The Savvy Seller with Kristen Doyle

153. What Nobody Tells You About Sales Funnels

• Kristen Doyle, TPT seller, SEO coach, and web designer

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Do you view sales funnels as some kind of sleazy marketing trap, or think they’re way too complicated to even attempt? That’s exactly why I recorded this episode. I’m breaking down what nobody tells you about sales funnels: that they can actually be simple, ethical, and—dare I say it—kind of fun to build. If you’ve ever avoided funnels because they felt overwhelming or a little gross, this conversation is going to change your mind.

I share how to create a values-aligned funnel using tools like Kit and Elementor, without relying on fake urgency or manipulative tactics. With practical tips on lead magnets, landing pages, and email sequences that serve, you’ll walk away feeling confident and ready to build a funnel that actually works!

02:27 - What a sales funnel actually is, and examples of what an effective (and simple) one looks like

07:32 - Ethical vs. unethical sales funnel tactics

09:51 - Four essential things you need for creating a sales funnel that converts

13:47 - What you should sell in your sales funnel and why

15:22 - Specific action steps for creating your first sales funnel

Links & Resources:

Show Notes: https://kristendoyle.co/episode153 

Tired of constantly hustling to sell your digital products? Check out my free 19-minute training where I show you how to turn all those products you already have into a profitable, automated business. 

 

Get more freedom and less stress ➡️ watch now at kristendoyle.co/training 

Check out my Everything Page at https://kristendoyle.co/everything

Kristen:

Are you avoiding sales funnels because they seem too complicated or manipulative? I get it. Every time someone mentions funnels, you probably picture complicated diagrams of dozens of steps or expensive software, or maybe tech nightmares. Or maybe the idea of a sales funnel makes you think about those bro marketing tactics that make you feel super icky, fake countdown timers that don't really expire, and pressure tactics that scream,"Buy now or else!" So you've been staying away from funnels completely telling yourself you'll figure them out later, when you have more time, or the tech skills, or when you're not feeling a little scared to try it. But what's happening instead is you get stuck in this constant cycle of creating more and more content, posting on social media, and hustling to try and make sales. So your income is going up and down like a roller coaster, and you could instead be using some sales funnels. Maybe you've heard other business owners talk about evergreen funnels that make sales all the time for them, and you're wondering what kind of magical knowledge they have that you don't. Well, today we are going to talk all about sales funnels, and I am here to tell you that they are not magic tricks. They are definitely not as complicated as you might have made them out to be in your mind. In fact, you're probably already doing some parts of a sales funnel now without even realizing it. So today I'm going to show you exactly how simple sales funnels can be, and give you some steps to get started creating a sales funnel. Are you a digital product or course creator, selling on platforms like Teachers Pay Teachers, Etsy, or your own website? Ready to grow your business, but not into the kind of constant hustle that leads straight to burnout? Then you're in the right place. Welcome to The Savvy Seller. I'm Kristen Doyle, and I'm here to give you no fluff tools and strategies that move the needle for your business without burning you out in the process—things like SEO, no stress marketing, email list building, automations, and so much more. Let's get started, y'all. The truth is a well designed sales funnel isn't manipulative or icky at all. It's actually one of the most helpful things you can create for your audience. So let's start by clearing up what a sales funnel actually is, because I think a lot of that fear comes from just really not understanding what we're talking about. I've said it before, a sales funnel is really just a plan for how you're going to help someone go from, I have a problem, to here's the solution I need, and now I'm buying it. You can think of it like giving directions to your house. You want to give people the clearest, most direct route. And I know we all rely on GPS at this point, but if you needed to give someone directions to your house, you wouldn't send them on some crazy detour through five different neighborhoods. You would give them the most direct route from their house to yours. And the same thing works with funnels. You're really just mapping out the easiest way for people to get help from you with whatever it is that you offer. If a friend came to you with a problem related to the thing that you sell, you wouldn't immediately say, buy my course for 4.97, or give them scare tactics about how if they don't buy your course, everything's gonna fall apart. You would listen. Maybe ask some questions. You would share some helpful tips. And then if it makes sense and you think your course actually would help them, then you might mention how you could help more through your course or through services or whatever else you might offer. A good sales funnel follows that exact same flow, and that's what makes it feel natural and not pushy. Let's say someone is struggling with getting their website to convert visitors into buyers. This is something that I love to help people with. So the blog post approach that you might be using right now is that you write some helpful content and you put an email opt in in there, and maybe you post that content on social media, you send it out in your, to your email list, maybe you run ads to it, and what you're hoping is that they will read this content and sign up for your email list at the bottom. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. But the sales funnel approach is that you create a page specifically about the thing they're struggling with, maybe it's website conversions. You create a landing page to give them a free resource. Maybe it's a guide or a checklist, whatever will help them in exchange for their email. Then they get helpful emails from you targeted to that problem that calls them to sign up for this freebie in the first place, and eventually you can mention the thing you offer. For me, I would eventually start talking about my web design services or my coaching. And along the way, in between that free download and talking about the services I can offer, that's when I can share those podcast episodes or those blog posts that are out there to help them. See the second route with the funnel is a lot more direct, and it's actually more helpful to people, because you get them on your list first, so that you can send them the right helpful content and point them to the right offers for them, instead of just hoping they discover it on your own. Now, none of that is to say that you shouldn't have opt ins on your blog posts. You absolutely should. It's relying on people opting in, when the purpose of that page is just to educate them and to establish yourself as an expert, that's the problem. You want to have pages where the purpose of the page is the lead capture and also giving you a little information about what they're struggling with, so that you can send them the right sales funnel and the right helpful emails later. Now, one thing I have noticed is that people overcomplicate this a lot, and I would encourage you to remember that simple beats fancy when it comes to this every single time. I see people trying to create these elaborate funnels that have 15 different steps and all these different directions that people could go and all these extra tags and things. But honestly, the most effective funnels are usually pretty straightforward. It's like the difference between running into Target and knowing where everything is versus trying to navigate some confusing department store where there aren't aisles and everything seems jumbled. People want easy. Now, I know you might be thinking that sales funnels feel a little manipulative, so let's just address the elephant in the room. Yes, you are trying to sell something, but if you genuinely believe in your product and you know that your product, your service, your offer, helps people, then guiding them toward it isn't manipulation. You can think of it like recommending your favorite restaurant to a friend. You're not being sneaky. You're sharing something you know is good that will help. The key is that you're being really honest about what you're offering, how it can help, and who it is right for and who it's not right for. Let me give you some examples of what not to do in your sales funnels. And you probably will automatically think, no, I would never do that. But the things that turn us away from sales funnels are things like fake scarcity, where you're saying there's only three spots available, and you totally made that up, and there's really 100 spots available, or there's really no limit to the number of spots. Scare tactics, like those pages that get us to believe that our whole business or our whole life is gonna fail if we don't buy this thing today. Bait and switch tactics where you promise one thing and then you're really selling them something very different. Those kinds of tactics might get you some sales in the short term, but they're gonna destroy your reputation, and they're gonna break down any trust that you've built with those people when they realize that, you know, the thing that you said there were only three spots for actually has 50 people in it, so there must be more than three spots. So you don't want to do anything like that. Instead, let's talk about what some ethical funnels actually look like. In those funnel emails, you are upfront about what you're selling and how much it costs. And I'm not saying you have to do that in the first email, but when it comes time to talk about the offer, you're really clear about what's in it, what's not, how much it costs, all of those things you're sharing genuinely helpful information for people, whether they purchase or not. You make it easy for people to say no if it's not right for them. In fact, in most of my sales emails, you'll find a PS at the bottom that says, hey, if you're not interested in this offer, just click right here to opt out, and I won't email you about it anymore, because I don't want people to leave my list completely just because every single thing I offer isn't right for them. I want them to be able to opt out of certain emails. And you're sharing real success stories from real people who get real results. This is how people know that they can trust you and that they can trust the thing that you're selling. And when you think about it, good funnels really do serve your audience a lot better. Instead of people digging all around your website trying to figure out if you can help them or how to help them, you're making it really clear and easy for people to take that next step. You're organizing information in a way that makes sense. You're saving them time by sending the right blog posts or the right podcast episodes or whatever content you create, sending that perfect content right to their inbox so they don't have to hunt around for Alright, so we've covered what funnels are and why they're not it, and you're giving them all the information they need to make a good decision. That's it. Everything else you see happening in sales evil. What about the tech stuff? Because I know that's something In fact, you probably can start with tools that you already have. If you have a WordPress website, then you can make your landing pages and your sales pages right in Elementor. For email, I recommend Kit, which used to be ConvertKit, because it is designed for creators like us. It's super reliable. Their deliverability is amazing, and it's not overly complicated. It's very easy and intuitive to set up. And then you can sell and deliver your offer, either through WooCommerce, if you already have that on your website, you can do it directly that gets a lot of people stuck, but really the tech is not that through Kit, if you don't have a platform set up already, or you can use any other checkout platform that you might have, like I personally have Thrive cart. So a lot of times I make my sales page in Elementor on my website, and I add a Thrive Cart Checkout to it. Those tools all play really nicely together, so you don't have to worry about things not working or figuring out lots of workarounds, and you really don't need some expensive all in one platform. If you go looking for sales funnel platforms, they typically start around $100 a month, and that turns people off a lot, but you really don't need to dive into a platform like that. In fact, the longer I've been running funnels, the more I've found that I don't like those all in one platforms, because they tend to limit what I'm able to do, because I'm limited and I'm put into their box of how they think things should be done. So start simple, and then add things on and get more scary. The truth is, when it comes to good sales funnels that complicated as you learn and as you find that you need those extra things. It's a lot like learning to drive. I remember when I was first learning to drive, my first car was a stick shift, and I remember my dad would take me to the IGA grocery store parking lot. IGA is like a small town grocery store, and he would take me out to that parking lot after they closed, so the whole parking lot was empty. He didn't take me to the interstate to figure out how to work a clutch and shift gears, because that would have been a disaster. He took me out somewhere small and simple so that I could get the basics down first. So just like that, get your basic funnel working first and then add those bells and whistles later. See, what happens a lot of times is I see people spend months trying to build big, fancy, complicated funnels, and they convert and make you money, you really only need four things. A probably are going to be great funnels eventually, but all of the bits and pieces get in the way and they never actually launch anything. So keep in mind that most of the time, done is better than perfect, especially when you're just starting out. Alright. So if I've gotten you on board with the idea of funnels, you might be wondering what you should actually sell in your funnel. Your best selling product is a pretty obvious choice, but if it's something that costs three bucks, five bucks, the math can get super tricky if you ever want to start running ads to that product, because it's harder to make a profit when you're running ads to a low cost product. You can absolutely test it, but just know you'll need a really high conversion rate to make it profitable. So I usually recommend starting with something that's at least 10 bucks or more. That gives you some breathing room if you decide to try and run ads to it later on, and really just, you landing page where people can sign up for something helpful. can think of it like the difference between selling individual pieces of candy, individual Hershey Kisses versus a whole bag of Hershey Kisses. That higher price point means you don't need to sell as many to make the same profit. I would encourage you, you probably already have something that you can put into a sales funnel, but if not, really look at what you already have before you create something brand new. Maybe you could bundle a few of your existing products together, or you have some content, maybe from your blog or podcast that you could add a little bit to and package it up into a different format that's worthy of selling, something like a mini course or a master class, that you could sell. Either way, just starting with a product at a little bit higher price point is going to give you a lot more breathing room in terms of what you can do with advertising and things like that to still be profitable in your funnel. Usually, this is a freebie, but sometimes you can do that with a Alright, so let's wrap this up with some specific action steps that you can take. Here is what I want you to do after listening to this episode. First, find your most popular content on your website. Check out your website analytics. What blog posts or pages or podcast episodes are getting the most traffic? And then, instead of trying to get people to opt in while they're reading that page or post, create a specific landing page with a lead magnet that directly relates to that specific topic. Maybe that means you need to create a lead magnet. Maybe you already have one, or you have something close that you could tweak, but look for what people are most interested in and create a lead magnet directly related to it. So if your most popular post is about five ways to save time on lesson plans, then maybe you create a landing page that offers a time saving lesson plan template. Notice that although very low cost offer. A series of emails that get sent out what we're offering is a lesson plan template, the phrasing I'm using addresses the thing that probably got people looking at that blog post about ways to save time lesson planning. This way, you're taking advantage of what people are already interested in, but you're also making it a whole lot easier for them to take that next step and get on your list, rather than just reading a blog post and walking away. And if you're thinking, Yeah, but what if they just want to rate the blog post and they don't want to give me their email address, you and I both know how often we read something online and then we never take any action from it. If you can give them a freebie of some sort, something that will help them actually take action, that is so much more valuable to them than just reading a blog post. So I'd encourage you to kind of shift your mindset around that a little bit. automatically when someone signs up for that thing. A sales page Then step two, pick one thing worth at least $10 to test out a funnel with. Look through your existing products. What do you have that's related? What can you bundle together? And pick a product to test your funnel with. And then, last but not least, just map out your funnel. Don't overthink it. You can literally just sketch it out on a piece of paper or in a Google Doc. Think landing page first, what free thing can you offer that directly relates to what you're going to sell? The email sign up form that goes with the landing page. What is that gonna look like? Email sequence. What do people need to know to feel confident buying from you? Are there some mindset shifts you need to help people make in those emails between the freebie and the sale that you need to share? Are there some pieces of your content you wanna make sure that they've seen? If you're not sure what to put in those emails, there are tons of sales sequence templates out there, for whatever you're selling, and then a way to collect the money and you can even use your favorite AI tool to help you write those sales emails. Keep in mind, when you're working on this, just keep it simple. And then the last step in that simple sales funnel would be, what are they going to buy at the end? So map it out on a piece of paper in a Google Doc, whatever makes sense for you, and that will get you a good portion of the way into creating your first sales funnel. Now, if you're thinking, okay, Kristen, yeah, this makes sense, but I still feel super overwhelmed with the idea of actually setting this up. I totally get it. I know the strategy part might click for you, but the actual tech setup can feel really hard. So I am putting together a ready to go funnel kit. It includes a landing page and a sales page template, the email automation template for Kit, so you can just drop your emails into it and have that ready to go. And they're all designed to work together really smoothly. It is and deliver the product. perfect for testing out your first funnel without getting bogged all down in the tech details or spending tons of time trying to figure that stuff all out yourself. If that sounds like exactly what you need, you can check out The Savvy Funnel Starter Kit at kristendoyle.co/funnel. Thanks for listening, and I'll talk to you soon.