In this episode of Art of Online Business, I’m sharing an interview that I did on Neill Williams’s podcast. She’s been on my podcast several times, and in this one, I interviewed her about one of her sales funnels for her business. She created a brand new program in the summer of 2022, and in the first 93 days of launching it, she generated over $100,000.
This was a brand new offer with a brand new audience. She didn’t market to her existing audience at all. She started entirely from scratch. In this interview, she shares why she decided to do that. We also break down the entire funnel.
For the first half, she used an Evergreen funnel with no webinar or video series. Her new audience went from Facebook ad to the lead magnet, to the email follow-up, and then to purchasing her $2000 program.
This is not an easy thing to do, not a lot of people can make it happen. In this episode, Neill breaks down exactly how she did it. She utilized the power of testing and had an enormous amount of success, and quickly.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- The importance of showing what is and isn’t working
- Why Neill decided to start from scratch with this offer
- How she structured her funnel
- Why templates sell so well
- What is working well with Facebook ads
- How Neill thinks about launching
- What the two phases of investment are
- How much she spent on ads during this launch
- Why you should be thinking about the long-term sustainability in your business
- The importance of testing everything in your funnel
Links & Resources:
- The Art of Online Business website
- DM me on Instagram
- Visit my YouTube channel
- The Art of Online Business clips on YouTube
- Full episodes of The Art of Online Business Podcast on YouTube
- The Art of Online Business Podcast website
- Check out my Accelerator coaching program
* Disclosure: I only recommend products I use and love and all opinions expressed here are my own. This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission.
Neill Williams Links:
- Listen to the Unbusy Your Life podcast
- Check out Neill’s website
- Follow Neill on Instagram
- Connect with Neill on Facebook
Please support the podcast by giving an honest Rating/Review for the show on iTunes!
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Are You Creating Your Business Around Your Life? | a Dec 2021 Classic
I knew I could take a funnel to six figures. I’ve already done it several times and I was like, All right, let’s just see how fast I can do it, because I don’t really thought about that. Yeah, I know. And I know that the path there is just getting it launched and then doing consistently like week after week after week, testing, testing, testing, trying things out. And I just really from pure curiosity, I was like, I wonder how many tests it would take for me to get to 100. Okay. So I started doing something on Instagram live on Fridays that I called Funnel Fail Friday and I was just sharing every single week the things that I was trying, the things that didn’t work, the things that were working. So it helped me also stay accountable to testing every single week and that I was so excited about it because I would like try something like this failed miserably or I tried this and this was amazing and this is what happened. So it was really kind of just this fun experiment that I did. And we got to 100 K pretty fast and faster than what I thought.
All right. What’s up, my friends? Welcome to today’s episode of The Art of Online Business podcast. Rick, I’m already here. And so on today’s episode, I’m sharing with you an interview that I did on somebody else’s podcast. I actually interviewed the host of that podcast for her show, and I wanted to share that interview here with you all on my podcast. And so I’m interviewing Neil Williams. Neil has been on the podcast here several times before, and I interviewed her about one of her sales funnels in her business. She created a brand new program in or this summer of 2022, and she started marketing it in August. So August 1st, I believe it was, and in the first 93 days of creating the course and starting to market it, she generated over 100,000 in 93 days from a brand new offer going from $0 with a brand new audience. So she had an audience of 15,000 people on her email list, but she didn’t market this new offer to them at all. She started from scratch, and she shares in this interview that you’ll you’ll hear why she decided to do that. And so we break down the entire funnel. And here’s a really cool thing. She the first half of these 90 days, she generated about 50,000 from Evergreen. No webinar, no video series. This is again, she’s going to break it down here for you today. But from Facebook ad to lead magnet to email follow up and within two weeks selling a 2000 program and selling it really, really well.
And so that’s really hard to do, taking somebody who doesn’t know who you are within two weeks and they’re handing over their credit card saying, hey, I want this program I’m in and it’s two grand. Not a lot of people can do that. Neil breaks it down exactly how she’s done it. We talk about our Facebook ads. We get really deep on Facebook ads. We talk about the funnel, we break it down, Why the work, Why the funnel works so well in selling a 2000 program. We also talk about testing. If you take nothing else from this interview here today, listen to the part of how much she is testing. And at the towards the end of the episode, she shares how many tests she actually did within the 90 days to get to 100,000. And it’s a lot of tests. And so that’s really cool. So Neil Williams from Neil Williams tools and I ll I ll I am ask.com. If you’re a coach early in your business and you’re looking to grow your coaching business, Neil is going to help you take that to 100,000. So go check out her website. Without further ado, let’s go hear the interview I did for Neil on her podcast. All right, so we’re flipping the script here, Neil. Yes. I’m interviewing you for your show.
Yes.
Are you nervous?
No. But I’m going to have to remember that I’m not driving. So you might have to just take over. That’s right. And so when we talked about this, you know, you’ve done you have your course 100 K Funnell.
Mm.
Hmm. It is something that you didn’t create until the second half of this year in 2022.
Yes.
And you’ve done a Hunte like this is very meta, right? But you’ve done 100 K.
Yes.
In sales of that course in 90 short days.
Yes.
That is really incredible.
Yeah.
So go ahead. Go ahead.
Yeah. And I really did. I wanted to kind of what I was doing along the way. I knew I could take a funnel to six figures. I’ve already done it several times, but I was like, All right, let’s just see how fast I can do it, because I don’t really thought about that. Yeah, know. And I know that the path there is just getting it launched and then doing consistently like week after week after week, testing, testing, testing, trying things out. And I just really from pure curiosity, I was like, I wonder how many tests it would take for me to get to 100 K. So I started doing something on Instagram alive on Fridays that I called Funnel Fail Friday and I was just sharing every single week the things that I was trying, the things that didn’t work, the things that were working. So it helped me also stay accountable to testing every single week. And then I was so excited about it because I would like try something like this failed miserably or I tried this and this was amazing and this is what happened. So it was really kind of just this fun experiment that I did. And we got to 100 K pretty fast and faster than what I thought. Actually, I thought we’ll probably get there by the end of the year was what I thought, right? But then when we did it and it was like 93 days when we crossed the 100 K threshold, I was like, Wow, that was much faster than what I anticipated.
And let’s give people a little bit of background context. This was a brand new course. This wasn’t something like, Oh, I have this, let’s let’s do a test here. How quickly can we get to 100 K? This was a brand new course.
Brand new course started with a list of zero. So I just restarted brand new list building, created a brand new funnel for it specifically. Yeah. And hit 100 K in 90 days. So from scratch I think that’s what’s really important to here is it’s not like I took an existing audience and sent this offer to them. I really confined it just to a brand new audience that I was building with Facebook ads and then running them through this funnel and figuring out what was working, what’s not working, really, really paying attention to the data. Open rates, click rates, why people are buying, why they’re not buying all the different pieces of the funnel.
So for people who know or maybe don’t know, the how is this different from your mastermind? So your mastermind is ten K and 10 hours.
Yes.
How is this different from that program, that experience?
Yeah. So ten K and 10 hours is more of a I guess I would call it more of a done for you, done with you kind of white glove experience. Whereas Hunter K Funnel, you and I were talking this summer, I was feeling really bad because I was having to turn people away who couldn’t afford ten K in 10 hours. It’s a higher end program because of the level of expertise and hand-holding that’s involved in it. And so I wanted to create another option for people who didn’t have the budget to be able to invest in ten, 10 hours, but they could still have the content, they would still have support. It just wouldn’t be the same one on one kind of experience that you get inside a ten K in 10 hours. So content wise, similar, same. Pretty much. It’s just the level of support that’s different.
Was there an element of creating a new program like that in addition to making it more accessible from an investment perspective? Was there any element of. This is the type of thing that you also teach to coaches.
Yeah.
You’re like, it doesn’t have to be one on one. You don’t have to start here.
Right?
And so it’s like, all right, yes, I have this program over here. But also, you know, one thing I love about you is you are a practitioner like and I want to get into the whole executing and all that here shortly. But like, this is something that you teach people and you’re like, Hey, I’m doing it over here. Yes, this is exactly what I have done and I’m showing you exactly how to do that as well.
Very important to me, and I don’t think this needs to be true for every business at all, but for me, I just don’t teach anything. I haven’t tested and found a way to be successful with. Yeah. So every single thing I teach inside of the Facebook ads part of the course are things that we’ve tried, We’ve tested, I’ve taken multiple Facebook ads, courses. I take different pieces away. I mean, I got my kind of
like my teeth wet and my basic training from, you know, like years ago I started learning how to do this. And so what’s been really important to me is to not promote something or teach something that I haven’t already figured out how to make successful. Yeah. And so I think also I wanted my students to see me go through this again in real life time, because I think what happens is some people see others success and think, Yeah, that’s amazing, but I will never be able to get there. And so I want to I want to take them along for the journey with me. That’s why I started doing some fail Friday and have them see like what I’m actually doing, what it actually took to get that funnel to six figures, the first six figures at least.
And you’re also more relatable than so many people because most people don’t share the the things that don’t work. Don’t work.
Or like, yeah, I tried this and it didn’t.
Work. Yes.
And, and, but so in most people are just showing like the, you know, the Instagram feed, if you will, of their business. The success part of it, that’s what you see. Yeah.
And people need to see that other side of it.
Okay.
So again, it makes you more human, much easier to connect with and like, oh, here’s this person over here who’s created a very successful business in a short amount of time. Oh, they’re doing these things too, and it’s not working. And this is what they’re doing as a result.
Yeah. And part of what I wanted to do is I see a lot of students, my coaches who are listening to this, who I love you dearly, but what happens is they start to use like their mentors, their teachers success against them as if there’s something that’s different about me. And I never want to be that for them, ever. I want them to see me struggle, quite frankly. So I want them to know, like, that’s just the way this journey looks. It’s just part of the deal. Doesn’t mean that you’re doing it wrong. It’s just part of what happens when you are building an online business. Yeah, and so I do. And I will probably do this again, like next year. I’ll probably be, you know, looking at my journey and sharing all my steps along the way to take this funnel from six figures to seven figures, a seven figure funnel looks
very different. I know that I’m going to fail and fall on my safe, my face probably 100 times to get there, and that’s okay. I don’t mind sharing that. There’s nothing in me that feels like there’s anything wrong with that. If people think something about me for it, that’s okay. Yeah. I mean, I just don’t have an attachment to them only seeing my success. Yeah, I would rather them see me fall down more than see my success.
How does that like your with your how does that what’s my question here? From a mindset perspective, so many people have that fear of showing what’s actually going on. Yeah, and I’ve had this too, because the thought is, oh, if people see me doing these things or going through this, they’re not going to want to work with me.
Hmm. Yeah, I can see that. I think for me, I actually just think about, like, what’s helpful for me. And when someone shares with me about what didn’t work or what was really hard for them, it starts to feel like, Oh, I’m okay. That actually is very helpful to me. I have found I, of course want to see this success stories and all of that to be inspired, Sure. But I think for me I’m always thinking about how I can help my students best. Always. That’s always my primary driver. And for me, I can see how me sharing what’s not working is actually sometimes way more helpful than showing them what is working or like touting my success or all of that. Yeah, yeah. So it’s all about helping my people.
It’s refreshing for people.
It really is. Yeah.
So. So you mentioned that. This was from scratch?
Yes.
People listening right now might be like, well, Neil, you have a sizable email list. What are you talking about? What do you mean from scratch?
Yeah. So I didn’t promote 100 K funnel to that list. I still have it. Honestly, I have only just I really wanted it to be an experience, just like my students do, who come in to 100 K final or even a ten K 10 hours where they’re basically starting from zero. Yeah, and I didn’t want to start from an advantaged place where they couldn’t start or they’re not starting from. So I didn’t want to hear the objection of like, Well, yeah, but you already have a list of 15,000 or you already had X, Y and Z. I wanted to just like pretend like I didn’t even have that and start from zero. So did you start building a list? And only the list who went through that funnel are are the people who were invited to 100 K funnel course.
So what did this funnel look like? What was your so you’re running ads. What was the your building, your list. Yeah, let’s go through that.
Yeah. So the basic structure is very simple funnel which I promote for all of my students from there. First starting out, we can get really fancy with funnels, it’s super fun and all that, but the very beginning to stay basic and when you’re kind of like learning the different pieces and learning the strategies along the way. So it’s just a Facebook ad to a free lead magnet. And then I did eventually up level the front end of the funnel because what I was trying to do was offset, if not eliminate the ads budget. So I was getting paid to build my list, basically. So I did add in a tripwire at the front end of it, but that was quite a ways down the road, maybe like a couple of months in. And then from there it’s a nurture sequence, email nurture sequence, simple nurture sequence. I did do a couple of things different with that nurture sequence where included video in the nurture sequence. So this is all cold traffic, right? So with cold traffic, one of the one of the obstacles is getting them warmed up as quickly as we can. Yeah. And so when you think about how people connect and relate to other people, like reading your words in your emails, great.
But if someone hears your words, like people listening to this podcast are going to feel more connected to you and I than if we were just to send them an email with words, right, Because they can hear us. Right? So that’s what I love about podcasts, is it really creates a connection, warms people up very quickly. And then if you think about video like you and I are recording this and video, people watching us are going to have an even different level of experience of this. And so my idea around this is I feel like TikTok is taking over the world and I think everything we do is going to have some video component to it going forward. And I think that includes our email marketing. And so inside of my nurture sequence, I have emails in every single one of the nurture sequences, our emails in the nurture sequence. So the idea of building up the know I can trust factor as quickly as possible. So we have a welcome email and then for emails that give them help with the lead magnet. What was the.
Magnet?
It’s going to be meta, but it’s called the Four Steps to a Killer lead Magnet. So it’s things that I see people making mistakes with their lead magnets all the time. It’s the reason why some of their ads don’t work or they just don’t get the right people on the list. So that and then it’s a pretty quick sequence that you and I have talked about this. You’re like, Wait a minute, so long goes from not knowing you to paying you $2,000 in the span of 14 days, basically. Yeah. So we have a nurture sequence and then are a couple emails after that nurture sequence where I kind of like transition into what we would call the pitch part of the sequence. Yeah. Which is just kind of like opening the gap between where they are and where they want to go. And then we go through the pitch, which is a seven day pitch.
So you’re selling so 14 days. Let’s just back up real quick. So your SO Facebook ad.
Yep.
And Instagram ad to lead magnet.
Yep.
For what do you say? Four things that.
Four steps to.
Four steps to a great lead.
Magnet. Yeah Yep.
Then on the thank you page, originally it was just straight up. Thank you page. You know, check your email inbox. Yep.
You later added a small offer right there.
Yes.
What was that small offer?
So this is I love that we’re having this conversation because I think what I see is people with their lead magnets and the small offers, all the things that the front end of their funnel, they want to make really big. Yeah. And it’s important to think about the small, tangible wins actually matter most because if you can help people with those small things, they’re automatically going to believe that you can
help them with the bigger things. Yeah. So after someone sees like the idea, basically they’re looking at their idea for their lead magnet, then the next thing I see them struggle with is actually building their lead magnet they’ll spend. Ks Yeah, I don’t believe it.
What do you mean? It takes Doesn’t take days.
No. So I created a little small offer, which was how to build your lead magnet in an hour. It’s a little tool. Kit gives you three templates either a PDF, a video or an audio. We give you Canva templates that you can just use and put your copy into it and a templated nurture sequence so you can get your nurture sequence also done very quickly.
So I want to point this out to everybody listening right now. And by the way, we’re going to put we’re going to it’s not simulcast, but we’re going to put this on my show, too.
Yes.
So for everybody listening, wherever you are, what whatever show you’re listening on.
Yeah.
This is an amazing point that Neil just brought up. When you are when you have a small offer or an upsell or what have you, something like that. People love templates. People love done for you things.
Yes, they do.
Notice what what Neil has done here is the small offer is directly related to it. Sort of like the next step. Of the free legal play. The next step, Yes.
So you’re teaching people what goes into a great lead magnet then for how much was the offer?
$7.
For seven bucks. It’s I’m giving you.
Templates no brainer.
And and email templates. I think this is brilliant.
Yeah.
And you know, I’m going to ask what is the what was the conversion rate on your lead magnet and then also the small offer. Yeah, it’s been about 50%, which is pretty 50%.
Which one.
Okay. So if we’re thinking about the adds just to the lead magnet itself. Yeah. So we’ve been getting around $5 leads, but the conversion rate is like 50 to 60%.
On cold.
Traffic. I’m cool traffic. Yeah. And then pretty high.
Percentage of those.
People.
Taking the $7 offer.
Yeah. About like depending like that’s well that one’s been super interesting. It’s not been very level which I think is pretty common. It’s like pretty spiky, but overall it’s somewhere in the neighborhood, depending on the week that we’re looking at 30 to 50%.
Amazing. Yeah. So good.
Yeah.
And so as you mentioned before, that is paying for your ads.
Yes.
Basically.
Yep.
And you are getting I want to point that out too, is you’re getting about a $5 cost per lead.
Yes.
On your lead magnet. So many people would like have a major breakdown about that. Oh, my gosh. I don’t want to pay $5 like this is. Something’s wrong, right? Yes, But no, it’s not. And we’re not getting into Neil’s ads manager or what have you right now. But like. At a 32, what do you say, 50 ish percent conversion rate on the lead magnet? You say that like 50%?
No, on the lead magnet itself were 50 to 60%.
Which is unheard of, which is so high to coal traffic.
To coal traffic. Right.
And then and then 30 to 50% conversion on the on the small offer on the on the next page.
Yes.
So amazing numbers. Then they go into the first email is like the welcome and the delivery of the lead magnet and if they purchase the small offer etc..
Yes.
Then they go into your helping them with what they just downloaded. Then they go into a seven day quote unquote sales sequence. Yes.
Are you just selling with emails?
Yes. Well, yes. Said no. Okay. So I’ll explain that. So we did about 50,000 just through the email itself. And then. Hold on. Stop right there. Yeah. Again, what a note. A 2000 program. Just through email.
Yes.
So for everybody listening right now, within 14 days of of meeting Neal, quote unquote, with through the lead magnet, somebody is taking out their credit card and saying, holy cow, I want this program. Here’s my credit card number. Here’s two grand.
Yes.
Without a webinar or a video series or what have you. Why do you think it was so successful?
I think honestly, I think when you give somebody like the lead magnet and it actually works for them and they have success there automatically. I’ve heard this comment, so I know a little bit about the students feedback on this. You helped me so much with that little thing that I knew you could help me with the funnel, like I just knew. And the Facebook ads, I just already trusted you to be able to do that. And I mean, we have put a lot of energy and time into the pitch sequence. We’ve tried a lot of different things. We have testimonials in there now. We have videos in there. We have like, you know, we’ve refined it a lot from the start. Sure. For sure. But yeah, I think it’s that and I think it’s really the other thing I think is really important for everybody to hear. We do have a great sales page and I think really understanding the messaging that resonates with your people as the other really important part of that.
Which didn’t come overnight.
No.
You done a lot of work and understanding.
Yes.
You have been that person. That you are.
Helping. Yes.
And so it makes it to much easier to understand that that messaging.
Yeah.
So have you looked at what percentage of the people who take that small offer? Who also buy the program. I wish I had that stat for. I do not have it, but it’s one I’m going to look at.
I just be interesting, right to look at like is that a higher percentage of people going through the funnel who take the small offer? Are they more inclined to take the.
Yeah, my gut says yes, because I know just the psychology of buying. If you say yes to the small thing, it’s so much easier to say yes to the bigger thing. Yeah. And we have it. We just this last week we made an addition to the front end of the funnel again. Like what I’m trying with the funnel right now is I have an offer that’s working. So I’m looking at different parts of the final, obviously trying to continue to optimize it and all that. But at the front end, I would love to be able to just eliminate the ads budget altogether, meaning that we bring in enough revenue to completely offset what we’re spending on ads. So the little $7 tripwire wasn’t working to do that fully. So we added an order bump to it. And so now we’re kind of testing that to see does that get it?
I don’t think I knew that. What’s the order bump on it?
So the order bump. So again, what I’m thinking about anybody who’s listening, my students, please hear me when I say this. I’m thinking about the next little problem they have. Not the big problem, little tiny things. So getting your idea for your lead magnet, then being able to build your lead magnet, then the next thing someone’s going to be like, I don’t know how to do the ads for this. So I give them an ad starter kit to be able to write their ad copy and headlines and do some detailed targeted audience research pretty quickly and easily. And that is $27. So we have the option for them to just buy the lead magnet builder tip for $7, or they can bundle the two together for 34.
Okay, but they. But they wait. Are you offering that? Right alongside that 7.0.
For the people who say yes to the trip wire, then get the bump offer.
Gotcha. Okay. And how long has that been? I mean, we’re recording this the middle of November.
Yeah. Three days.
Oh, three days.
Okay. It’s like and we’ve had several people opt into it, so it’ll be interesting. Yeah. Like on I think it was like Tuesday this week or something. I looked at how much time I spent on ads and then how much revenue we brought in that day. And that was like one of the first days where we literally were 100% covered in revenue. Oh, that’s great from what we spent. So again, like this one I see kind of being like, it’s not this consistent thing. It’s like the spiky. Yeah. So I just don’t have enough time yet or enough data to know if it’s going to work well or not.
But what is working so well with the Facebook ads?
So many different things, I think. Number one, have a really great lead magnet. It cannot be a boring lead magnet anymore, like people are just past it. That’s my first thing is make sure you have a really great if this is for like when we’re talking about this, what I’m talking about is lead generation, as I’m not sure if that’s what you were referring to. But yes, you need to have a great lead magnet and then also be willing to really test out a lot of copy and headlines and images. Yeah. And and so there is like the creative obviously that you want to be testing. But then I think the other thing that’s working really well and this is the other piece that I should have mentioned earlier but you and I have been talking about this this year and we’ve tested this many times, is taking something that’s working. Like I had my cost per lead was where I wanted it to be. My landing page conversion rate is where I want it to be. My link click through rates or where I want them to be. And then you and I, we’re talking about opening the audience wide open. So one so that’s what we just did this week and our cost per lead has gone from the $5 down to a dollar 50.
So I’ll have to repeat that again because this is something for, for, for, for everybody listening right now who has not been sort of tuned in or testing ads for any period of time. This is a this is something that’s not new to 2022, however, latter part of 2021 after EOS and all that stuff, like it’s wider, broader audiences are where it’s at.
That’s right.
So so yeah so share what you did there.
So again, like we’ve tested this multiple ways. I have started with a really broad audience and I haven’t had a lot of success that way. So we usually start with a narrower, targeted audience. I let the algorithm get like 500 to 1000 conversions, so it has some data and then we take those interests off and open it wide open. And we have seen significant change in our cost per lead when we do that. And the thing we just need to keep paying attention to and again, we just did this this week, so I don’t have enough data in the funnel yet to know is making sure that we’re still getting good, high quality leads coming through with that wide open audience. So that is something we’ll be paying attention to. But in the other times that we’ve done this in our funnels this year, it’s worked really well.
Now, when you say wide open.
What does that mean? I mean, I take all the interests out. No interests like I have now an audience of like $250 Million or something like that. Like a ridiculous sized audience. Yeah.
And so what you had an asset with with your interests?
Yep.
And you let that run, get 500 to 1000 and get some pixel data as much as you as much as you possibly can on Facebook these days. And then once you get that, then you start a new ad set that is wide open and we say wide open. We’re talking. Are we saying North America?
Yeah. Yes. I just use those basic targeting options. So location, gender, age and language. Those are the only ones that I. That’s it. That’s it. There’s like if you go into the interest part, there’s nothing in there.
So do you start Do you turn off the ad set that was running? With the interest.
So what we do so I duplicate it, number one, because I want to retain the data. I don’t want to I’m not starting a brand new campaign because that would be defeat. The purpose of getting the data in the first place, we start usually and we like split the budget, so we’ll split it 5050 to just kind of see. Because I don’t want to also then like have a campaign that’s not working all of a sudden when the one before was working just fine, right? I’m just trying to I’m just like pushing it a little further, like, can I make it work even better? Yeah. So that’s where we’re at right now. We kind of split the budget in half and we’re just in testing phase right now to see.
Okay, so you go from like essentially one ad set to two ad sets. The second ad set is wide open. Why don’t interest the first ad set is still running with the interest targeted.
Yep.
Gotcha. Okay. I thought you were saying. Yeah, we shut off the other one. Not yet. I was like, Wait, wait, why. Don’t shut it off?
No, don’t shut it off. Because very listening. What’s what’s happening here is that broader audience ad set is learning from, number one, the pixel data. And number two, since it’s in the same campaign, it’s learning from that first ad set.
That’s right.
With the with the interest in it and vice versa, the same thing will start to happen, too, is because the algorithm is so is smart. Now, these two ad sets are learning off of one another.
That’s right.
And should bring the overall cost per lead down.
Right. Super smart. Yeah. So we’ll see.
So you said that you at first going back to the sales sequence, you were selling the 2000 offer without just with just emails. Yes.
Has that changed?
So we did. I knew that I wanted to do a launch. I’m using air quotes here because.
It’s such a dinky word, isn’t it?
I know. I hesitated to even use that word. I mean, I don’t even think I knew I was in a launch until you said it to me. We’re on a call and you’re like, Well, you’re in the launch. Yeah. I was like, Wait, what? Yeah, I just didn’t even think about it. But for me, the way that I’ve decided to think about launching is it’s really just a concentrated marketing period. So we did do a live component here and obviously, yes, that brought in a lot, right? We made 50,000. The other half of it was through that live component. So we did a funnel planning week is what we called it, basically five days over five days. You came away with your 30 day plan to build a launch your funnel. Yeah. And so really, really amazing things happen there. In my mind. I wasn’t I first wasn’t even going to set a money goal for it. But I think you helped me do that. I was like, All right, so we did. I’m glad we did because it just helped us try more things. Like, I just got in the lunch. I was just thinking like, what could I try? What could I test here? What I want to see, what works or what doesn’t work. And so it was really like an intense testing phase, in my opinion. But we had I think we had like 1300 people register for it and we did do paid ads for this. I’d never done that to a webinar before. Yeah, but that was pretty cool because we got 1300 new leads on our list that we didn’t have before just for webinar registration.
Share what your cost per lead was.
It was a dollar 50.
Okay, my friends, everybody listening right now. Dollar 50 Webinar Lead Costs. I want to repeat that again. Dollar 50 Webinar Lead costs. I’m sharing this like and I’m sort of joking here, but also serious. I hear from so many people that, you know, webinar lead costs on with Facebook or Instagram like aren’t sub $10 anymore. Yeah, and it obviously it’s simply not true for what Neil is talking about here.
Yeah.
And and why do you think that is?
I think it’s because we had a really juicy webinar when we called it a five day planning challenge. Yeah, planning workshop. I think we had a really juicy, compelling offer inside of that. And I think this is I mean, to speak to what Rick is saying here, I think this is really, really important. We cannot have boring offers anymore. We just can’t. There’s too many businesses in the world putting stuff out. And so maybe you could get away with a pretty vague or boring thing in the past. It just isn’t going to happen now in the environment that we’re in. So I think that we did some really good, but we had a pretty good page registration page for set up. We talked about every single thing that we were going to do in the five days We had giveaways. We had like we put everybody in a Slack channel, which we were freaked out about because we were like, Oh my gosh, we put 1300 people in Slack, Is it going to break? But, but it didn’t have that worked out.
Most people do a Facebook group. Yes. When they do some sort of a live challenge or paint or live workshop or something like that. But you decided to do a Slack channel. What was the thinking there?
I felt like I had a little bit more control. For me, the Facebook group is just I just I just I’m not I don’t like Facebook groups, I guess, and I’m already in Slack and I know Slack and I know how to interact with Slack. I can send them videos and Slack and I was constantly in there answering their questions with videos or resources or whatever. So the entire week we’re just like loving on them, helping them.
Yeah. I think the other lesson here too, is that you understood that your audience is used to slack. Yes, true. They’re users of Slack. So it’s like, okay, well, if that’s the case and you like Slack, it just makes sense. Like, why not try this in here? Most people don’t don’t even think through that when they’re thinking, oh, I’m going to do some sort of a promotion or what have you. And I want to have a sort of an ongoing community within that promotion. Everybody automatically thinks Facebook group. Yes, but what if you could do something just like you did here with with Slack, Right. And like I think of and I was in your I was in there and I love it so much better than a Facebook group because of all the reasons that that you said. Yeah. It’s just it’s just so much I just see it so much easier.
Yeah, I felt like it was simpler. I felt like people could see other people’s questions and responses so they could learn. And it was easy for us to keep track of and make sure, like our goal is to make sure that every single person’s question got answered. Yeah, we didn’t want to leave any questions unanswered that entire week. And so it was me in there. You were in there. I had a couple of other coaches in there helping me answer questions. But yeah, it was it was pretty bananas in this lecture.
And also to note here, enrollment for the course didn’t close.
No.
Right after the promotion?
No.
So what was the was there urgency for people to take action to join the program?
Yeah. So there were multiple things. We offered some pretty incredible bonuses during that open part period, I guess we would call it that. They weren’t going to get outside of that. Yeah. So those were the driving forces behind enrolling now because yeah, I mean, anybody could go to my website right now and join. Yeah. So that is something we really had to think through is how do we encourage them to say yes now? What is the reason why they would want to say yes now? Yeah.
All right. So I just want to recap for a second. You start you created this offer. We talked about why you created the offer. Yeah.
To, number one, make it more accessible from a pricing standpoint, but also to show the people that you that you help like, Hey, I’m doing this over here.
Yes.
Like, watch this. I’m a practitioner of what I teach.
Yes.
And so you created this brand new offer. You you started basically from scratch on an audience, even though you had a 15,000 person email list, you weren’t marketing this to them. Right? So start a brand new audience with ads, lead magnet. Then we talked about the bump offers there for the first while you were you were I. To say, just quote unquote, selling the $2,000 offer within the emails.
Yes.
First 4 to 5 days were emails helping with the execution of what they just downloaded in terms of lead magnet. Then the second half of those 14 days was the seven day sales sequence. Yes. By the way, were those seven days, was that a daily email?
Yes. Towards the end, like the last couple of days, I can’t remember the last two or three days we had two emails a day going out. So there’s probably ten or 11 emails in that sequence all together.
Got it. And so selling a 2000 offer, just email marketing, cold traffic, which isn’t an easy thing to do.
No.
And we talked about your ads, what was working, how you set it up. Very simple. The big lesson there also with with ads for everybody listening is the simplicity in which you set that up. We’re not talking about seven different ad sets.
Yeah.
And how many ads just out of curiosity, how many ads did you have in each ad set?
Do you remember? So we’ve been this is such a good question. So we’ve been testing out where you have like multiple ad sets and multiple ads inside of a campaign. We’ve tested that versus now breaking out the ad sets and having the same you know, it’s like old school Facebook days. Remember when you had like a million different campaigns and every single. I like power, Ed.
Power Ed.
For a lot of people, nobody knows what that is.
Yeah, Power. Ed It used to be ads manager where you just set up like the name. And then Power Ed was the more advanced one where you got to go in and like that’s where you really started to break things down and setting everything up. I will never forget I had 762 literally. That’s like I remember that number, 762 lines of within one campaign. And I remember going in and power Ed, like, couldn’t handle it and it just completely froze. And I was just like, Oh my God, I broke power. I broke my power. Ed But yeah, those are the old school days where you just, like, broke everything out. We used to break out mobile desktop. This is back when, like those. Yeah.
Yeah. We’re not that crazy at this point, but we’ve been testing that and it actually our cost per leads are much lower that we have found breaking those ad sets out. So we’ll just do a campaign with one asset and then we’ll do like probably two different ad copies and we’ll try out probably four graphics and maybe two headlines. So we have multiple things going on in there.
So wait, so you have do you have an ad set for each one? For each ad version? Is that what you’re saying?
No. One ad set and then we’ll have multiple different will usually have only two copies, ad copies like a short and along that we’re testing at once, But we’ll have a couple of different graphics and then a couple of different headlines.
Are you have you tested dynamic creative at all?
Yes. And mixed reviews. At this point, we haven’t done it. I don’t feel like we haven’t done enough testing. Yeah. To have a really solid like, oh, yeah, we totally should do that. I think it’s worth testing.
But huge lesson here again for everybody. Notice how much Neil is testing. Like, I can’t tell you how many campaigns I look at from, from like, from my students that are being run by quote unquote agencies that are spending they’re paying them a lot of money. And I was like, oh, when was the last time they tested anything? And they’re.
Like, yes.
Months. And I’m like, what? Like just blows my mind. So anyway, you’re doing all this testing.
Yeah.
Generated about 50 K in just in the email funnel. And then you did this planning workshop?
Yep.
And then you ran did you did you shut off the lead magnet ads and sort of switch over to.
We did pause those and then send more of the budget to the registration ads because they were performing so well. I mean, the dollar 50 it was like I yeah. So yeah, we did pause multiple of those campaigns just so I could have some budget to send to the registration ads. And then once those were over, then we launched those other ones. The lead. Yeah.
And yet about 1300 people in the, in the promotion in the, in the workshop.
Yep.
Did a slack channel to create the community, answer people’s questions and did about another 50 K. Yes.
In that.
And that was the goal. And I remember thinking like when you said that to me, like let’s just try and hit 50. I was like, Are you crazy? Like, I remember thinking like, that is impossible. And even the whole time through I was like the typical launcher, right? I was up and down and up and down and up and down. And so I think for me, what was really important during that, like I learned so many lessons, which you all know, I gave you my lessons that I learned on another episode. But part of it was staying in curiosity, really like trying to understand why people were buying and why they weren’t buying and what are their objections. And I learned so much. That’s the thing that I think is so important about a live event, is you learn about your audience in a concentrated, fast tracked way so you can just like literally take everything they’re telling you. I updated the sales page, I updated emails, the things that really works that we tried during the launch. I incorporate it into the Evergreen funnel. So I just like learned so much and I think I’ve talked about this before, but I feel like there’s always two phases to investment. There is the return on information, the learning phase first. And that learning phase is what leads to the return on investment in terms of money return.
And in this case here, you got paid to learn.
I really did.
Or a professional learner.
Yeah, I really did. So the professional student.
What’s so what’s next for this funnel? You said 93 days.
Yep.
You generate 100 K Yeah. From cold traffic.
Yes.
What’s next.
What’s next of course is then taking it to seven figures, which is honestly like that will be the next level of this and we will do the launch type of promotion will include that live component to it once a quarter in 2023. That’s the idea. But with also trying to make the evergreen part of it convert even better. Yeah. So taking everything that we learn and figuring out how to make that part work amazing.
Too, I know that I would be remiss in not asking this question. I know that people are wondering how much have you actually spent in ads?
It’s such a good question.
In those 90 days.
Yeah, I think I wrote this down. Let me real quick, I’m going to go to my ads manager and see if I can pull that up. I remember looking at this when we were talking earlier because we basically launched August 1st.
Yeah. So for everybody, everybody listening or watching right now launch this August 1st, we’re recording this on Friday, November 18th. So September, October, November, I mean, we’re in month. We’re in month four right now. But you you hit that 100 K. Like, what, two weeks ago?
Yeah, It was like I think it was like November 2nd or November 3rd where we actually hit that. So I want to say, I mean, without spending a bunch of time adding things up here, we’ve probably spent. 15.
15,000.
Yeah, but that’s actually not true. That includes one of my other funnels in here. So probably. Probably. Let’s even close to 15,000. I was gonna say, let’s even call it 15,000. So $15,000.
Spend.
On ads that you’ve been generating thousands of leads from?
Yes.
And you generated 100 grand in revenue from that ad spend.
Right.
And for all the people who have not enrolled yet.
Right.
You have the opportunity to nurture them.
100%.
Via email, via your. This podcast?
Yes.
Via all of your channels. So that the either can join this program or even ten cans an hour is your mastermind? Totally. Yeah.
So, yes, like, it’s like the gift that keeps on giving.
I know, right. And that’s what I think some people forget about, is even if somebody doesn’t buy right away, it’s still future money kind of in the bank is the way that I kind of look at it.
This is I think this is the hardest thing for so many people to wrap their heads around because they feel like they’ve failed. If the ROI didn’t happen within the time frame that they have chosen, whether it’s a promo or what have you.
Right? Yeah. Right. And I can see that I think that we’re kind of trained to think that’s the way that it’s supposed to happen. And sometimes it does. Yeah, But I think really if we look at the longer term of our business, instead of like these little tiny micro snapshots that we like to, like, create metrics around that really don’t matter so much. Yeah, it’s really like thinking about the long term sustainability of your business. In my mind, unless building is one of those. Yeah. Pivotal like foundational things we have to do for that.
So for everybody listening like this has been amazing. Like I’ve, like I’m geeking out about this, I don’t know about less people listening, but I geek out about this. This is so awesome.
Yeah, so.
Fun. So for anybody listening right now who’s like, Holy cow, I want into this program. Yeah, I want in 100 K funnel. What should they do?
They should go to my website and enroll. Okay. Yeah.
Williams dot com.
Yes. Yeah. And you’ll see it’s right on the home page at the top K funnel course And I think you know one of the things that you and I were talking about, I surveyed the audience afterwards also I think this is important. Yeah. And we didn’t get a ton of responses, but it was super interesting Some of the responses that we did get. You and I were kind of chuckling about some of these many people who said they were interested in the course but didn’t buy was because they thought it was too beginner for them. Yeah, and I just want to speak to this. This is something I never would have ever thought was happening for my people, ever. And so this is why it’s so important to really pay attention to what feedback you’re getting. Because now that I know that, of course now I’m going to speak to that right going there’s going to be copy on the sales page. There’s going to be copy in the emails. Yeah, that speaks to this. And the other thing that.
I’m going to say, if you think you’re too beginner, you’re not.
I’m going to have one question. Have you created a six figure funnel? Yeah. And if you haven’t, then it’s not too beginner for you. Right. And the other part that I think that I learned, I didn’t realize how important the Facebook ads part is to people. I really downplayed that and it didn’t speak to that very much in the launch or in anything that I had done in the Evergreen part of the funnel. But I’m realizing now and you said this to me the other day, there aren’t a lot of really robust, great ads trainings out there for people who want to who are business owners, who want to do their own ads. And so I realized now that I’ve realized that I am really leaning into the ads part of it. And in my opinion, I have purchased I don’t know what this says about me. I’ve purchased multiple of those other courses this year, and I just use it to kind of like see where is mine at. And I have to say mine is amazing compared to what I see. Like we teach so many things. It’s not just lead generation ads or I just did. I added how to do podcast promotion ads, how to do webinar ads, all those kinds of things. So it really is not a beginner course. Yeah, yeah, it’s part of it. So yeah, over that. Yeah.
Sorry. When I, when I used to sell my ads courses years ago. Yes, the initial or the foundational part was I used to get that it was fairly basic but it’s like.
Yeah.
You don’t need and we talked about it here, You don’t need to get all fancy with your ads. In fact, if you’re getting complex with your ads, you’re not setting yourself up for success these days with Facebook. Simpler the better. Yes. And I used to get people saying the exact same thing to me. Oh, I’m I’m more advanced in this. I’m too advanced in this.
Like, yeah, okay.
Like, show me your results. And it’s like, wait a minute, you’re not too. I like that. Yeah, that objection drives me crazy.
Yeah, but I think I just wanted to make the point, like, if you are going to do a live component, which I now 100% recommend, you’re going to learn things that you didn’t even know you needed to know about your audience and the things that are coming up for them and what they’re thinking in terms of objections. So of course, if you don’t know about them, there’s no way you would speak to them on your sales copy or in your emails or anything like that. But now that I know, of course I’m going to address those things.
And you can literally make changes on the fly like like, Oh, I learned this today. I can go update the sales page. I can update the email.
Yes.
With it.
And we did like I can’t even tell you how much time I spent writing new emails during this launch and adding things in and trying different things. And one of the things that we did, which made me realize how important Facebook. Odds are to people I don’t remember if you remember this work, but I kept sending you, like, ideas. Like, what do you think about this? What do you think about this? And I were kind of pitching, catching that whole week. And one of the things that I since I realized during the launch that the Facebook ads piece was so important to people. I took the entire module of that we have inside the course, and I made it available for free for 48 hours. And I cannot even tell you the number hundreds of people opted in to that part. So I was like, Oh, Neil, this is telling you something. You need to really double down. On talking about the ads part of this course. They need to know that that’s included in there. Yeah. So and I had lots of people asking me afterwards if we could just sell them the ads part. And I considered it. I didn’t do it. But I think that that is very telling. Like just that one experiment taught me so much about my people.
Why didn’t you sell it by itself?
There’s internally, I have a conflict with it. I mean, I could totally do it. I’m not saying that I won’t do it going down the road, but my problem with it is people think if they can do that. Facebook ads learning how to do Facebook ads is the secret, but it’s all the other stuff that really makes the Facebook ads work or not. Like, do you have a good lead magnet? Do you have a good offer? Do you have like all of those, determine whether the ads work or not? Like, it doesn’t matter how much money you put into them or how fancy your strategy is, if you have crappy offers, they’re not going to work. So there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to break it apart because I feel so strongly about that.
I’m smirking right now because this is the exact reason why I expanded beyond ads and stop selling ads program just by itself for that exact reason. People are like, Oh, my ads are broken. They’re not working well, how well do you know your audience?
Yeah.
And then it’s like, it’s crickets. Well, that’s why you’re ads aren’t working. Has nothing to do with how you’re setting things up in ads.
Manager Yeah, right, Yeah, Yeah. So maybe sometime in the future I will do that. Right now, I feel like for the course price, I mean, it’s 1997. I feel like the ads part of that is worth that all by itself even more. Because if you think about how much you spend on an ads manager, it’s thousands of dollars per month. So you learning how to do it yourself can be such a huge gift to your business in the long run.
And most not all ads, managers, agencies just do not know what they’re doing.
I know, and I’ve seen that too, and I’ve seen that from a lot of my students who talk to me about, well, I’m hired as manager and they’ve been doing ads for me for six months and we have six leads. Yeah. I’m like, please fire them immediately. Yeah, right, right. It’s there’s a lot of bad work out there, so.
Unfortunately.
Yes.
All right. So Neil Williams.
Yes.
You can sign up for 100 K funnel right there. I know there’s going to be people who want to go through your funnel also, of course. So here’s a little workaround for everybody. If they want to go through Neil’s funnel, go to Facebook, type in Neil Williams coaching, right? Yes. In the search bar. Yep. Go to Neil’s page, scroll down the left hand side you’re looking for. I think it’s like page transparency or whatever, like expand that section. It’ll say this page is running ads. Now please only do this if you’re a coach. Like don’t fill Neil’s email list with you know.
Rand’s not going to buy it.
Yeah, like, but you can go through the funnel that way and hopefully you’re going through with the intention of seriously considering the course, right? Because you’ll see the ads there. You can click on like literally opt into it and go through the funnel there. This is been fun. So do we, do we do we not talk about anything?
I feel like we covered everything. I think the biggest thing that I want everyone to hear who’s listening to this is building and launching the funnel as part one. And that’s amazing. Such a huge accomplishment. Totally feel proud about that. Yeah, but if you want the funnel to actually work and scale it to six figures, you have to be committed to testing.
Yeah. That’s it.
Consistent testing week after week after week.
If you take nothing away from this episode, take that away right there. Notice how many times Neil said we tested this, We tested emails, we tested a, you know, the bump offer we tested adding in another bump offer. We tested ad copy, no new ads. We tested targeting. We tested we grabbed language from what people were saying. We added it to our sales pages, emails like, that’s what this is all about. And unfortunately, most people don’t have like they’re not willing to test because they’re only focused on right now.
Yes. Yeah, yeah. And I think I actually added them up because I wanted to see how many tests we did do, and it was at least 25. I probably missed some, but it was at least 25 over that period of time.
In the 90 days.
In the 90 days. Wow. Yeah. And when we say test, we’re talking micro things like, I’m going to swap out this headline. I’m going to like change the copy in this email. It’s not like I didn’t. The other thing that I want you all to hear is like, I didn’t throw the funnel out and decide that it didn’t work. Yeah, I really just tried little tiny different things every single week because I knew it was going to work. I knew it was a great offer. I just had to figure out how to message it and market it.
Yeah, most people try their evergreen funnel for 30 days. Yeah. And if it’s if it doesn’t work, it’s like, Oh, this doesn’t work like this funnel doesn’t.
Work.
Right? So they scrap.
It, start over.
It’s like, wait a minute, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Right.
Let’s look at the data. Let’s look at the numbers exactly like that’s a whole other episode.
But I know we feel like we should do an episode on data.
So seven figures is the goal for this offer?
Yep.
I believe when we talked about it this summer, you launch this in August, I said this is easily a seven figure offer. And you’re like, What?
Yeah. I was like, Oh, no. Yeah.
So 20, 23, I mean, you’re proving it here. Yeah. In, in the, like the latter part of 2022.
Yes.
So it’s going to be fun.
Yeah. We’ll do another episode. How Neil took it from six figures to seven figures. Absolutely. The end of 2023. In June of 2023.
That would be pretty amazing really. Any time. I mean, it’s going to get there, right? Because I’m not going to stop. I’m not going to scrap it and decide that it doesn’t work. Yeah, it’s it will take a lot more testing than 25 things to get it from here to where it needs to go for some figures. But that’s okay. To me, that’s the fun part.
Are you listing out all of these 25 things? By the way?
I did list out a lot of them and then a lot of them are in Funnel Fail Friday in my Instagram live series, I share a lot of what’s going on.
That’d be really interesting. It’s like just to compile them. Yeah, on a PDF and just be like, Hey, these are all the things I tested in creating a six figure six figure funnel and then a seven figure. Like these are all the things I’ve tested.
I’m going to do that right? Do it Well, send that out to everybody. Yeah, for ideas, for testing ideas. Maybe I’ll just give you, like, a cheat sheet of things to do.
I love it.
So good. It’s such a great idea.
Thanks for allowing me to do this.
Oh, my gosh. Thank you for coming and doing it. It’s so much easier for me to have you interview me than me try to, like, tell all the steps along the way because hopefully.
We pulled out things that everybody if where can people can where can people go to tell you, hey, I want to Rick didn’t ask you this. I want to know more about this.
Well, they could email me at Neil at Neil Williams or they could just DM me on Instagram. Anthony Williams Coach either. Williams Coach.
Yeah. If you have a burning question that I didn’t answer about this funnel, please let me know. I am very transparent. Yeah, as we can see. Awesome. Well, thank you, Ken. I appreciate it.
Thanks so much. This is so fun.
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