How to Build a Sales Funnel That Actually Converts

Hello and welcome to the show. Today we're going to be looking at how to identify leaky spots in your sales funnel. So of course, we have to start off by looking at what a sales funnel is. So sales funnel for the purposes of this podcast, of course, you can get better definitions elsewhere, but for the purposes of this podcast, sales funnel is just the sum total of all those people that are making inward communications towards you or engaging with your business as total strangers.

And the whole process that they go through before people end up becoming buying customers. So the funnels are just all the strangers that you're interacting with now and all the things that they go through which leads them to become buying customers or enter into customer relationships with you. So that essentially is what the funnel is. Now we're talking about leaky sports in the funnel, but let's just start with the biggest problem of all.

Before you start looking at whether you have a leaky spot in your funnel, the biggest problem or the main problem that most people have is that they don't even have a funnel in the 1st place. Now what that means is this, if you don't have a funnel, it just means that you don't even have a way for people to discover you or your business and engage with you or your business or your product or your service either online or offline.

So for most folks, that is the problem. You don't even have a funnel. So the first thing to do actually is to come up with a plan for letting the world know that you exist. So you come up with a plan, you start executing, then problem solved. Then we can now start thinking about which part of the funnel is leaky, which part of the problem is working, which part of the problem is not working. So for a lot of you, that is the main problem.

You don't even have a funnel to begin with. Solution, Come up with a plan, let everybody know that you exist. So remember that the sales funnel is just the journey that happens from initial awareness to purchase. From the beginning, when everybody knows this is you, this is how you can help, this is what you do for the world, and this is how they can do business with you. So initial awareness all the way to purchase, that is the funnel.

So the reason why it's called a funnel is just because if you are to draw it like a diagram, the top of the funnel would have a large number of people. So we start off doing all kinds of stuff. OK, let me use this podcast as an example. So currently 18,000 downloads. You can see that that's pretty wide. It doesn't mean I'm going to have 18,000 clients. So 18,000 downloads. Some people listen a bunch, a couple of people reach out.

Some people are just saying hello. Some people say hello, ask some questions, make a few inquiries. We have a discovery call. Looks like I may help them. They end up becoming a customer. But you can see that at the top wide, at the bottom narrow. So that's the reason why it is called a funnel because a large number of people are going to enter at the top at the top, but only a small percentage of people are going to come through at the bottom.

So people in the advertising industry, people, how do I put it? OK, let me not make too many conjectures. But anyway, people in the advertising world like to describe, describe funnels this way. So First off, they talk about awareness. So that is, you know, in the beginning at the top, the white part where lots of people know about you. So in the case of this podcast, 18,000 downloads. So that's awareness. Potential customers become aware of your brand or your product,

then it moves into interest. That is where people show the desire that they want to learn some more about what it is that you do. Then after interest, they move through the what's the word again, AIDAD decision. So next is decision. That's where people consider buying your product or buying your service and then action, that is where people make a purchase. So this schema that advertising people use is called ADA. So that's Aida and that's the reason why Aida is pretty much the dominant or I say framework that you see when we discuss business related stuff over on social media.

So again, it's Aida and that is awareness. Lots of people are aware interest. A bunch of people show some interest decision. A few of them decide that they want to buy a product or service and then action. An even smaller number decide to take action and then purchase. Sorry, Excuse me. All right, Where was I? OK, Yeah. So started off by saying that the problem with your sales funnel is that a whole bunch of you listening to this podcast right now do not even have a sales funnel.

So the first thing that we should do is to figure out how to create a sales funnel. And it involves several steps. If you've been listening to this podcast for any length of time, you already know. Now, First off, we have to define our target audience. We have to clearly identify who the ideal customer is. We have to decide who it is that we're going to chase. And the reason why is this, if you haven't decided who it is that you're going to chase,

you're going to spend lots of time and money chasing the whole world, including chasing people who will turn out to be unprofitable, not worth your while, people who will cause you demotivation, you know, all sorts of things. So we actually have to start off by figuring who are we going to run after? How do you decide that? It's a little blend of common sense and then letting your product or your service decide. So in this case, let me use the most boring profession that I

can think of, accountants. And not only are accountants very boring, there's even a smaller subset of accountants that I think are even more boring. All of you ask them, they think they're exciting forensic accountants. So there's an association of there's a Nigerian. OK, well, I can't remember. It's been a while since I saw the banner. I think it's the Nigerian Association of Forensic Accountants. I'm trying to show how you can use common sense and then let your product or service decide who your target audience is going to be.

So if you're a forensic accountant, who should be your target audience? Well, First off, what do forensic accountants do? By the way, if you're an accountant, a forensic accountant, forgive me if I get this wrong, I'm just using idea to try and figure out what you guys do. I'm coming up with this on the spot. Ideally you should have done some research, but OK. So this is my guess. If this is not what forensic accountants do, then I'm terribly sorry.

When you reach out to me on WhatsApp or on social media, please educate me as to what you guys do. Now my guess is this, accountants are people who figure out where did the money go, how did you raise money? How did you spend it? What is the inflow? What are the outflows? Are the books balancing? That's what accountants do. Now, I assume that forensic accountants are those people who are very good at going into the books to try and figure out did people cook accounts?

Did somebody steal money? Is somebody siphoning money from here and moving in there where it's not supposed to be? So that's my assumption that that's what forensic accountants do. So if you are a member of the Nigerian Association of Forensic Accountants, with what I've said so far, you're already getting a certain sense of who the target market should be. If you just use some common sense and you let your product and your service decide and then we'll talk about some more about that in the future.

Then of course, you also have to identify your target audience, you know, identify their pain points. You know what it is that is choking them. You need to know how your product or service can help that then. Yeah. OK, So, OK, forensic accountant. So what kind of problems do we think that forensic accountants solve? OK, you know what? Let's just move into that a little bit. So OK, you know what, Let me stay the course because it looks like this is going to be a long episode, so I don't want to get sidetracked here.

So identify the pain points. And then of course, we have to come up with compelling content because we're talking about creating a before now. Now content just means photo, video, blog post or whatever, but you need to put out something that addresses what these main points are. The whole point of putting all these things out is that when people see it, it's going to build trust. It's going to show that, oh, this guy, this girl, this group,

these people, they know what it is that they're talking about. And this is what we call a content marketing strategy. It's just a way to create engagement online that leads people to you. So in this case, if you're a member of the Nigerian Association of Forensic Accountants, I'm assuming that you're going to be creating content around money laundering or content around company best practices to avoid fraud or talking about financial data security, you know, blah, blah,

blah, all this really boring stuff. So these are the kind of boring blog posts and YouTube videos that you're going to be making because it might be boring to the rest of the world. But for somebody who owns a company where he thinks his side piece is stealing money, the person is going to be really, really interested when they hear something about financial breaches and money laundering and corporate theft and, you know, blah, blah, blah.

Or for somebody who is part of a government parastatal and is worried about whether he is subordinate, is stealing all the money in the parastatal, even though arguably the only reason why he wants to find out if somebody's stealing money so that he has more money for himself to steal. But that's besides the point. But I'm just saying that, yeah, you make all this boring content, it'll be boring to the rest of the world.

But for people who have this problem that is choking them, that is pinching them, it will be relevant content to them. So you keep putting up that thing. Sorry, putting up these stuff, content over social media and yeah, folks will find you, but it's not just enough to put out that content because we have to now put a lead magnet, throwing a lead magnet in there. Now a lead, remember what we've been saying on the show is just anybody who has raised his hand or hand has done something to show that they might be interested in your product or service.

So a lead magnet is just something you throw out for free that gets people to raise their hand and raising their hand in this case online means they take the next step, like giving you some information where they live, where they work, the phone number, e-mail address, something like that. So typically lead magnets are things like ebooks, webinars, you know, stuff like that. So you can make a webinar and put it on LinkedIn.

Like if you suspect, if you suspect your CFO is stealing money from your company, then sign up for this webinar. So a bunch of people who think they're CF OS are crap, you know, might sign up for the webinar or let's see what else, you know, all those sorts of things, you know, So if you think your CFO is stealing or if you're losing money through this, that, that, that, that, if you anyway, whatever, you get the idea, download this free ebook and blah, blah, blah.

But excuse me, but to download the free ebook, the person has to give their phone number or the e-mail address. Now the whole point of getting people's phone numbers, sorry about that usual solve Rd. where was I? So the whole point of the lead magnets getting everybody's phone number or house address or office address or whatever is actually to nurture these these people who have raised their hands or trying to build relationships with them because they could be potential customers one day.

And typically people do that online through e-mail marketing or other channels. But the whole point is you've collected people's e-mail address, the phone number and the house address, the whatever information that you need, and you now find a way to stay in touch with these people over time. Then of course, from time to time, you create a call to action. The call to action is just to get people to do something. For those of you who have listened to the episode on conversions, you know, that's the whole point.

My call to action is to get people to people to do something, to remove the relationship forward. So the idea is this, that if people take that step, then it's a sign of interest. It shows that these people are ready to be moved on to the next phase. So like in this case where you've done the webinar, people have dropped their e-mail address, you've been sending a couple of emails. Eventually in an e-mail you can have ACTA which is sign up for sign up for something by this or maybe ACTA might be what did I

say again? CFO, OK, CFO stealing money. Yeah, the CT the call to action might be if you want to catch your CFO stealing money from you, call this number now and schedule a consultation so you can see that you're asking them clearly to take the next step. Whoever takes the next step obviously might be looks like a candidate who must be interested in in getting the services that are offered by a forensic accountant. Now, if you notice the examples that I've given so far, I used online examples because typically whenever people talk about talking about sales funnels, you see that they're talking about all these things online.

So that's why I said run a webinar on LinkedIn, collect people's e-mail addresses, let's see what else, or create a lead magnet, collect people's phone numbers, you know, stuff like that. So that's all offline, but because of that, sorry, online. So because of that, some people assume that every single time you say sales funnel, you mean online activities, but that is not the case. All of this talk that we've gone through so far also applies to offline or physical world activities.

Because let's face it, before the Internet came along and social media and all these good jazz came along, people have been doing business since the dawn of time, since the Stone Age. So this also relates to the physical world if you're not into all this online jazz. So this concept applies equally to offline businesses as well. Now let's go through the stages so you can follow me here. Remember I said there's awareness, then there's interest, then there's decision,

and then there's action. So awareness, make people become aware interest, get a bunch of people to show interest decision. Some people will decide that they want to do business with you. Action do something make them that will get them to consider making a purchase. So in this case, now building your offline sales funnel or your real world sales funnel will look this way. Let's stick with the most boring profession that I know, like I

said, accountants, and then an even more boring subset, forensic accountants. So for forensic accountants, stage 1, identify your target audience. Now, my guess is a forensic accountant is targeting business owners or Heads of Government parastatals. Remember, I'm thinking about a Nigerian environment. I'm sure if I sat down and I think about it a bit, maybe I can come up with some other potential customers. But for now, let me just say business owners and then Heads of Government parastatals, then yes, OK.

So that's identifying the target audience. So next thing, since we're talking about offline, obviously we would have to choose strategic locations because if we're doing this online, we'll be thinking about whether we're going to do this thing on LinkedIn, the webinar on LinkedIn or promote the webinar on, on Facebook or let's see what else. By the way, we're now we're in the real world, so excuse me, OK, I was like, OK, yes, I was talking about doing things offline.

OK. We've identified the target audience. We're looking at business owners and Heads of Government. Paris details. I have a location, yes. So physical locations, that's where we are. So you have to think about where your customers spend their time and where their eyeballs are. Now, this could be high traffic areas in specific neighbourhoods or maybe even some events. Now, it's not going to be a coincidence that the first time that I saw a billboard for the Nigerian Association of Forensic Accountants was in Area 11.

Area 11 is in the central business district. The Billboard was placed prominently close to Area 11 shopping mall. 11 shopping mall is close to FCDA. That's the Federal Capital Development Authority. That's a government parastatal. And of course people say that serious money moves in FCDA. Then it's also close to the Ministry of Finance if you go further down the road. And then it's also close to the women of Ministry of Women's Affairs.

You know, you drive down a bit and then you turn to your left and then Ministry of Women's Affairs is there, if I remember correctly, but you catch my drift. These people, Nigerian Association of Forensic Accountants didn't take their billboard and put it in Wuse Market. They took the Billboard and they placed it in the central area in Abuja, close to a shopping mall where there are lots of business owners and close to key key government power State House.

Why? Because if the assumption is that business owners are the people who are going to pay them, and Heads of Government power status who are trying to figure out who is stealing money from the department are the people who are going to pay them, then it makes sense that you should put this billboard in this location. And that's where I saw them. And I think it kind of makes sense. So let's see what else. You can also leverage other forms of traditional marketing apart from the Billboard.

So print advertising, you know, newspapers, magazines, Flyers, brochures. Yes, I have a word on content marketing because when people hear content marketing, they typically think while you're talking about online stuff, but it also applies offline as well. So content marketing strategies also works for newspapers and magazines, which is one of the reasons why I noticed people in my age set. You know, you start a business,

then you get the Vanguard or, or this day to come and interview you and you know, that's, that's good. But I think you're better off spending your time and your money trying to put useful resources out there on the newspaper that'll make people read about your businesses rather than you being proud that you've been featured in the business in the business section. Because you being featured once in the business section, you know, is not really going to pay you.

It's good bragging rights. I mean, your classmates will see it and think that you know, you're you're blowing up. But you know what? Let me use a real life example. Back when back in the military era, OK, this day newspaper still exists. Well, back in the military era, this day they started doing this thing was I think this day style. Yeah, Was this day style a nice glossy print out with, you know, The Who is who, You know,

fashionable people, movies, glitterati, blah, blah, blah, all that kind of thing. So apart from this day style, they also had different pull outs. There was a this day section that had to do with business or capital markets or something like that. Now, at the time, remember I'm saying that this is military era. So this is a long, long, long, long, long time ago. I mean, this is before Obasanjar came in as president. So there was this company called, I think they're still around, although they've gotten into trouble with the with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

BGL securities, yes. So BGL securities back then, because I remember back in my uni days, yeah, I think it was my uni days. So BGL was always doing writing stuff in This Day, you know, about stocks, how to pick a stock, what is this financial instrument? What is that financial instrument? And this thing went on for a very long time. Now, this is content marketing because people who are looking at these sorts of things in the In This Day newspaper and are seeing BGL this week, BGL, next week, BGL, next month, BGL the whole year, BGL.

After a while, people will start thinking or more this BGL securities like these guys, they know their stuff like they're the real deal because they're here giving us this free information on this is how to pick a stock. This is what the stock is. This is how you value a healthy company. If you have a family office and you have plenty of money, this is how you manage your money. Those of you who are looking at international investments, this is how you do it, you know,

blah, blah, blah. So it's all that writing, writing, writing, writing, writing, writing, writing, all that content marketing. That's actually what does the trick. So if the person who owned BGL just took out one newspaper, whatever, somebody comes and interview him. You feel like you're a big dog, like this day they did a piece on you and you feel like you have arrived but doesn't really move the needle moving your business forward.

But every week you're seeing those BGL posts. The BGL post might even be coming from junior employees or research assistants or whatever. But it did I think was part of the things that did the trick towards making BGL Securities a really big player in the space. By the way, I'm not endorsing, I'm not saying that that company, I'm not endorsing the company anyway because like I said, in recent times, they've run into trouble with the with one of the government regulators.

But I'm just saying that I think that this is something that was significant in how they came to limelight. So when it comes to newspapers and magazines, stop thinking, OK, my cousin works in this day, let me get them to interview me. Let me have my face in the newspaper. It's beyond that. Think about the content marketing strategy where you are going to be there every single week or every other week for, I don't know, 36 months straight,

talking about these sorts of problems that your business can solve. That is what is going to move the needle, especially if you have an inside scoop that that is really, really, really, really good advertising. So where was I? So basically print advertising, Yes, content marketing strategies apply there as well. You can also do that radio as well. I mean, hint, hint. That is the reason why I recorded my radio pilot two weeks ago, so that I can get on the air.

It's the same jazz content marketing then. OK, we've already talked about outdoor advertising, how you can use billboards to build your top of the funnel. Let's see what else, OK. And then the same thing, you can also create offers like free workshops, things like that. I mentioned that I tried selling financial products in the past and that is something that they use in the industry, this whole thing of free workshops.

So some people go to some radio stations like in Nigeria, there's, sorry, in Abuja there is Niger Info, Niger Info FM that that's more like a talk radio station. So politics, business, those sorts of things. So there's some people who go there early in the morning and they talk about stuff maybe like how you can make money buying stocks or something like that. And at the end of the show, miraculously, the person advertises I have a free class that is going on, is going to be at Chelsea Hotel.

It is free for the 1st 200 people, anybody after 200 people, you only have to pay 500 an hour to enter, you know, something like that. And it's out. Well, First off, it's free. And if you're late, you only pay 500 bucks. So yeah, not a big deal. And then people rush there. But this is what is going to happen at that event. You will get there. You get lots of value, but then the people are also going to try and sell you on using them to be your stockbroker or your or your their mortgage provider or insurance provider or whatever.

So I mean that's how it works. So the same thing you're doing online, you can also do offline. So on the radio interview, like some people do when they go to Nigeria Info FM, you, you advertise your free workshop and then you try to book appointments and consultation from there. OK, now I know that all the stuff I've spoken about here maybe was too, too fancy, too high level because I mean, how many of us are forensic accountants?

But the point that I was trying to make is this, it works in real life, or rather it works in the physical world and it also works online. And the reason why I picked accounting was this honestly, show that even what you sell, even if what you do or what you sell is as boring as accounting, it can still work. By the way, for those of you who know my family members, don't tell my wife that I said this. She's not an accountant, she's a lawyer.

But because of her CFA training, she's taking lots of accounting classes and she's beginning to enjoy the subject. Then let's see what else. And then I also seem to have lots of accountants in my family. There's my cousin Alu, there's my cousin Tisu. That was my cousin Mimi. And well, anyway, bottom line issue, I don't tell my family members that I'm browsing their profession. So I think that's just a pretty much, OK, there's one thing that I have to mention this thing about sales funnel and the whole Aida philosophy that's attention, interest, decision and then action philosophy is key.

I'm sorry, consistency is key. So you have to do things repeatedly because some people think that if I put one advertisement in the newspaper and I do double spread in this day, then you know, bam, I'm going to hammer, you know, that's not how it works. Or some people think if I do that one advertisement on Google and then push a millionaire behind that particular campaign, that's how I'm going to hammer. Now, unfortunately, when it comes to sales funnels and Aida,

consistency is much more important than that one off big something. So one ad campaign, one mentioned in the newspaper is not going to help you at all. It's about, you know, steady, steady, steady, steady, steady. If you're going to be advertising, then do your advertising steady, steady, steady, whether it's online or offline. If you're going to be doing the content marketing, don't just write 11 big piece. And I think it's going to bring you a ton of business.

Be writing that piece consistently, consistently, consistently, like how BGL Securities was doing back then, you know, when we were like secondary school transitioning into university. So it's like that consistency over time. So just be dropping, dropping, dropping. If it's advertising, be advertising steady. If you're thinking content marketing, be doing your content marketing thing steady. Then also follow up is really important.

Although in this case on this podcast, we, we talk about follow through because in traditional sales circles, you know, there's a difference between follow up and follow through. Follow up is when you just say I'm calling to greet you. Follow through is when there's something specifically that something specific that you're calling. How will I put it? So follow up is when you just call in and say what's up. Then follow through is when there has been a predetermined course of action.

You and the other person, you guys decided that something was going to happen next and you're calling now to be sure, like how far? Like what's up? Are we going to go through with this thing or not? So following three is absolutely essential. If you collect e-mail addresses and phone numbers and you do nothing with them, then nothing is going to happen. So consistency #1 be doing it. Plenty, plenty, plenty, plenty. Don't do one advertisement.

Be advertising steady every month. Don't do just one content marketing piece. Be content marketing every month. Every week. As you're collecting phone numbers and emails, don't just be keeping it on your phone or on your computer. Sorry, forgive me, excuse me. Rather, you need to putting the dials you need to sending messages, you need to reach out to people. And then there's this whole thing of measurement. Well, not really measurement,

but pay attention, see what's working and see what's not working. If something is not working, then just stop it. Well, first of all, you, you can, what's the word, you know, diagnose to be sure that you're doing things the right way. So if your online campaign is not working, then just try and diagnose like what's wrong? Is my copy wrong or am I targeting the wrong set of people or am I not putting enough money behind the campaign or let's see what else?

Am I using the wrong format? Because like there's a time that banner advertisements used to used to rock as you know, the ones that you open and then just covers the screen. But now the ones that open and cover the screen, people try to avoid. So I think if you're trying to do banner advertisements now, that might not be a good idea. So that's not banner, that is a pop up, pop up advertising. So these are the sorts of ideas I may be asking yourself whether this thing is working or whether why this thing is working or why this thing is not working.

But basically, if it works, continue doing it, don't change it. So I think I'll just wrap it up here, especially since funnels, especially online funnels is not my thing because my specialty is personal selling. So one-on-one, you're talking to somebody, you want the person to buy or you want the person to take the next step in considering your considering your services. So that's actually my specialty. So to learn more about Aida ADA,

attention. Sorry, Abby, what was it? Awareness, awareness, interest, decision, Abby, desire and action. You should be checking podcasts on advertising. Podcasts on marketing. Yeah, you will hear lots of stuff about sales funnels. So I'll just wrap it up here since we're already at 30 minutes. Please connect with me on WhatsApp for questions, quick tips and insights. The phone number is 08064662140 and the country code is +234.

Also connect with me on LinkedIn is the best social network for business career development and networking. The name to search for is Tava Shima IED. That's my name. I'm the host of the show. So thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next episode. And it's a Friday night, so you'll have a wonderful weekend.