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Work Less, Earn More is the podcast that explores how to get the most out of every hour you work. Gillian Perkins brings more than a decade of experience as an entrepreneur and educator to help you design a business that's not only flexible and fulfilling, but highly profitable. She shares strategies that are working in her own business to save time and maximize profits. She also features interviews with successful business owners on how they’re achieving big things in their businesses with crazy-little time investment. Share Work Less, Earn More with an overworked entrepreneur you know who could use a change of pace!
[0:00] Hey there, everyone. Welcome back to Work Less, Earn More. My name is Gillian Perkins. And today we're going to be talking about a funnel strategy called the Fast Track Funnel. This is a strategy that we've been using for the last 18 months or so with our sales funnels. And we've been seeing really good results with it. So I am ready to share it with all of you so you can start using it in your own sales funnels to improve the results that you are getting. Because let's be real. A lot has changed with digital marketing and just the digital landscape in general over this last couple of years. And we have to adjust our strategies if we want to be able to keep getting great results, especially if we want
[0:38] to be able to keep using systems and automations to make our sales for us. So all that and more coming up in today's episode. I'm glad you're here for this one.
[0:48][intro bumper]
We became entrepreneurs because more than anything, we want freedom. We want to be in control of our own schedule, income, and life. But unfortunately, that isn't always the reality of being a business owner. I'm Gillian Perkins, and I'm on a mission to take back entrepreneurship for what it's supposed to be.
In every episode, I'll share with you how to get the most out of every hour you work so that you can work less and earn more. Let's get to it.
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[1:24] Okay, so first, let's talk about what has changed in the past couple of years with digital marketing. Now, probably the biggest shift has been how everybody has started using AI. Now that ChatGPT has become so popular and all of these different AI tools have popped up, the effect of that is that there is more content online than there ever has been. And it is being added to at a faster rate than it ever has been. So I'm talking about more blog articles out there, more articles on the internet, but also more emails in your inbox, more videos on YouTube, more podcast episodes out there, pretty much more of any kind of content that you can think of.
[2:05] And one of the big effects of having so much more content out there is that people are less hungry for content. They are looking for content less because so much more of it is being put in front of their faces. They also are looking for different kinds of solutions than they were before, where previously they really had to look hard to find how-to sorts of content. Now they can just spin up ChatGPT and ask it how to do the thing that they need help with. And they have the instructions right there. So there's less hunger, there's less desire, there's less seeking out. And how this can affect our funnels is that now people are less likely to sign up for our webinars or many other kinds of opt-in offers. Now, not every kind of opt-in offer. There are certain opt-in offers that are just as popular as they used to be or perhaps even more popular.
[2:59] But information-focused content is a little less popular than it used to be. Now, what I'm not saying and what I don't want you to mishear me as saying is that there is no interest in this sort of content anymore or that people aren't signing up for webinars because that is simply not the case. It's just that the numbers have decreased. There are fewer people who have as great of an interest in this type of content. And how this can affect our funnels is that we can see our conversion rates dipping. We can see opt-in rates for our webinars going down. We can see show up rates for our webinars going down. We can see open rates for emails going down. But obviously, that's not what we want to see, right? We want to be able to keep making really healthy, good amounts of money from our sales funnels. And that's both because, of course, we've got income goals, but also because when we are making money with our funnels, that means people are buying our
[3:56] products and that we are successfully helping people with our products.
[4:00] So what I want to share with you in today's episode is this new strategy. It's not very new. It's a couple of years old, but we've been testing it for these last couple of years. And we've found that it has really helped us to avoid those decreasing conversion rates. So we call this strategy the fast track funnel. And many parts of the funnel strategy that we are teaching today in 100K Mastermind and our other programs is very much the same as it was a few years ago, because there are a lot of aspects of it that still work so well. But a couple parts that had started to not work as well, as I mentioned.
[4:39] Were getting people to sign up for webinars and getting people to show up for webinars, and then relatedly getting people to open emails. So first, let me tell you about what the FastTrack funnel is. And then we'll talk about how it helps to avoid some of these challenges that are being faced in the online space these days and with making sales in the online space. So in short, the FastTrack funnel includes an on-demand webinar. Okay, so what this means is that somebody can sign up for your webinar and they can sign up to watch it right now. They don't have to sign up to watch it tomorrow or next week or some arbitrary time in the future. But instead, right after they sign up, they immediately get to watch it. Now, what this part of the Fast Track Final does is that it makes it more appealing to people to sign up for your webinar because they can see that they are going to be able to get to watch it immediately. So it is a lot more likely that they are really going to get the value from it. They know, at least subconsciously, that if they're signing up for something that they would get to watch tomorrow or next week, then there is a good likelihood that they might change their mind, they might lose interest, they might not have the time, they might forget about it, right? And so there is less value there if you are making them schedule it for a later date.
[5:59] Letting them watch it right now greatly increases the chances that they will get the help that they are looking to get from it. And so it makes it more appealing. It makes it more valuable for them to, in fact, sign up with it. And it also is, of course, just decreasing the friction that there is with the sign up. It's making it easier to sign up. Now, the second big thing that happens with the FastTrack funnel is that when they go to watch the webinar, the webinar is actually on the same page as the sales page. So up at the top of the sales page, there is a webinar video that they can watch. And there is the title for the webinar.
[6:34] And down below, there is all of the sales page content. And this does a couple things. One is that it gets a lot more people actually onto your sales page where they can learn about the product. So it is getting rid of one potential conversion point where they would have to go from being on your webinar page to choosing to click to learn more about the product. So it's easier for them to learn about your product, easier for you to tell them about your product, right? To get them to consume your sales page content. And not only does it mean that they happen to be on that sales page, but while they are listening to your webinar, there is a high probability that they will be scrolling on that page just kind of to pass the time and to multitask a little bit while they are listening. So there's a really good opportunity there for you to sell to them. Now, this is not to say that you won't have another copy of your sales page that doesn't have the webinar on it. There are reasons why you may want to have that as well. But at least the page where your webinar is having that sales page content down below, we have seen really increase the sales conversion rate. We'll talk more about that in a few minutes.
[7:45] Okay, and then you might wonder, well, is there a timer on this page? When is this offer available for? And from here on out, we are actually keeping everything else the same as we have used with our 100K funnel strategy for several years now. So we really like the 72-hour open cart period. And so what this means is that from the time that they sign up for your webinar, the offer is available to them for 72 hours. And what is so good about this is it is just perfect amount of time where there is enough urgency because it is only a few days to where they feel like they
[8:20] need to make a decision so they don't just forget about it and move on or find a different solution. But they actually it stays top of mind for them and they are working through deciding whether or not to purchase the product. But it also gives you enough time to be able to communicate with them enough to convince them to purchase the product, enough time to send them a few emails, enough time for them to process it and be comfortable making the decision. Now, we like to control the time when the offer is available, that open cart period, with a countdown timer, an automatic countdown timer. There are a few different softwares out there you can use to do this. Deadline Funnel was the most common one for a long time. It was kind of the only one for a long time. And it works really well. But there There was room for improvement, and it was also rather expensive.
[9:13] We also tried out for a couple of years Countdown Hero, which we liked as well, but it didn't work. Quite as well as Deadline Funnel. It uses kind of a different technology to lock down your pages and lock down your offer. And it's not quite as secure. It was a lot cheaper, though. But now these days, we're using something called countdown timer.ai. And we really like it. It is cheaper than Deadline Funnel. And it uses both the technology that Deadline Funnel uses, as well as the technology of Countdown Hero. And so it is as secure as possible. And it has more like options and flexibility and a lower price point. So really like countdown timer.ai for that. Now, during that 72 hour open cart period, we have an automated sales sequence that sends out about two emails a day throughout that period. And those emails work to convince people to take that step and make that purchase. And of course, these are fully automated. And if somebody gets to the end of those emails and hasn't bought, then what happens is they get bumped over into an evergreen newsletter. Now, by the way, if all of this is sounding a little bit complicated, if you don't know what I'm talking about, you might want to go listen to the
[10:25] 100K Method podcast, which is our 10-episode podcast series all about the 100K Method. We will be sure to leave a link to that down below so you can check that out if you haven't already.
[10:38] But anyway, getting back to what we were talking about here, we have this evergreen newsletter and it has these soft calls to action throughout where people get the opportunity to sign up for your webinar again or to get on the wait list for your product. And if someone chooses to click on one of those soft call to actions.
[10:56] Then they will get bumped over into one of your funnel extensions, which are second and third sales funnels that are nested within your main sales funnel. And the offer will be presented to them again with another window for them to buy. So that's kind of big picture how the fast track funnel works. It's fairly similar to our old 100k funnel system, but it's just been simplified and sped up a little bit. And it is working better in this digital marketing landscape that we are in today because it's making it easier and more valuable for people to sign up for your webinar and just to consume that content.
[11:35] Now, aside from the fact that letting people sign up for the webinar immediately and getting them on that sales page really helps with increasing the sign-up conversion rate and obviously increasing the show-up conversion rate. And we'll get here into some numbers in a few minutes. I also just want to talk about how it increases the trust that this prospect has for you. When you let them get on your webinar immediately, then they don't feel like you're trying to trick them. They don't feel like you are maybe lying to them about whether or not it is live or pre-recorded. Everybody's on the same page. Everybody's in the loop. It is clear this thing is pre-recorded and it's an on-demand webinar. They get to watch it right now. And we're even giving them the controls over the ability to pause and play it, to speed it up, to slow it down, to skip around in it. And while that could potentially reduce conversion rates compared to forcing them to watch it straight through, the fact of the matter is that today's consumer on the internet is expecting to have control over their experience.
[12:41] While, again, you would get a better conversion rate if you could force them to watch it all the way through, the fact of the matter is that you can't. And if you try to force them to watch it all the way through, chances are very high that they will click off and never get to the second half of the webinar where they find out about your product. And so it is ultimately much better to let them click around in it. You know, maybe skip some parts you would really wish that they would watch because they will get to that sales pitch part and there will be the opportunity
[13:10] for you to tell them about the product and potentially convince them that it will be helpful to them. Okay, so now let's talk about some specific results, some numbers about how the FastTrack funnel tends to affect the results that your sales funnel gets. So first of all, we definitely have seen an increase in the webinar opt-in rates. So a higher percentage of the people who visit your webinar registration page will sign up for your webinar if they see that they will be able to watch it immediately after signing up rather than having to wait. And this is, as I said before, because there is more certainty in their minds that they will get the value from it if they can watch it right now than if you make them wait.
[13:52] Now, it obviously greatly increases your webinar show up rates, right? Because right after they sign up, they get the opportunity to watch the webinar. And so it makes the sense that instead of having something like a 30% or so show up rate for the webinar that is tomorrow, instead, you are going to see something much closer to a 100% show up rate. Now, it still is not 100%. We typically see something between like 70% to 90% of a show up rate. But that is more than twice the show-up rate that you would see if you make them wait even a few hours to watch the webinar. Now, when we first started using the strategy or talking about maybe using the strategy, I thought that we would definitely see those higher show-up rates. But I was worried that they would come at the cost of much lower webinar retention rates. So what I mean by that is I thought, well, yeah, everybody's going to show up on the webinar page. They're going to start watching it. But a lot of people, they might click off after like two minutes because there wasn't any kind of like buildup to watching the webinar. There wasn't any desire that they had this time where they were like waiting and they were wanting it. And so now it's finally here and they're motivated to stick around. So they might just leave.
[15:09] And I was really worried that our retention rates would really suffer. But I am so pleased to report that that has not been what we've seen at all. The retention rates were only very minorly affected. They only went down the tiniest bit. So whereas previously we would see retention rates right around 50%, now they're just under 50%, but still a high 40s. And what that means is that with more people signing up and many more people showing up, overall, there are a lot more people making it to the end of the webinar than if we were making them wait. And in fact, even more people making it to the end of the webinar than used to be before AI content, before people were more saturated by content and less sensitive to content online. And so that is fantastic news that with these small shifts with our funnel strategy,
[16:03] we can get better results than ever before.
[16:07] Okay, now it does affect a couple more things here. So what about with this Fast Track Funnel, the webinar to sale conversion rate? So if somebody does in fact show up for the webinar, are they more or less likely to buy? Remember, there are things kind of working in both directions here. On the one hand, they might be more likely to buy because we are giving them more control, more power, and they're landing on the sales page. On the other hand, they might be a little less likely to buy because they might not watch the whole webinar in order. They might skip some parts, right? But what we've seen is that these things have really balanced each other out and we have seen a very consistent webinar conversion rate. And if anything, it has ever so slightly increased. And I attribute that primarily to the fact that the webinar video itself is on the sales page now.
[16:56] Okay, and then the last thing that has changed a little bit is the overall traffic to sales conversion rate. So of the traffic, let's say for every 100 people who land on your webinar registration page, you know, a certain percentage of them chooses to sign up for the webinar, a percentage of those people show up, a percentage of those people watch the webinar through, and a percentage of those people choose to purchase. So that ultimate conversion rate, 100 people show up, how many people end up buying. We have seen that this is ever so slightly increased from where it was a few years ago prior to ChatGPT coming on the scene when we were using the old 100k funnel strategy, the original one, which worked really well. But now, again, we're seeing a slightly higher conversion rate with the newer FastTrack funnel strategy. And so this is the funnel strategy that we are having all of our 100k mastermind students use now as they are building their strategic sales funnels and then going on to fuel them with leads. And this is the strategy that I will primarily be teaching going forward here
[18:05] on the podcast and in my other content. Now, of course, there are still lots of other variations we could look at and strategies that we are continually testing.
[18:14] And even the original 100k funnel strategy, it does still work. It just doesn't work as well. And we wanted to figure out what we could change to get things to work just as well as they used to, if not even better. So I'm really excited to finally be sharing this with you today. I always like to make sure that we test things very thoroughly before I start instructing you guys to do them as well. But I'm glad that that day has finally come. And I hope that you are able to
[18:41] start implementing this in your sales funnels. And finally, before we wrap this up, I'll just mention that if you don't already have a sales funnel yourself or a funnel that's working well for you, I would love to help you out with that. You can book a call with our sales funnel strategist, Samantha, and she can help you figure out a funnel strategy and talk with you about how 100K Mastermind might be able to help you make that leap and get your strategic funnel built. So we will be including the link to book that strategy call with her in the show notes for this episode. You can also just go to gillianperkins.com slash 100k. And on that page, you will find the button to book call with Samantha so that
[19:27] we can get this process started for you. All right. Well, that is all for today's episode. I hope you really enjoyed this one and that you will be able to put this strategy to work in your business very soon. I'll be back again next week with another one. Until then, here's to your success.
[19:42] [outro bumper]
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Work Less, Earn More. Now, here's what I want you to do next. Take a screenshot of this episode you're listening to right now and share it out on your Instagram stories. And when you do, make sure you tag me at gillianzperkins so I can see you're listening. Sharing on stories is going to help more people find this podcast so they too can learn how to build their business in a way that allows them to work less and earn more and if you really love the show head over to apple podcasts right now and leave work less earn more a review to give it a boost and help even more people find it okay let's wrap this up i'm gillian perkins and until next week stay focused and take action.
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