Sales Funnels are a key marketing tool for online businesses. They are designed to move a customer on a journey and in this post I will be sharing how even though I knew the King of Sales Funnels, Mr Russell Brunson, was trying to encourage me to buy more – I still fell for the power of the sales funnel and bought more than I had intended on.

Please note: Some of the links below are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I may earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you.

 

For while I have been listening to Russell Brunson’s podcast ‘Marketing In Your Car’ (now known as ‘Marketing Secrets’), which he records in his car (usually on his way to work).

If you have never heard of Russell Brunson before he is the CEO / Founder of ClickFunnels, which is a software tool that allows you to make online sales funnels. Most of the episodes explore relate to an experience he has had or something he is working on. Due to his business that means the focus is mainly on marketing, business, sales and of course, funnels.

A few weeks ago, I went on a mega-binging session where I listened to lots of episodes back to back. At the end of every episode, there is an advert to buy the Expert Secrets Book and I decided I wanted to buy a copy for myself.

Now whilst you can buy the book on Amazon, Russell also sells the book on his own site expertsecrets.com where he send the book for free and you pay for shipping $7.95 (in the USA) and $14.95 (internationally). Since I love to see how people market their books I thought it would be interesting to buy directly from him and then be able to analyse his funnel.

To my surprise even though I knew Russell was going to try and suck me into his funnel, I still fell for it.

Within minutes Russell managed to turn my interest in buying a book for $14.95 into spending $98.95.

 

WANT TO KNOW HOW RUSSELL BRUNSON DID IT?

Step 1

The first thing I was asked to do was fill in my shipping details, which I did.

Step 2

I was presented with an upgrade

BEST DEAL! Get BOTH the Expert Secrets books PLUS DotcomSecrets AND 4 Other Unadvertised Booklets. You get all of that for $37 + Shipping.

Now I am a big reader so my thinking was if I enjoyed the Expert Secrets book I would most likely like to read the DotCom Secrets. However, what I was interested in was the 4 other unadvertised booklets.

This is a great example of how you can use curiosity in your marketing. Along with the very vague description of (AND 4 Other Unadvertised Booklets) was this picture.

That was it! There was NO INFORMATION about what was included in the booklets. I even tried to have a google to see what was included, but I couldn’t find something.

So it felt like now or never (Another great tactic – URGENCY). I had two choices either buy it now or leave it and maybe never see those booklets again. So of course, I upgraded.

Step 3

I was asked to enter my credit card details, which I did.

Step 4

Below the credit card details section there was a flashing arrow offering ANOTHER upgrade entitled ‘Story Selling Secrets’

Story has been a major focus for me in 2018 and once again Russell used curiosity by keeping the information about ‘Story Selling Secrets’ very brief. The only thing I knew was that it originally costed $197 and had been reduced to $37.

So I paid for that too.

My final basket had a value $74 + shipping, which represented a grand total of $98.95. Remember I was signing up for a free book and expecting to spend $14.95 on the shipping.

 

In just minutes, Russell was able to increase my basket value by $84 or 561%

 

Can you imagine how much your business could benefit from increasing a customer basket by 561%? For every person that Russell manages to persuade to upgrade, just like it, it is like he sold another 5 books!

 

LESSONS I LEARNT FROM BEING SUCKED INTO RUSSELL BRUNSON’S BOOK FUNNEL

The reason I have written the blog post is because I wanted to share how powerful sales funnels are, how effective they can be and demonstrate the massive potential sales funnels have for increasing your sales within your business.

Too often entrepreneurs will ask me ‘How can I drive more traffic to my website?’ Instead of focusing on driving more traffic to your website, you should ensure you are making the most out of every lead.

Here are some things to consider:

• Do you have an entry-priced product that you can deliver with minimal effort to be the attractive start of your funnel?
• Can you be adding upsells onto your current offerings?
• Could you be adding a second upgrade offer?
• How can you create urgency in your sales funnels?
• How can you encourage curiosity about your offerings?

 

I really hope you have enjoyed this post and it has got you as excited as I am about sales funnels.

If you would like some support planning and creating your own sales funnels then get in touch.

If you would prefer to DIY your sales funnel then can start building your own sales funnels today with a 14-day free trial of CLICKFUNNELS. Click here to access your free trial. 

Fancy reading one of Russell’s books for yourself?

Buy a copy of the Dotcom Secrets book here.

Buy a copy of the Expert Secrets book here.