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Mastering Sales Funnels: Unlock the Secrets to More Clients and Better Engagement
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Mar 24, 2025
Today we take a look at the SmallBizFluence Find Your Freedom event, teaching you how to get more clients, more money and have time for the life you love. Get access to more than 3 hours of great small business content here. https://smallbizfluence-event.trainercentralsite.com/course/smallbizfluence-2023-find-your-freedom#/home In today's show we watch just one piece of that content. Brian Hawkins, the marketing manager at Ghost Bed, a company that sells beds and uses sales funnels extensively, describes a sales funnel as a way to score big by providing value, rather than trying to go for the sale right away. The focus should be on building a sequence of personalized experiences that add value to the customer before asking for a sale. Hawkins also emphasizes the importance of not being too aggressive, as this can turn customers off. Instead, he suggests giving the customer something of value, such as a case study success, the solution to some kind of pain point, or something that shows third-party endorsement. Hawkins also suggests that setting up a sales funnel is not as complex as people may think. Small businesses have an advantage in knowing their customers best. It is just a matter of putting in the extra work to nurture customers to the finish line. #smallbiz #smallbusiness #sales #salesfunnel #salesfunnelexpert 0:00 - Intro 0:23 - Presentation by Brian Hawkins from GhostBed 1:18 - Defining Sales Funnels 2:07 - Balancing Sales Pressure 2:26 - Building Personalized Experiences 3:10 - Setting up a Sales Funnel 4:06 - Small Businesses and Sales Funnels 4:46 - Accessible Tools for Small Businesses
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0:00
we are going to talk a little bit about
0:03
find your freedom
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15 videos about 13 speakers in all
0:07
includes things like time management
0:09
they're you know 15 minutes apiece
0:12
but they contain a lot of information
0:15
on things we all want to do make more
0:18
money bring in more clients and spend
0:20
less time doing it you can get the
0:22
entire library to watch at your leisure
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so you can watch it next week next month
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next year you can take it out every year
0:28
and watch it for inspiration you can
0:31
register for it by the library there's a
0:33
lot of content there and uh we hope
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you'll enjoy it foreign
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[Music]
0:44
hessinger and this is small Biz in 15
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the show where we bring you small
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business news and tips to make your
0:50
small business better today Brent Leary
0:52
managing partner of CRM Essentials and
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Monique Johnson founder of live video
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lab and the move experience discuss the
1:00
find your freedom small business event
1:02
we're going to watch one of the videos a
1:04
video we were watching is part of that
1:06
find your freedom event and we're going
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to launch a presentation by Brian
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Hawkins he is the marketing manager at a
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company called of all things ghostbed
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which sells beds but they use sales
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funnels extensively and uh we're gonna
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watch it a little bit right now if you
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were to Define it in a very very simple
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way for somebody who says what exactly
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is it what am I supposed to do how would
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you describe a sales funnel
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uh sales funnel is you know you're
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trying to get a home run you know but
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you bat singles you know you don't try
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to go for the sale right away you only
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have to you know what's the 300 average
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to be able to get to so just focus on
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batting singles and providing value and
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the nice thing when you're building the
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sales funnel is the emails will tell you
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if they're opting out
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red flag you didn't deliver value you
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know so uh you're out you know when when
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they opt out that means that you're too
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aggressive and a lot of times people
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think that oh I've got to put pressure
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I've got to and that that relates to the
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whole thing I don't want to be in the
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sales funnel you know I don't want to be
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pounded with information and so you know
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part of that process there is to build a
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sequence of personalized experiences
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that add value and so there's kind of a
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give to before you take one you know so
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you're gonna pitch two balls before you
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give a strike so give them you know give
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them meatball give them something of
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value to be able to connect with you
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know give some kind of case study
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success some kind of pain Point let them
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you know read some of your articles some
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of your Publications something that
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shows a third-party endorsement and
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provides value to them it's kind of a
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shareable asset a shareable story you
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know before you kind of Hit the hard
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ball here of trying to be able to close
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them and so
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um yes you gotta ask for the sale you
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know but in a funnel it's it's people
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are trained so hard to be just pound the
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list just pound pound pound pound Pound
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and you know nobody wants that uh you
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know and so the reality is all these
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case studies that say you've gotta you
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know really step up and put the pressure
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uh you know there's a little bit of hold
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back on that but how do you go about
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setting up a sales funnel you know how
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do you how do you make sure it's working
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and bringing the prospects you want it
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it seems like there's so many
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complexities to it and and maybe people
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get a little um intimidated maybe it's
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not as hard as people think uh
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at least if they follow the right steps
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can you give us an idea because I know
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you've been involved in sales funnels
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from way back um tell us a little bit
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about how I mean in generalities so I
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came from the agency background and then
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went in-house working in e-commerce
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product uh b2c
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um B2B and I think the agency model is
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to sell the Hocus Pocus you know create
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this funnel that is this imaginary uh
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and it it's a belief in this big
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retainer to be able to that you can't do
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it yourself and as small businesses the
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reality is you know your customer best
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you know it better than the agency
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better than this ux that's going to try
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to tell you that they have all the bells
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and whistles uh to create this magical
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funnel because they know red is better
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than blue and this word is better than
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that you know and you know all this
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stuff can be tested and the reality the
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cost and the structure of it has come
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down so much uh that small businesses
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have the advantage it's just putting in
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the work to be able to know your
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customer and know the flow and know how
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to connect with them you know through
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that journey and I think that's where
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the difference is coming is the tools
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are available they're much more
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affordable and the solution's there it's
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just you know putting in the extra work
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that you're out here competitors aren't
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doing to have the advantage to be able
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to nurture those customers to that
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finish line I agree with a lot of what
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he's saying
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um and I'm just wondering yeah are you
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it feels like to me a lot of small
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businesses
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they they know there's technology out
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there is is it a question of them
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just not knowing exactly what to get or
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how to use it once they get it or is it
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just they are still looking for the
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Magic Bullet you know I bought it isn't
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that the hard work
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I think there's there's a lot of stuff
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that goes into why all these things are
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still I mean this isn't new
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part but this stuff isn't new anymore
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right so the things that you mentioned
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Brent number one is
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um they think the hardest the hardest
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part like you said is buying the
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software or signing up for whatever
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software right they think oh okay this
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is gonna magically happen and then
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number two I think a lot of times
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because of the market sales funnel
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funnels are trendy right and there's a
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lot of companies that's what they they
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lead with and unfortunately they think
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that it needs to be complicated right
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because quite frankly a sales funnel can
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just only be two things two steps right
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it doesn't even have to have the upsells
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and down cells and I think
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what people kind of get caught up in is
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perfectionism instead of progress right
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start with something simple and then
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you can start adding more steps or more
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things that you want to do but a lot of
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times I feel like
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um business owners in general
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unfortunately we get caught up in the
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complication of things making things
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perfect tracking all these things want
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these different data and a lot of times
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it needs to be started where instead of
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thinking oh oh whoa is me with this
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blank sheet of paper think of your end
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goal and then work backwards people are
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looking for help not to be relentlessly
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sold to and I think that that's that's
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probably a key to this so you know one
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of the examples of personalization here
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uh so I work for ghost that it's a it's
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a fifth generation family business
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Family Values it's got an amazing story
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it started with the Werner family that
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had Warner ladder um and so people trust
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Werner ladder you're you're you know
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your 40 feet up on your roof you better
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trust that ladder and so the story and
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the history of the family business
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really personalize and when we send
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emails and especially SMS people don't
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like marketing text messages you know
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um but when it's personalized and it's
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from you know the owner's daughter the
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fifth generation in the company you know
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one of the things that you you see your
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success is based on do they opt out or
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do they engage if they engage your
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sender score goes up so almost you're
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getting a promotion so one of the
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examples that we did for Black Friday
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typically the response rate is really
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low especially in tax
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people don't like it it's they feel it's
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intrusive you know unless you're
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providing value in a short text message
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so one of the things um it actually did
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on this Black Friday promotion for us
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was uh she said
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hey you know you didn't buy a ghost bed
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uh let me know you know uh what I can do
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maybe I can come up with a special deal
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you know it was a very hey you know why
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why didn't you buy what you know it and
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it was very blunt you know very sincere
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but people you know they felt like oh
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that email you know that text is coming
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from you know Ashley in the company
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who's you know her dad started it and
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you know yes it's automated to send out
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the message but she got hundreds of
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replies right on the peak of Black
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Friday when people are buying now it was
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phrased in a way yeah I want a deal let
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me talk to her about it but it made that
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personal connection and so now you went
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from an automated series to a
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personalized Series so small business is
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all about personal you're you're close
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to the people that you connect with so
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take the automated solution and create a
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personalized experience to be able to
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engage with you so create those
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open-ended questions that will engage
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and actually you're rewarded for that
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the the tools that you use to send the
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higher your engagement rate the better
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your delivery the better all the stats
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are telling you you know you're hitting
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over 300 batting average
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um you know by personalized in that
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experience it's something that we always
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do but it takes it from it's some big
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marketing company on some Big Marketing
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list to
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hey I'm the owner
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you know what can I do for you uh
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connection so the two major things that
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I'm getting from what he's saying that I
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love is that
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um the example with the the SMS saying
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you know the fifth generation daughter
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of a store like that's storytelling yeah
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how can you go about including in
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storytelling what storytelling does is
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it it it it it incorporates emotion
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people buy off of emotion not the
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features and all the things that you're
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throwing at them how can you include
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storytelling
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tap into that emotional
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um ecosystem
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the person's more likely to buy without
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you having to necessarily sell and then
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the other part was just um the
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engagement factor I love how and both
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Brett and I were shaking our heads
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vigorously when he was like you know
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start asking open-ended questions that's
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developing a relationship that allows
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you know people are saying oh you know
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people aren't engaging with my content
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and things think about the types of
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questions or even if you're including
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questions and the types of questions
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that you are creating so that you can
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start including um engagement it's sort
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of a way of collecting information about
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your about your customers too isn't it
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if you talk a little bit about how sales
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funnels can also be a way of gaining
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information insight about your about
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your customers maybe yeah definitely the
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sales funnel is creating a CRM you know
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it's creating a database of knowledge
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and so every time that they trigger a
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certain land you know landing page on
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your website a certain experience that's
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a check box you know you're starting to
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learn oh they're in this industry oh
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they're in this pain they're in this
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region you know all those things can be
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collected as data points that you're
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starting to understand that customer and
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while that question was pretty blunt you
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know like hey you know what did I do
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wrong here you know I've you know you're
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in my funnel I've given you everything
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here but today's the day to buy it's
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Black Friday
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you know you know it some people might
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come off a little harsh but it comes off
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sincere and that that gets you a little
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bit of knowledge and one of the things
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that we did is you know obviously in the
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mattress industry there's always a sale
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you know and you have to kind of you
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know you're creating that
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um but we actually switched providers
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for our pop-up software because we
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switched to a software that actually
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gives us more survey and tools and so we
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can now live get a pulse of what people
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are doing on our website based on the
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surveys and a lot of times that told us
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a different story that told us when
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they're in Market you know we you know
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we think that like well you're here on
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the site you're ready to buy now well
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that might not be the case there might
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be six months you might be nine months
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especially for small business you know
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they might be on that top of the funnel
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middle down and as we start to identify
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with the survey that's going into our
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funnel to say okay we'll pull the brakes
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you know if you're you know if you're
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not in the market right now
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um you know you can kind of understand
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okay how to engage because again you
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don't want them to hit the stand button
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you don't want them to opt out you know
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you want them to have a reason to come
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back to you I like that business about
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finding out about about learning about
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the customer a lot of times people talk
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about you know sales funnels and email
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and all this kind of thing like it's
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like it's not very personal you know
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um and maybe if you have automated stuff
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and you hire somebody else to do it
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maybe it's not very personal but it
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seems to me that you can find out a lot
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about people too
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um
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when the pandemic hit and everybody
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couldn't go to the stores and Shop like
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they normally did remember you used to
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go to a store you could use this stuff
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it's called Cash and yeah way back when
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back in the day
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walking to the store nobody knows who
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you are you pick up a couple of items
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buy it with cash and leave and nobody
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knew who you are when you were there
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what you bought how much of a you bought
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how much you spent but when things got
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digital when everything went virtual and
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we couldn't go in the stores all that
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data that you couldn't get to because it
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was just analog it became digital and
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once anything becomes digital it becomes
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trackable and so everybody
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companies small and big
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they love this because whether they cut
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data is the the new oil or something
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like that because you can take data and
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make money from it so that's why
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everybody is trying to collect as much
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uh data as they can off of every
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interaction off of every click well
14:05
that's it for another episode of small
14:07
business 15. thanks again to Brent Leary
14:09
and Monique Johnson please like And
14:11
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14:14
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14:15
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