellence your mission, people your mission, and impact your mission…

You don’t need to worry if people will notice or if things will go well for you.

They will.

Last night I was working with Russell on one of his presentations, and I had this ridiculous losing my shit moment…

On stage, Russell is going to feature me. He’s got a solid 6 or 7 slides…maybe more. I can’t say much more than that, which is killing me…because it’s like if the President told you were amazing and YOU CAN’T REALLY TALK ABOUT IT YET.

If someone asked me a year ago, “What’s your dream for 12 months from now?” I wouldn’t have even conceived of such a thing.

I might have said…

  • Make a million dollars.
  • Speak on the FHL stage.
  • Beat Dan Henry at something (LOL)

But it is SO MUCH better than anything I could have imagined. I’m about to walk the stage with the one person I respect more than any other in this space, and all I can think is…. I hope I do a good job.

Saying yes to working with Russell will go down as one of the greatest decisions of the decade. Not to mention he’s got an incredible team of people that are kind, hard working, smart, savvy, generous, and…SO MUCH FUN to hang out with!

You know what else was smart? Doing what he said to do.

So here’s what’s going to happen next.

I’m going to go to bed because I have to wake up at the buttcrack of dawn to get on a plane.

I’m going to have an incredible 11 day getaway, and I’m going to document it all. Follow me on Instagram please since I’ll use Instagram stories!

You are going to either go to Funnelhacking Live and come say hello…

Or…

You’re going to take that list above, and start with #1.

xx

Behind the Scenes with a Perfect Client

Behind the Scenes with a Perfect Client

Some clients just stick with you.

This woman’s application…it was just so….positive and energetic. I could tell she had grit and hustle and drive.

The first time I spoke to her, I quoted her on a done-for-you funnel. I can’t remember what happened, but either I had to delay the project or she was nervous about the cost, or both…and we didn’t go through with it right away.

And when she came back to me a few weeks/months later….

There was a new problem.

I wasn’t taking done for you clients anymore.

And despite me telling her that I wasn’t building funnels for people any longer, she persisted.

“Please! Please! Can I be your last done for you client?”

This all happened right in September 2017. 

Things were cranking in my business and I had literally NO time to do anymore done-for-you work.

She persisted despite being told no multiple times…but I just couldn’t swing it.

So instead, I offered her a coaching package.

It was a lot of money for her at the time. She was scared to spend it. I could tell.

Even though she was ready to drop $10k for a done-for-you funnel, she wasn’t so sure about dropping $7,500 just for me to coach her.

Now it was my turn to convince her.

Could I actually empower her to create magic funnels, even if I didn’t use my own hands to do it?

She wasn’t sure, but after a bunch of back and forth, I sold her.

She signed the contract and we got started.

The coaching started with a strategic overview of how to position her products in what we call a funnel stack.

She had several pregnancy and postpartum workouts.

We worked to arrange them in three funnels, all connected together with email sequences.

About four to five weeks into the coaching, I could tell she was just ITCHING to get to the Facebook Ads. And I understood why. Facebook Ads are the “mecca” of marketing, and the thing she knew the least about.

The closer we got to the end of the coaching, the more antsy she got.

“Are we going to do Ads soon?”

I promised her we would, but not until I was SURE the funnel was in good shape, and that she understood the tech and design and setup that she needed to know.

I needed her to be able to DO THIS without me.

The thing with this client? Even when she was nervous or afraid, she did everything I said. I never once had to say something twice. She just did it. And took every ounce of feedback with an incredible attitude.

Finally, we got to the point in our coaching to work on ads.

And…well..she panicked (I love her – she knows I mean this in the best way).

She was terrified to spend money on ads!

Her funnel was up and running, and because of her well-trafficked blog, was already producing money (YAHOO!) but she just couldn’t figure out how to get over spending more than $10-$30 a day.

It was scary.

For her…and frankly, for me too.

I never like pushing people, especially with money.

But I could tell that her funnel – after being on for a few days – was already humming, and I knew with a bit more gasoline, it would start to really go.

“Just trust me,” I said. “In a month, you’ll see your money to grow because the cumulative effect of the funnel stack will start to show up.” We had a few late night Voxer sessions working through the ‘scary factor’ of spending thousands on advertising.

Somehow, I convinced her (and her husband) that she could afford to spend the money.

Within the first month, she’d made around $10,000 on her products priced between $27 and $37. We also added in a lifetime membership to her program at $197 (she was sure no one would buy it, and they did!).

Second month, a bit more.

Third month, even more.

Now the ads plus the email sequences were really cranking along, and one of her OTO’s was a continuity program so the money was snowballing.

By late January, she had her first $1000 day.

And today, it’s been exactly three months since she turned on her ads and finished her coaching with me.

The most impressive part about the whole thing is that…she is doing it.

Not an agency or a team.

She is.

She now knows how to use Clickfunnels, how to design, how to run ads.

Not perfectly. There’s still a ton she can learn and do.

But that to me is even more incredible than any million dollar funnel I can build.

Because in this scenario, I’ve passed on my skills and strategy to her.

This process of duplication is my greatest joy.

In fact, just randomly the other day, in my Insiders Mastermind, one of my students posted a screenshot of a $15,000 launch.

I had taught him how to grow online too…and this screenshot came with this quote…

“One of my buddies needed help with launching a course. I thought I would help him the way Julie helped me. And this is what happened.”

My plan wasn’t even to teach him how to do it for others, just to do it for himself. But the skills transferred…even into a completely different niche!

If you’re disillusioned or suspicious of the online world, I don’t blame you. I would be too.

But there’s usually an easy way to tell who is for real, and who is just a good show.

How fast and readily are they duplicating their skills in other people? How much of their awesomeness is related to what they are and what they can do, vs. what their people, students, and clients are doing?

That’s where the gold is.

My Funnel Is Broken - A Sales Funnel Analysis

My Funnel Is Broken – A Sales Funnel Analysis

“My funnel is broken!” ???? That’s something I hear constantly from people who’ve just launched their funnel and don’t see sales right away.

Guess what? MOST funnels don’t work on the first try. Not even the 2nd. So it means you must learn how to fix your funnel and optimize it, because even the experts don’t get it perfect…right out of the gate.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • your industry benchmarks for analysis
  • the three most common reasons a funnel breaks
  • how to patch the holes

If you use the good ol’ scientific method with a few benchmarks, it’s not too hard to figure out where things are leaking and how to plug them up!

Subscribe to Facebook and YouTube to get instant updates when new episodes are posted!

Video Transcript:

Hey, guys Julie here- today I want to talk about the very very sad truth of my funnel is broken.

So many people come to me after they’ve spent all this time and energy and money building a funnel and then it doesn’t work and they’re so discouraged.

So before I even get into how to diagnose a broken funnel, please remember that funnels don’t usually work the first time. In fact, they often don’t even work the second time.

So you have to try again, again and again. So don’t be discouraged. Everybody has broken funnels when they’re first born. That’s what I say when you birth a funnel because they’re really ugly, usually when you first birth them.

First things are first: you need Benchmarks.

Okay, so benchmarks help you figure out if a funnel is actually broken or if you’re just nervous because this is your baby.

So everybody’s gonna have different benchmarks.

Industries have different benchmarks and as you get good at this, you’re going to have your own benchmarks for your company and products. But I’m gonna give you just some basic ones to start with.

All right so the first thing is 20%.

20% of people who see your landing page should opt-in.

Now there are exceptions to every rule but that means if a hundred people land on your landing page and you can’t get at least 20% of people to opt-in, then chances are something isn’t right on the landing page.

20 to 30% of people should be opening your emails.

Now that that number goes down the more traffic you have so if you are running thousands and thousands of people through your funnel every single day that might actually be a little lower.

But for most beginners, if you’re just working with a couple thousand people 20 to 30% of people should be opening your emails. If they’re not then something’s wrong with your subject line for sure.

One to five percent of people should buy your entry offer.

So that means once they opt-in for something free and they get on that Thank You page, and you have maybe it’s a $7 book guide, program, course… whatever you want to see one to five percent.

So if a hundred people opt-in you want between one and five people to purchase. And if they’re not purchasing then something’s definitely wrong with your entry offer.

Now the upsell or the OTO is what we call, you want to see five to maybe even 10% of people will buy your OTO offer. Now sometimes this is less so don’t be discouraged if you’re getting like three to seven percent.

It depends on how big of a jump you’re going if you’re like hey buy a $7 book and then you’re like buy a 300 dollar program, yeah that’s gonna go lower. But if you have like a modest jump from like 7 to maybe forty-seven you should see five to ten percent of people buying. So it’s actually easier to get this than it is to get this which that’s a discussion for another day. But I just wanted to give you that benchmark.

If you are running a webinar funnel, you want thirty to fifty percent of people to watch it.

So that means if you get a hundred people to opt-in, you want between thirty and fifty to hang around and watch your webinar, alright?

So these are just some benchmarks that we’re gonna use to diagnose your funnel.

Now there are also some benchmarks for ads as well because sometimes the problem isn’t the funnel. Sometimes the problem is the ad.

Now again, this is even this is even harder to just like give you standards because every industry is different. But in general,  you want a relevancy score on your ad of eight or higher.

Facebook delivers you a relevancy score after it’s been shown to 500 people and if you have a relevancy score of less than eight or seven, Facebook’s telling you, “you know what? People aren’t really resonating with this.” So you definitely want a relevancy score of 8 or higher.

You also want to go to the CPC column. This stands for cost per click. And you want to see it at 50 cents or less.

Now take that with a really big grain of salt because I’ve only worked in some industries not all but 50 percent, I mean 50 cents or less, that means people are clicking on the ad.

You also want to see like a click-through rate. That means the percentage you want to see it at like 3 percent or higher. Now once you start running ads and doing all of this yourself, you’ll have your own benchmarks. I have a lot of ads that are like 6-7 percent click-through rate so you just want to like set your own benchmarks. but these are some good benchmarks to help you diagnose where your funnel is broken.

So let’s take a traditional funnel, okay. Here’s your Facebook ad and it goes to a freebie. Okay, so something free. And then the Thank You page you offer them a seven dollar book. Okay, they go to the order form and there’s like a little order bump here.

Then they get offered a one-time offer of a forty-seven dollar let’s say, it’s a course okay.  And then they go to the order confirmation page.

Okay, so this is the funnel. Somewhere in here, something’s not working. So we’re gonna use our benchmarks to try to figure out where stuff isn’t working.

These are the three things that usually account for most broken funnels.

A bad offer.

Bad copy.

Bad audience.

Notice I didn’t say design there even though I am a designer. Design really has very little to do with it. As long as your design isn’t horribly intrusive. Even if it’s ugly, sometimes it converts.

Alright, so let’s talk about the bad offer. This, if the offer is bad and the market doesn’t want it, there’s really not much you can do about that.

So what’s a sign that the offer is bad? The sign is that nobody buys this, right? You’re seeing less than one to five percent.

Okay so this because this is the first offer that they get in the funnel, they’re not even getting a chance to see if they like your forty-seven dollar offer.

So this right here, you have to spend so much time on it to make sure it’s so amazing that people are going to buy it. So if you’re seeing less than one to five percent of people buy, that means your offer is bad.

Now if you’re seeing less than 20% of people opt-in on your landing page, your freebie might be a bad offer. Remember your freebie, your lead magnet, your bate is also an offer and if people don’t care then they’re never gonna get through this.

So bad offer is usually like the worst problem to have because it means you need to go back to the drawing board.

The second thing is bad copy.

Sometimes the offer is great but you just don’t have the right hook or the right angle.

Clickfunnels allows you to split test pages so you can make variations of this page and this page and you can split test different headlines to see if maybe the hook on the headline is not working.

Make sure that you’re not just selling the features of what you offer, but you’re selling the benefits and the meaning behind those benefits. So that’s the second reason.

The third reason could be bad audience.

And it just means that the people that you’re targeting this Facebook ad, they just don’t really care about this stuff and so you need to try a new audience.

So using these benchmarks, if you notice that your ad has a good relevancy score, it has a good cost per click, and it has a good click-through rate then you know the ad is doing well. You can just kind of push that aside.

If you’re seeing that 20% of people are actually opting in then that means your landing page is in good shape. Now a lot of people, by the way, make this higher 30, 40, 50 % but you want at least 20%.

If you get here and you’re getting at least one to five percent of people buying your entry offer, then you’re good.

And then here, if for some reason you’re seeing lots of people land on this page and then on this page but then they pop off, it could be that your order form looks crappy on mobile.

Think about that.

A lot of people run their funnels and they watch them watch everything on mobile so it could be that the order form is just too confusing or it requires too much information. So that could be an issue.

By the way, I forgot the benchmark for order bumps. You should see between 30 and 40 percent of people take an order bump,  If it’s a small order bump, okay.

And then here you want to see between 3 & 7 or 5 and 10% and then you know, your OTO is a really good match.

Now if these offers are good and you’ve been able to sell them on your own but then when you put them together people aren’t buying, it could be and this is very common- that you’re satisfying their appetite and therefore they’re not needing to buy.

And this happens all the time when someone says here, “I’m gonna give you a free course on proofreading and then I’m gonna try to sell you a book on how to be a proofreader,” they’re not hungry for that because you just fed them this meal.

So, remember that once in a while there may be a fourth reason and it’s that the offer combination is not working for the audience.

Alright, so sometimes what you can do is you can just swap out a different OTO or a different offer.

Remember this is the most important one because they don’t even see this if they don’t get through here first.

And sometimes I just run traffic directly to the offer instead of putting the free in front of it because the free is making them full you know… they want to go take a nap.

So you can also try taking an ad like this and running directly to the offer and seeing if you can get people to buy.

Sometimes the free doesn’t help you.

So this is how you figure out where your funnel is broken.

Don’t change everything at once.

Change one thing at a time and remember the step get people to click get people to give you their email address, get people to be interested enough to go to the order form, get people to put their credit card information, get people to say yes and then deliver the goods. And along that path start at the front and work down.

The Four Foundations of Funnel Building

The Four Foundations of Funnel Building

It’s a skill that is both EASY and tricky at the same time.

How can that be?

Well, to set up one is not that hard….thanks to Clickfunnels. You can have one up in literally…minutes. But to make it work

That’s a whole other story.

In this video, I break down the four key foundations of funnel building so you can understand not just how to build them, but how to make sure you build PROFITABLE ones.

For those of you who don’t know, Funnelbuilding IS the skill that saved my family. You can see more here.

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Video Transcript:

I’m talking today about the four foundations of funnel building.

So I want to break down the four principles of funnel building so that you can start to see what areas you’re weakened in which areas you’re stronger in.

So the first foundation of funnel building is all about the offer.

Okay, the offer is really the core of everything.

If you don’t have a good offer you cannot build a funnel. A funnel will not fix a bad offer.

What a funnel will do for a good offer is make you a millionaire.

So you want to make sure you’re in a hot market and you want to make sure it’s irresistible.

Okay, I think part of the problem is we think our offers are amazing because we’re really close to them, but we don’t really make sure that our offer is in a hot market. That it’s actually irresistible. That it’s like a no-brainer you know.

And I tell the story sometimes I say, “okay if someone told me that there was a Mercedes for sale and it was fifty thousand dollars and it was worth a hundred go buy it I’d be like no thanks okay I don’t want to spend fifty thousand on a Mercedes.” If somebody told me, “hey there’s a home on Martha’s Vineyard. It’s actually worth two million but you can get it for fifty thousand do you want to buy it?”  I would buy it. it’s irresistible. It’s absolutely without a doubt. it’s like a no-brainer I I would borrow the money I would figure out how to do it. So make sure it’s irresistible and make sure it’s a hot market.

The other part about the offer is you need great copy. So think of your copy like clothes. So you know you have yourself and you can wear really bad ugly clothes. Ripped, smelly holes you know, or you can go out and buy the best clothes you can find it’s gonna make you look a lot different. Like right now I look way better than I look any other day of the year I’ve got great clothes, great copy.

So these are the things you need to focus on with your offer: Hot market, irresistible great copy.

All right second is flow. This is the second foundation. This is where we really have to look at how the offers work together.

So in a sales funnel, unless you’re doing a webinar funnel and traditional sales funnel there are actually multiple things being sold, right?

You have the initial thing, then maybe you have the order bump underneath. Then maybe you have a one-time offer upsell. Maybe you have a one-time offer down sell. So the flow is about how the offers- how the products interact with each other.

And the best thing I can say is when you’re at Thanksgiving dinner- if you celebrate Thanksgiving- and you eat a ton of turkey on Thanksgiving Day, and then the next day you eat some more turkey, by Saturday you hate turkey and you don’t want to eat it anymore.

So when the products don’t interact well together, sometimes what happens is in our enthusiasm to be amazing we give an amazing product and then we like fill their belly with the information that they need. So that then when we come in with the, “hey buy more, hey buy this”

you’re like no this was good like this satisfied that need.

So you want to make sure that the products complement each other so that if they’re buying something and then they’re buying the next thing, it’s like ooh that goes with it.

So you’ll see this a lot with Russell and Clickfunnels. So he gives you the software then he offers to sell you the things that help you make the software better. Maybe he gives you add-on templates, special code things that make the funnels work more. He’s not just trying to sell you more and more and more funnels, he’s trying to sell you complimentary add-ons.

So this is really important in funnel building is to create a great flow.

You also want to make sure that the price goes like this: you want to start with your lowest cost offer, but you also typically want to make your low cost offer almost as valuable if not the same value as your OTO.

And some of you might feel like, “oh well that doesn’t make any sense… like this should be 3 stars and this should be 4 stars,” right?  That’s how we think in our brains because this is 7 dollars and this is 40 dollars, but you want to make this equal to the value of whatever you’re selling here.

Maybe even more valuable and why?

That’s because that first sale when someone goes from prospect to customer is the hardest sale of all. If you can’t get that sale they never see anything that comes after it.

They don’t ever get to see your OTOs and your upsells and your downsells because they never actually made that first sale.

So that’s why I’m always like make the quality and the value equal to whatever is coming next in the funnel because you’ve got to get them in the door.

So sometimes you take a loss here. Sometimes you don’t actually make money here and that’s normal and okay because you’re trying to get people through the rest of the funnel.

Alright, so flow is the second foundation of funnel building.

The third is follow up. No matter how much time we spend on our funnel, people aren’t going to do what we want them to do. They’re going to pop off the page, they’re going to get

Distracted, their kids are going to need them.

So emails, texts, messenger BOTS and retargeting ads are all ways to follow up in a funnel.

Okay, so you need to pick one, two, three, or all four. Okay emails, text, messenger BOTS and retargeting ads and make sure that you hit them as many times as you can because most people won’t do what you want.

In fact, you know the standard rate for people buying on a funnel is about one to five percent. So for every a hundred people that come through your funnel, maybe you get five people that do what you what you want them to do. The other ninety-five are gonna need all four of these things.


And the last foundation of funnel building is traffic.

And traffic is basically once you have your funnel built, once you have your car built, how are you gonna fuel it with gasoline. What kind of traffic are you going to use?

Now Facebook ads are the most popular, but there are all kinds of other traffic sources and you want to think about your funnel based on what traffic you’re going to use.

So let me give you an example.

Let’s say you’re a podcaster and your pod and your podcast is your traffic.

So you do a podcast, you know people are listening to you. Well with a podcast, people are hearing you talk. They’re getting to know you. They’re trusting you. So do you have to send them to a webinar right after a podcast? Usually not. Sometimes you can do just like a quick download because you’ve already built that trust.

Versus if you’re going off a Facebook ad. They’ve never heard your voice. They’ve never seen you. Maybe you need video webinar VSL, things like that in your funnel to really build that trust quickly.


So your traffic does sort of influence the type of funnel that you’re going to build.

Another way to get traffic is through SEO, through blogging, through other social media… things like Instagram and Pinterest.

You can also use YouTube, networking, jayvees.

There’s all kinds of ways to get traffic.

My recommendation is you pick one and you get really good at it, and then you go to the next one now.

These are the four foundations of funnel building: so your great offers, awesome flow, amazing follow-up and great traffic.

The last piece of this and this is where people often do it completely backward, is that

your traffic usually requires you to put content native to the platform.

So what I mean by that?

Let’s say you’re using Instagram for your traffic well you have to create an Instagram story let’s say.

So you have to create content that fits in the platform that people on that platform are like “oh it’s an Instagram story” … you know, you’re not trying to like do something that the platform isn’t meant to do.

So you’re gonna want to create content that works with whatever platform you’ve chosen so that you can put that content on that platform, which leads them right into your funnel.

All right a lot of people like to do this first.

They think about content and then they kind of think of it all backward, but this is actually kind of like the last step. Once you’ve really built out the funnel and you’ve tested it with a few people or your email list.

So this hopefully gives you kind of an easier way to think about funnel building and the foundational things you need to know before you get started.