Have you heard of a “coaching sales funnel”? If you’ve spent any time coaching then I’ll bet you probably have. It’s a catchy term these days! Graphics, videos, and viral explanations on TikTok seem to scratch the surface but do they ever really give enough detail for you to implement it in your business? I want to teach you what a coaching sales funnel is, how it works, and how you can use it to grow your coaching business.
What is a coaching sales niche?
The easiest part about sales funnels is if you’ve EVER tried to run a business then you already have some experience with them, whether you know it or not! At some point you approached someone who had never heard of you before, pitched some offer to them, and helped coach them towards buying your offer. A coaching sales funnel is a conceptual framework for understanding your effectiveness at converting leads throughout their entire customer journey.
I know that sentence was probably a little heavy… Let’s break it down a bit. At the very top of your funnel you have strangers. They’ve never heard of your business or offer and likely have never even heard of you. You probably already have some technique you use for introducing yourself to them. That’s the first step of your funnel. Once they’re no longer strangers you try to get them to engage with your social media content where you can teach them exactly what offer you have and why they should buy it.
After a like, a follow, a comment, now they’re building familiarity with you and associating you with your offer. This is step 2 of your funnel. Finally they have stuck around long enough that they are experiencing the exact problem you help solve and they trust you enough to buy from you. This is the third step! You’ve taken a lead from stranger to engager to buyer.
How does a coaching sales funnel help you?
The example I just gave is technically a funnel… but here’s the magic. There is NO set way your funnel has to be structured. You can have as many or as few steps as you want. The steps of your funnel can be what works best for you, not just what you read online.
Let's look at some examples of ways you can build a coaching sales funnel that works for you...
This is a very basic funnel that is pretty much the same as the example I gave above. Start with generating leads or people who might be interested in your offer. Get them to sign up for a freebie or lead magnet like a newsletter or workbook. Once they’ve done that email them encouraging them to sign up for a free call with you. On the phone, talk to them about what they’re struggling with, explain how you can help them, and then pitch your offer. Finally, if they’re motivated to take action and your offer aligns with them, they become a buyer!
Here is where start adding some *spice* to our funnel. Hopefully you noticed we added a step here! The goal of this funnel is to get them to join a live event like a webinar or training where you will coach them on a piece of what your main offer is. Once they’ve signed up and joined then they’ll follow a similar path by booking a sales call and then buying your offer.
This funnel was designed to eliminate the need for a sales call. You know, some people really hate having to do sales calls! That’s exactly why it’s so important to design your own coaching sales funnel. You can incorporate the steps you like and leave off what you don’t. While they similarly attend a live event here, it’s the very first step they have with your business. The pitch of the live event isn’t to book a call and buy but rather to buy a lower cost, introductory offer. This could be like a group subscription, a workbook, or even a single 1:1 session with you. Next they’re encouraged to join a facebook group where they’ll get to engage with you and eventually start a 1:1 conversation. Now they’ve been nurtured to buy your offer without ever having to get on the phone.
How can you use a coaching sales funnel to grow your business?
Now that we’ve seen some examples of what a funnel is and how you can custom design it to meet your needs, let’s talk about how you can use it to grow your business.
One thing you might notice about every funnel example is that they all start with lead generation. This is a variable piece that will be determined by how you find qualified leads for your business. Some examples might be running ads, SEO organic engagement, or even in person at a brick-and-mortar store or fair booth. The object is just to weed out the people who are likely to be interested in your business from the general public.
To hopefully simplify things a bit the last step is also always the same! You always need to find qualified leads and you always need to be nurturing them towards buying your main offer. The steps in between are where all the magic happens and is how you can custom tailor your funnel to meet your goals and needs.
The beauty of using a funnel is that you can map out your customer journey and understand all of the steps you’re expecting them to go through. Having this map allows you to associate traffic data you get from your website, social media, and ads with specific parts of your funnel. Now you can use this data to draw meaningful conclusions about where your funnel is succeeding! You can also start to see where you need to invest more time.
Let's look at a quick example...
I added a couple numbers to this graphic, can you guess what they mean? They’re conversion rates. What this shows is that for the total population of people who were served your freebie/email sign up, 10% of them signed up. Say 10,000 people saw an ad for it, that’s 1,000 signed up. 1% of those people went on to book a call so about 100 people. Finally, 7% of the people who booked a call went on to buy the product. Now, these numbers are made up and the conversion rates are fake but… can you see anything interesting?
Over time you’ll come to see what average conversion rates you can get and you’ll identify patterns in the data. The pattern I hope you can see here is that a huge portion of people fall off after the freebie sign up. What does this mean? Something between them signing up for the freebie and being encouraged to book a call is turning them cold.
Here is where you can begin to invest time into developing a better freebie system that will begin to lift that 1% conversion rate higher. This saves you money if you’re running ads because you’ll end up with more sales for the same ad spend. As you build your own funnel you will be able to see patterns like this start to form. Use the data to help drive your decisions so you can grow your business efficiently.
Your Coaching Sales Funnel
If you’re interested in talking with me about your coaching sales funnel, book a free call with me today! Let’s figure out how you can strategize and move forward in your business together. I’ve been running my coaching business for 5 years now and I’ve helped countless women design the business and programs that work for them so they can courageously chase their dream life!
You can also message me on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or at my email Coaching@JenesisRose.com.
