When you’re starting your business, the easiest way to bring in clients is through warm referrals. And honestly, that’s a great way to grow in the beginning. But there are downsides to relying on referrals, and if you’re a coach, consultant, or creator, you’re probably familiar with them.
It can be feast or famine. You can’t predictably know when a referral is going to come in. And while you CAN put systems in place to nurture your referral partners and increase your leads, there comes a point where, in order to truly gain leverage and decouple your time from your income, you need to make a transition to cold traffic.
And in order to do that, you need a FUNNEL.
A funnel in a nutshell is a series of steps that you might ask someone to take to go from not knowing who you are to becoming a paid client or customer.
So Many Options! What Type of Funnel Do I Choose?
It’s a good question. There are many different types of funnels, but the ultimate goal is to take someone through a process from being a complete stranger to becoming a customer, usually through a series of steps.
This process can be fully automated or include live components, such as a workshop and a 1:1 sales call, depending on your offer.
Let’s talk about the different types of funnels you might be familiar with already:
The Lead Magnet Funnel
This type of funnel will generally have an ad or a piece of content that captures ATTENTION.
Then, once someone clicks, they’re taken to exchange their email address for a free piece of content or training – and someone will express INTEREST in that piece of content enough to provide an email address for it.
After that, they’re taken to an offer, usually via a sales page or video presentation that generates interest and desire, and leads the prospect to take ACTION, or to an application if it’s a high ticket offer that requires a sales call.
The “SLO” Funnel
SLO stands for “self-liquidating offer.” The goal of this funnel is to create a bite-size low ticket offer that essentially pays for the cost of running ads, with the real profit being made on the higher ticket offers on the back end. From there, in many cases there will be upsells, downsells, and cross-sells, as a way to maximize the average order value.
Evergreen Webinar Funnel
This type of funnel is built on a core video presentation that acts as a conversion mechanism for the offer. Ads drive people to register for the webinar, workshop, or challenge, and the offer is made at the event. Usually there are emails, text messages, and other modalities to increase attendance at the webinar.
QUIZ Funnel
This is our signature funnel, which combines the power of curiosity that a QUIZ creates with the ability to segment and speak differently to different segments of your market.
While a QUIZ Funnel can be incredibly effective, it is not without some challenges and some work.
If you’re going to put people into different buckets based on their unique set of circumstances, then to have five different types of people, for example, that we might want to cater to, we’ve increased the amount of work by 5x.
It’s five times as much work to put people into all these different buckets. So it can be an incredibly effective strategy, but it’s not one that is without its challenges and its fair share of work to actually make possible.
The “Hybrid Funnel” – What is it?
So, this is where the Hybrid Funnel comes in. Instead of moving to what most people do, which is what we call a one-size fits all funnel, where all roads lead to the same place and through the same route, we’re not taking into account that different people have different buying behaviors.
So, the idea behind a Hybrid Funnel is a way to have the best of both worlds: the ease and simplicity of a funnel that works, with the effectiveness of segmenting people based on their Buyer Persona.
Now, there are 4 Buyer Personas, and a Hybrid Funnel will speak to each of them in different ways, in some cases creating custom messaging for that type. This way, you’re making sure to speak to each different type of buyer in your audience, and addressing the key ways that they tend to purchase.
Next Steps: Discover More About the Hybrid Expert™ Method
Join us for an upcoming free training for coaches, consultants, and “Hybrid Experts” all about How to Get More Clients Faster Using this Unique AI-Powered Client-Getting Strategy.
