Scale Your
Scale Your
Online Business
Business
Online
with Conversion Funnels
with Conversion Funnel
A GetResponse ebook
GetResponse ebook
by Neil Patel
by Neil Patel
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“
Starting a full-fledged business is easier (and more cost-effective)
than it’s ever been.
Try conversion funnel — 30 days free
”
Try conversion funnel — 30 days free
Starting a full-fledged business is easier (and more cost-effective) than it’s ever been.
You no longer have to raise tons of startup capital just to get off the ground. If you have a great idea and an Internet connection, you can start a business today.
In fact, I’ve seen people build businesses from absolutely nothing and grow them
to the point where they’re bringing in $10,000 in monthly revenue.
And I’ve helped a ton of businesses get there, and beyond.
In this guide, I’m going to break down my knowledge about starting online businesses
into easy-to-understand chapters that will lay out a path for you to follow.
You don’t need to have any previous business experience (although it’s great if you do). I’ll go over both the basics and some more advanced techniques. Plus, I’ll show you a simple
tool that will help to automate so much of the process.
Like I said, if you have a great idea and a bit of determination, you might be surprised a
t how
easily you can get a business up and running.
But a great idea isn’t going to do all the heavy lifting for you. If you’re serious about building
an online business, you need a robust system in place that will help you run your business
effortlessly.
In this guide, I’m going to show you how to do just that using GetResponse and their
awesome conversion funnel tool.
Let’s get started!
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Building an Online Business: Pros and Cons
Before we get into the details, we need to talk about pros and cons.
You need to be aware of both the advantages and disadvantages before anything else.
Running an online business can be a head-jerking, gut-wrenching roller coaster, so you need
to prepare for that and know what you’re getting yourself into.
This is about entrepreneurship, complete with all its rewards and some risks, too.
Don’t get me wrong — building a business is an amazingly rewarding experience.
And if you follow the steps in this guide, it’ll be a shockingly straightforward experience.
Easy? Nah. This isn’t necessarily easy.
You’ll need to be resilient if you want to build a business from scratch.
The best way to prepare yourself is to know what you’re getting into and plan accordingly.
But rewarding? Absolutely yes.
There’s nothing quite as exhilarating as pulling in that first client or contract, and the next,
and the next...and watching the revenue stack up to five-figures monthly. It feels good.
When I started out, I knew next to nothing about business (aside from selling vacuums
door-to-door). I had to learn the hard way.
But you don’t have to. I’ll tell you the most important pros and cons of starting your own online
business so you know exactly what to expect right now.
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Pros
There are tons of pros to starting your own online business. While I can’t cover them all
in this guide, here are a few of the biggest advantages:
It provides an income stream. You can usually count on online businesses to provide you
with a new stream of revenue. Of course, you have to work to build it. But if you do it right,
you’ll increase your income.
It’s beneficial to your career. Even if you don’t consider yourself an entrepreneur, starting
a business is definitely an entrepreneurial act, and that can open new doors for you. It also
provides opportunity for growth — you can operate a business as a side gig or turn it into
a new career.
Career flexibility. Whether you want to become a side hustler, a serial entrepreneur,
or a full-time CEO, you can use online businesses as tools to help you achieve your goals.
Online businesses are easily scalable, so you can scale them up or down depending
on your needs.
Cons
Building a business isn’t all sunshine and roses. You have to be ready for the ups and downs,
so here are a few negatives to expect. Don’t let these cons stop you. Instead, prepare
for them.
It can take time to get off the ground. While almost any online business can be
successful, you won’t be making profits overnight. It’s a long-term haul that will test your
mettle and demand a lot of your time, so scheduling and prioritization will become critical.
It takes a lot of effort. Starting your own business is rewarding, but on the flip side, it’s also
extremely tiring sometimes. When you’re starting out, you’ll probably be a one-person
operation, and when you have to do everything, you can burn out pretty quickly.
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Real world success stories
The successful online business isn’t a fairytale. Each year, entrepreneurs build businesses
that take them from 0 to 60. Sometimes, these businesses can be wildly profitable.
Believe it or not, many of the brands you use today had their origins as scrappy online
startups. They were able to take what little they had and turn it into success.
You might think that’s not within your reach, but think again. Many of the most successful
businesses today were once startups bootstrapped by just a few people (and often one
person).
Still doubtful? I don’t blame you. So let’s take a look at a few real world success stories to see
exactly how successful online businesses can be.
Dollar Shave Club
Dollar Shave Club is a household name today thanks to their hilarious marketing
and insanely effective influencer strategies.
You’ve likely seen one of their zany social media ads or their appealing branding.
Dollar Shave Club became so ridiculously successful that CEO Michael Dubin sold
the company to Unilever for a whopping $1 billion.
But when Dubin started the company, he was far from that billion-dollar mark.
In fact, he bootstrapped the entire thing himself.
That’s right, Dollar Shave Club began as a one-man business. Dubin operated out of his
apartment and used the initial profits to help fund the now legendary video that put Dollar
Shave Club in the spotlight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUG9qYTJMsI
And if you’re wondering, that video didn’t even have a high production cost. Dubin reported
spending about $4,500 on it and hired a friend to direct it.
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Yet it was unbelievably successful, bringing in 12,000 members in just a few days.
From there, Dollar Shave Club began its upward rise, and it remains one of the most
famous men’s grooming companies.
Copyblogger
I’ve always been a big fan of letting your audience choose what you sell.
And that’s exactly what Copyblogger founder Brian Clark did.
When he launched Copyblogger way back in 2006, Clark’s goal was to provide the most
informative content. He created that content by himself to meet his demanding quality
standards. Once he got feedback on that content from his audience, he would launch
products that solved their problems.
This seems super simple, and that’s because it is. But it worked incredibly well because
he gave people exactly what they wanted, and he gave them better solutions than any other
brand in the niche.
This strategic approach took Copyblogger from a small blog to an empire. Today,
Copyblogger is an eight-figure stalwart in the content niche, and it’s one of the most
recognizable names in its space.
Imgur
If you’ve ever used Reddit, you probably know what Imgur is.
If you don’t, Imgur is an image sharing website that grew from a simple tool into a massive
social platform.
It’s used on multiple social media sites (including Reddit, where it originated) as an easy way
to share all kinds of images. It’s one of the most popular image hosts on the Internet today.
Even though it’s huge now, Imgur has humble beginnings. Founder Alan Schaaf simply
wanted an easy way for Reddit users (called Redditors) to share images. At the time, many
popular image sharing services were ad-heavy, and Schaaf wanted a friendlier alternative.
So he built one.
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When Schaff unveiled Imgur, it blew up instantly. Today, it has over 300 million users,
and it just raised $20 million in venture equity.
Think about that. What began as a solopreneur’s side project all the way back in 2009 grew
into a massive success and is still growing today. That’s the great thing about building
an online business — it can take you to new heights you never even dreamed of reaching.
My successes
Let me take a second to talk about the success I’ve found as a serial online business owner.
I don’t want to brag. I just want to show you that I know my stuff.
After all, you want to take advice from someone who knows what they’re doing, right?
Over the course of my career, I’ve built several highly successful online businesses and helped
hundreds of others build theirs.
Let me start with my personal brand.
I run a blog over at NeilPatel.com that’s become one of my biggest brands to date.
It pulls in nearly 2.5 million unique visitors and over $1 million in revenue every year.
When I started that blog, I took a simple approach.
I found out what kind of content my audience wanted to see, and I created that content.
Like I said. Super simple.
That gave me tons of opportunities to offer services and build products that solved
my audience’s problems.
I’ve also built both QuickSprout and Crazy Egg.
QuickSprout also started out as a basic blog and grew into a hub for all types of content
related to all things marketing, SEO, and more.
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Finally, Crazy Egg. I founded it with Hiten Shah, and we once again used the power of helpful
content to drive our business plan.
We combined that with a product that we knew our audience would get a ton of value from,
and before we knew it, we were making six figures.
Fast forward to today. I’ve gotten years of experience under my belt, and I now coach others
who want to build online businesses.
Today, I’m going to share my process with you. You’ll learn everything from mastering social
media to utilizing conversion funnels for improved sales.
On that note, let me tell you where a conversion funnel fits into all of this.
Your goal is to build a successful online business. To do that, you need to have a watertight
sales process.
That’s exactly why conversion funnels were created: to give you a one-stop shop for your entire sales process. GetResponse has already developed tried-and-true funnels; all you need
to do is fill in the blanks.
Over the next five chapters, you’ll learn how to use this amazing tool to help you streamline
virtually everything about your business. I’m excited to share this information with you,
so without further ado, let’s get started!
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Chapter 1
1
Plan Your
Online Business
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Chapter 1: Plan Your Online Business
Before you do anything else, you need to spend some time planning.
This step is critical, so don’t overlook it. I’ve coached countless businesses who were absolutely
sinking because they didn’t spend enough time planning everything out. They bit off more
than they could chew, and it put them in a hard place which they struggled to get out of.
On the other hand, I’ve mentored lots of businesses that had a lot planned out, and things
were much easier for them. They grew more quickly, more easily, and more seamlessly than
the unprepared businesses.
In this step, you’re building the foundation of your entire business. If you build your business
on a rock solid foundation, it’ll be sturdy. But if you build your business on a shaky foundation,
the whole thing will crumble.
Let’s begin by talking about the people who are most important to your business: your customers.
Figure out who your target audience is
Every time I’ve ever started a new business or helped someone else start theirs, one of my first
questions is always “who?”
If you’re in the dark about who your target audience is, you won’t be able to create the right kind
of content or the right kind of product. You might find some success, but you’ll never hit it out
of the park unless you have a lockdown on who your audience is.
One of the best ways to get a thorough understanding of your audience is by creating a buyer
persona.
A buyer persona is a description of an imaginary “ideal customer.” This is a person who would
be an absolute perfect match for your vision and product/service.
Even if you already know the types of people you want as your customers, making a buyer
persona allows you to get an extremely concrete understanding that will help you build your
business.
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Here’s an example of what a buyer persona looks like:
Yours doesn’t have to look exactly like this, but this is a good starting template to use.
No matter what your buyer persona ends up looking like, you need to answer these important
questions with it:
Who is your customer? To answer this question broadly, you’ll need to tap into
demographics. These often include age, occupation, family status, location, income level,
education level, and even personal goals and interests.
What problems does your customer have? Be as specific as possible. What roadblocks
does this customer have that prevent them from achieving their goals?
What drives your customer? Think about what motivates your ideal customer.
What are their hopes and fears?
While this is a very basic overview of a buyer persona, it’s enough to get you started.
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Using a template like the one shown above is a great tool if you’re having trouble putting
together a persona.
You might consider building multiple personas so you can understand your audience more
fully. Sometimes it’s hard to condense all of your ideal customer traits into one persona,
so don’t be afraid to make a few if it will help you.
Once you’ve completed your persona(s), you’ll have a thorough grasp of who your target
audience is. Then you can move onto the next step.
Establish your product or service
Since you’re reading this article, you probably already have an idea of the product or service
you want to sell.
But maybe you don’t. Or maybe you have a bunch of ideas and you’re unsure which is best.
Without experience, this stage can take a lot of trial and error, but I’ll share what’s worked
for me.
First, put your business idea through the problem-solving test.
Go back to your persona and look at the problems your ideal customer experiences.
Now look at your product or service and ask yourself a few questions:
L Does my product or service solve my customer’s problem(s)?
L Does it enhance my customer’s quality of life?
L Why should my customer choose my product or service?
When you think about your product or service from a customer-centric viewpoint, it can really
put things into perspective.
If you can confidently answer the above questions, then you’re ready to move on to the next
step.
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But if you can’t, you may want to rethink your product or service. If it’s not helping your
customer in a unique way, it won’t be a home run.
Remember: It’s all about the customer.
Think about your funnel
Let’s take a moment to look at where the sales funnel fits into all of this.
So far, you’ve identified your target customer and put some thought into the product
or service you’ll offer.
Your goal is to now sell that product or service, and that’s exactly what a funnel does.
Just for clarification, let me lay out some of the basic concepts behind the funnel, starting
with what a funnel is.
Your funnel is essentially the entire journey that a customer takes from the first point
of contact all the way to the sale. It’s what they experience from the moment they learn
about you to the moment they hit the purchase button.
When a customer first interacts with your brand, they’re at the top of your funnel. Your goal
is to move them down toward the action you want them to take (which is usually a sale).
Traditionally, this has taken a lot of work. It took me years to refine some of my funnels
to the point where I was happy with them.
But with conversion funnels, you have all the resources you need to create a funnel that
works seamlessly.
The most important element of any funnel is the customer friendliness. In other words,
you should build your funnels on the foundation of an amazing customer experience.
With conversion funnels, you’ll be able to do that quickly and easily, even if you’ve never made
a funnel before. It’ll hold your hand through the entire process and help you optimize your
funnel for your specific customer journey.
So when you’re making your conversion funnel, keep in mind that this is all about
your customers.
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Chapter 2 Launch Your
Online Business
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Chapter 2: Launch Your Online Business
The planning stages are over — it’s time to take action!
Now we’re going to look at the actual process of launching your business: taking it from
the conceptual planning stages to a fully operating business that’s ready to make some sales.
The prelaunch and launch stages are often the most hectic parts of creating a business,
but with some preparation, you can avoid much of the hassle. Whether you’re working by
yourself or with a partner/team, there are a few things you need to have laser focus on during
this point.
While you can technically get started nearly instantly, it’s better to take some time to set
yourself up for success. Here’s how to do that.
Create a dynamic, engaging website
While there are many ways you can start launching your business, I recommend building
a website first.
Why? Your website will be the ultimate destination for your customers. Since your goal is
to get people to purchase something from you, you’ll want to get them on your website
as soon as possible.
Of course, when you’re creating your site, you’ll want to put a lot of focus on your sales pages.
These are the pages that will be doing the hard work for you, so you need to optimize them
right from the beginning.
You can do all of this right from your GetResponse dashboard. By clicking “Create landing
page,” you’ll be taken to the page creator, where you can make everything from short email
signups to entire sales pages.
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Thanks to the incredibly intuitive drag-and-drop interface, you’ll be all set up with a beautiful
page in no time at all.
If you need some inspiration, check out the conversion funnel sales page.
You immediately understand what the value of conversion funnels are by just looking at the
top of the page:
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Thanks to the vibrant graphics and excellent readability, you can read through the page
without a hiccup and easily understand why conversion funnels rock.
Establish a social media presence
Once you’ve put together a stunning website, you should focus on establishing your brand
on social media.
It’s no surprise that social media is key to great marketing and sales, so you should build
your social media presence early on.
Naturally, you’ll want to make accounts on the big three platforms: Facebook, Twitter,
and Instagram. Make sure you have business profiles on each platform to take full advantage
of features like advanced statistics and ads.
And speaking of ads, GetResponse has a Facebook and Instagram ad creator built right into
it. That’s right, you don’t even need to leave your GetResponse account to make incredible
ads that will drive tons of traffic to your site.
There’s an entire how-to article on making Facebook and Instagram ads in GetResponse
that I highly recommend taking a look at.
After you’ve crafted engaging profiles and attention-grabbing ads, you’ll be well on your way
to getting the most from social media.
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Use testimonials to boost your credibility
Do you know what the most effective form of marketing is?
Maybe Instagram influencer marketing? Email marketing?
Nope. It’s word-of-mouth.
It makes sense — most of the time, you’d rather take a recommendation from a friend
or a family member than an advertisement.
You can harness the power of word of mouth through testimonials. The testimonial is a staple
of every great marketing strategy because it works so unbelievably well. People love seeing
what customers have to say about your product, and if you get glowing testimonials, you’ll
reach many more people.
There are many ways to get testimonials. Here are a few options:
L Look through your Facebook reviews and pull snippets from the best ones.
L Search the Internet for existing reviews of your product or service.
L Ask your customers to review your product or service after they’ve used that.
(Hint: you can do this with GetResponse.)
All it takes is a few great testimonials to bolster your credibility.
Once you’ve gotten your testimonials, you can use the GetResponse page creator to put
them to work for you. I recommend putting them right on your sales/landing pages.
Publish content
Let me be very upfront about this: I love content marketing.
I’ve built my most successful businesses on a content-heavy foundation, and it’s always
worked extremely well. People go crazy over great content, and if you can provide that,
you’ll win people’s trust and respect.
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Above everything, your content should be valuable. If people aren’t getting any value from
your content, then it’s practically useless. People should be able to improve their lives in some
way by consuming your content.
I tend to go a little overboard when it comes to content, but you don’t have to do just content
marketing. You can (and should) use it with other forms of marketing for a multi-pronged
approach that gets as many eyes on your brand as possible.
The reason content is so appealing is because of its value. You’re not just flashing an ad
at someone — you’re providing helpful information.
The bottom line is that content marketing is still one of the most important forms of marketing.
If you want to reach people, you need content.
But first, let’s talk about what content is.
“Content” is a huge umbrella term that refers to all of the following:
L Blog posts and articles
L Social media content
L Emails
L Videos
L Interactive content (e.g., quizzes and surveys)
L Visual content (e.g., infographics and photos)
L ebooks
L White papers
There are many more types of content than what I’ve listed here, but these are the most
popular ones.
You might have a few questions at this point, like, “What content should I publish?”
Well, the specific types of content you should post all depend on what your audience
wants to see.
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You can get a good idea of this by studying the types of content that other businesses
in your space publish. Most likely, you’ll end up publishing a wide variety of content.
I tend to focus most on articles and videos. Video in particular has experienced massive
growth in the last couple of years, and it’s one of the most effective ways to market today,
so it’s a good choice for any business.
Other types of content aren’t right for every single business. For example, if you sell shirts to
teenagers, you probably don’t want to publish white papers detailing why your shirts are
the best around.
So make sure your content types match up with what your demographic enjoys the most.
Once you get started putting out content, there are a few things to keep in mind.
For one, posting regularly is a must. If your content is released consistently, you’ll build a loyal
following of people who keep up to date with your latest content.
Consistent publishing will also help with SEO, which will get more eyes on both your content
and your brand.
And, of course, if you put your content on social media, you’ll reach an even bigger audience
than you could reach with your website alone. Shareability is high on social media, so when
you put your content there, you’re making it easy for people to spread the word about your
brand.
You don’t even have to schedule everything manually. You can use software like Buffer
to schedule your social media posts, and you can use GetResponse to schedule your emails.
The most important thing is publishing high-quality content and a lot of it. Eventually, this may
be something to outsource (I’ll talk about this more in Chapter 4) since it’s such a vital aspect
of success.
If you put in the time and effort to create content that helps your audience, you’ll reap
the rewards, and people will be much more likely to trust you and your products.
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Create your funnel
Now it’s time to make your very first funnel.
I know it sounds intimidating, but you’ll soon see that with a conversion funnel, the entire
process is dead easy.
GetResponse designed conversion funnels for people with all levels of knowledge, so whether you’ve never created a funnel before or just want to create better funnels, you can take
advantage of everything conversion funnels has to offer.
In this guide, the example funnel we’ll build is going to be a super simple one.
It has one clear goal: to take users from your landing page all the way to the end of the sale.
Don’t worry if you don’t even have a landing page or sales page up yet. I’ll be going through
the processes to build those right inside of GetResponse.
But first, let’s look at the elements of a winning funnel.
Elements of a successful funnel
By now, you’re probably wondering what your funnel should look like. Maybe you’ve thought
about what other businesses’ funnels look like.
Going into detail about sales funnels would take weeks (and maybe even months).
It’s way outside the scope of this guide.
But I can tell you a bit about what a successful funnel looks like.
First, let’s look at the top of the funnel.
This is the widest part of the funnel, which means it’s where you’ll draw the most people.
When you have all that attention on your brand, you need to seize that opportunity.
The best way to do this? Education.
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I’ve found that by providing incredibly valuable information at the top of the funnel,
you’ll engage more people and keep them interested for longer.
The reason this works so well is because people at the top of your funnel are still shopping
around. They’re not committed to your solution — they’re just considering it.
By providing helpful information at this stage, you’ll set yourself apart from the crowd
and prove that you’ve got something worthwhile.
There are tons of ways to educate effectively, but I prefer educating through content.
That means anything that can reach your customers at this part of the funnel. Cast your net
wide with all types of content, from bite-sized social media posts to longform blog posts.
In the middle of your funnel, you’re getting people who are more than casually interested.
At this point, your funnel should reinforce the idea that your product or service can solve their
problems.
And you need to let people see exactly how it will solve their problems. Webinars, demos,
and video content can all do this.
At the bottom of your funnel, you’ll have people who have already purchased your product
or service. But this isn’t the place to stop — you need to maintain your relationship with these
customers.
Keeping in touch via newsletters, loyalty programs, reward initiatives, and other perks can
enhance your customer’s dedication to your brand.
And with GetResponse, you can build an engaging confirmation page that will help you
continue the relationship after the sale. (More on that below.)
Using conversion funnel
Now let’s talk about using a conversion funnel to create your first funnel.
Like I’ve mentioned, this is a super easy process, so follow along with me by logging into
your GetResponse account and making a practice funnel.
Ready?
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To build your funnel using conversion funnels, you need to first access the conversion funnel
page through your GetResponse dashboard. You can do this by clicking on the Menu icon
and then clicking conversion funnel.
On the next page, click the big blue button that says “Create your first funnel.”
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After this, you’ll need to give your funnel a name and select the purpose of your funnel.
You can change this based on the specific funnel you’re creating, but we’ll keep it simple
for our example. I’ll call this funnel “Test Funnel 1,” and since the goal is to get people to take
action on a landing page, I’ll select the “sell a product” option (since we’re trying to get people
to buy something in this hypothetical scenario).
You’ll then see an option to choose a full sales funnel or a quick sales funnel, so let me take
a second to explain the difference between these two.
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The full sales funnel is longer and more in-depth. This is a great option if you’re using a funnel
to build relationships with customers over time, and if you’re using full-scale marketing
campaigns, you’ll absolutely need the full sales funnel.
On the other hand, the quick sales funnel is shorter and less complicated. It’s ideal for funnels
that have shorter-term goals. It’s great for starting out, but there are some times when you’ll
want to use this option even after your business has grown.
Since we just want to take someone from a landing page to a sale, the quick funnel will be
best for our purposes, so go ahead and select the quick sales funnel option.
You’ll now need to create or connect a store. If you already have a store on an ecommerce
platform, then you can use the connect option to link your existing store to GetResponse.
If you don’t already have a store set up, you can use the create option to build a store.
Again, for this test funnel, I’ll just create a made-up store called “Test Store 1.”
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You can now add products to the store you’ve created or connected by clicking on the blue
button shown here:
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Once you’ve added a product, you’re ready to connect the payment processor of your choice.
And after you’ve done that, you’ll finally see your funnel!
Here’s what your funnel should look like:
This graphic layout is incredibly helpful because it puts all the necessary information into
an easy-to-understand design. It will also notify you if you’ve skipped any steps or need
to complete any additional actions.
So let’s continue setting up our practice funnel.
The next step is to create a sales page. This is easy to tell because the call-to-action
in the top blue section prompts you with a “Create a sales page” button.
Clicking on that button will take you to GetResponse’s page creator. (And since you’ve used
this tool to set up pages for your site, you’re already familiar with this part!)
Go ahead and go through the process of creating a sales page for your funnel. I’ll just use
a stock template for this guide, but you can take a few moments to set up a custom page.
When you’re doing this for real, you’ll want to customize the heck out of your page and align it
with your branding.
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Once your sales page is finished, you’ll see that you have the option to create an upsell page.
This is an optional step since you probably won’t need an upsell page for every funnel you
create.
If you have an opportunity to upsell your customers, then you can take time to build an upsell
page. It’s a simple process that only takes a few minutes.
But if you have a funnel where an upsell opportunity is absent or inappropriate, then skip
this step.
For our practice funnel, let’s skip this, but just know that the process of making an upsell page
is exactly the same as making a sales page. You just go through the GetResponse page
creator and customize a template to your liking.
Finally, you’ll need to add a confirmation page. This is the screen that your customers will see
after they make a purchase. You once again have the option to choose from a wide variety
of templates using the GetResponse page creator.
Be sure to put the same amount of effort into the confirmation page as you put into the sales
page. You want your customers to feel warm and fuzzy after a purchase, so create
a welcoming confirmation page that strengthens your relationship with them.
After you’ve customized your confirmation page, you’ll be taken back to your funnel
dashboard, where you can see every element of your funnel in the handy graphic on the right
hand side of the page.
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When you’re finished, your funnel should look something like this:
And there you have it: your first conversion funnel! Easy, wasn’t it?
When you have a live funnel, you can use the dashboard to monitor the most important
metrics and identify problems in your funnel. (I’ll talk more about this later in Chapter 3.)
If you want to learn more about conversion funnels, here are a few resources for you.
First, here’s a quick sales funnel tutorial that GetResponse has put together. This provides
a more visual reference for creating a quick sales funnel, so if you’re a visual learner, this is
a must-watch.
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And if you’d rather create a full sales funnel, check out this helpful video tutorial. Again,
the process is very similar, but the full sales funnel has a lot more depth to it and introduces
some new tools and resources. When you’re ready to create a full sales funnel, be sure to give
this video tutorial a watch.
Now you know how to create a funnel using conversion funnels, and you can use to get more
customers. You’ll be making plenty of funnels as a business owner, so get comfortable
with this process. Sooner than later, it’ll be second nature, and you’ll have yet another skill
in your toolbox.
So far, you’ve established your business, identified your target market, and built a crazy good
funnel. Now what?
It’s time to scale.
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Chapter 3 Scale Your
Online Business
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Chapter 3: Scale Your Online Business
You don’t want your business to stay small forever. At some point, you’ll need to start thinking
about growth.
This is the step where serious success can happen. You can be profitable as a small business,
but if you can take your business to the next level, you can transform it.
There is no single best way to grow, and naturally it’ll differ from business to business.
But regardless of what type of business you have or which approach you take to growth,
you need to be strategic about it.
Obviously you want to grow your business, but you also need to make sure that your business
can handle growth.
If you try to double or triple the size of your business without preparing for it, you’ll find
yourself way in over your head. (And I’m speaking from personal experience here.)
So it’s important to get your business ready for growth before you try to make it grow.
That all starts by taking a look at your business model and making sure that it can handle
a ton of growth.
Preparing your business model
for growth
Steady, healthy growth requires a lot of commitment.
Think of it like a plant. If you want it to flourish, you should get the best soil, water it regularly,
and make sure it has room to grow.
It’s the exact same with your business. It’ll grow if you place it in the right conditions to do so,
but it will struggle to grow if the conditions are subpar.
While “committing to growth” can sound vague, it’s anything but. It’s a combination of several
crucial factors.
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First, you have to define what growth is for your business. This includes knowing what
numbers you want to reach, understanding how your business will expand internally, and how
your operations will have to change to accommodate your growth.
Next, prepare yourself for all those changes.
If you’ll need to bring more team members on board, then make sure your onboarding
process is solid. If you’ll need to reach certain metrics, then start focusing your marketing
strategies with those metrics in mind.
In addition, you should take some time to review your core ethos.
If your team members don’t all share the same vision of growth, it’ll be hard to make progress.
It’s critical that everyone on your team is also committed to growth in the same way you are.
It might be that your core philosophy needs a touch-up or two. If you find yourself in that spot,
consider creating a brand style guide to refine your branding approach and make a cohesive
set of guidelines for everyone to follow.
Once you’ve worked on your branding and internal philosophies, make sure everyone’s
on the same page. It’s a good idea to send out a memo and (even better) meet with your
team to reinforce this shared vision.
When your internal affairs are in tip-top shape, you can start properly scaling.
Scaling your business
So how do you scale?
Scaling requires both ambition and resources. You have to set your sights high and then find
out how to get where you want to go.
One tactic is to develop strategic partnerships that will pay dividends.
Partnering up with the right business has many benefits. A great partnership will provide
benefits for both parties and help each of them expand their reach.
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It can be surprisingly easy to find a business to partner with, but you have to ask the right
questions. So before you go hunting for someone to team up with, ask these questions:
L Do our core values and philosophies align with theirs?
L Do our skill sets complement each other? Is there synergy between what we both offer?
L Can we benefit them? How?
L Why do we want to partner with them?
L Why would they want to partner with us?
L What will our partnership look like? Who will do what?
L Are we legally prepared to partner?
Being able to confidently answer these questions is vital if you want a lasting and mutually
beneficial partnership.
But what if you’re not quite ready to partner or you want an alternative option?
Well, there are plenty more ways to scale.
For example, you can use marketing. Scaling ultimately depends on reaching more people,
so expanding your marketing can help you achieve that.
Social media marketing can be especially useful for scaling. It’s easy to spread your
campaigns far and wide using the power of social media, so you can get a lot of eyes
on your brand with relatively little work.
It’s also the best platform to get people talking about your brand. If you have incentives
in place — like referral programs — you can generate a lot of discussion that will help you
scale through organic word of mouth.
One thing you should do no matter how you scale is improve and expand your offerings.
After all, if you want your business to scale, your offerings have to scale too.
Dollar Shave Club (who we discussed earlier) is a great case study on how to scale your
offerings. When the company started out, it offered simple membership plans for razors.
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Today, it offers a wide variety of men’s grooming products from deodorant to shampoo.
If they had stuck to just a few products, they would’ve missed out on opportunities to scale.
So it’s imperative that you plan to scale your offerings according to your goals.
How to scale your funnel
Next, let’s look at the process of scaling your funnel.
After all, scaling your offerings means scaling your funnel. Makes sense, doesn’t it?
Once you begin the growth process, you’ll want to increase the bandwidth of your funnel
by getting more people into it. If you keep getting the same amount of people into your funnel,
you’ll never grow.
In practice, this means ensuring that your funnel is optimized at each step of the process
and doubling down on customer acquisition. Continually improving these areas will allow you
to easily scale.
The hard truth is that no funnel is perfect. Some marketers may want you to believe
that they know how to make the ultimate funnel, but in reality, there is no such thing.
You’ll have to make it a habit to analyze your funnel’s performance and figure out where its
weak points are. By spending time with your funnel, you’ll notice the hiccups in the process.
Maybe your landing page isn’t converting as well as it should, or maybe you’re not getting a lot
of email signups.
It’s important to identify these problem areas as early as possible and explore ways to repair
them.
This is key if you want to get more people in the door. If something is off with your funnel,
you’ll end up bleeding customers at some point along the way.
So you not only have to find and fix problems with your funnel, but also make sure more
people are getting through it in the first place.
Thankfully, with a conversion funnel, all of this is a cinch.
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Monitoring your funnel is easier than ever before. You can easily track every aspect of your
funnel right from the conversion funnel dashboard:
Then you can compare your metrics against the metrics you want to reach so you can always
be sure that you’re meeting or surpassing your goals.
And if there’s specific areas of your funnel that are problematic, you’ll be able to identify that
too. Thanks to the handy statistics graphic, you can instantly see your metrics at each stage
of your funnel.
This also means that you can keep track of which changes work and which ones don’t.
If you make changes to any part of your funnel, these statistics will help you identify if those
changes have helped or hurt you.
But what about moving more people through your funnel?
Well, if you’re monitoring and making regular improvements to your funnel, you’ll eliminate
a lot of the friction your customers may experience.
But you also have to make sure that their entry and exit points are similarly frictionless.
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Let’s discuss entry points first. From the second that customers interact with your brand,
they should have the best experience possible.
So if there are any hitches in the experience, they won’t be the happiest they can be,
and you’ll need to fix that.
Think about your content, lead magnets, email signups, and other first points of contact.
What are they experiencing? Are they facing any issues?
Then diagnose and repair.
For example, if you’re analyzing the effectiveness of your content, you might ask the following
questions:
L How many people are consuming my content?
L Are people positively reacting to my content?
L Is my content successfully sending people to my landing page/site?
If you’re seeing less than stellar metrics, then your content might not be swaying people
to take action.
These are the kinds of questions you should be asking about anywhere people might first
encounter your brand. Listen, improve, and repeat.
It’s the same story for exit points. Lots of marketers are obsessed with getting people into
their funnels but don’t pay attention to customers when they leave the funnel. They let their
guard down and lose customers as a result.
When someone exits your funnel, the experience should be just as seamless as entering
the funnel. This is why it’s important to have a welcoming confirmation page and further
develop your relationship with your customers.
Let people know that you truly appreciate their business and support. You might use
GetResponse to place a thank you video on the confirmation page or send out
a personalized appreciation email.
However you do it, make sure that you do continue to strengthen the bond you’ve formed
with a customer. Take care of your customers, and they’ll grow more and more loyal to you
and your brand.
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Chapter 4 Automate Your
Online Business
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Chapter 4: Automate Your Online
Business
At this point, you’ve put a lot of work into building your online business.
But you can’t do that forever. It’s just not sustainable.
So once you’ve experienced some growth, you should start thinking about how to automate
your business.
Automation plays a big part in helping your company grow. It can both help you scale
your business and improve your processes.
Some people fear the idea of automation. They see it as a scary thing where machines
are doing everything and the customer experience suffers as a result.
But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Automation allows you to easily manage less
demanding things and saves you time so you can put your focus where it matters most.
You don’t need to automate everything. You should only automate something when it will
result in a better customer experience.
Additionally, not all businesses will need to automate the same things.
To know what you should automate, ask yourself the following questions:
What am I spending lots of time on? Spending tons of time on something is a big sign that you
should probably automate it — or at least parts of it. For example, if you find yourself spending
countless hours on email marketing, try automating your email sequences.
What am I bad at? Realistically, none of us can do everything perfectly. There are many areas
that you might consider outsourcing if you feel someone else could do it better (or if you find
yourself struggling to do it). It’s a classic tip for business success: surround yourself with
people who are better than you.
What’s demanding a lot from me and my team? It’s easy for things like communication
and team projects to slow down your entire team. When that happens, you should find
the best way to automate those things using helpful software.
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Don’t rush to automate things, but don’t shy away from automation either. As long as you
automate the right tasks and processes, you’ll still maintain that incredibly important human
touch.
Tools for automation
There are plenty of tools to help you automate different areas of your business.
For marketing automation, look no further than (drum roll!) GetResponse. You can create
an entire automation workflow that will take care of everything from nurturing leads
to encouraging completed purchases.
Thanks to the straightforward drag-and-drop interface, you can intuitively build amazing
workflows in a matter of minutes.
And like your conversion funnel, marketing automation can be managed entirely in your GetResponse account. Here’s how.
Of course, there are many other things you might want to automate.
For social media automation, tools like Buffer and HootSuite can help you schedule posts,
manage metrics, and much more.
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If you want to automate internal communications, Slack is the platform of choice for many
businesses. (Alternatively, you can use other platforms like Skype or Discord.) Pairing a chat
solution with Trello allows you to have a slick, streamlined internal workflow that leaves no
stone unturned.
Finally, for general automation, look into programs like IFTTT or Zapier. These flexible tools
allow you to automate just about anything, and they both work with a variety of other
programs and suites that you’re likely already using.
Automating your funnel
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that you can easily automate your funnel. Funnel automation
is a marketer’s best friend, and every hugely successful business relies on it.
The best part? Automating your funnel is super easy.
In fact, you’ve already been automating parts of your funnel without even knowing.
You know that your conversion funnel has been doing a lot of the hard work for you, but you
might’ve glossed over the fact that it’s automating your funnel.
Think back to how you made your funnel. You set it up and let it run. It was that simple, right?
You may have made some changes to your funnel, but it’s still been running without you
constantly checking in on it 24/7.
That, my friend, is the beauty of automation at work.
Conversion funnels allow you to get a bird’s-eye view of your funnel and then make small
tweaks as needed. You don’t need to manually go through each step as you get a customer.
The software takes care of that for you.
But can you automate it even more? Absolutely.
Again, you’ve already started this process without even knowing it. Let’s break it down.
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Automating the top of the funnel
Your conversion funnel taking care of the way your customers go from point A to point B.
If you want to automate your funnel further, you have to automate getting customers
to point A in the first place.
For me (and many other marketers), this means content and lots of it.
And remember, you want to diversify your content. This means putting out text-based
content, visual content, video content, and social media content.
Now, if you’ve been putting out content already, you’re one step closer to optimal automation.
But if you’re doing it all yourself, then you’re likely losing a lot of time.
The solution? Automating it by outsourcing.
That’s right, automation doesn’t just mean delegating tasks to machines.
Outsourcing is a vital part of any business’s automation.
I prefer working with freelancers and other contractors who have excellent portfolios
and great reputations. This helps me spend time on the most important tasks while still
allowing me to oversee everything to ensure the quality is up to par with my standards.
You can find amazing freelancers for every type of content from longform articles
to informational videos. This goes back to the idea of surrounding yourself with people
who are experts at their respective tasks. So outsourcing can both save you time
and increase the quality of your content.
Once you’ve outsourced content, then you can automate posting it using one of the many
content scheduling tools available. Many site backends (WordPress is the most popular
for this) will have content scheduling features built right in so you can get started without
any additional software.
Again, post content regularly. This is where automation can really come in handy.
If you’re manually scheduling everything, you’re liable to miss a post (or two…or 10).
By automating it, you won’t have to worry about it — you can get the content, schedule it,
and move on.
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By outsourcing content creation and then automating sharing and publishing, you can free up
a lot of time to focus on other crucial aspects of your business.
Automating funnel improvement
Naturally, you’ll also want to improve your funnel. In my experience, if you’re not constantly
testing and tweaking your funnel, you’re doing your business a disservice.
Instead, you should automate split tests (also called A/B tests) which help you figure out
the exact approach that’s ideal for your funnel at any given time.
First, you should split test at the top of your funnel. Since this is the point where customers
are showing interest in your product or service, you’ll want to know which approach
will work best for you.
Most likely, that means split testing both your email marketing and social media.
You can easily automate entire email campaigns and split test them using GetResponse.
Since the software is so easy to use, you’ll be able to quickly set up tests and make changes
based on the analytics-driven results.
For social media, you should split test your ads. A basic yet effective way to do this is by
simply making two sets of ads in GetResponse (aimed at the same demographic) and seeing
which ad performs better.
Down the road, you can automate further, but for initial scaling and growth, I’ve given you all
the basics here. Everything I’ve discussed is something I personally do. I’m a huge fan of these
automation techniques, and I wholeheartedly recommend them.
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Chapter 5 10x Your
Online Business
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Chapter 5: 10x Your Online Business
After you’ve set up a successful business and grown it, what’s next?
More growth.
Once your business has gained some momentum, you can keep that forward motion going
and keep growing more and more.
It’s true that some businesses end up plateauing or hitting a ceiling where they just can’t grow
any more. But 99% of the time, this is entirely avoidable. If they had taken the right steps,
they could’ve kept growing.
The reality is that you can scale your business precisely as much as you want. At this stage,
you already have most of the resources you need to increase your business 10 times over.
I’ve helped tons of businesses get to 10x their size, so I know firsthand what works and what
doesn’t. I’ve seen companies I’ve mentored grow and grow until they hit and smash way past
that 10x mark.
And I know it’s possible for you. (Yes, you!) It’s not a pipe dream. Just like every strategy in this
guide, if you have the right foundation and take the right actions, you can achieve your goals.
Interested? Here’s some of my best advice on taking your business to the next level.
Don’t let small wins pass you by
This is a big mistake that I’ve seen so many business owners make. They’re so focused
on their biggest goals that they fail to snatch up the countless smaller opportunities that are
available to them every single day.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t have big goals, but you shouldn’t let them distract you either.
Recognizing and aiming for small wins can make or break your business, believe it or not.
This is especially true when you’re in the earlier stages. That’s because a small win can lead to
a bigger win. If you only focus on bigger goals, you may end up shooting yourself in the foot.
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How small am I talking? A small win can be as little as someone signing up for your email list
or getting a social share on one of your pieces of content.
When you get that small win, ask yourself why you were able to achieve it. If you understand
the process that led to that small win, you can refine and repeat that process to get even
bigger wins.
And after a while, those drops in the bucket will get bigger and bigger until the whole thing
is overflowing.
Put your customers first and your team
second
I know I’ve said this over and over again, but it bears repeating. Putting your customers
before anything else is critical if you want massive success.
That means prioritizing your customers’ needs above your products or even your team.
Your customers are the lifeblood of everything you do, so they demand first place.
Your customers should be having the best possible experience. To give that to them,
you have to constantly improve your funnel and customer journey.
There are many ways to do this, but I’ll address some common customer pain points.
First — and this is an obvious one — your customer support should be outstanding.
Go above and beyond for your customers, and they’ll do the same for you.
When you get feedback, don’t just reply with a boilerplate email. Take note of their
suggestion or criticism and make sure a real human being responds to them in a personal
way. This makes a huge difference.
Second, take care of your support team.
If your team is happy and motivated, they’ll do a better job of helping people. Simple, right?
Sadly, some businesses don’t work this way. That results in poor service, which results
in unhappy customers.
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By fostering a positive company culture and ensuring your team members are empowered
to do their best work, you’ll be placing them in the best position to help others.
Customers might come first, but your team comes second. You can’t forget about them.
Third, actually act on the feedback you receive.
Listen to their problems. Listen to their suggestions. What do they want? What’s getting
in their way?
More importantly, how can you make their experience better?
How can you remove the pain points?
The easiest way to do this is to listen carefully to what your customers are saying
and make any necessary changes.
Do you need to put every customer suggestion into action? Not at all. But if you’re getting
repeated suggestions, or if you see a common thread, then it’s in your best interest to improve
your business based on that feedback.
Think about who you need to grow
Growth always depends on the people.
You can have the best automation, the best marketing tactics, and the best metrics,
but if you don’t have the best people, your business won’t last.
If you want to grow, you need to partner with the best people you can find.
And I’m talking about both inside and outside of your team.
Taking your business to 10x requires a team that’s capable of getting you there.
Think about it this way — if you were flying around the world, would you rather have a new
pilot or a pilot with more than a decade of flight experience? The more experienced pilot
would most likely provide you with a smoother, better flight.
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The same goes for your team. You need a highly skilled, experienced team if you want to 10x.
In addition, you need to think about forming strategic partnerships.
I went over partnerships in Chapter 3, but they’re also an essential part of growth when you’re
looking to 10x. It’s rare to be able to grow your business that much without any partnerships
at all.
But at this level, the types of business you should partner with will probably look a lot different
from the businesses you partnered with earlier on. Aim to work with bigger businesses with
a wider scope who can really help your business grow. The more networking and outreach
you do, the more opportunities you’ll have.
10x using conversion funnel
Here’s one last thing about conversion funnels.
I’ve walked you through the ins and outs of this tool, and I hope you’ve been enjoying it
as much as I do. (Again, if you want to learn more, be sure to check out those resources
I linked in Chapter 2.)
There’s no doubt that a conversion funnel is a super powerful tool, but how powerful
is it really?
In other words, how far can conversion funnels take your business?
The reason I bring this up is because there are a lot of tools that are great for small
businesses but not bigger ones.
Once your business grows to a certain size, you might find out that a lot of the tools you use
are too underpowered, so you’ll have to go through the hassle of finding new tools and
revamp your entire workflow. (And trust me when I say that the word “hassle” here is
an understatement.)
These tools say they’ll help you grow, but once you do grow, they’re suddenly inadequate
for your size.
Thankfully, this is not the case with conversion funnels.
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Whether you’re in the prelaunch stage or ready to go all the way to 10x, you can use a
conversion funnel to its fullest. None of the features will become redundant or useless. In fact,
they’ll only become more powerful.
Instead of just helping you grow, your conversion funnel will grow and scale as your business
does, making for a seamless experience that you can depend on time and time again.
So when you’re ready to 10x your business, take conversion funnels with you.
You’ll be glad you did.
Conclusion
Congratulations, you’ve made it to the end of the guide! Now you have all the knowledge
you need to go out and build an entire business from scratch.
You know the entire process, from identifying your target audience to automating content
and beyond, and you know how to replicate it so you can see success for yourself.
It’s completely possible, and there’s nothing stopping you from getting started today.
What are you waiting for?
Throughout this ebook, I’ve distilled my 15+ years of experience so you can learn from my
successes, my mistakes, and my outright failures. This is what has worked for me
and the hundreds of businesses I’ve coached.
I didn’t have tools like conversion funnels, but if I had, the process would have been
a lot easier. Now you have both the knowledge and tools you need to get started.
So go through this guide step by step (don’t skip anything!) and you will be well on your way
to having a successful online business.
And if you find yourself at an obstacle, come back and consult this guide. It’s your roadmap
to success — from zero to $10,000.
You’ve got this.
Now go out there and crush it!
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