In this episode, Gianni Cara, a personal brand strategist shares how best to build out sales funnel models that drive revenue.
Giannni helps entrepreneurs and executives with established personal brands to create their branding funnels so they can maximize their profits and their impact in the market.
Some topics we discussed include:
- What businesses do wrong with their PPC led sales funnel model
- What is a sales funnel and how does it work
- Do we need a sales funnel in order to establish trust and build influence with future customers
- How to best leverage social media platform algorithms to further the buying journey of a customer
- What are the stages of a sales funnel model
- Gianni’s perspective on what are the steps in the sales process
- How do you build a sales funnel fast
- How Gianni research’s a potential audience
- How podcasts could fit into a sales funnel model
- What is the top of the sales funnel
- Why you don’t need a top copywriter to build out a sales funnel
- How to make a sales funnel for free
- How to avoid technology bloat when build out your sales funnel model
Gianni Cara:
You're listening to the Predictable B2B podcast. My name is Gianni Cara, and I'm a personal brand strategist. I mainly help personal brands to create their branding funnels so they can maximize their profits and their impact in the market.
Vinay Koshy:
Excellent. Gianni, thanks so much for taking time out to do this.
Gianni Cara:
It's my pleasure, Vinay.
Vinay Koshy:
Excellent. Gianni, I'm curious, you've had a fair bit of marketing and, I'd say, sales experience as well. How did you get into this whole idea of building out sales funnels or branding funnels as you put it?
Gianni Cara:
Well, that's an interesting question. I mean, I think most of the things that happen in my life they were just happening, one after another, right? I started out a long time ago, but maybe five to six years ago I was working on a startup and that was when I start really to hone in my marketing skills. I did a lot of unscalable stuff. At the time, we were not creating funnels, we were not running ads. I was doing a lot of things that most marketers are not used to do, like reaching out directly to people, cold outreach, getting into the Facebook groups and engaging with people there to get them to start using the app.
Gianni Cara:
It was a hell of an experience, because when you're doing things manually you start to connect more with the customer and understand better what problems they have. You understand better how to communicate with them in a way that you get them to actually to take action. That was a hell of an experience. From that, when I stopped working with that startup, a new opportunity showed up to work with this American entrepreneur who had a lot of success already on his personal business, but he wanted also to start teaching other people about the things that he learned throughout his journey. So we started working together with Quora, it was just a small gig at the time. I figured out some kind of hacking at the time, because on Quora you can answer a lot of questions but get very little views. At the time, I figured out a way that it could find out the right question to answer and get thousands of views through that question. So instead of wasting your time answering all sorts of questions, you can find the one question that actually helps you get 10,000, sometimes even 100,000 views.
Gianni Cara:
That was the first job, but things start escalating. The guy wanted to start a podcast, then the guy wanted also to launch his own book. We launched the book on Amazon, but we had this problem that most of the sales that were happening on Amazon we wouldn't get the information from the people who were buying it. So we said, "You know what? Why don't we create our own sales funnel? That way we can sell the book and still get that information to sell other things in the back end." Because at that time, we were starting to think about some other products like membership and a coaching programme as well. So, that was where it started with the sales funnel thing. 0
Vinay Koshy:
Excellent. We'll explore sales funnels and sales funnel models in a little bit. But I'm also curious as to what you would say is your personal area of strength.
Gianni Cara:
Right. I think there are two key areas, one is figuring out a marketing strategy to understand, first of all, the customer and get from the initial interaction until they buy your end product, which most of the time is your high ticket offers and the writing of it, right? So just writing emails, writing sales pages, writing Facebook ads, and stuff like this.
Vinay Koshy:
Okay, so the copywriting aspect of it. Okay.
Gianni Cara:
The copywriting aspect.
Vinay Koshy:
What would you say in those areas of strength is something that businesses don't know but should?
Gianni Cara:
Right, so one key thing is... We talked a little bit before the interview about this branding idea, right, branding funnels. Most people are used to the idea of sales funnels. I think even as a copywriter, it's really hard. Maybe the top 1% of copywriters then manage to create a Facebook ad and a sales page that is profitable, so you get cold audience right out of the gate to buy your products and you do it a profitable way. Most people who are doing well, they have something that is break even or they are losing a little bit of money in the beginning, but then the customer lifetime value pays for it. So when it gets to the email marketing or retargeting, you start selling your high ticket offers and that pays for the front end.
Gianni Cara:
But I think it's much easier when you leverage technology to help you actually engage with those people and start warming them up where they are instead of trying to get them directly to your sales pitch. Just to give you a quick example, Facebook and Instagram today, it's very easy to put a great video there to start that engagement and just pay a cent for each view. Right?
Vinay Koshy:
Yeah.
Gianni Cara:
So you can pay a cent for a view, and you can start nurturing the person instead of Facebook. Because Facebook and Instagram, which are the same, they don't like that you get people out of their platform straight away.
Vinay Koshy:
Certainly. Yeah.
Gianni Cara:
You want to engage people there. And as you start building that trust and as you start building that connection with your audience, then it gets much easier for you to sell them on whatever it is that you want to sell. I think most people, they are just too focused on, "Oh, I need a Facebook ad that is a hit, that helps me get someone to my sales page and sell my stuff straight away." Sometimes it works, but you got to be very good at copywriting to be able to make it work.
Vinay Koshy:
Certainly. I completely get the point you're trying to make that creating that trust is really important first of in order to build out influence and actually have them follow through on your call to action, which you would insert as a copywriter. I guess it brings up the question of, if we should really focus on building up trust and influence, then do we really need a sales funnel, or should we just look at adding value to people and eventually make an ask?
Gianni Cara:
Yeah, that's a good question. I think the great thing about those platforms is that their algorithm is getting better every day, and they're getting to a point where they actually know when people are ready to make the purchase. You might don't want to use ads or sales funnels to get people to buy your products or stuff like that and you just want to do it through maybe a Facebook group or through something else like a podcast. But in my experience, retargeting ads when they are showed at the right time to the right person, the chances of converting is really high. And of course, it's much better to have in your list someone who actually paid for one of your products, even it's just a book that you're selling for $9 or just any kind of digital product that you're selling for a low price than having people to just sign up for a lead magnet, right?
Vinay Koshy:
Right.
Gianni Cara:
Because a customer has a much higher value than just a lead... Sometimes, there are some marketers out there that make it harder for people to sign up for their lead magnets. Because of that, they are leaving behind a lot of the people who will never buy anything from them or who are just tyre kickers. But I think that if you can leverage the technology and have that sales funnel there for whenever your customers are ready, why wouldn't you use that when the time comes by Facebook knowing and Instagram knowing when it's the right time, you just leave them to do it for yourself?
Vinay Koshy:
Okay. If I understand this correctly, you're recommending that people use Facebook and Instagram to drive them further into the purchasing cycle, so to speak, because they are able to determine through their algorithms, native algorithms when people are ready to buy. Would that be correct, or are you suggesting that you build out a sales funnel or a branding funnel, as you put it, which it also incorporates the use of Facebook and Instagram?
Gianni Cara:
Right, so yeah. I like using ads for everything. Of course, you should be doing organic as well. But the ads is what really helps you to first figure out what kind of content really connects with your audience in a faster way. And it's super cheap most of the time, especially if you're using videos, right?
Vinay Koshy:
Yeah.
Gianni Cara:
It's going to cost you very little money either on Facebook or Instagram or YouTube, right? What I'm guess I'm saying here is that you should have in the mix also the option to buy a product. What I like doing, for instance, is since you don't want to expose cold audience to your offer right away, you can have layers. The first layer, you can call it the top of the funnel, and you have certain types of content there, which is just to present yourself, present what you're doing, your values. If you have an interview with someone who is very credible in your market, you can use that as well, just a snippet. Let's say if I had an interview with Frank Kern and we're talking about something that I know that is important to my audience, I want to make sure that that snippet is there at the top of the funnel or at least at the middle of the funnel, right? So, you create a layer on the top. You can create a second layer if you wish, which would be the middle of the funnel. And then you create a bottom which is the sales.
Vinay Koshy:
Okay.
Gianni Cara:
Right?
Vinay Koshy:
Yep.
Gianni Cara:
Facebook will figure it out. Some people will have to watch two to three videos at the top to get to the middle. And maybe they would have to watch another two before they actually get exposed to your offer. Some of the people will get straight away from top to middle to bottom because they consume the whole first video, they consume the whole second video, and Facebook think they are ready now to actually engage with your offer. Kirk Malley is the guy for that. I've learned most of those things from him. And on this core idea of having those layers come from him, so I'm not trying to say that this is my idea, just to make sure it's clear here for everybody.
Vinay Koshy:
Certainly. Just in conjunction with what you were saying, my idea of a sales funnel has, I guess, been more traditionally built out in that we were taught perhaps with marketing programmes or courses in university or college that we should think about awareness, interest, desire, decision and then action. Are you suggesting that the video is catered to each of those or just a simplified version of the funnel, which may combine one or more of those stages?
Gianni Cara:
Yeah. Let's say you are just making it easier because you're spreading it in different moments, different touchpoints, right?
Vinay Koshy:
Right.
Gianni Cara:
With a sales page, what you usually do is you try to put everything at once. I like to differentiate marketing from sales in the way that marketing is when you're actually educating, you're actually using storytelling to create a right beliefs in the mind of your prospect. Sales for me is the moment when you're trying to sell them. You're showing them their offer, you're trying to expose testimonials and other things that will help you move the needle. The problem that I see is when you get people to the sales page straight away and they realise that they are in a sales page, they start to get a little defensive.
Gianni Cara:
So every argument you make, they're going to be in the back of their heads thinking, "Okay, this guy is trying to sell something and that's why he's arguing this." While if you are not trying to sell them anything, you are just providing education, you are just providing value, you can start working on those beliefs. Just to give you a good example, I have a client who is the home service industry, he has a membership programme for home service business owners. It's interesting because one of the main objections they come up with is, "Look, I'm in the HVAC industry, why should I join a membership programme where you have garage door guys, landscape guys, where you have electricians and stuff like that? Why don't I just go to another programme that is specific to the HVAC industry?"
Gianni Cara:
That's a good objection. I mean, I can understand where they're coming from. If I tried to handle that objection during the sales call, I might do it well. I might be able to get them to change their minds. But isn't it much easier to actually start talking about that subtly in the beginning and explain to them how important it is to actually interact with people from other industries so they can learn from other people and get out of their comfort zone and just learn whatever it is other people are doing in their industry and actually get insights from people who are also learning from other industries. You can give examples like service agreements. Service agreements is something that a lot of HVAC companies will do, not so much garage doors. I can use that information to show them, "Look, this guy actually copied something from the HVAC industry and started using service agreements to actually increase their revenue." So I'm giving you examples of how getting into a group where you have diversification is actually a benefit, not a weakness. Right, so if you can do that in the marketing part where people don't have their shields and they're not defensive about it, you can plant that seed in their heads so when they get to the sales you already created a fence around that objection.
Vinay Koshy:
Yep, certainly. That will also suggest to me, and you make a really good point, but it would suggest to me that you really need to know your audience or at least your target audience very well. Thinking from what you were saying, that this is more than just understanding what industry they're in and where they're located. There's a bit more depth in your research, would that be correct?
Gianni Cara:
Yeah, that's-
Vinay Koshy:
If so, how do you go about it?
Gianni Cara:
That's exactly it. I mean, I think the most important part of my work is in the beginning to, of course, first understanding the brand I'm working with, the products, the services, the differentiation points, et cetera. But then I have to look at the market and there are two core things. One, of course, is to understand where the competitors are, what they're doing, what kind of products and services they are offering. But I do a really deep dive into the customer avatar as well, because I wanted to understand the set of beliefs they have. I wanted to understand what kind of problems they are facing. When I talk about problems, I like to go deeper there as well. Rich Effress is the guy if you want to learn about this.
Gianni Cara:
If you think about when you go a doctor, they will ask you a bunch of questions to figure out what symptoms you have. And from those symptoms, he will figure out the underlying problem. I like to think about the customer avatar in the same way. Most of the time, people are going through a lot of different problems, but there is an underlying problem that they cannot see. Most of the time, that's the reason why they still have those problems. Now, if you manage to first figure out which symptoms they're going through right now, you can connect with them because they will feel like you understand them. "Oh, yeah, I'm having this problem. I'm also having this problem. I'm also having this problem."
Gianni Cara:
Now, the great thing about the underlying problem is that if you have something that can fix all of those symptoms, then you can provide them a solution for something that is not just one problem but two, three, or four different problems that they're facing right now. It gives them hope as well because all marketing should give people hope. The hope is that, "Oh my God, I've actually never realised that my real problem was X. Now that I know, I have hope that I will finally manage to solve that problem."
Vinay Koshy:
Right. Okay. How do you actually go about discovering this, because it's not like people advertise their underlying problems?
Gianni Cara:
No.
Vinay Koshy:
I mean, how do you discover those actual issues and speak to them?
Gianni Cara:
Sure. I mean, I guess the first is just having a discovery call, a strategy call with your client. Your client definitely has more experience than you do with their market, so he might have a lot of the answers already, he just never stopped to go through it and think that deep. So as soon as you ask the right questions, they will start giving you the answers that you're looking for. Sometimes it's not 100% science, so you get some information that might be a little not great. Because of that, I like also doing some research online. Today, there are not that many forums, but you have Facebook groups where people are always sharing their frustrations or always commenting, or always sharing their opinions. So getting to Facebook groups, sometimes listening to podcast, going to places like Quora. There are a series of places that you can go to collect that information, but it's very important that you try to get your buyers out of the room and look at that information with a lens to really understand what's going on and what kind of problems your customer's facing, what set of beliefs they have.
Gianni Cara:
And that's a very interesting thing, right? I mean, everybody has core desires. Then we have a primary belief, which is for instance, my core desire could be I want to have power in my life. In order to have power, I can have a series of different primary beliefs. One could be I want to be a politician. Being a politician, I'll be able to acquire power. I can be an entrepreneur, or I can even be in the police, work in the police. All of those three will fulfil that core desire of having power. So if I understand why the core desire is, and I understand why the primary belief is, I'll get to the secondary beliefs, which is where the golden is. Because you're not going to change someone idea to become a politician or you're not going to change someone's idea to become an entrepreneur, to them change it and get them to become a manager on a company, right? These are really rooted beliefs that are really hard to change. You might be very good at it and be able, but most of the time, the golden is on the secondary beliefs.
Gianni Cara:
The secondary beliefs is, "What do I need to do in my life to be able to fulfil this primary belief?" So maybe I'm a marketing guy and I want to have an agency, for an instance. That's my belief, that's how I'm going to achieve my core desire. But my secondary belief could be, "I need to use funnels to be able to build an agency for myself and become a successful marketer." Right?
Vinay Koshy:
Yep. Okay, so once we have an understanding of who our audience is, in talking to you offline, you were a fan of using podcast for example, as part of your sales funnel model. How do you see that fitting in and speaking to the audience that you so desire in a way that builds trust and influence?
Gianni Cara:
There are a lot of things great about podcasting. If you're doing a podcast, I would do like you're doing, having video as much as you can. Now, if you're a shy person and you don't want to be on video every time, just make sure that at least, if you are releasing one episode a week, that means you are releasing roughly four to five a month, make sure at least one of them is on video. Be deliberate about how you ago about that one episode. "Who is going to be the person who I'm going to do the video with? It's someone who can help me build my credibility with my audience? What kind of beliefs do I need to change in my audience?" If my audience, for instance, think they cannot make it, what you're trying to sell them for instance, you're trying to sell them something but they think, "Yeah, that's amazing, but it's just not for me. I will never be able to get that product and be successful." This could be one of the limiting beliefs they have about themselves.
Gianni Cara:
If you have someone who just went through the same situation, they were where your audience is right now, in a bad place and they finally managed to overcome those challenges, because they changed something in their beliefs, and you have that story, that's golden, right?
Vinay Koshy:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Gianni Cara:
You can invite that person to your podcast. You can interview that person. You can ask the right questions to that person to talk about exactly what you want your audience to listen to. And then you take that one minute, two minutes clip and advertise it on Facebook and Instagram and make sure that everybody who is following you, everybody who is on your email list or even cold audience gets to listen to that one-minute video and start building the right beliefs to when they get to the sales page or when they get to the high ticket offer that you're going to offer them, you've already planted the seeds for them to be ready to buy your products. That's one way, and you don't need an amazing guy to do that, just one who went through that story. But if you got someone like Rich Effress, Jay Abraham, or Russell Brunson on your podcast, of course you want to take a snippet and include that in your funnel as well so that people see that, "Oh, this guy is interviewing Russell Brunson." It gives you credibility and authority through association.
Gianni Cara:
These are a few of the ways you can, of course, use your podcast to actually include it in your funnel so that it helps you to build credibility, it helps you to plant the seeds on your audience so that they are ready to buy whatever you're selling.
Vinay Koshy:
Certainly. I love the fact that you're talking about using a podcast to potentially interview customers who can identify with others in the same space and the problems that they've had. I think the challenge though is in actually being to able to elicit the actual thoughts that they were thinking through before signing up with you, because that's where the hesitancy often lies. And yes, if you're able to elicit that and put that into more of a story format, it can work very, very well.
Gianni Cara:
Yeah, and sales people, they will tell you a lot of the objections. Through the objections, it helps you to get an understanding of where they are, what kind of limiting beliefs they have. You can start working through that. Of course, the more you sell to your customers, the more experience you'll have with them, the better you understand what kind of information you need to put in front them for them to move from being someone who was not interested at all to someone who is dying to buy your products.
Vinay Koshy:
Yep, absolutely. The other thing you spoke of was this idea of getting fairly well-known people in your space, in the marketing space, of course, Russell Brunson and Jay Abraham amongst others, to lend credibility and social proof. Would that be correct?
Gianni Cara:
Yeah, that's really helpful as well, for sure. If you've got one of those guys, try to do it on video because it's really helpful for your brand.
Vinay Koshy:
Certainly. I think that's the way a lot of summits or conferences are going. Especially given the circumstances we find ourselves in, they are all going virtual. Really the idea, if I'm not mistaken, I'd like to hear your input of this, is really to build that credibility and social proof. But are there other elements to it that you have gleaned from your experience?
Gianni Cara:
You mean in regards to the podcast?
Vinay Koshy:
With regards to virtual summits, yeah.
Gianni Cara:
Yeah, I never done one myself, but I've got clients of mine-
Vinay Koshy:
[inaudible 00:27:47]
Gianni Cara:
... contributing to other people's summits. I think it's a great experience. That's the thing, people who are listening to podcasts, people who are joining those summits, they are actually spending their time listening to it, watching it. If you think about it, we are in a time where attention is really, really hard to get. If you look at podcasts and those summits, people are actually spending one hour of their time listening to it.
Vinay Koshy:
Yep, exactly.
Gianni Cara:
Right? Where else can you grab people's attention and retain their attention for such a long period of time?
Vinay Koshy:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Gianni Cara:
Sometimes that's even enough to get them to a sale, because if they are having a real problem and they listen to a one-hour episode where you basically deliver so much value, it's really probable they will end up checking you out and working with you.
Vinay Koshy:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Certainly. Yeah. I think this whole idea of really grabbing attention through podcast and virtual summits and things is valuable, given the times that we are in. But I think the key feature of a podcast and more so than a video anything else, is the engagement. Because like you were saying, a half hour to an hour listening with your earbuds on is an almost incredible amount of engagement that you have with customers.
Gianni Cara:
Yeah, it's ridiculous. It's really ridiculous. Even if you have 100 listeners, it's still worth it. That's something that people don't understand, right?
Vinay Koshy:
Yeah.
Gianni Cara:
Of course, you want to keep growing and you want to get to the 10K downloads a month, you want to get to the 20K downloads a month, but if you're patient enough, some day you'll get there. But even if you're just six months in and you just have a 100 listeners, these are very engaged listeners, and maybe out that 100 people you might close five of them. That could be already a lot of money in the bank.
Vinay Koshy:
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. We've got things like podcasts, but I would imagine they're sitting on the top of your funnel. Would that be correct?
Gianni Cara:
Yeah, that's correct, Vinay.
Vinay Koshy:
What are the piece of content that you would use to build up the middle and, I guess, the bottom part of the funnels? Are there specific pieces that you're looking for, other than the ads that we've talked about using on Facebook and Instagram?
Gianni Cara:
Yeah, I mean, it's more about the content really. Most of the time, middle and top, they interchange between themselves. At the top, of course, you might want to use more about values, more about your company, more about that initial conversation. And when you get the middle, you start educating them a little more, so you might provide how-to stuff at the middle, right?
Vinay Koshy:
Right.
Gianni Cara:
Maybe at the top you might give them more the why, right, type of content.
Vinay Koshy:
Yeah.
Gianni Cara:
Bottom is really lead magnets. It's a book, if you have a book, to sell a book, or if you have any other digital asset. You actually want to get them into your email list, right?
Vinay Koshy:
Right. Yeah.
Gianni Cara:
That's the core thing. Because once they are in your email list, it's much easier to sell them your high ticket offers. The one way I do that with podcasting that I find really, really effective is to provide them content upgrades. That could be something super easy like just a one-page PDF with actionable tips from the episode. Right, so we're having this conversation right now and you say, "Okay, there were five to six things that Gianni said that were really great. I think if people don't have the time to listen to the episode or maybe they just want a souvenir or maybe they just want something that they can use to implement what they just listened to, then you invite them to check your website and get that content upgrade. And, of course, you ask their emails in exchange for that.
Vinay Koshy:
Certainly. Okay. Content upgrades, yeah, certainly great. So the idea of a content upgrade would be to make it specific to the piece of content that they are consuming, would that be correct?
Gianni Cara:
Exactly. It's not something general, but is something that is directly related to the content you just created. People started using that on blogs. So you would read a blog post and then if you wanted a little more about that specific topic, then there would be a content upgrade on that blog post. But now it's also really effective for podcasting, because instead of taking notes throughout the podcast, people just want to listen and relax. You can give people that experience by delivering to them the content upgrade once they are done with the episode.
Vinay Koshy:
Certainly. Okay. I like the way that you're nurturing people through the funnel in terms of the content. Could we potentially flip it over and think about it not just in terms of content but in terms of experience that they, well, experiencing for a lack of a better term, and think about how do we want to make people feel as they progress through the funnel? Because for me, I think one of the key things that distinguishes any brand over another is the experience. And if so, how do you think about it? I've begun to formulate a particular way of thinking, but I'd be interested to hearing about how you think about people's experiences through the funnel.
Gianni Cara:
Yeah, I totally agree with you, and I think the most thing for the experience, in my personal opinion, is to first respect your audience. Most marketers when I say that, they will say, "Yeah, of course I respect." But when you look at their funnels, you realise that they are not really expecting them. What I mean about that is basically you are listening to people. You are actually delivering content and you are seeing their behaviours. If you are providing them a certain type of content and they're not engaging with it or they never actually asked to receive that, you are doing a bad job, right?
Vinay Koshy:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Gianni Cara:
And you can do that with technology, right? Even in the beginning with Facebook ads, if you are talking about a certain topic and people are not watching your videos, they are telling you that they are not interested in that topic, move them to a different topic, right?
Vinay Koshy:
Right.
Gianni Cara:
Same thing with emails, right?
Vinay Koshy:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Gianni Cara:
I mean, some of my clients, they have affiliates, they have memberships, they have coaching programmes, they have a series of different products that they are trying to sell. Now, they could create one nurturing series and try to sell them all, but you're not being respectful to your audience if you are doing that. So I think the first thing is segmentation, and I would start right away. As soon as they sign up to your list, try to identify, okay, what differentiates one customer to another? Is that a problem they are facing? Is that the size of their companies? Is the revenue that they are creating every year? Try to identify what really differentiate those people and respect where they are. Because if you are trying to push them a product that is $7 or it's $100 a month but they are currently in a position where their problem is actually a $3,000 a month thing, then you are just wasting their time sending emails and wasting their attention.
Gianni Cara:
I think it's really important to always deliver your content based on behaviour. Ask them, "Do you want to receive that content? Do you want to be updated every week about my podcast?" Tell them what's the value. "Here's the value of receiving a weekly email from me about a podcast. But if you are not interested, you can click here, and you'll never receive an email about a podcast again." The thing is most people are afraid about that, right? Because you have a 5,000 list, and you want to make sure that you reach out to all 5,000 people. What you don't realise is that if you keep sending people emails that they don't want, after six months to one year, that 5,000 email list, only 10% will be actually engaging with your content, right?
Vinay Koshy:
Yep.
Gianni Cara:
And you have people like Andrew Shapiro who in the past worked with different clients and he had list of 300 people, and he had conversion rates of 40%. Conversion rate, I'm not talking about open rates, close to 40%. He sold way more than people who had list of 100,000 people. I think being respectful, listening, and having triggers based on behaviour is super important to deliver a really good experience to the people who are following you.
Vinay Koshy:
Certainly, okay. One of the things I like to do is to get personal with people so that I understand their specific problems. Just to give an example, when I used to work for a SaaS company before SaaS was a thing, I would get people into a workshop. The idea behind the workshop was not to demonstrate the product but rather to provide specific marketing strategies for each of the people in the room, so that they were essentially walking away with a plan to virtually 10X their investment and even network with some of the people to start co-creating marketing plans as well. I don't know if-
Gianni Cara:
That's a lot of value right out the gate, right?
Vinay Koshy:
Exactly. I think that's something that, at least in some of the experiences that I've had, is often missing in that there is very little personal interaction. I was wondering, I know lead magnets and things can be valuable, but at some point before and after a transaction, is there a quick win or a easy win that you are able to deliver to potential clients?
Gianni Cara:
I think depending from client to client. I like to work with people who love what they are doing, who actually believe in their products and are not just trying to make a buck, because these are the people who will go the extra mile like we're seeing here. Sometimes, just to give you an example, last week something like that happened. We had three or four different people asking one of my clients the same question, and I saw that as an opportunity, right?
Vinay Koshy:
Yeah.
Gianni Cara:
So I said, "We have four people asking the same questions, why don't we get those four people on a call with my client?" which they would probably need to pay a few thousand dollars to be able to afford that call, "and we can stream that to our Facebook group as well." Right?
Vinay Koshy:
Yeah.
Gianni Cara:
So this guy, they just ask the question in email but they really expected to get on a call with my client and actually go over their problem. It was also beneficial to the rest of the people because we could stream it to the Facebook group. In that way more people also had that value. But in that moment, my client was talking directly to those people. You have to be willing to those things from time to time. You have to love what you're doing, you have to believe in your products and your services. You have to believe that what you are doing is actually creating an impact on your marketing, on your community, otherwise, you'd never do that, right?
Vinay Koshy:
Yep.
Gianni Cara:
Like that unscalable things that I was talking for the startups. I mean, it's funny because when you talk to a lot of startups, they get super excited about the tools, about the hacks, about the trends, about what they can do with technology. Technology is amazing, and it really helps you to, like I was saying before, deliver an amazing experience, but still I think you have to feel your market. You have to be there with them and do some scalable stuff that we actually get closer to them. That's the only real way to create that customer avatar that we were talking in the beginning.
Gianni Cara:
Because these are the conversations that you have that you actually see that what you are providing is really creating value. You get people to actually open themselves up and provide you the information that you will never get by just sending them a form or anything like that.
Vinay Koshy:
Sure. Yeah. I think you just said something there that is a lot of value, especially to listeners in that sales funnel... Usually the term sales funnel, at least to me, can be a little artificial, impersonal. But you just mentioned the word community. If you look at sales funnels as a process of building out a community, I think that lends a much more personal dynamic to the entire exercise. Would that be correct?
Gianni Cara:
I agree, yeah. One of the things we usually do is if you have a podcast, most of the time, the way people are going to communicate with you is just by emailing you. But I think it's also worth creating a community for your podcast listeners. It could be a Facebook group, it could be whatever you feel like doing. But just get people a place where they can actually interact with you. It's crazy. I mean, this client of mine that I was telling you in the beginning is in the home service industry, we managed to build such a brand for himself that when our sales guys get on a phone to sell the membership group, it's always like, "Oh, what's the main thing you want from this membership group?" You know what people respond? They just say, "I want access to Tony." So they are willing to pay $400 a month just to have access to an individual. That's crazy. That's how it is, people really want to connect. People really want to part of something. If you can provide that to them, they will pay for it.
Gianni Cara:
And it's good because when people start joining those communities, they start feeling more accountable about themselves as well, because they want to share their views, they want to share whatever is happening in their business and they start feeling a kind of pressure to actually do better. In a way, even if they are not engaging with the training insides of the memberships, even if they are not taking full advantage of everything you offer, just by being there and being inspired and being held accountable in a way, they are already gaining a lot from those communities for sure.
Vinay Koshy:
Certainly. Yep. Yep. I completely there. Time is fast getting away from us, let's see if we can squeeze in a couple of more questions. We talked a little bit about technology. We talked about Facebook and Instagram and emails and things, but are there any other pieces of technology that you would recommend we look at? On the flip side of that, how do we ensure that we're not getting deep into technology blocked, because it's very easy to subscribe to a bunch of things that we don't necessarily use completely or need?
Gianni Cara:
True, and then the bill comes the end of the month and you say, "Well, what's this thing here?"
Vinay Koshy:
Correct.
Gianni Cara:
I know what you mean. Yeah, I guess if you're using a sales funnel, of course, you got to either understand how to run Facebook ads or Instagram ads or whatever, YouTube ads or whatever channels you are using. If you're not really familiar with that, usually I recommend having someone who can help you with. But you are the guy who understands better your customers, so even if you cannot pay for a copywriter, give yourself a chance to write something. In terms of the tech stuff, on the other side, I would say you probably need some tool like ClickFunnels. You have two options, basically, right? You can have different tools for the funnel, for the sales page, and then another tool for email marketing, then another tool for CRM, and you start integrating all of that technology. Or you can take something like Kartra or Group Funnels, and they have everything in one place. So you don't need to integrate it, it's already integrated within the technology.
Gianni Cara:
Now, this sounds easier but sometimes it's not, because sometimes they have so many things inside of their own products that it's hard to actually navigate and figure things out. Now, if you are looking for the technology, what I usually suggest clients is, first make sure is the technology that is the market for a while. You don't want to get that latest funnel tool that you pay nothing for it but then after three months you have to find another one because that was continued. So make sure it's a tool that is already in the market for a while. Second thing, make sure it's easy to use. Like ClickFunnels is super easy to use, especially because they provide templates. So ActiveCampaign, same thing. If you're creating email sequences, ActiveCampaign will give you a lot of different templates so you don't start from scratch. You can take something and flick, and that's 10 times easier than just having to do it all yourself.
Gianni Cara:
The third thing, I guess, is customer service. Make sure they have a good customer service. Because whenever you need to ask a question or whenever you need to figure something out, you want to make sure that you can send an email or you have a live chat that will help you solve your problem in a few minutes or maximum one day, right? I've used tools in the past that it didn't have a good customer service and sometimes just to get something done, it would take you a week or two just because there's back and forth. Time after time, it takes one or two days for people to reply to you and that's definitely not where you want to be.
Vinay Koshy:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Okay. Certainly. Also, with this idea of incorporating technology and building out your sales funnel, how should we go about measuring the progress that people are making in the sales funnel, and most importantly, if it's working for you, so that then we can then look at optimising the whole thing or certain sessions of it?
Gianni Cara:
Yeah, that's a good question. I like to think about business as systems, right?
Vinay Koshy:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Gianni Cara:
I think the mistake most people make is they like to think about individual assets. And they think, "Oh my God, the conversion for sales page is at 8%, so this is definitely not working, or we need to improve the sales page right away." But maybe that 8% is not that high, maybe you could get to 12. But if you're getting the right people inside your funnel and those are the people who end up being able to pay for high ticket offers, then maybe that 8% is working fine. Because if you try to add more promises to your sales page, you try to sound more like an incredible offer when it's... It's a good offer but you're over-promising and under-delivering, then you're going to have a problem when it gets to the back-end, and you'll probably not be able to sell to a lot of the people who bought your stuff in the front-end.
Gianni Cara:
So it's important to think of it as a system. Sometimes it's a lot about numbers, of course, but marketing is part science, is part art, in my point of view. So it's important that you understand also and you make some decisions with your gut. Even if you're looking at the numbers, you try to take the number as a story, what is the story that this number is telling me, right?
Vinay Koshy:
Right.
Gianni Cara:
Of course, if my conversion rate is 0,5, then it's something wrong. The number's telling me that I need to improve my copywriting on that page. But if it's not that bad, starting, "Who are the people who I'm getting in my emails? Are they responsive? Are they the kind of people that I want for the long-term? What's the customer lifetime value that I'm gaining from those customers?"
Vinay Koshy:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Gianni Cara:
So it's important to think a little deeper than just the numbers you have in front of you and think of it more like a system, where everything is connected. The Facebook ads, the podcast, the sales page, the email list, your products, your service, these are all connected in a way. The main thing you're trying to do is provide a great experience to your customers and attract the customers.
Gianni Cara:
So, of course, run a lot of avatars, test the headlines, test the emails on the ad, test your sales page, make it short, make it long, tell different stories, see which ones resonate best with your customer. But always keep in mind that it's a system, it all works together. So don't try to make something much better that will damage the rest.
Vinay Koshy:
Certainly. This has been brilliant, Gianni. Is there any other aspect of sales funnel models that we should have look at or we didn't mention but you feel people should be aware of?
Gianni Cara:
I think the main thing is, like I was saying, you don't really need a top copywriter to start putting yourself out there. If you already have content that people are resonating with it, you can just start amplifying that content to that cold audience that still don't know you and get them to engage with you, see which ones are working best. And then from that, you start thinking about getting them to a sales pitch, right?
Vinay Koshy:
Right.
Gianni Cara:
This is much easier than trying to write a copy that is so amazing that you'll be able to make the math work for you. You don't need the math to work for you straight away, you can build little by little the building blocks of your brand so that when they get to that offer, your conversion rate go through the roof and you start attracting the right customers. So I guess that's the main takeaway I would like people to get today.
Vinay Koshy:
Excellent.
Gianni Cara:
If you're already creating content, you don't need to be the best media buyer and the best copywriter to be able to create something. Think about it more as a brand. Get people to engage with the content you already know is working and let Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube decide for you when is the right time to actually get those people into your sales pitch.
Vinay Koshy:
Certainly. I couldn't agree more, using the content to drive the conversation, to put it quite simply. Gianni, where can people head to in order to find out more or to connect with you?
Gianni Cara:
The best place to connect is definitely LinkedIn. They can look me up, is Gianni Cara. That's G-I-A double N-I, Cara, C-A-R-A. They can check me out also on my website, brandcastlab.com. There we have some assets for people who want to start a podcast. They can download it. I'm not sure, I think it's 5,99 the ebook. But if people want the processes, it's a little more expensive. And of course, they can reach out to me if they are interested in learning more about branding funnels and how they can amplify their content so they can get higher impact and profits. They can reach out directly to me on LinkedIn, and we can schedule a call and talk about it.
Vinay Koshy:
Excellent. We'll include links to those in the show notes. Gianni, thanks so much for doing this.
Gianni Cara:
Thanks, Vinay. It was a pleasure to have this conversation with you today.
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- Check out BrandCast Lab
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