How to Get Your Leads for Free With a Simple Sales Funnel

It beats me why not everyone is doing this. It is no secret. I am talking about a very simple sales funnel that brings you leads and sales every single day, and can even make you a profit.

I teach this in my 10-week group coaching program Sales Every Day. Hundreds of clients have gone through it and built their own funnel. Here is how it works, step by step.

Step 1: The Ultimate Freebie

If you run an online business and want people on your email list, you need a freebie. And you want a really good one, the ultimate freebie. A good freebie is cheaper to run ads to, so you do not pay too much for each lead.

That means your freebie is more than a 5-page PDF you made in 30 minutes. To create it, you need to understand your ideal client. Your ideal client is one person. If you do not know her well enough, do a survey and talk to a few of your ideal clients.

Find out what her biggest challenge is right now. It could be growing her business, losing weight or anything else you help with. Then pick one small problem you can solve, or partly solve, with your freebie.

Of course you put your freebie on your website and on a landing page, and you promote it on social media. But at some point you hit a limit.

You Need Paid Ads for Consistent Leads

If you want consistent leads, you need to run paid ads. There is no way around it. That means you spend money every single day to get email addresses on your list.

With an ultimate freebie your cost per lead is lower. But you are still spending money. So is there a way to get that money back quickly? Yes. You still pay for the ads up front, but a simple sales funnel can get you your leads for free.

Step 2: The Appetizer

Right after someone signs up for your freebie, you offer them something more. I call it an appetizer. Some people call it a tripwire. I prefer appetizer because it creates appetite for what comes next.

The appetizer has to be directly connected to the freebie. It is the same topic, but it goes deeper. It could be a 1-hour masterclass, a 20-minute video or an ebook. Your freebie is simpler and lighter, something people can get through in 15 to 20 minutes.

You can charge between €7 and €47 for the appetizer, depending on your niche. In a hobby niche you stay at the lower end. In business and marketing you can go higher.

Only a percentage of people buy. But if enough people buy, your funnel gets very close to profitable. In a hobby niche it might even make a profit. In business and marketing it might break even. Either way, you are getting your leads for free.

Step 3: The Next Step Offer

Then you nurture your new leads with emails for a while: 3 days, 7 days or 14 days. After that you make an offer. This is your next step, something bigger than the appetizer, for example a 4-week course. Now you can charge €97 or €197. This is perfect for a self-study course.

A percentage of people buy your next step, and that puts your funnel into profit. This works even in business and marketing, where the cost per lead is usually higher.

Test Your Funnel With Real Numbers

You do need to spend the money up front. But you can test your funnel with maybe €10 a day. Are people buying your appetizer? Are they buying your next step? Test with at least 100 people, sometimes 200, to see your conversion rates.

My students see very high conversion rates. One sales funnel I looked at with a student had a 20% conversion rate. So if 100 people signed up for the freebie, 20 bought the appetizer. That appetizer was only €7.

When you raise the price, the conversion rate drops. Even with an appetizer at €27, €37 or €47, you should see 4 to 5%. Those are good numbers.

If everything later in the funnel is automated, the conversion rate to your next step might be low, maybe 1.5% or 2%. It is still worth doing, because you keep running ads, keep getting leads and get sales every day. And of the people who bought an appetizer, even a €7 one, my clients typically see 10 to 20% buy the next step.

One of my students who went through Sales Every Day told me her funnel brings her ease. Even if the sales are 6 or 7 euros, they come in every single day. A paying client is a paying client. Once someone has bought from you, the chance they buy again goes up a lot.

Begin With the End in Mind

The big benefit of this system is that your email list fills up with buyers. The next time you launch something, all these people are already nurtured.

So when you build your funnel, start from the end. Think about what you want to sell in the end: a signature course, a mastermind, group coaching, 1-on-1 coaching or a retreat. Then plan your funnel backwards from there.

Keep the whole funnel on the same topic. You can broaden the topic later in the funnel, but do not switch topics. That way people come with you to the next step.