Answering Your Questions About Sales Funnels and Why Coaches Need One

One question I am asked all the time from my readers is what is a sales funnel and why is it important to have one? I guess that’s really two questions, but they go hand in hand, so I’ll tackle answering them together.

A sales funnel is a pathway through which you guide prospects into the depths of your business. Unless your prospects have unlimited funds, you will rarely find someone ready to buy your highest-priced coaching service. Likewise, if you’re planning a weekend retreat in a faraway land, very few will shell out $10,000+ unless they already know you and like what you have to say.

Hence the need for a sales funnel.

Anatomy of a Sales Funnel

No doubt you have seen pictures of funnels, where the widest opening is at the top of the funnel with the smallest opening at the bottom. The idea behind this graphic is that you’re attracting as many people as possible at the opening of your funnel and bringing them down to the smallest opening, where your most expensive product is offered.

Every step along the way, from the wide opening and downward into the funnel, you need to make offers to this audience and usually, they are incremental in price. These offers make chronological sense to the consumer and after they purchase one product, they are more likely to purchase a second due to liking your content and your style of coaching.

What Can I Offer?

At the opening of your sales funnel, you want something with mass appeal so you’re attracting a large number of people. It can be a freebie, a chapter from your book, a recording of an interview, or anything that will showcase your coaching.

Once people have responded to that freebie, I prefer to offer low-priced items throughout my funnel. These types of products give your audience a low-risk way of experiencing your coaching skills and beliefs. These low-priced items can include ebooks, workbooks, e-courses, or a membership site.

How Can I Get Started Creating Low-Priced Items?

The key to creating low-priced products for your sales funnel is that they should be quick and easy to create. You don’t need ghostwriters or a huge team to create the products I’m talking about. The idea is to pull your expertise out of your head and get it onto paper or video. No extra research is necessary…it’s all about what you know.