What Is a Business Sales Funnel and Do You Really Need One?

Why Sales Funnels Are Created

Sales funnels, also called marketing funnels, business sale funnels, marketing ladders, or value ladders are supposed to be a pathway that takes a cold prospect from just learning about your business to buying your top offers – with a few steps along the way. There are probably hundreds of business books about sales funnels. The current trend in online marketing is that you must have multiple sales funnels for your business or your business will die a certain death. 

If you're going to explore what sales funnels are, one book I strongly recommend is Russell Brunson's Dotcom Secrets, which you can get on Amazon (affiliate link). Russell calls sales funnels “value ladders.” I've learned from this book and refer to it, so you might like it, too.

The Mistake Most Sales Funnel Creators Make

Most of the time when you look at someone's sales funnel you'll see their most expensive offer at the top. You might see something very low cost at the bottom, wide base of the triangle. Then maybe 2 or 3 levels of the sales funnel triangle in the middle, and then the higher dollar sell at the very top. There's a mistake in this type of sales funnel, though. The mistake is that the funnel's top section should be what you most want for yourself from this business. And almost everyone designs their funnels without regard to whether it's going to get them what they value most. 

Setting that top of the funnel up correctly means you need two things:

1. Clarity about what you value most for your life
2. Brand clarity that supports and speaks to those values while serving your customers with high integrity and care.

Without setting your strongest value at the top of your sales funnel, it's very easy to set up funnels that end up at the top taking too much of time, or being mis-priced, or requiring you to deliver a product or service you really didn't intend to offer when you started your business. This is very common problem, especially if you have an Internet-based business.

Secondly, without that critical clarity of what you most value and clarity for your brand, it's easy to slip up and create marketing messages that don't clearly communicate your brand or your offers – and a lack in sales is the result.

My Solution for Creating Sales Funnels That Actually Support Your Values

I've created a special 4 step process that helps you clarify the values important to your business and clients. These 4 steps also create for you a strong, clear brand. Next, we set up the best messaging to use in your sales conversations, social media, website, and presentations. You can email me (support@confidentmarketer.com) to set up time with me so that we can go through this step by step. 

Setting your brand clarity and your messaging makes finding new customers a whole lot easier. And, it helps you see what type of sales funnel you need to get paying customers. Every business has to do some type of prospecting. Even if it's a very short sales funnel (conversation to high end sale) you still must have that top value in your mind and very clear messaging. 

The first question to ask yourself before you create a sales funnel is this. What, ultimately, do you want for your life? Most of us cannot answer that question clearly without thought and discussion. We get used to covering up what we want in order to please others, or in order to satisfy a sense of duty or obligation. Sometimes we allow our feelings of guilt to completely obscure what we really want out of our life and business. 

My 4-step Maximize Your Message process will help you discover and clearly state your why – your top value. And from there, what you create below that will support you.  

So ask yourself, what would be at the top of your triangle? What do you want? Keep asking yourself. The secret of a successful sales funnel is to build your funnel from the top down. 95% of business owner will instead build their funnel from the bottom up. 

Brand clarity and solid sales funnels require testing your beliefs. Get clear on your marketing message after you're clear on where you want it to take you. That's the secret of making a sales funnel work well.