Latest / The Expert's Journey: Helping Speakers & Authors Succeed! / Profitable Pathways: How to Focus your Business into a Smart Funnel

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Profitable Pathways: How to Focus your Business into a Smart Funnel · The Expert's Journey: Helping Speakers & Authors Succeed!

• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to the Expert Genie Podcast, the show that helps speakers, authors, and experts turn their knowledge into income and impact.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: In this episode, we're going to be looking at something we call profitable pathways, how to focus your business into a smart funnel that guides people across platforms towards working with your buying from you.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: If your audience is scattered or your content feels like it's going nowhere, this episode may help you make a clear path from attention to action.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk strategy and let's talk about things that actually lead to sales.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Good morning, Dixie.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning, Brad.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, Brad, you're talking about one of my favorite things that gets me hung up on all the time, and I know it's a common problem for everybody.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: How do you make sense of funnels and attracting the right people into the funnel to make things happen so that you actually get results coming through the funnel?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me about what you've been doing with your funneling lately.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I've been doing a lot of work on my funnels.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: The main reason being I realized I had different audiences on different platforms.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't want to be reinventing the wheel for everybody.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: I really wanted to be able to tie them all together.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to look at what is it that all these audiences have got in common?
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: And what is it that I really help people do?
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: And what I realized was that all my audiences were entrepreneurs.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: They're the people I mainly talk to.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: So speakers, authors, experts, and people starting businesses online, that group of people.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: And once I started to realize that's specifically who I talked to, I was then able to look at my funnel and go, okay, how do I talk to these people?
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: How do I produce content in such a way that actually appeals to them?
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: And that's actually going to work for me online.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I realized that the biggest area that I work with people in, the overarching topic, is helping people to create extra streams of income.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's things like how to write a course, how to use AI to produce content, how to optimize your website so you sell more.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: In the end, it's all about building your income online.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so I started to look at that and I started to realize okay, I've been producing these videos to help people fix their websites.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: But how do I drive people towards the funnel where I'm getting people to join my membership, which is to help them do all these things because this is where I do my work.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I realized that I needed to really look at my content and replan my content.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got like tactical content and you've got strategic content.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: So tactical and strategic.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: What's the difference between tactical versus strategic content?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: From my perspective, tactical is specific things that you can do.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: So for example, add a call to action button.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's a tactical thing that you can do.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: Strategic is more about the path of how you're going to apply that across the board.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: And a funnel, for example, is a strategy, but it might be if you want to grow an extra stream of income, you can do this and this.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: So it's more strategy than specifics.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Tactics to me are specifics.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: What I was able to do was sit down and now, and by using this overarching topic of creating income or extra income streams, it's made it much more simple to tie everything that I'm doing in together and then to drive my audience towards my membership.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Where a lot of speakers have content online and the content that they're selling, it's often all different topics, but it's like they're not connected.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: So they they're trying to sell this and they're trying to sell that and they're trying to sell that.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: So when you're developing a funnel, the first thing you've got to do is try and find that overarching theme.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: Because once you have that overarching theme, it makes it much easier to develop a funnel so that you've got your leads when you're on stage, your leads when you send email out, your leads when you're doing social media, your leads who find you through Google and things like that, that they're constantly being fed down.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's very much top-of-funnel stuff.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: We talk about top, middle, and bottom funnel.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Let me just ask you.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: So you're saying that you'll send different information or the same information out to all of the different places places?
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to make it so that I can send the same information to the different places.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: Number one, that means your brand is consistent across all of them, and you're not having to produce five different pieces of information.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: What we do know now is things like reels, for example, what you do on a reel on Instagram is the same as you do on a reel on TikTok.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: The hook, the middle, the end, that sort of stuff, all is very consistent.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: So there's really no need to recreate the wheel for each different platform.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: You can create different different platforms if you want to, but what I'm looking for is this one funnel that I can feed out that's consistent, whether you find me on LinkedIn, whether you find me on TikTok, whether you find me on Instagram or whatever, that I'm developing content that drives you towards taking an action that pushes you into a funnel that eventually gets you to buy my product or service.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: So everyone collectively who is an entrepreneur across the board of all of the things that you do in some way or another is all getting into the top of the funnel, and then you have a breakdown of the middle and the bottom of the funnel.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Is that what you're saying?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: So when I sat down and looked at the funnel, as well, we always lay a funnel out.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: You think about what are the steps involved.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: So, for example, I'm creating content around optimizing the website and producing streams of income, all that kind of tied together, different topics.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: And my main feed is towards making microcourses.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so the second part of my funnel, the middle of my funnel, is actually a short video workshop with a workbook that people can watch for free completely.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: They just put their email in and they get to watch the workshop.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: They get the workbook and they can apply that.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then the next part is that is a sell-into my membership.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: So it's very straight.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: You've got content that leads people towards this little workshop that then leads people towards a course on how to create microcourses.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: So three pretty simple steps.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: The biggest issue that I personally found, and I've seen other people do this as well, is that the content they're doing at the top of their funnel is all over the place.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: So it never leads people down to the second step.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's really important to get that right.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: So you actually have to spend some time thinking about who the people are and what the content is that's going to be generic enough in one instance rather than having 10 different types of content to put them into the top of the funnel.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's knowing the audience, knowing their problem, and then creating content that uh specifically targets them.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: And this is key, you're looking for certain people, not looking for everybody.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: So you're targeting those people, your audience, your avatar, whatever you want to call it.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: You're giving them content that raises their interest, that teaches them something, and then draws them down into the funnel where you might say do two or three tactics, and then you'll do one strategy one that draws them into the funnel, whereby you go into that second level, which is that free workshop.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really hard to force yourself to do this because it's natural to try and talk to everybody.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the mistake that we make as marketers all the time.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's fine to get up on a stage and speak to a large audience that's mixed.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's entirely different when you're trying to market online because you're trying to only get the people who are really keen on your content.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the other thing that a lot of people forget is that people's attention span is really short.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: You're not going to create content for a year and then get them to buy.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: They're going to be on your content, they're going to watch your content a few times, and they're going to take action because people move in and out of a buying zone.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: We all have interest in topics at certain times, but we don't stay in those interests.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: But it's really important that our funnel is focused towards drawing people to take the next step.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: So that's really good because that all comes back down to having a clear, defined goal for what your call to action then leads people to.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: What is your clear goal around what do you want people to be doing when they take action at the top of the funnel and then at the bottom of the funnel?
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: Top of the funnel, I want them to obviously watch the content first of all and like what I'm saying.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's the first thing you can hook them in and say, okay, this guy's got something interesting.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then when I put my strategy content out, which draws them into the next step of the funnel, that they go through and they sign up for the free workshop.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: Now, in this case, it's an introduction to microcourses, just a short little preparing your outline.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then the next step is if you like that, we'll actually have a micro course on running microcourses.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not a huge step up, it's a$57 sort of price range.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's nothing huge.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: But it takes people through, and at each step, it expands on their connection with me.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: They're getting a little bit more of me, they're learning a bit more, and then they're learning something they can apply.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then eventually that leads into my membership, which is a whole pile of other content on producing income streams, produce a microphone, produce a video, produce an app, or whatever it happens to be.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: So the key thing is that because I'm talking to entrepreneurs, I'm trying to be a little bit generic because not everybody's necessarily looking to produce a course when they come across my content.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: What I'm trying to say to them is okay, you might not be looking to produce a course, but a course would be a really good way to make more money as an entrepreneur.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: Now, whether you're a speaker or whether you're just someone starting out online who's looking to make money, the idea is to catch their attention there at that type of funnel and to go, hey, here's a way that everybody has an expertise area.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: Anybody can produce a microcourse.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: This is a way you can make money.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Now, that will appeal to a wide kind of variation of people.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's to drive people down.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Now, most people, when they're starting out online and they want to create a business online, are looking for different opportunities to make money.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: They want to make different streams.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: So the first step is obviously the microcourses.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: But then when you join my membership and discover actually there's a whole pile of ways that I can make money or I can add to my existing business as a speaker or author by creating these other products as well.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: And here's some of the tools and here's how I use AI and all that sort of stuff.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: About creating microcourses, does that lead everyone to your funnel, to the top of the funnel?
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't directly in this case.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: It actually leads straight to the course because the book itself is like a top of funnel, but it's not social media top of funnel.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: For the people who don't know about the book, for example, who come across the content and then go to the workshop online and then get into the course, I'm actually going to include a copy of the book in that course so they can actually get the book as part of the course.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm using it as a backup tool as well.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: So if people want to find out more about how to do what you're talking about doing and create their own funnel, is that part of what you do?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Is help them to strategize all of that?
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah, yeah.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: I certainly can help people with that.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that's part of why I've built this membership is to put some of that sort of stuff in there as well, aside from the fact that I actually work with people directly to do that sort of thing.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think so often we're creating content, it's going all over the place, but there's no stream of content driving people down into taking an action.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: We're putting it out there, we're hoping that it sets us up as an expert, but we're not targeting people specifically.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: And yet when we get on stage as a speaker, you are specifically targeting people the way you talk, the way you deliver the content into all that.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: But what we put out into our normal daily stuff can be all over the place.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why this topic, I'm quite passionate about it, because, and honestly, it does take quite a bit of work to get it right, because you've got to take some time to think about what you're doing and then put a plan in place for when you're creating your content so that you do that on an ongoing basis.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, can you summarize what you now established about creating an effective funnel into six easy steps?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: So the first step was to understand who my audience is.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's the first step.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: And really understand that I'm looking to talk to people who want to create income online.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: Now, some of those people are speakers, some of those people are newbies online.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: There's a range, but they are looking to create income by being online.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: Second step is to look at the product you're selling.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: So you actually got to go backwards.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: You go to the end of the funnel first.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: What am I selling?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: So my membership is my ultimate thing, but I need something that leads there.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: So the course, the little micro course, is actually the next step.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm taking people who don't know me.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: I can't just go straight to try and sell them a course.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: I need something in the middle that warms them up, that shows them a little bit about what I know, shows them how very quickly they can create the introduction of what their course is going to be about and what they might cover.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the free workshop in the center.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then we look at, okay, how do we get people to that?
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we need to produce social media content.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: And how we deliver that is we do some tactical stuff, then we do a strategy with call to action.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then we record those.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: So you sit there and you write your scripts, making sure you use a hook at the start of the little reel, et cetera, and then edit them up, and then you post them to your social media on an ongoing basis.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that you continue to follow the pattern.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got that continuous flow of information going out there.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: So that if someone comes in today, they get a bit of tactics and then they get a strategy, and that drives them towards the workshop and so on and so forth.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: This is it's not something that's a one-time thing, it must be an ongoing thing.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Now, and of course, you can take one video and turn it into an ad if you want to.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: You can also use advertising.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it sounds like you have resolved a lot of the frustrational and confusing aspects of creating an effective funnel.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: What's next for you after that?
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: More building of the course, the online program, or building more funnels, which is a better option?
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: So if you've got everything built, then obviously creating more funnels that talk to specific audiences is sensible.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: But you need to look at creating, say, new profiles on social media for the new audience.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because one of the really key things that a lot of people don't realize is that when you create a profile and you start pushing out content on social media, that profile is talking to one audience.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: If you try and spread it out, you don't get picked up by the algorithm.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: So watch time is so super important that if people aren't watching the videos right through, it means that you're not talking to the right audience, which means that you're not getting that connection.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so therefore you won't be seen by anybody.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: Create a new profile, talk to that specific audience, drive them into the funnel.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: See, you can basically create new audiences at the top and drive them into the same funnel if you want to, or you can create multiple funnels.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: There's a few ways you can look at it.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: But I think the main thing is that you really need to look at how I can get this working.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then when you find it's working, if you find one video, like you go back through your results, it's working really well, you can then say, okay, let's try turning that one into an ad.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe we can boost that video across the platforms and just drive consistent traffic.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because once you get a funnel right and you find something that drives people down the first step of the funnel, you can use advertising to buy traffic, targeting those people.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then you've got a business structure.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I love that.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Congratulations on working through all of that and coming up with your step formula on how to make that brick for everyone else.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Looking forward to seeing that evolve.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know it's a little confusing, but I think the key thing is just remember that if you're putting content all over the place, you're just not hitting your audience properly.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to find your audience.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's super, super important.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Which comes down to the whole concept of we need to be niched, we need to be focused, we need to know who our audience is and use multiple platforms to achieve what we're wanting to achieve as experts who speak and write and deliver great content.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, love it.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well done.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I think that brings us to the end.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: So thanks again for joining us the Experts Journey podcast.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: If this helped you rethink your content strategy or finally map out a bit of a profitable funnel, don't forget to subscribe, share the episode, and leave a quick review because it really makes a difference to how many people we can reach.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: And if you want to go further, check out our latest books on Amazon, Dixie's Start with the Draft How to Easily Plan and Write a Nonfiction Book.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: And my book, Microcourse Profits, Build a Seven Figure Income with Bite Sized Courses.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: They're packed with tools to help you grow faster and lead with confidence.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: So catch you in the next episode.