Funnel Magazine Volume 3: Edition 4 by Funnel Magazine™

FUNNEL MAGAZINE TRAFFIC & LEAD GEN

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT

DON”T GO NEAR THE WATER UNTIL YOU LEARN HOW TO SWIM

8 FUNNELS

THE INTERVIEW

52 METRICS

18 STRATEGY & TACTICS

LEADERSHIP

70 SOCIAL MEDIA

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JOIN FUNNEL MAGAZINE LIFETIME

“ I GIVE A TON OF VALUE, BECAUSE TO ME, AS AN AGENCY, MY IDEAL CLIENT IS NOT SOMEONE WHO WANTS TO GO AND DO IT THEMSELVES. IT’S SOMEONE WHO WANTS TO TRUST US AND HIRE US.” - EMILY HIRSH

LETTER

FROM THE EDITOR

HOW TO SCALE YOUR SERVICE BUSINESS

4 WAYS TO USE MESSENGER BOTS TO BUILD YOUR BRAND

FACEBOOK ADS DONE RIGHT

THE IMPORTANCE OF AN IDEAL CUSTOMER AVATAR

EMILY HIRSH

NURTURE YOUR AUDIENCE AT EACH STAGE OF THE FUNNEL

BUILDING A BRICK AND MORTAR SALES FUNNEL

SAY MY NAME, SAY MY NAME

CONSISTENCY IS KEY IN YOUR ONLINE MARKETING

DONâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;T GO NEAR THE WATER UNTIL YOU LEARN HOW TO SWIM

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR OF

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Dear Funnel Hackers, I am so excited to be bringing to you the creator of the Hirsh process, CEO of Hirsh marketing, Emily Hirsh. She has a seven-figure business and 24 employees. Emily has been featured at events like Russell Brunson’s Inner Circle, The Dovetail Summit and Ray Higdon’s Mastermind. She is an absolute genius when it comes to Systems and Scaling your service business to 7 or 8 figures. In the interview with Hawk, Emily Hirsh gives a golden nugget to Entrepreneur Moms. She says “Don’t treat it like a hobby. I see so many women do that. We have so many other pressures around us that we work on our business only when our kids are sleeping at night, or in our free time that we think we’re going to have but we don’t have. Then, it doesn’t go anywhere. I see this happen all the time, either at the beginning or they’ve already made some money, but it just stays here. Treat your business like a business and not a side hobby and put in intentional hours, know your numbers, budget” As a mom myself I know sometimes we need that reassurance and permission to go ahead and spend that time on the business, especially while working from home in the middle of all of the daily responsibilities. However, stand up and show your genius to the world. I think that an important part of being a good parent is being happy and successful, additionally, I believe it will encourage children to find their own genius. Your Editor, Tricia Wilkes P.S Have A Happy Easter

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4 Ways To Use Messenger Bots to Build Your Brand ARTICLE BY Mackensie Liberman

4 Ways To Use Messenger Bots to Build Your Brand and Get Raving Fans Who Want To Buy And Tell Others About Your Business

in more customers on autopilot. Can chatbots automate sales? They definitely can! More importantly, though, Messenger Bots can build up brand awareness, improve customer support and retention, and make it super easy to reach new people, both via paid traffic and organically. Sales are great, don’t get me wrong, and are usually the ultimate goal, but when you focus on improving the conversation and connection with your audience, not only will sales happen, but you will build brand loyalty and increase overall customer satisfaction.

If you’ve been a part of the digital marketing industry in any capacity the last few years, you have most likely heard of Messenger Bots. With their high open, click through, and engagement rates, combined with the fact that there are over 10 BILLION messages exchanged between people and businesses a month, they are becoming one of the best platforms to market on to reach your audience. So if you’re not already utilizing Messenger Marketing in your business, you #1: Get Subscribers Into Your Messenger Bot are definitely missing out on reaching new and current customers. To build your brand with Messenger Bots, the first thing you need to do is get subscribers into your bot. Usually, A question I get a lot is: “How can I make a Messenger I suggest giving an incentive for people to go through Bot work for my business?” The great news is that your bot, whether that is a giveaway, a quiz, or some because Bots are so versatile, they can help kind of offer like a coupon/discount, free consultation accomplish many different functions and sign up, or lead magnet. automate a lot of them too, which can save you a ton of time and bring Now that you have the offer, what are the best ways to get people into your bot? There are a number of traffic sources, but the three I recommend are Facebook ads VOLUME 3

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into Messenger, a bot widget on your website, and This is wonderful for three reasons. First, you can gain leveraging your email list by sending a link that takes a lot of customer research to learn more about your them straight into Messenger. audience. What are their top goals where your product or service can help them? Why did they decide to Pro Tip: If you’re running Facebook ads to get more purchase? Why didn’t they buy? subscribers, be sure to exclude anyone who has previously messaged your Facebook Page. Second, it allows you to segment your audience based on specific criteria so that future messages that are sent #2: Grow Your Email List From Messenger are more relevant to what they want and where they Some people have tried to say that email is dead are in their customer journey. because of Messenger Bots. Personally, I think that is a Third, you have a built-in beta group of your ideal very limited and myopic viewpoint. Why can’t they work audience to pitch and test new ideas, products, and in conjunction with each other? There are two main services. By asking your subscribers engaging questions, benefits of getting the emails of your bot subscribers. you can learn more about what gaps in products or First, if the person unsubscribes from your bot you will services your business has as well as if an idea of a still be able to reach them via email where they may potential product or service is viable. not find it as intrusive. Second, as I’m sure you’ve heard before, you own your email list. If Facebook changes So have a conversation (albeit automated or semithings or goes under (not likely to happen, but possible!), automated) with your audience to find out more about you will still be able to contact your audience via email. them to help you to stay relevant to them as well as improve your business through research feedback. If you’re using ManyChat as your bot platform, you can easily ask subscribers for their email by using the User #4: Increase Referrals And Social Proof Through Input field, with the Reply Type of “Email”: Your Messenger Subscriber List Two great ways to bring in new customers and reach more people who are your ideal audience is to ask for your current audience to give you social proof through review requests and to invite them to share the offer with their friends and family. No matter if you are in e-commerce, are a restaurant, or a dentist, online reviews can play a huge role in social proof and result in more people deciding to go with you over a competitor. The best way to get reviews is to ask your customers to leave one soon after they This puts their email tied to their Facebook profile as make a purchase. You can do this easily inside of the a button that all they have to do is tap on it to submit. bot by having a Messenger Scan Code attached to a Or, if they don’t want to use that email, they can just review flow: reply with the email they would like to use instead. You can then send the email to your email software or CRM via Zapier or via the direct integration with ManyChat. #3: Engage With Your Audience To Have A Conversation Another thing I see often is that businesses have a Messaging Funnel that is only a single layer deep for lead generation with no real follow up, which is where a lot of the magic happens. People love to talk about themselves and what they like and don’t like, especially in Messenger! So why not ask them more questions? EDITION 4

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The other great thing about the review bot flow is that the person who is being referred clicks on the message you can change the resulting review location depending they receive, it will take them into your Page’s Messenger on where your business may need more reviews. and they will become a new subscriber! One of the best ways to get new customers is through Pro Tip: If you’re using ManyChat, put the Messaging referrals, and Messenger makes it super easy to do just flow that sends the person the offer into a ref URL that through the use of a Share card: growth tool. Take that URL and put it as the share card’s URL so when the person clicks, they go through the flow to opt into the offer. So in conclusion, be sure to use Messenger Bots in ways that help to increase conversations with your audience. In doing so, you’ll find out more about your customers, give them what they’re wanting, and increase customer loyalty, which will all result in more sales!

This will allow people to send individual messages to their friends and family inviting them to take advantage of an offer just by clicking on the Share button. When

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Facebook Ads Done Right - 6 Ways To Effective Facebook Advertising ARTICLE BY Kelly Sturtevant

Have you ever uttered these phrases before? “I’ve tried Facebook ads before, but they didn’t work”

very clear on who you are speaking to in order to attract them to your product or service. This means knowing:

• Who they are “I wasted too much money and got no results from my • Where they live ads” • What they like/don’t like “I’ll just run some Facebook ads and the money will • What age range they belong in • What their gender is start POURING in!!” • What interests do they have Utilizing Facebook ads for your business is a fantastic When it comes to selecting interests for your target way to increase your audience, generate higher sales audience, there are a few different ways you can test and explode your revenue. But if you don’t understand them out. the basics of a good Facebook ad, you can end up wasting your money and getting no return for your First, if you have a bigger budget, test each interest group separately. This will show you which interests investment. are actually performing the best for you and can save Here are my top 6 ways to improve your Facebook money in your ad spend by not showing ads to people ads and increase your chances of ad success. who aren’t interested in your product/service. 1. Know your target audience If your budget is tighter, then put a few interests similar Knowing your audience is critical to the in nature under one ad set and test a couple of different success of your ads. You need to be groupings.

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If you are super clear on who your target audience is and know exactly what their interests are, then you can run all of them together.

Once you have an understanding of who you are sell them or get the audience to take action on, whether speaking directly to, you can craft your ads specifically that is a link to your sign up pages, or a purchase page, for their pain points, increasing your chance of success. or even just to comment on the ad itself. But short copy doesn’t mean skimping on details, it just means getting 2. Creative to the point a little quicker. Creative means the images or videos you select for your Long copy is designed for storytelling. These type ads. This is usually the first thing your audience notices of ads require a larger investment of time from your when the ad pops up in their newsfeed. Your creative audience to actually read it through, but when done should attract to the emotion you are trying to convey right long form copy can do marvelous things for your to your audience with your product or service and not bottom line. always a picture of your product. In long form copy, the audience needs to walk the path It is good to keep in mind that Facebook has a 20% you are sending them on. They need to feel the pain text rule when it comes to ad creatives. This means that points, experience the struggle and ultimately come to you should not have text taking up more than 20% of the conclusion that your product or service is going to the space of your graphic. Facebook won’t reject your solve their problems. ad based on breaking this rule, but it will severely limit the reach of your ad, causing you to spend more money Other things that help with the copy, in general, are than necessary to reach your audience. (There are the use of emojis and pattern interrupts. Emojis, while exceptions to this rule, including book covers, product silly and cute do actually serve a purpose. They help shots, and posters for events) drive home the emotions you want your audience to experience in your copy. Facebook allows you to test 6 different images under one ad copy, giving you the ability to see what images Emojis can also be used as a pattern interrupt. Pattern resonate better with your audience. Sometimes what interrupts are done for two reasons - they help break up YOU think will hit, turns out to be incorrect for your larger portions of copy and they act as a visual shock audience! If your budget allows, test out at least three to your audience as they scroll through their newsfeed. images but preferably all six. A good pattern interrupt will get the reader to stop and take notice of your ad and ultimately read through your Carousel style ads are a great way to showcase multiple copy. products in one ad. These work great for ecomm businesses who sell many different products. Whether short or long form copy is used in your ads, make it compelling to your audience. Tell the story, A video is probably the best creative to run for an ad, solve their pain points, make a difference in their life. especially to a cold audience. Video ads are hard to avoid in your newsfeed so they can attract your target 4. Header audience much quicker than an image can. The header is your subject line. This is what can attract One of the greatest things a video ad can do is give you your audience to click the link or press the button to the ability to create a custom audience from the people Learn more. But it’s often the forgotten line of copy in who viewed your video. This valuable custom audience an ad. Don’t neglect this line! can then be targeted with a second ad, moving them Your header needs to tell your audience what this ad is from a cold audience to a warm audience. for. Is it a webinar? Is it a form? Is it something they just 3. Copy need to watch? You can showcase this in your subject by using block letters and brackets to drive home the The words you use to talk to your audience about your point such as [DOWNLOAD NOW] or [$1 TRIAL product or service will go a long way in whether they will FOR 7 DAYS] know, like and trust you. But there is more to copy than “Buy my products!” You want to hit on your audiences You don’t have a lot of space to use for a subject line, pain points, then make it clear your product or service so make it short and to the point, but yet catchy and is the solution. When writing copy, it is important to test inviting. out numerous types and styles to see what is hitting with your audience. Short copy is quick and to the point. This can be as short as a sentence or two, or longer to hit the pain points. It shouldn’t take much to talk about what you are trying to

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5. Social proof ads

your audience and your offers. The more time you spend up front testing out all of the little intricacies Many Facebook advertisers miss this tiny way to make better your ads will perform in the long run. a big impact to the reach of an ad. Ever notice that when viral posts come across your newsfeed, they have Besides, testing can be a lot of fun! You never know not only 1+ million views, but they have hundreds of what may or may not work for your audience! comments and shares? While some posts can create Ads are a great way to add a jetpack to your already this kind of reach organically, nowadays a boosted post great existing products or services. They can bring or an ad needs to be done in order to gain traction to you a larger target audience, increase your revenue viral content. and explode your growth. By following my 6 ways to By running an ad to a high performing post on your effective Facebook advertising you should see some business page, you are able to keep the social proof major improvements on how your ads are performing, already showing for it. This becomes a more attractive giving you a far better understanding of how to make ad to your audience when they see hundreds of your ads work for you. comments and shares below it. Use your already well-performing posts to your advertising advantage! 6. Test, Test, Test If you are still just learning about your audience, your offers, and your voice, you need to spend (and money) testing. Test everything. Test your copy, your creative,

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Article by Michelle Ciantar

The Importance of an Ideal Customer Avatar to Optimise Your Funnel

I was listening to a podcast the other day by one of the top digital marketers about what they would do differently if starting again from scratch. One very important thing they wished they had figured out early on was their ideal customer avatar. An ideal customer avatar is a representation of your perfect buyer. It is a detailed description of who you are building an offer or solution for that is in the market for what you are selling. Not knowing who your avatar is from the start will cost you lost time and money that you cannot afford to lose.

or service offering. It is step one in the process of crafting a conversion funnel that will build a qualified list of targeted leads who will buy from you while simultaneously providing lifetime value. Many entrepreneurs fumble with their marketing in the beginning because they don’t take the time to know who they are marketing to. They figure if their product or service is great, it’s going to be easy to market and sell to. However, the time it takes to gain traction is prolonged due to not knowing enough about their ideal clients.

To gain clarity of who your client avatar is, you need to know everything about their demographics (age, income, location, marital status, gender), goals and desires, pain points, needs and wants, where they get their information from and where they hang out online, in relation to your offering. Knowing as much as you can about the problems they have and the conversations they are having in their head will help to optimize your lead magnet and attract buyers who are ‘product fit’. Meaning, they are qualified leads that can be easily nurtured with the value you bring to solving The importance of having a detailed customer their problem because you have taken time to really get avatar is vital because it’s the foundation to to know them. everything that comes after your product Having clarity about your ideal customer is also very important for developing all your copywriting, messaging, product descriptions and lead pages. Most

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of your marketing efforts heavily rely upon your ideal Doing an in-depth analysis of your avatar will help you customer descriptions to be successful. And you will build a relationship with your audience, gain their trust and be positioned as the best possible solution provider. have more than one ideal avatar for your business. In addition, you must be ethically responsible and able For example, the cinema industry has four main to deliver them real results. audience segments; families, couples, seniors and young adults. Having these audience segments clearly defined helps sell the type of entertainment that caters to each customer avatar. Not every movie is a hit at the box office, but it takes the guesswork out of trying to sell a movie to just anyone. Knowing each segmented audience provides a streamlined approach to the products and services being offered.

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Article by Laura Farkas

Creative Ways to Add People to Your Sales Funnels

We all talk a lot about sales funnels and how to map, build, and optimize them, but the main question is how do you add people to your funnel? If there are no people entering, no matter how many times you multiply zero, it remains zero. With the great number of people trying to generate leads online, you might want to become more creative when it comes to engaging with prospects. Make them feel special, chosen, and get them to feel good about themselves for either getting something for free or helping you out. Below you will find a few creative ways you might not have tried to add people to your sales funnels. Surveys Online surveys are popular, and you don’t even need to pay people to fill them out. You will not only learn a lot about your target audience, but also engage with people filling out the form, and offering something for their time, in the form of a book, a free tool, or a consultation. This, however, doesn’t mean that you have to make them take it, but you will have a much better signup rate if you have already established a connection. You can use surveys on LinkedIn, Facebook, or even your own website, not only to generate leads but also to qualify them.

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Webinars You might think that creating a webinar is hard work, and not worth the effort. In reality, you will be able to establish a personal connection with your audience. And - as the experts say - people usually buy from those they know and trust. A webinar will allow you to showcase your expertise and establish yourself at the marketplace as the go-to person. If you can answer the most urgent questions of your audience, and get them to realize their needs, it is going to be much easier to get them to sign up for updates, follow you on social media, and look out for special offers you might have going. Podcasts Podcasts are definitely having a comeback, and there are hundreds of them launching every week. However, it is important that you get to know your audience and do your research before you create your own podcast. You will need to provide something valuable to keep people engaged for 30-50 minutes. If you are not ready to create a series of content yet, you can also sign up to be a guest at a popular podcast relevant to your audience. This way, you can simply dip your toes into the world of audio content creation, and still reach a wider audience with your offer. Don’t forget to mention your free product, special offers, and showcase your skills in the end.

Offline Networking You might think that you cannot combine online and offline lead generation methods, but this is not true. Not many people use this technique, but it is powerful. You can either create a simple card with the link you want people to click on, or ask them whether or not they could use some free help. Once they said yes, you can send them something that will make their life easier, and a signup link to your newsletter or lead capture page. Once you have established a personal connection and created reciprocity, you can easily achieve double or triple of your usual conversion rates throughout your sales funnel. Social Media Groups If you are just sitting by your laptop and phone waiting for people to discover your page and offers, you are doing something wrong. You need to reach out and get people to enter your circle of influence, or you will never grow your online presence. Just like years ago you used to take your time to comment on blog posts and go on

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forums, you can do the same by participating in social media group discussions. The rule of thumb is that you will need to focus on adding value, and the more established you are as a helpful person, an expert, and a contributor, the more likely people will be to contact you or take advantage of your special offers. To make the most out of the awareness level of your sales funnel, it is important that you focus on every audience and discover new ways to add people to your pipeline. Hopefully, you will try some of these lead generation methods that will fill your sales funnels with qualified prospects.

Article by Chris

Weatherhead

2 Mobile Optimization Hacks That Could Stop You Annoying Over 50% of Visitors!

It’s 2019 and over 50% of website traffic is now However, there are a couple of common problems to generated through mobile phones… and this is why avoid, so that your pages work correctly on all devices! funnel mobile optimization is key! Making sure your pages flow correctly You should be making sure you are optimizing for When a page design uses numerous vertical columns, mobile across all of your funnels because, if you don’t, the information in these columns is usually congruent to you could be missing out on huge opportunities (i.e. what is above and also below it. So, you need to make losing that mobile traffic)! sure that it looks correct on all devices. When building content on any normal webpage, you’ll For example: always need to lay out the page structure using rows and columns. • Row 1 is split into 3 equal-sized columns and each column contains a headline and some text Using these same basic principles of webpage design, • Row 2 also has 3 equal-sized columns with each the ClickFunnels page builder makes it really easy column containing a pricing table, which is to design your pages for both desktop and mobile! relevant to the headline directly above it You can simply change the device view by hitting the buttons, as shown in the screenshots below…

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confuse your page visitor and more than likely lose them… On the desktop, the layout will work fine as there is ample browser width to keep all of the columns in row 1 in a horizontal row. Likewise, all the columns on row 2 are also in a horizontal row.

As shown in the example above, you can clearly see each of the headlines, text and pricing tables in nice vertical stacks… in the correct order! However, when viewing this layout on a mobile device, ClickFunnels will automatically adjust it so that it only shows a maximum of one column at a time from each row, stacking them vertically! Using forms on your funnel pages Form elements within ClickFunnels are used to capture information such as email addresses, names, billing details, etc. However, you need to be mindful when using a form on a page that needs optimizing for both desktop and mobile devices (i.e. creating one form within the desktop view and a separate form within the mobile view). The reason for this is that it can cause problems when you click on the button to submit the form! In the examples above, you can see this means you will initially see all three headlines and accompanying text stacked on top of each other, which is then followed by the three pricing tables, also stacked one on top of the next!

Even though your page visitor will only see a single form, there are in fact two forms present within the HTML source code. Whilst the second form is not visible to the user, it’s still there within the background code but is being hidden from view by using some clever styling scripts (this is automatically created within ClickFunnels).

To resolve this, you need to make sure that you design If you were to view this page on a desktop computer, fill separate ClickFunnels ‘sections’ layouts for each device. out the form and click the submit button, the funnel will ClickFunnels make this really easy as, ultimately, all you not continue onwards. have to do is duplicate the section that is not working Essentially it will not work and appear to do nothing. and tailor each of these sections to only be shown to This is because there are empty form fields in the one of the devices. The important bit is making sure that, within the mobile section, you vertically stack all the elements (headlines, texts, pricing tables) in the right order as your page visitor would expect to read them. EDITION 4

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hidden form that need to be completed before it can submit. Of course, with the second form being hidden out of view, your page visitor would be none the wiser and would just think that something is broken! If they think itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s broken, chances are they will simply leave the page! To resolve this, you simply need to ensure that only one form exists on the page. You need to make sure that the section or row that has the form in is visible to both desktop and mobile devices, which means you will need to play about with properties on the individual form elements so that it looks good on all devices. Thankfully, this is made easier by the fact that you can So, make sure you are optimizing all of your funnels for select different font sizes for desktop and mobile (see both desktop and mobile devices! below), and all other form elements will automatically resize. But by having just a single form on your funnel page, when the submit button is clicked, the funnel will work as expected! Whilst these may seem like simple hacks, they could be the difference between converting a visitor into a client/ customerâ&#x20AC;Ś or losing them all together!

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Article by Amy Smith

How to Nurture Your Audience at Each Stage of the Funnel

As a business owner in 2019, it’s important to have an online presence. Your customers are going to be checking your website, social media, and third-party websites to gather information, data, and reviews depending on where they are in the buying process— or where they are in your marketing funnel.

1. The top of the funnel is the awareness stage where potential customers will enter. Here we assume they are a “cold” audience, as in they are unfamiliar with your company, the solution, or even the problem that needs solving.

2. The middle of the funnel is both the interest and desire stages. In these stages, potential customers are educated, gain awareness, and are “warmed up” to the A marketing funnel describes the stages and steps a solution to their problem(s). Those in this stage are a potential customer takes to go from unaware of either “warm” audience. your company, product, or service to pay for your 3. The bottom of the funnel is where customers know product or service. they need a solution to their problem and are ready to There are three main steps in the marketing journey buy right now. Here we call them a “hot” audience. for a potential customer. There are different ways to nurture your audience and potential customers at each stage. Nurturing your audience means you are giving them extra attention. This TLC can help them become more loyal to you, your company, products, or services. What is a marketing funnel?

Here are three ways to nurture your audience at each stage of the marketing funnel. 1. Raise awareness by being present where your ideal customer is

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Where does your ideal customer and target audience hang out? Where do they discover the answers to their questions? This is where you need to be. Social media is an obvious example so let’s take a look at that first.

• What stands you apart from competitors Answering these questions in articles with at least one thousand words will help search engines more accurately display your company’s website in search results. You can then share these articles on social media and Pinterest. The more you share the content, the more you will increase your visibility with your ideal customers. Lastly, the articles are educating your ideal customer and keeping them on your website—and in People use social media for different reasons, but most your world—for longer. customers are on some form of social media. Find out where your ideal customer is hanging out on social 3. Increase action by keeping things simple for your media and establish a presence there. The key to social ideal customer media is posting regularly, predictably, and engaging When it comes to your website, it’s easy to get carried with your followers. away by the design process, the multitude of options,

Other ways of raising awareness include other or shiny object syndrome. In reality, your potential customers need your website to be as simple as marketing campaigns such as: possible. Too many options can be overwhelming and • optimizing your website for search engines like they might go down the wrong path on your website or Google leaving it altogether (and exiting your funnel). Website • being present on Pinterest if your ideal customer users need to be told what to do and guided through uses Pinterest the website experience as easily as possible to get their • participating in traditional marketing questions answered. campaigns like direct mail and TV, radio, and/ The checkout process also needs to be as seamless and or print advertising intuitive as possible. Creating too many steps might • trying digital advertising on social media overwhelm them or even frustrate them making them platforms or on other websites • being present on third-party review websites like second-guess their decision. Just because an ideal customer is ready to take action doesn’t mean they will Yelp and TripAdvisor jump through hoops to get through your full process. • working with influencers who can become a brand ambassador or spokesperson for your Once they do go through the checkout process then products or services you can start adding on the popular upsell or cross-sell. These are popular because in one-click your customer 2. Increase interest and desire by educating your can add a similar, upgraded, or bonus buy to their ideal customer purchase. Your ideal customer may not know they have a problem After they go through the full buying process with you, much less that there is a solution to their problem. This make sure you continue to nurture them. Nurturing is where education campaigns come in to help them in them can include thank you emails, personalized offers, their buying and decision-making journey. and tailoring new content to their needs. One of the best ways of educating your ideal customer is by putting articles on your website. These articles should be written for the benefit of Google and other search engines--this process is called search engine optimization. Your website should have at least four to five articles on your website that will tackle the following questions: • What problem your product or service will solve • Why and/or how your product or service will solve that problem • What are the benefits of using your product or service

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Article by Al Sefati

Simple Tips for Building a Brick and Mortar Sales Funnel

Digital marketing tools aren’t just about increasing website traffic. They can also bring traffic to your brick and mortar retail location. This post will provide a quick, simple, yet wholly effective strategy for building a strong brick and mortar sales funnel. How to Build Your Brick and Mortar Sales Funnel

4. Throw in a few bucks to promote your posts, particularly on Facebook and on Instagram. This will increase your reach. One caution, though—change your settings to ensure that the boosted posts only go to local folks.

5. From there, create an offer. Come up with a special in-store event or promotion to coincide with the event. 1. First, install Facebook Pixel on your website or blog. If it’s a food festival, maybe you serve half-price drinks You’ll need this in one of the later steps, so hang tight to anyone who brings their festival ticket. It could be for the full explanation. anything, though we recommend making the offer 2. Next, write a blog post about a local event. For really good—as valuable as you can afford to make it. instance, if you own a restaurant and your city is hosting 6. Finally, use retargeting options from Facebook Pixel a major food festival, write something about it. Try to to show the offers/coupons to people who have read make the content as localized as possible, including the the blog post you promoted earlier. The Facebook Pixel event date, time, physical address, photos, etc. Also, be we mentioned in #1 was keeping track of who visited sure the content is totally original; don’t just copy and your site and the blog post so sending an offer to those paste from another site. individuals via Facebook or Instagram will encourage 3. Share your post. Send it out to all the folks on your those users to want to take an advantage of your email newsletter list. Distribute on all your social media promotion since they were already interested in your channels, too. Don’t forget to use any hashtags that content. have been created for the event. (You may need to do Collect email addresses before revealing the offer, a just a little online research here.) great way to build up your email list. And, make the event time-sensitive—something that will provide a sense of urgency.

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Myfunnel.link/marketinginyourcar

Building an Effective Sales Funnel for Your Retail Business Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s it. Just wait for customers to come in and make more money, as this tactic helps you piggyback off local events to boost your walk-ins and sales. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a great example of how digital marketing tools can send actual foot traffic to a brick and mortar retail location.

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Article by Tina Brinkley Potts

Say My Name, Say My Name

Name personalization can drastically improve conversion rates

them read it to you again. Did you feel different? Did the person reading the message begin changing their tone while reading when they heard their name?

While Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child made the phrase famous, when The name personalization must be done in a meaningful creating a great funnel with optimal conversions, it’s way though. For instance, we know one way is in the important to remember to SAY MY NAME. greeting by saying “Dear <first name>” or “Hey <first name>” based on your business conversational tone. You can create an effective funnel without it. By focusing However, finding two other places to personalize the on driving massive targeted traffic, your funnel is likely message by adding their name is crucial. Another easy to create positive outcomes. If you cast a wide enough way is by adding it to the call to action. For instance, if net, it’s likely to get some fish. In any case, on the off your call to action is “click here to watch my video” try chance that you want to emerge from your competition, “<first name>, click here to watch my video”. and achieve higher conversions, deeper connections and repeat buyers, set aside some time to incorporate Connection/Love And Significance name personalization by saying their name in multiple In Tony Robbins’s Six (6) human needs, two of the places. needs are SIGNIFICANCE and CONNECTION/ Three Times the Charm LOVE. By adding the name personalization in your emails, it helps the prospect feel like you are addressing By adding the prospect’s name three (3) times in an them specifically. With all the things that are vying for email, you will find higher click-through rates. Try this your audience’s attention, do you think they are more exercise with me. Go find an email that you’ve sent your likely to pay attention to someone who addresses them list. Have someone, like a family member read it to you. by name? When you are speaking to someone that is in Now go add their name in the email 3 times and have front of you if you say their name multiple times in the conversation, doesn’t it feel like it draws them deeper into the conversation? It does the same thing in email. Enhance The Know Like & Trust Factor

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Even though Destiny’s Child wanted you to “say my name” to make sure you aren’t with another girl, I want

you to say their name in your emails so they will feel like you are talking directly to them. When you address someone by name, it creates the bond like they know you. I remember one time I was in Charlotte Douglas International Airport waiting for my flight to San Diego, California and a lady walked up to me addressing me by my first name. We sat for a few minutes talking and during the entire conversation, I was trying to figure out how did I know this person. Finally, I simply said “I apologize, I don’t remember where I know you from. Where did we meet?” She said to me “We’ve never met in person, but I feel like I know you personally. I watch all your videos. You’ve changed my life.” Whoa! This conversation (which also speaks to the importance of video) would never have happened if she didn’t address me by my first name. When she addressed me by my

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first name in an airport where I didn’t know anyone, it felt like this was an old friend. As you can see, using name personalization is a great secret weapon for standing out and creating deeper relationships. Deeper relationships with your prospects equate to more purchases, repeat buyers and referrals.

4 Simple Strategies to Rule Big Industry As a Small Business ARTICLE BY Ajala Sodiq

Do you have numerous business ideas to launch but you’re scared someone somewhere will be planning the same or have implemented your idea? Are you a small business owner with the prospect of becoming a big corporation or an artisan likely to become the mover of big service provision companies in the near future? Irrespective of what or where you are at, it is important you take the leap by grabbing the bull by the horn to join in the economic development and enrich your life.

42% of small businesses fail because there’s no market need for their services/ products. Congratulations you’re a step ahead in this regard if not, endeavor to conduct market research and give your business an edge. 29% of these startups failed because they ran out of cash we lost over $2,000 in our first business because we weren’t making enough money to continue operation.

That said, here are four simple strategies to remain firm in your niche market and lead in your industry even if When starting up a new business or scaling up a small you’re just starting out in your small business. one for more customer awareness and profit, there • Creating niche focused products. are key strategies you need to apply and a match• Delighting your customers. up with your vision. These strategies will help you rule • Adopt an effective inbound sales approach. the big space as a small business. Business listening is • Leveraging on technology. also essential - you should pay attention to what big businesses in your niche are doing; especially in areas Creating niche focused products like branding, advertisement, customer engagement, acquisition, and retention. Generalist doesn’t rule the industry anymore. The top CEO’s of many multinational companies attained their Adopting strategies by big companies might appear hotspots via this #1 strategy: they were ultra-specific overwhelming or exorbitant, but when you develop with their value proposition. It turns out that success is the strategy and plug it into the sizeable budget of never far fetched when you apply focus and clarity in your small business, the difference will be worthwhile. your idea generation and become laser focused on the According to CB Insights Analysis of some startups, market you serve. Truly shedding down the tentacles and distractions of your main idea to target specific geography,

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demography and psychographic space will fast track your success and secure a household name for you in the noisy market. Niched product and positioning of your business will also help in a scalable launch and thought leadership.

Then you create quality contents that are relevant to your buyers’ persona at each of the stage highlighted above. Starting with a few curations from the awareness stage, develop the contents to suit each milestone in the journey. Also, ensure that your contents present you as a thought leader and your platforms such as websites, You can create a focused product by first recognizing and social media channels are visually appealing at your passion, then studying your market with an eagle every sight. eye, and be bold to communicate your value. That said, all your content should end with a call to Delighting your customers action - such as a form, app download, ebook, white The most efficient and low-cost marketing approach paper, seminar invites, or a landing page to capture their is word-of-mouth. Companies can only attain this information and email details to keep the conversation marketing hierarchy when they delight their customers. inside. This will help you nurture the prospects to loyal Delighting your customers is a step ahead of satisfying customers. them. When you delight your customers, they become Leveraging on technology sticky buyers or loyalists and never tip off your customer list no matter their pain points. Small companies become global giants by leveraging on technology. Companies can disrupt the industry Aside from the unique value, delighting your customers status quo by investing and fusing technology into by knowing and giving them little gifts as tasters will be their operations, customer insight, and experience, an awesome experience, just make sure the gifts are human resources etc. Doing this will bring forth better desirable and entertaining. Sending thank you notes to operational efficiency and decision making and customers is a tested way to keep them loyal. improved customer experience. Here’s are other few tips to delight your customers:Companies like Uber, Airbnb, QuickBooks, and Apple grew to become household names because they disrupt Listen to your customers at all times the industry norm with technology. By using the right Resolve their issues with deep empathy technology at the right time, companies can attain the Create a personalized experience for them in your thought leadership position with ease. product cycle With these four simple strategies, you can rule your

Give them the opportunity to share their information industry no matter how big because companies hardly with you, but treat their information with the utmost go wrong with it. You’ll observe that it cuts through every business structure of products, process, and people privacy which are the life wire of every successful business. Reward them for their referrals Talking about people, treat your employers like yourself Adopt an effective inbound sales approach in the job front. Why should you look everywhere for clients when your clients can always find you themselves? With an effective inbound marketing approach, your client will come knocking at your front door. First, you must develop your ideal client’s persona, otherwise called the buyer’s persona is a fictional attribute of your potential client. It is important you do this first as it’ll help in the preparation of the content that will drive your clients to you at every stage of the customer journey, be it the awareness, consideration or the decision-making stage.

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6 Reasons Why Authenticity Needs To Be Part Of Your Branding Article by Nichole Howson

There is an immense amount of content being posted online every day. There’s more than 100 million photos and videos uploaded on Instagram and 500 million tweets per day. Every 60 seconds there are 317,000 status updates, 147,000 photos uploaded and 54,000 shared links on Facebook and 300 hours of video uploaded to YouTube.

Being Authentic shows that there’s a real person behind the brand.

Authenticity.

Being Authentic helps you become more approachable.

Do you follow brands or companies but never actually see a real person in their photos, videos, etc.? Do you relate to them as much as the other brands that have someone to put a Face to the brand? Chances are – you’re more drawn to the brand with the person. We With all this content out there, how do brands find a relate to other people better than an organization or a way to stand out against everyone else? Furthermore, company. how do they produce content that resonates with their In a survey of 2000 adults in the U.S., U.K., and followers and encourages engagement? Australia, 57% responded saying that less than half Out of the dozens of carefully selected influencers and of brand-created content resonated with them as brands that I follow on social media, there is only a authentic. If less than half of the brands are coming handful that I follow consistently. Each of those people across authentic, this means that you have a competitive and brands has one thing in common when it comes to advantage by incorporating authenticity into your their marketing. brand. Have you ever watched someone on social media and you just know that they’re being fake? They’re forcing In the above-mentioned survey, 20% of consumers (and themselves to come across a certain way? It’s a turn- 30% of Millennials) have unfollowed a brand on social off – isn’t it? media because they felt their content was inauthentic. One of the best things a business, brand, influencer or Being authentic drives this personal connection between organization can do for their social media marketing is the brand and the consumer. And if you have what feels to be authentic in their posts. like a personal connection – your followers are more likely to engage by commenting, messaging or sharing. Being Authentic allows for relatability. Being Authentic helps create a safe place. If all you ever see is clearly staged photos and perfectly crafted posts – chances are you won’t relate to them Many brands have a bigger focus than just selling a as much as the brands who incorporate posts and product or service. They might use their platform to photos that are “real.” They show personality. 90% of raise awareness or create a space for conversation. By Millennials say that it’s important for a brand to be being authentic, it shows the followers that it’s okay to authentic. This should be a clear sign that younger share. But furthermore, sets the stage to show how that consumers prefer the “real and organic” posts over the space should be treated. perfectly designed graphics, video and copy. For Millennials, corporate social responsibility is an important factor in their purchasing behavior and is perceived as an authentic brand. 48% of Millennials state that they support brands that are active in supporting social causes.

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Being Authentic builds trust.

group – the group grew by the hundreds. This insider group now has a strong knit community of woman who No one’s perfect. We all know that. So which company supports and encourages each other. would you be willing to trust? The company that makes a mistake and owns it… or the company that makes a Kim Garst, co-founder of Boom! Social and one of mistake and tries to cover it up? When a business or the Top 10 Social Media Power Influencers named by brand shows their “imperfections” in an authentic and Forbes says, “Focus on identifying your target audience, genuine way - you’re more likely to trust them over a communicating an authentic message that they want company that is completely polished. and need and project yourself as an expert within your niche.” Being Authentic builds community. By embracing authenticity within your brand, you According to the Authentic Brand Index, authentic will create a brand that is relatable, personable, brands get a higher share of high-value customers. approachable and trustworthy. Your community will There are brands out there that have built a solid appreciate your authentic approach and you will create community of people around their authenticity. Not just a loyal following of truly engaging followers. blind followers, but a group of followers who engage, represent the brand and stand up for each other. They aren’t just a group of followers… they’re a family. A great example of someone who showcased this is Canadian Instagram, Sarah Nicole Landry (@ thebirdspapaya) who built a following of over 179k followers by being truly authentic in all her branding. When she announced she was opening a Facebook

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8 Areas Where Consistency is Key in Your Online Marketing Article by Nichole Howson

“Consistency is the true foundation of trust.” Roy T. the traction you had when you were posting regularly. Bennett Think about it like climbing a mountain. When you stop climbing, you don’t just stay still. You begin sliding back The goal of social media is to build a community of down the hill. The longer you go without posting – the followers around your brand. To do that, you need to further down the mountain you slide. build relationships – relationships that are built on trust and loyalty. The Timing for Posts Consistency is key when marketing online. Think of some of the biggest brands you know – Nike, CocaCola, Wendy’s! They are all consistent in their branding, their tone, their voice, their messaging, etc.

There are better times to post than others, but it’s important to remember that the best times that work on one brand’s page might not work on your page. It depends on your audience, whom you’re trying to reach and when they are typically online. You can do We have a lot to learn from big brands like this. market research to find out the estimated best times Have you ever looked at a Facebook page for a are to post but once you have a following, it’s best to company and noticed that they haven’t posted in a few look at your analytics to see when the peak times are weeks, or maybe even months? What does that say that your audience is online. about their business? The Tone and Voice This could make the company look like they are not To stay consistent with this, it helps to create a “persona” taking their social media seriously – being a bit behind your brand. How do they talk? Are they friendly unorganized or unprofessional. If their social media has and playful, warm and inspiring, or authoritative and been abandoned long enough, it might even look like professional? Is your brand’s tone more personal, their company is no longer open. direct, clinical or scientific? What type of language are You can tell if a company is making its online marketing you using? Are you using slang, whimsical, or complex a priority because you will see clear patterns. They post language? Defining this from the beginning can really regularly. They use the same type of graphics or colors. help with consistency. Even the way the copy is written will stand out as their A great example of embracing your own tone and own. voice is Wendy’s on Twitter. They’ve adapted this entire There are several areas in your online marketing that brand by roasting people who tweet at them or other fast food brands. Other brands have jumped onto being consistent is key. this as well. It works for the brand – because they’ve The Frequency of Posting completely embraced it. Now if a brand that has It is better to post once or twice a week consistently always been professional and warm sent out a tweet than to post daily for a few weeks and then go silent like Wendy’s, there’s a good chance that they would for a month. The social media algorithms recognize get major backlash from their audience or even lose when you haven’t posted in a while and it makes your followers. job difficult when you restart posting. You lose Whatever tone and voice you decide to use for your

branding, it’s important to stick with it. Use that tone in your statuses, tweets, and articles. You don’t want to come across clinical and authoritative in some posts

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and then come across sarcastic and humorous in others. It’s hard for your followers to follow and determine what posts are serious and which are not. It opens the door for miscommunication and other issues, likely resulting in costing you your precious likes and followers. The Branding There are so many parts of your branding that we can cover. Let’s focus on the visual parts. Your logo for one. If you’re constantly changing the way your logo looks – it can cause confusion and frustration. So, if you’ve decided you want to change your logo – make sure you’re 100% sure that’s the logo you want to use long term. Give it a lot of thought before launching it.

The Logistics Your profile photos and cover photos should be consistent across each platform. The profile image you use on Twitter should be the same one as on Facebook. If each platform is different, your followers are less likely to recognize your account to engage with your content. These images should not change regularly.

Your usernames should match across all platforms as well. There are sites like Namechk that help you determine what usernames are available across each social media platform. Its easier for users to remember one username than trying to remember which username Slack did this incredibly well when they launched their goes with which social media platform. new logo. They released an article explaining the The Engagement change. Not only did they explain the logical reason for changing the logo, but they took the opportunity to Engagement is so important when it comes to your share their story and update their entire look. online marketing. It’s called SOCIAL Media for a reason. Responding to comments, tweets or messages The Colors consistently and promptly can be incredibly important. What colors do you use for your brand? By using the Did you know that the average consumer expects to same color pallet, your followers will begin to associate hear back from a brand within 1-4 hours of reaching those colors with your brand. It will catch their attention out? And the average time it takes a brand to respond and increase their awareness of your brand. back can be up to 10 hours. There’s a huge gap there! Depending on how in-depth you want to go with your Answering comments and messages in a timely manner branding, you can match the colors of your brand to is very important. These things matter to your followers. the tone and voice you’re using for your brand. Each Being consistent helps your following know how you’re color has psychology behind it. For example, red is going to engage with them and helps you build a better known for excitement, youthfulness and being bold. customer relationship. Blue showcases trust, dependability, and strength. Yellow stands for optimism, clarity, and warmth! You Final Thoughts can partner different colors together that complement each other and showcase the type of branding you Consistency IS key. But not at the price of your brand. If every Monday you post something humorous and a want individuals to associate your brand with! natural disaster happens, Monday Morning, then you The Message adapt. If there’s a part of your branding that’s been around for years and suddenly it’s socially (or morally) Just like you watch your tone and voice, you have to unacceptable or becomes controversial, it’s okay to watch your messaging as well. If you’re continually pivot. posting about legal issues, then posting about the latest sports car that’s come out might not be fitting. Know what your messaging is - what do you want people to think about when they interact with your brand? If you go too far off brand, you’re going to lose people. Especially if you’re posting something controversial. Stick with your messaging!

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Emily H irs

How To Sca

le Your S ervice Bu

siness

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Six To Seven Figures

How To Scale Your Service Business Intro by Tricia Wilkes

The Virtual Assistant Dominating The Online World I am so excited to share an amazing woman who started dominating as a Virtual Assistant and now has an agency that’s bringing massive revenue generating results for her clients using Facebook Ads. She’s the creator of the Hirsh process, CEO of Hirsh marketing. They have a seven-figure business and 24 employees, at the time of the interview, her website now reflects 28. Emily has been featured at events like Russell Brunson’s Inner Circle, The Dovetail Summit and Ray Higdon’s Mastermind.

She sold her car to have money to move away after high school, having a baby, dropping out of college. She was going against her parents’ plan for her. After wanting to move again she created her Virtual Online Business gave her the freedom, with still being able to care for her child. She found something big, she found a problem, that there were a lot of people out there looking for quality service, a service she knew she could provide. Three and a half years later she’s scaling six to seven figures and taking herself completely out of the business so she can travel and be there for her children.

lot of people are scared to grow a team. But it’s 100% what took me from six to seven figures, is growing my team. I would not have been able to get here.” “When you decide to grow a team is probably like for me it’s the second hardest thing to being a mom is growing my team, and then having to show up and be a leader every day” The Hirsh Process

On Emily’s podcast, this is what she says about The Hirsh Process “This is something that has come very intuitively to me, but it’s also been refined and perfected over the last eight months based on client results and what is really truly working out In the Interview, Emily goes into there today. how she got into Facebook ads, she says “ I was young, and pregnant We have currently over 60 clients on with my son and just fell into the our roster, all in the influencer, digital online world. I actually just started space with products, services, digital as a virtual assistant, like $18 an products – like a lot of different hour. and taught myself everything. spaces, but the influencer space is Pretty much learned every online our specialty.” platform there is out there and then She also talks about The Hirsh started doing Facebook ads for Process in the interview with Hawk those clients, and that’s what kind of and she says “I sat down one day was my introduction into this whole and wrote down what it is that I do world of Facebook ads.” for clients that are so unique. My Emily Hirsh also goes into how values in marketing. How we look she was able to scale her service at ads. How we look at our client business from six to seven figures accounts. And I created this process. and beyond and she says “I think a And then that’s how I trained my team. And it’s over time that it’s

Emily Hirsh at a young age knew she was different, she thought differently, acted differently. Even before she graduated high school, before having her drivers license she had a list of business ideas from a lemonade stand, babysitting, a restaurant business, helping residents of a retired community. She discovered the Entrepreneur personality type with that unstoppable drive that comes from within her.

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really become a branded thing I, by accident, created just to train my team. But now clients feel like, “Well, I’m getting the Hirsh process. So even if I’m not getting Emily, I’m getting the Hirsh process” All Day Every Day Processes Emily Hirsh adds about the processes and the custom system she uses in the interview with hawk she says “We have so many processes. I could talk about them all day. But we have processes, for keeping people accountable, we created a daily tracking system that’s our own because I couldn’t find a software that really did what I wanted it to do. And that is that each ads manager has about six to eight client accounts that they’re responsible for as the project manager, as like the day-today person. So they fill out Google Sheets, we create this spreadsheet that tracks their leads, their sales, whatever key metrics they need to track each day in their funnel” The Hirsh Marketing Report Emily Hirsh Talks about a very unique Funnel that she created called the Hirsh Marketing Report. If you’re not already, you should definitely sign up, give your email address for this report. She sends the report a few days after the first of every month. Her report has all her numbers, what’s working on Facebook, what’s not working, and the metrics. In the full interview with Hawk, Emily goes over The Hirsh Marketing Report and Hawks signs up to receive one. She said “There are funnels, we have two funnels. We have the Hirsh Marketing Report, and then we have a Facebook ads checklist, and then we have my podcast. The funnels, the Hirsh Marketing Report has actually been our best, because what we do is, at the beginning of every month, we VOLUME 3 * FUNNEL MAGAZINE

Hirsh has so many ninja secrets to share with us and gives so much Hirsh Marketing Underground value away that you can implement Podcast and scale your service business Attention Innovators, Influencers, today. Creators, Game-Changing Interview Entrepreneurs, if you’re looking for podcasts to listen to, definitely put Interview with Hawk Mikado The Hirsh Marketing Underground Hawk: Hey, this is Hawk Mikado Podcasts on rotation. In the the Funnel genius and publisher at interview Hawk, she explains that Funnel magazine. I’m super excited My podcast comes out twice a to have Emily Hirsh here. I first saw week, and then we do a daily social a post that she had put out saying media post that’s a lot. The podcast that she was talking with somebody has so much content, so we do a and that she was the breadwinner, really good job of repurposing that and the guy she was talking to content because the goal is that I was just floored. And I love having just personally create the podcast, powerful entrepreneurs on here. and sometimes I’ll do Facebook We’re dedicated to helping not just Lives and videos. Then my team men, but also women, share their can take that and create all other brilliance on our platform. And she content that I need. That creates is the creator of the Hirsh process, my blog, my emails, social media CEO of Hirsh marketing. They have content, everything that we need a seven-figure business and 24 from me creating those pieces of employees. So thank you so much content.” for being here, sharing your brilliance and wisdom with everybody. Stepping out and Overcome the Mom Guilt Emily: Thank you. Thanks for having me. Emily Hirsh has a huge following of Mompreneurs or Mom Hawk: Absolutely. So just out of Entrepreneurs, she gives a lot of curiosity, how did you get started in advice in the full interview with marketing and with your agency. Hawk, one piece of advice that I Emily: Yeah, so I started three pulled, that really resonated with and a half years ago. I was young, me, she said “I know that a lot of and pregnant with my son and just moms follow me. We have a drive. fell into the online world. I actually If you’re here and you’re even just started as virtual assistant, like watching this, you have the drive to $18 an hour. and taught myself go and do more and be more and everything. Pretty much learned have something else than be a stay every online platform there is at home mom. For me, I would go out there and then started doing insane being a stay at home mom. Facebook ads for those clients, The best advice I could give you is, and that’s what kind of was my one, do it and don’t feel guilty about introduction into this whole world of it. Two, you don’t have to do it all to Facebook ads. Then did Facebook have it all. I have a lot of support.” ads all on my own for clients. Had Emily also gives Hawk a huge piece probably 12 clients all on my own, of advice to help his wife! doing everything: loading the ads, If you are a mom entrepreneur or the strategy, even writing the copy. just an entrepreneur continue on Everything. And then the demand to the full interview because Emily kept coming. I was getting great put out a report about all the ads.”

results. It was something that I was just eating up, learning, a lot of selftaught through courses, podcasts, everything. And then experience really, I think, is the best teacher in this space is trying things, and then seeing how they’re working. And so from there, built up my team. Started building my team. In the last year and a half that’s been my full focus, is just building my team so that we could scale to more clients and serve people at a higher level. I don’t think that one person should manage an account. So I built mini-teams into the accounts because people have, really, their zone of genius. And there are multiple components that go into a marketing strategy. So that is! It’s been a fast three and a half years, but that’s how I got started. Hawk: That’s awesome. What would you attribute your success to? Emily: I think that, for me, the biggest thing, obviously there’s a lot of components, but the biggest thing is just taking action. I just saw the initial opportunity of becoming a virtual assistant which, at that

time, was just a small opportunity to be able to still have my son and be home with him and then make money online. And not being afraid to be like, “Yeah, I’m going to go and do this.” And take the next step. One step after the other. Continually putting yourself in a position where it might be uncomfortable. And it might be scary, but you know that you’re growing. So that’s changed for me over time of what I’m doing. But it’s a lot of it’s contributed to the success of like, okay here’s what I have to do next.

Emily: Yeah, so I think like most people, I knew that I was maxed. I was super-maxed, and I couldn’t keep on growing without growing my team. So you get to a point and you’re like, “Well, I won’t make any more money unless I start building my team and can really scale this.” I had no idea how to grow a team at all. My first couple hires were people in Facebook groups like, “Please come help me. Watch me on Zoom and figure out what I’m doing, and then take things off my plate.” That’s now really evolved into way more training. That’s literally been my And if you had asked me three and entire focus for the last year. a half years ago, I would’ve had no idea that I was going to have a I think a lot of people are scared to marketing agency. So it’s not like I grow a team. But it’s 100% what had this huge vision of like, “Here’s took me from six to seven figures, what I’m meant to do.” I just kind was growing my team. I would not of kept following what was working have been able to get here. I think and growing into what I was meant my quality of service is way higher to do. from having a team because one person can only do so much. So my Hawk: So you started three and whole focus this year has just been a half years ago with yourself, and the system so that, “What can I do now you’ve got 24 employees. What so that my team can be successful? started that transition? And how did And how can I lead them?” I’ve been you decide to hire your first, and the in Masterminds that are all around second, and now 24? team building to learn how

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to be a leader, and I’m still learning. When you decide to grow a team is probably like for me it’s the second hardest thing to being a mom, is growing my team, and then having to show up and be a leader every day.

my roster because they want me on the calls, and they want me in the emails.” So that was a huge limiting belief, that I actually hear a lot from people is like, “Nobody can do what I do.” “Only I can do it.” And I was challenged at the beginning of this year of like, well that’s actually not true. If that was true, these huge companies wouldn’t exist out there. So really look at that. What you do is amazing but you can train people how to do this.

Hawk: So as you’ve seen, you’ve been growing, what are some of the challenges you’ve seen, you’ve come across, that at the time were obviously ... they felt extremely challenging or detrimental, but you were able to take them, turn them So out of that actually came what around and turn them into a win for we call the Hirsh process. So I sat your business? down one day and wrote down what it is that I do for clients that are Emily: I think one of the biggest so unique. My values in marketing. challenges I have as a service How we look at ads. How we look business. And it started out, like as at our client accounts. And I created a lot of us, where we were doing this process. And then that’s how I all the work. So it was a personal trained my team. And it’s over time brand. People wanted to work with that it’s really become a branded you. My name was known, and thing I, by accident, created just to people wanted only me. And so train my team. But now clients feel I thought I would never be able I like, “Well, I’m getting the Hirsh used to say, “I’d never be able to process. So even if I’m not getting train anybody to do what I’m doing. Emily, I’m getting the Hirsh process.” I’m always going to have to stay involved in every single account on So in this quarter I have actually fully off all client strategy calls. I’m a very high level in my business, but I’m also very protected, so I don’t get on client calls. I know what’s going on, but I have people who can do it and they do just as good as a job as me. Arguably, some of my team members have more strategy experience than I do and can do it better. Like my Director of Strategy has 15 years of digital marketing strategy. I’ve had my business for three and a half. I think she beats me, which is great. So she can serve our clients even better than I honestly could.

of training somebody and trusting them. It comes down to the process because if they’re set up for success, and they have the expectations, and they’re held to that, they will do a good job. And they can do as good of a job, or better than you could because you’re not overloaded. Hawk: That’s awesome. I love how you were able to get yourself out. I know that’s a big challenge for a ton of entrepreneurs. It was a challenge I faced when I was trying to get out of my agency, being the one-allbe-all. So that’s awesome. What percentage of what you’ve done is delegation? You’ve pretty much got yourself completely out of your business. What percentage have you automated versus delegated? Emily: Well, I think it’s hard. With a service business, it’s hard to automate because every client account has got a different piece to it. I would say that versus automating, we just have systems in the way things are done so that they’re done as possible. So where one model the sales, definitely not that. I don’t have a course that just runs. But my whole business can run without me. That’s the dream. So I don’t have an automated business where ads run and it goes to a webinar and sell my $997 course, my clients do. It’s not my $997 course. But we still have to come to work, and I have people do the work. So I think it’s different from a service business, and it’s just we’ve had to do a lot of time management stuff with my team so they can do the most. It’s really hard in an agency. There are so many moving parts that you can go down a rabbit hole with one client account, and then four don’t get touched that day. So we’ve had to really work on that.

So that was the biggest challenge for me, is how to scale a service business that’s representing your name because your reputation is there, so you care so much about it. And it’s so hard to balance that Hawk: Can you share a little bit more about that because there VOLUME 3 * FUNNEL MAGAZINE

are definitely are different types of agencies and different components, but the systems to be able to manage multiple accounts and to be able to have a seven-figure agency. I know very few people that have seven-figure agencies. Most of them are sitting somewhere between 100,000 and 500,000 if they’ve been around for a couple of years. Can you share a little bit more about that? Emily: Yeah, We have so many processes. I could talk about them all day. But we have processes, for keeping people accountable, we created a daily tracking system that’s our own because I couldn’t find a software that really did what I wanted it to do. And that is that each ads manager has about six to eight client accounts that they’re responsible for as the project manager, as like the day-to-day

person. So they fill out Google Sheets, we create this spreadsheet that tracks their leads, their sales, whatever key metrics they need to track each day in their funnel. And then any changes they made. So that right there holds them accountable that that account is getting looked at every day. We can go back and there’s a rolling history of what’s happened and what has been changed and what’s been implemented. And then what we did is we put custom. I didn’t do it, but my team did it, custom coding so that at the top we have the client goal, which is what we decide on the strategy call. Like, I’m going to get 1000 webinar leads and 20 sales this month, or whatever it is. So then it highlights it red, green or yellow if we’re on track. So it becomes like a report card, basically. And then those summaries are created in

another sheet to my managers so that they can see anyone who’s red. Any client who’s red, “Okay, I need to go in and put some focus in that. Check in on that account.” Whatever we have to do, whatever, to take action. So that daily tracking sheet has made it so that there’s the accountability that not only every account’s touched, but then every account has a plan of action because that’s really everything with marketing is like, things are not going to work. All the time, things are not going to convert or work. But it’s like, what are we doing about that proactively, and in an urgent matter, to get it to convert? And I force my team to come to everyone, if you’re an ad’s manager, you come to your senior strategist with a solution, not just, “I don’t know. It’s not converting.” So that daily

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tracking piece has been huge in making sure that we can serve all of our clients and make them feel like they’re not in an agency with 60 clients, right? That’s a huge complaint people have is like, “I just get forgotten about.” And the reason that happens is there are no systems for the team to be able to properly manage their account. Everybody’s overloaded and overwhelmed, and so things are getting dropped and balls are getting dropped.

wants to go and do it themselves. It’s someone who wants to trust us and hire us. So, I give a lot of content to position myself as an expert, because I could give it all away, and my ideal client doesn’t want to take it and do it, because they don’t have time to do it, so they just want that trust that’s there.

We also use, obviously, we have amazing case studies and clients in the space, and so we’ll strategically use those in our social media and Hawk: Absolutely. What do you then put ads behind some of those guys do to drive traffic for yourselves posts, yeah. to bring traffic to your agency? Hawk: I love what you shared here Emily: Yeah, so I run ads. A lot of about how you give the content. agencies don’t, but I’m like, that’s I see this all the time. I get people weird. I run ads because, one, the sending me hate mail because we biggest thing is, we’re looking for give away things that they’re like, clients who are at least at three “I charge a thousand dollars to do hundred to four hundred thousand this. How dare you give this away?” dollars a year but really more seven- I love your perspective on that. figure business owners come and What made you guys say, “Let’s just work with us. The biggest thing is give away as much of the stuff that visibility ads, what I call visibility and everybody else is charging tons and brand awareness ads. Facebook tons of money for, and then bring Lives, my podcast, content ads that them in as clients?” I will run to consistently stay top of Emily: I think it’s understanding mind and dominate the industry. who your ideal client is, because if We run ads to that always. Then you understand what it is they need we’ll have re-targeted ads to apply to see and hear before they want to work with us. We have a couple to become a client, then you know of funnels we release, like a Hirsh what you have to do. For me, I really Marketing Report, so we can run understand who our ideal client is, ads to that, and we do, and that even to the point where actually has obviously emails and things we do a mini report for any new attached to it. client who comes on because we I don’t do a webinar, because my have categories of here’s who we’re clients won’t really watch a webinar. looking for. If anyone comes on who My high-level clients won’t watch a wasn’t a fit, we go back and we look, webinar. My podcast has been great, like, “What happened? How did though, because I make super-short they get through our application? podcasts. They’re great lead gen, How do we fix this,” because there so we’ll drive ads to that. Really, my are times where. We don’t want any ads are focused on just keeping my client to leave, and if a client leaves name so people consistently see it because they weren’t a fit, we want and see “Hirsh” in the Hirsh Process, to go back and fix that, right? and giving content. I give a ton of I really spend a lot of time of who value, because to me, as an agency, is my ideal client and what do my ideal client is not someone who they need. How do I serve them? VOLUME 3 * FUNNEL MAGAZINE

How do I build a relationship with them? I know that my ideal client is this really busy, really doesn’t want to do it themselves, is probably building a team, trying to get out of their business person, and so I know for example, really short podcast episodes, because they’re not going to listen to even probably a thirty-minute episode. They want ten, fifteen minutes, and they just want to trust case studies or just trust that we can get the results or trust our content. I know that if I even, our process is front-facing. It’s like, “Here’s the Hirsh process, step one, two, three, four, five.” We just share it, right? Because they won’t go implement it anyways. They don’t want to go to the ads manager, and so my ideal client is not the person who wants to suck that information and go implement it. Actually, I want them to go do it and then start getting some results and then come hire us. That’s our client. Hawk: We had a program that we used to charge fifteen hundred for it, and then we started giving it away for free, because we noticed everybody who finished it, they hired us. Emily: Yeah. Hawk: That’s awesome. It also reminded me, one of my mentors said something to me, and this radically changed the way we did our business, was, “Go out there and help people unconditionally for thirty days. Spend an hour a day for thirty days, and just give regardless. Do you guys do anything like that for yourself or recommend to do that for your clients who are working with some owner businesses? Emily: Yeah. I think that value, and I say this too to clients, is don’t forget why you even started. Most of us probably started not because we’re, yeah, we’re all entrepreneurs and we want to make money, but we

also want to make a difference. We have a message, regardless of what it is, that what we want to do and the impact that we want to make. I think people get lost in my funnel and my Facebook ad costs and my webinar and all these things and the stats, that they forget that one piece, which, if you go and look at any successful influencer right now or business owner, they put value content as a priority. Marie Forleo, they launch one time a year. All year long they’re putting out Marie TV and valuable content. That’s a priority. I see a lot of behind-the-scenes of clients who I can see what is and isn’t working, and all the clients at seven figures, honestly, they not only care about that, they care about the content that they’re putting out and is it valuable and is it going to change these people’s lives, is it going to go towards our mission. Because at some point, money doesn’t matter anymore. It’s like, why am I really doing this. You have to go back to that and remember that, and if you do, you’ll make more money, right? Because the more impact that you have, then the more money. the process? Somebody’s, they’re I know, as my business has gotten seeing your content and they’re bigger, I have put more emphasis coming in, what’s the funnel that on this, because I know that what you’re bringing them through? It’s I put out there is seen by more probably not intricate from the people, so I have to care more sounds of it, but what are you guys about that. If I put out a crappy doing to get them in the door, get thing and then somebody goes them verified and qualified and and implements it and wastes their then turn them into a client? money and it doesn’t work, that will affect more people, because as my reach has grown, that’s more and more important. I see that a lot, I think, that anybody successful, you have to put both time and money into that valuable piece of your marketing and of your business.

Emily: Yeah, so we do put a huge emphasis on video ads so we can retarget the video viewer, so we have consistent video ads going. We even layer those in actually, so we’ll have one layer. If they watch twenty-five percent of that, we have another kind of layer that we’ll show them. Hawk: Absolutely. You talked a We’re really intentional with that. little bit about your funnel and You can’t see it on the front end what the traffic. Can you share, what is we’re doing, but on the back end, it’s very intentional retargeting of what VOLUME 3 * FUNNEL MAGAZINE

videos they’re seeing throughout the process. There are funnels, we have two funnels. We have the Hirsh Marketing Report, and then we have a Facebook ads checklist, and then we have my podcast. The funnels, the Hirsh Marketing Report has actually been our best, because what we do is, at the beginning of every month, we put out a report about all the ads. I have so much intel because I have the biggest marketing company in the influencer space with all these clients, so I can tell you what’s working on webinar ads and what’s not working. Average cost per lead and Facebook changes, so we put that report out every month, and that’s one of our biggest lead gen

funnels. Attached to that is an email series that essentially drives people to apply to work with us. Then all of our re-targeted ads, once they get down the funnel, are either testimonials or case studies to apply to work with us. Then we have a case study funnel as well, so we give away the PDF for the case studies also as an email series. The goal is value, value, whether it’s podcasts, videos, one of my opt-ins, any of those things, and then apply to work with us is the funnel. From there, we have applied to work with us, we have very strict guidelines and what gets them to a call. If they’re declined, we have a decline email sequence that will follow up with them actually over the course of a year, because they basically haven’t met minimum requirements, but they might in six months from now, be at the level that we need them to be at, so we have an automated follow-up for that. Hawk: That’s awesome. I just downloaded one of them, the October one Emily: Cool. Hawk: That thing’s pretty cool. Emily: Yeah. Hawk: Awesome. What do you guys do to follow up with people? You mention that you’ve got this one-year-long follow-up. You guys use Vox or text messages or have a team that calls and just checks in to see where they’re at if they don’t qualify or if they said they weren’t ready? Emily: Yeah. Right now if they don’t qualify, it’s just email follow-up. If they do qualify and they have a call, yes, I have a sales team and people who will, we have an in-depth kind of follow-up, because, honestly, a lot of times people do take a couple of

that content because the goal is that I just personally create the podcast, and sometimes I’ll do Facebook Lives and videos. Then my team can take that and create all other content that I need. That creates my blog, my emails, social media content, everything that we need We have several follow-up emails from me creating those pieces of that go out. Those are really, they content. don’t get put in an automated sequence, because they need to Hawk: Awesome. You mentioned be personable to the person, so also that you guys do a lot of video we have a follow-up email and ads. Are you doing more studiofollow-up calls, if needed until we based ads? Are you doing more close the clients. Because I’ve had iPhone shot ads? people who, I have had people who Emily: Most are like, here in my recently came on and were like, “I’ve office, Facebook Live a lot of them. been following you for a year, and Some are pre-recorded, but not we couldn’t work with you last year. really studio ads, and we see that We couldn’t afford it, and so we did a lot with clients. I think that more this, this and this, and now we can either straight-to-camera with the afford it, and we’re working with phone or right here in your office, you.” I think that’s huge because it very personable ads, especially just goes to show how important it is Facebook Lives, do really well. to play the long game. Hawk: You guys are taking the I’ve been doing it for three and a Lives and then downloading them half years. There are some people and uploading them back them who have been doing it for longer. back as an ad? You could have a lead from two years ago following you who comes Emily: You can actually just take a and is ready to work with you, and live and run that as an ad as long as so you have to be consistent with it’s on the business page. Yeah. the marketing so that you don’t lose those people and you don’t Hawk: Got it. For some reason, I drop off. I think that’s something remembered me trying to run an I’ve done really well, is stayed top ad, I think it was prior to the live of mind consistently over and over though. We were trying to run it to a even as my team has grown and live video. my business has changed and we’ve Emily: Oh. gotten a higher level. My name has Hawk: You can’t do that. If you stayed out there consistently. could share one thing that someone Hawk: I know you said you put out could take and implement in their a podcast, do social media. Are you business today, to where they could guys doing daily, brand new daily scale or improve just to create a content, or are you doing weekly better lifestyle and a better business content or multiple times a day? for themselves, what would that one Emily: My podcast comes out twice thing be? months. I’d say our average sale is, from call to sale, is two-ish months, on average, because they need to get the pricing, and they probably have work to go do on their funnel or like to get into a place where they can come work with us.

a week, and then we do a daily social media post that’s a lot. The podcast has so much content, so we do a really good job of repurposing

Emily: I think going off the theme of what we’re talking about, honestly, consistent content and especially video is something that you can do EDITION 4 FUNNELMAGAZINE.COM

without a team, without even an investment. Just start doing it, and it will improve everything. It’s like so important and you’ll get better on video, and you’ll start to grow your following. You can use those video viewers down the line strategically, and you don’t need anything really to do it besides content. You should have that if you have a business, content you can share with people. I think that’s something that everyone can do starting tomorrow without a huge investment or team or anything. It pays off three, six, nine months from now when you start doing it now. Hawk: Awesome. When I first saw your post, I don’t think we were even friends. I don’t know, Facebook obviously knew that we needed to talk. Emily: I know, that post went a little viral. Hawk: It did, I loved it. Can you share? I mean I see this all the time. It’s only been over the past couple of years that we’ve seen more women are speaking, more women are running seven, eight, nine-figure businesses other than CEOs, but like entrepreneurs. Can you just share something for all the women who are watching and reading to get them to where they are inspired and motivated to know that it’s possible, this is not just for men? I know so many awesome women who are probably 10 times better than half the men at doing this stuff. They’re just not sharing their message. I’d love for you to put that out there. Emily: Yeah, totally. For me, I know that a lot of moms follow me. We have a drive. If you’re here and you’re even watching this, you have the drive to go and do more and be more and have something else than be a stay at home mom. For me, I would go insane being a stay at home mom. The best advice I could VOLUME 3 * FUNNEL MAGAZINE

give you is, one, do it and don’t feel guilty about it. Two, you don’t have to do it all to have it all. I have a lot of support. I have a nanny, I have a 20 hour a week personal house manager assistant. I also have a chef. I don’t do it all in my house and try and juggle my business as a side hobby. This is serious for me. I work about six, seven hours a day and then I’m with my kids. I have set up my life so it’s like I’m either working and I’m all in and I’m uninterrupted and I can run my company, or I’m just present and I’m playing with my kids. That helps so much with the mom guilt. If you’re trying to juggle it and nothing feels quality time, and everything feels like you’re not doing it enough constantly, you’re going to feel so bad. You’re not going to move forward. The best advice, honestly, is you can have it all. You can have a successful business and be a mom and your kids ... My kids are one and three.

sleeping at night, or in our free time that we think we’re going to have but we don’t have. Then, it doesn’t go anywhere. I see this happen all the time, either at the beginning or they’ve already made some money, but it just stays here. Treat your business like a business and not a side hobby and put intentional hours, know your numbers, budget. You can do that and you can take charge of that, and you have to grow. Whether you’re at zero or 100,000 already, you’re going to have to know those things. Also, work business hours. Go get the nanny so that you can work if it’s four hours a day or five hours a day, whatever it is so that your business isn’t just a side project, which is where it will stay frustrating for you as long as you treat it like that.

Hawk: I love it. I’m going to get my wife a nanny now. We have a sevenmonth-old, we just have a daughter. She’s like ... We’ve been talking about the nanny. This is the second They’re home all day. It’s not like time in two days that I’ve heard to they go to school and I have all day get a nanny, so ... without them. They’re here, I’m still Emily: Yeah. The nanny, and then nursing my 20-month-old. You can I’ll tell you what’s even better, resets do it all, or you don’t have to do it my house. The personal assistant all but you can have it all. Get help was like a game changer. She in the house now. That was a game comes and she does our dishes and changer for me. It took me over a our laundry, all those annoying year to get my nanny when I had my things that, at the end of the day, I son. Once I did, my kids are happier. would end up doing. I’d work all day I’m happier. They’re honestly taken and then I’d have to do that. Then, I care of better because if I had to be didn’t feel like I ever got to hang out with them all day, I would go insane. with my kids. It’s like the best thing That’s the best advice I could give to ever. I mean we pay her $20 an moms. hour, it’s not a huge expense, but it’s Hawk: Awesome. Anything that life changing. they can do in their business as well Hawk: Absolutely. Housekeeper, to be able to scale, to be able to somebody to do your dishes, grow? laundry, cook for you, the best thing Emily: I mean don’t treat it like in the world. a hobby. I see so many women Hawk: Awesome. We’ve shared a do that. We have so many other ton of content, a ton of value. What pressures around us that we work on are some of the secret ninja tricks our business only when our kids are

that you Well, obviously you share them openly. I usually have to pry them out of people. What’s one of the secret ninja tricks that you see that can help businesses get from where they are now to be able to work with you eventually?

Don’t fix what’s not broken. With entrepreneurs, it’s such a flaw that we have of a ton of ideas and, well, this is not good enough. I’m going to change this whole thing. I mean I’ll get clients who will have a million dollar launch.

Emily: I mean I could go into specific Facebook Ad stuff, but I really think, I say this a lot on interviews because I think it’s so important and it sounds basic, but focus. As an entrepreneur, it’s so hard to focus on one thing, one business and get that to multiple million dollars. I mean I did it too. I had courses over here in the membership side and my agency. When I said, “I’m all in,” to my agency, it was gamechanging how much more money I could make. Every time you say yes to something, you’re saying no to something else, whether you see it or not.

They’ll come to me and say, “Next time I’m going to do a challenge instead of a webinar.” I’m like, “You guys, we have to do what’s working. Don’t fix what’s not broken.” If you can focus and you can get really good and exercise that muscle because you’re going to have to continually check with yourself ... Even me recently, I want to make software with our spreadsheets that we have for our team.

I really think. I mean I know it’s not a marketing ninja trick, but really focusing and perfecting a funnel and keep on doing what’s working.

I’m ready to do it. I’m like, “Why can’t I work on it now?” I talked to one of my coaches and he’s like, “Is your agency really at a place where there’s nothing for you to do to grow it? Lead generation, all of it.” I’m like, “No. It’s not.” If I went over here and put 10 hours a week into building a software, that’s taking away from

my agency that I need to get to 10 million before I should really go and take away that much focus. It will be a game changer for you when you start saying no to opportunities and money making things that you think are going to make you a lot of money, but really just sidetrack you. Hawk: Absolutely, awesome you guys. Thank you so much guys, gals, entrepreneurs, marketers. You have heard from a brilliant woman, Emily Hirsh, who has given some of the key strategies to actually simplify your life and make your business scale and grow. Go hire some people, go create the systems in your business that you need to create and go crush it. If you guys aren’t already subscribed to Funnel Magazine as a lifetime member and get all of the cool bonuses, go to funnelmagazine.com/lifetime. You can get access to it for just $197 or $297, whatever it is. if it’s not 197, send us a message. We’ll give you the secret link for it. Have a blessed day guys, and we’ll see you on the next interview.

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In Brief: • Emily Hirsh tells the readers how she started “ I actually just started as virtual assistant, like $18 an hour. and taught myself everything” • Emily Hirsh says “I think a lot of people are scared to grow a team. But it’s 100% what took me from six to seven figures, was growing my team.” • Emily Hirsh explains that “So that was the biggest challenge for me, is how to scale a service business that’s representing your name because your reputation is there, so you care so much about it. And it’s so hard to balance that of training somebody and trusting them. It comes down to the process because if they’re set up for success, and they have the expectations, and they’re held to that, they will do a good job” • She said “So that daily tracking piece has been huge in making sure that we can serve all of our clients and make them feel like they’re not in an agency with 60 clients, right? That’s a huge complaint people have is like, “I just get forgotten about.” And the reason that happens is there are no systems for the team to be able to properly manage their account. Everybody’s overloaded and overwhelmed, and so things are getting dropped and balls are getting dropped” • She said “We have a couple of funnels we release, like a Hirsh Marketing Report, so we can run ads to that, and we do, and that has obviously emails and things attached to it.” Actionable Steps: 1. Honestly, consistent content and especially video is something that you can do without a team, without even an investment. Just start doing it 2. I know that a lot of moms follow me. We have a drive. If you’re here and you’re even watching this, you have the drive to go and do more and be more and have something else than be a stay at home mom. For me, I would go insane being a stay at home mom. The best advice I could give you is, one, do it and don’t feel guilty about it. 3. It’s not a marketing ninja trick, but really focusing and perfecting a funnel and keep on doing what’s working. Don’t fix what’s not broken. With entrepreneurs, it’s such a flaw that we have a ton of ideas and, well, this is not good enough. I’m going to change this whole thing. I mean I’ll get clients who will have a million dollar launch.

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Making a Profit in the Next 90 Days... What Would You Do?

If your life depended on your business actually making a profit in the next 90 days; what do You Do? • Would you create a pitch deck? • Would you have a board meeting with your team members? • Would you go have coffee at Starbucks? • Would you buy another online training? • Would you watch YouTube videos from the Harvard Business School channel? • Would you read a bunch of startup books? • Would you consider compensation structures or give up equity to your team members? NO!

ARTICLE BY David Kraus

ONE SPECIFIC PAINFUL PROBLEM! Step 2: Bust your butt to position yourself and your product to SOLVE THAT ONE SPECIFIC PROBLEM FOR THAT ONE SPECIFIC PERSON. Step 3: CHARGE AN UPFRONT FEE FOR YOUR SOLUTION. Step 4: Deliver the value and build a case study from that ONE SALE – YOUR ONE CUSTOMER. Step 5: Create an automated video sales letter and funnel that highlights that case study and start marketing it to PEOPLE WHO ARE SIMILAR TO YOUR CASE STUDY CUSTOMER.

If your life depended on you making a profit in 3 months Step 6: Begin a drip email prospecting campaign with your business, here are the steps you should take... and LinkedIn prospecting campaigns and drive 10-20 appointments per week. Step 1. Isolate the most painful problem for ONE Step 7: Start cold traffic, re-targeting, and channel SPECIFIC PERSON (Buyers Profile or Persona). partner campaigns and drive loads of traffic to your Not an entire industry. automated video sales letter funnel. Not 10 types of customers all at once...ONE Step 8: Hire a commission-based sales team to close SPECIFIC PERSON. sales that you line up with your marketing funnel.

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• In 3 months, you would be profitable. • In 12 months, you would be at $1M. • If your life depended on it; that’s what you should do.

• That’s what my partner and I did. That’s what These are the 8 Steps you should take if you want to be our clients do. very profitable in the next 90 days. • We don’t believe in raising money if you don’t have to. • We believe in solving problems for our customers with elegant solutions. • We believe in providing real value and charging for it. • We believe in making profits. • We believe in focus. • We believe in efficiency.

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Don’t Go Near The Water Until You Learn How To Swim Article by David Milton

That’s my father’s wisdom. I was six. I never learned In a panic, he reached out, worried about his credibility. how to swim, because I never went near the water. I laughed and gave him the PR fix. Six hours later he was up and running. He told everyone the response to Marketing is much like learning to swim. You can read his program was so great that they (his clients) broke all the research, gather all the tips and join all the guru the Internet. He’s still known for that. Plan B saved a courses, but you still won’t know how to swim, or market. $5M launch. Joining Masterminds, reading magazines such as “Failing to plan for failure, is failing to plan.” Again, my “Funnel Magazine” and expanding your knowledge is father’s wisdom. The smartest 5th grader I ever met. better than not. But, in order to stay afloat and ensure “Plan to succeed and you will fail. Plan to fail and you success, you need a Plan B. All through my marketing will succeed.” That’s my wisdom. career, I’ve had a Plan B. Even a Plan R. One time I had to resort to Plan Z. Don’t worry, it doesn’t get really Always plan for every imaginable scenario. Make bad until you’re reaching for Plan ZZA. provisions for alternate plans. When you think you’re done, plan some more. Don’t be ashamed to have a Here’s my point. Most people make all the preparations Plan B, R… or Z. for ‘Launch Day’ and fail to plan for when things don’t go as planned. A very big marketer who shall Ask for help before you’re drowning. Follow the gurus in remain nameless put three months of hard work into your space, but don’t copy them. You can only be you. his product launch. Weekends. Late nights. No sleep. No one else can be you. A lot of people ask me why I Almost forgot his wife’s first name. If he was going to don’t follow any of the big marketers. I do. I steal all fail, it wasn’t because he didn’t work hard. the best from them, put my little twist on it, and… voila. He did everything right, but he only had a Plan A. The Follow at a distance. Never copy. Javascript that controlled his credit card processing I know. I know. This goes against at least one marketer crashed. Three months of hard work, down the out there. If you copy every word, every process bit-bydrain. bit, success will be theirs, not yours. Copy. Analyze. Reengineer. Launch. Do that and the process is yours.

Lastly, never follow my father’s advice. Get wet. VOLUME 3

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The Tortoise Won The Race Article by David Milton

There’s a big difference in a veteran marketer and a the numbers and reviewing the webinar over and over, beginner. No, it’s not the size of their...bank account. All we found the problem. A simple, 20-minute edit to the great veteran marketers share one trait. Chill. webby resulted in a 350% decrease in drop-outs. Beginning marketers have grasped a notion that speed Look at it this way. We all get paid last, usually when is what makes you a better marketer. As it turns out, not the customer buys something. If we rush to get out so much. As the saying goes, haste creates waste. there, we risk making mistakes that have unintended consequences. These mistakes usually hit our bottom I’ve helped marketers from all genres, niches and all line. Sloppy construction results in poor execution. economic levels. Beginning marketers rush to get the product out into the marketplace while veteran A savvy marketer will look at every aspect of their offer, marketers will carefully, methodically analyze the reverse-engineer their funnel and dissect their email situation, then act. follow-up sequence, ad nauseam. In other words, they solve all the pain before launch, so there will be less “Be quick to analyze, slow to implement” is the mantra pain at the back-end. They cry during the construction I tell all marketers. I will spend hours with my clients phase so they don’t cry during the most critical phase… just to crunch a dozens of metrics. Most of the time, sales. we uncover little golden nuggets. Just because digital marketing is fast-paced, it doesn’t mean we should So, the best advice I can give you is to: “Be quick hastily dump our half-baked products or funnels into to analyze, slow to implement.” It’s the secret of all the market. There is no expiration date on the Internet. successful marketers. And, not following this advice is the reason why some marketers don’t become gigantic. However long it took to build your sales process, take at Sure, they’re successful, but they remain stuck at a least 20% of that time to make sure it passes all the tests. certain sales level that they just cannot overcome. Once a beginning marketer student of mine created a webinar that performed well, but people were Creating sales in the digital world is simple (notice I leaving in huge numbers during the first 15 didn’t say easy.) Create with purpose. Test, then test minutes. After 2 hours of looking at again. Easy peasy. Hope this helps. :)

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9 Key Reasons Your Company needs to Invest in SEO Services Article by Andriy Nikitiuk

We easily can break down Marketing into the essential channels, mechanics, and strategies that are driving the market depending on each channel scalability and period of time this channel is being “trendy”. But what any successful entrepreneur or business owner can rely on at all time is - Search Engine Optimization. They were saying SEO is dead back in 2005, 2010, 2015, and they are still saying the same nonsense, while smart business owners silently smiling having their websites on the top of Google. Today I will tell why you need to invest in SEO right now, luckily I have 9 significant reasons for that: 1. Higher rankings mean increased credibility – most individuals trust the first rankings they see in the Google search pages. Furthermore, it goes without saying that they search through those rankings beyond the first page. 2. It is the most cost-effective internet marketing strategy – organic search rankings are provided free of charge which means you do not have to pay for every click to your site. a huge investment is not required for you to become more visible and rank higher in the SERP’s. 3. Results are permanent – unlike advertising that fades from over time, SEO services to achieve higher

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Paid, radio/TV our memories will enable you rankings in the

SERP’s and it will most likely continue showing up in the same position with low monthly maintenance fees. 4. SEO enhances your company’s image – in addition to enhancing website quality and making your company more visible, SEO helps your content get found quicker and easier in the Google search rankings. 5. Quality content - having quality content is of prime importance and hiring the right SEO service provider becomes important as they will do the needed keyword analysis and then get the content written. This content not only will have the right keywords but will also be interesting to your potential clients, informative and gets returned business. One of the worst faults business make, even now, is that they produce content for search engines rather than for their customers or audience. Customers really dislike being drawn in by wrong information that was written for search engines. Whenever a visitor is frustrated, he or she leaves the website in a hurry and almost always never returns. So, content is a critical component of search engine optimization because it allows businesses to provide information through the use of fresh, relevant information. 6. SEO is the ultimate website traffic generator – although the increase may be slow going, it is still an increase. Even if you have the most aesthetically pleasing site, it won’t do you any good if you are ranked on the 10th page of Google search results.

7. You need to engage your target audience â&#x20AC;&#x201C; not only will the search engines reward content of the highest quality, you benefit from improved customer engagement and increased rankings. It is best to find the likes and dislike of the target audience and then connect with them through email marketing, social media channels and more. 8. Increased conversions and interest in a business. There are numerous tips and tricks prevalent in internet space to draw a lot more traffic and almost all will direct you to SEO. You should take advantage of those in order to spark more interest towards your website. A strong call to action, various registration forms, compelling videos or presentations, and ability to provide online calculation of return on investment will undeniably help you generate loads of traffic towards your company. This will enable you to get the flow going. You can easily structure your SEO process in a manner that it converts leads to higher sales. It will enable you to fully maximize your chances at converting prospects into orders. 9. Oversee and control all processes. There are numerous

analytic providers that allow you to fully comprehend each process that takes place within your website and your SEO strategy. This will enable you to improve your current business as well as to generate newer avenues. To conclude my thoughts from above, I want you to question yourself - â&#x20AC;&#x153;Am I doing everything possible to reach out to millions of internet users? Am I doing my best to promote my business? - and if youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not investing in SEO - the answer is NO. Search Engine Optimization is the channel where not only money investments needed, but also time investments. In return, you are getting life-long strong internet presence and top rankings in Google search.

FUNNEL MAGAZINE VOLUME 3 EDITION 4

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PUBLISHER - Hawk Mikado EDITOR - Tricia Wilkes LAYOUT - Joe Freeman COPY EDITOR - Tricia Wilkes

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Jane Amora John Amora John Paul Cabrera Russ Enriquez Lisa Emmons

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