Part 4 (of 6): The Anti-Funnel

By definition, you lose people at every single stage of the funnel…

…because of friction, pushiness, lack of congruence, lack of customization, and a dozen other factors that cause “scam-alert alarm bells” to go off in your prospects’ heads.

On top of that, funnels are optimized for the lowest common denominator, for the twist-my-arm buyer who opts-in for a clickbait PDF, sits through a 90-minute training (that’s mostly intro + pitch), and then requires multiple manufactured deadlines and bonuses before they buy.

Tell me. Is that person your ideal buyer? Really??

Finally, funnels are often designed to serve advertisers at the expense of their audience—at the expense of the people whose trust they must win in order to stay in business.

For example, funnels are all about finding the fastest way to drag buyers to the checkout page (and leveraging every sales hack in the book to maximize sales).

And if the buyer would be better served by a longer sales process, or more customized options, or a more organic journey?

It doesn’t matter.

This is the self-focused marketing ethos that’s at the heart of all things “Bro-Marketing”…

…and, we’ve now learned, it’s starting to backfire.

But here’s the good news:

Imagine that?!

Bro-Marketing isn’t the only path to winning (and, really, it never was—we just couldn’t see it before).

You can actually unlock increased conversion rates, increased profitability, and increased scalability by abandoning the me-first funnel model and adopting a new paradigm that shifts the focus from sales process to buyer’s journey.

Here’s the key shift:

Instead of asking “what’s the best way to create sales,” we start with an entirely different question…

“What’s the most natural way for my ideal client to find my brand, engage with my content, and invest in my solution?”

Once we know the answer to that core question, the rest is simple:

When I first started implementing this for my Facebook ad clients, we were BLOWN AWAY by the results.

Not only did this client-centric buyer’s journey model “feel” better—

• It dropped lead costs.
• It skyrocketed engagement metrics.
• And it doubled and tripled sales conversion rates.

Like, Tela Holcomb's results:

It turns out that the secret to profitable, scalable, sustainable Facebook ads isn’t a secret at all (#lifelesson).

When you start by putting your customers first, and then you back up that earned authority with intentional, holistic strategy…

…you almost can’t lose.

(The only reason that so many people are losing today is that they’ve unconsciously built their paid traffic strategy on the unstable, unethical foundation of Bro-Marketing. *womp womp*)

But when you build your sales process with a focus on putting your customers first, you gain an “unfair advantage” in a couple of ways.

Let me show you what I mean by walking you through one of our own models.

Last fall, I opened up The StrADegy System for the first time.

Just a customer-centric Facebook ads sequence with $112.80 in ad spend, one single email, and a Google Doc sales page.

Here are the results:

This entire Facebook ads strategy STARTS with knowing your customer better than anyone else…and caring about them more than anyone else…so that it becomes impossible for them to do business with anyone else.

This method naturally builds trust, intimacy, and loyalty by cultivating a custom audience of followers who view you as a confidante and trusted advisor (I’ll show you the tactical side of this in just a minute).

And with those emotional bonds in place, Community, Connection, and Conversations naturally follow.

^^and it just so happens that those are the three core values of the Facebook platform.

Fancy that.

If you’ve got a rock solid system for consistently generating the three Cs on Facebook, you’ll be rewarded.

With engagement, with eyeballs, and with cold hard cash. Win-win-win.

Instead, every step is based on the IDEAL journey your IDEAL customer would love to travel.

• Where are they at right now?
• What do they need to know before they buy, and before they opt-in, and before they pay attention?
• What micro-commitments can you help them make—to build trust and momentum?

99% of marketers focus on running lead gen ads and sales ads.

I think of these ads as “pushing” your audience to take an action that serves you. Not only are these ads “pushy,” but they’re also the MOST expensive ads to run.

Naturally, we take an entirely different direction.

We win the attention and trust of our Custom Audiences by delivering sequenced value, connection, and leadership…

…using Facebook automations.

BOOM.

If you take nothing else away from this article, remember this:

It’s a vehicle that allows your audience to move through your content (and into your offer) in the perfect sequence for THEM.

When you get this model right, everything else falls into place.

Your offer sells like hotcakes, to people who are ready to buy from you (and are your biggest fans).

Your audience grows on autopilot, and you always have a perfectly qualified “bucket” of people fueling consistent growth and sales.

Because this process is based on the highest version of your brand values, it attracts your best customers and allows you to show up as your best self.

I’m gonna be honest with you.

Doing Facebook ads wrong is expensive AF.

Just in the past month, I’ve talked to dozens of business owners who’ve sunk their savings, their retirement funds, their last year’s profit, or their next month’s paycheck into paid traffic…

…with zero returns.

In fact, the collective stories of business owners who’ve been led astray is what started me on this path in the first place.

And the fact that so many brilliant entrepreneurs haven’t been able to find someone who can help them crack the code is a testament to the sad state of our industry (and the level of fraud among the ads managers, agencies, and paid traffic coaches who call themselves experts).

If you haven’t believed it in the past, I hope you can see it now:

The blind leading the blind.

So, instead of learning how to add massive value, generate scaled trust, or raise their earnings-per-lead, they just tell their clients and students to charge more.

Basically: “raise your prices so that you have more profit to blow on ads.”

In full transparency, here’s what I want to acknowledge:

You’ve gotten bad advice. You’ve lost out on thousands of sales, thanks to race-to-the-bottom funnel strategies. You’ve dumped more cash than you’d like to admit on half-baked trainings, all-talk-no-results agencies, and DIY ad campaigns.

And while a new Facebook-fueled sales process sounds magical (and makes a truck ton of sense), you’re not convinced it’ll work for you.

I just want to say…

I get it. And since I can’t talk to you through this computer screen and ask you a gazillion questions about your business, I’m not going to make you any promises.

BUT, I want to invite you to take a closer look at the nuts and bolts of the process.

‘Cause I’ve used this method to generate $10M+ in revenue for businesses in many different industries (digital programs, services, e-comm).

It’s not a fluke, and it’s not a trend.

In fact, this entire model is built on age-old sales practices (we’re just leveraging Facebook to make it happen on autopilot).

On the next page, I’ll walk you through the three key phases of profitable, scaleable Facebook ads—and show you how the whole thing played out for a handful of different businesses (big businesses, small businesses, B2B business, B2C business…)

Then you can make the final call.