Many solopreneurs are being indoctrinated by digital marketers who sell them on the idea that they need a sales/marketing “funnel”.

A typical funnel works like this:

1. You see an Ad (for example on Facebook or Instagram), or receive an email, and it’s about a wonderful “free” thing… free video series, email course, or an intriguing quiz.
2. You can only get that “free” thing by giving them your email address. This is known as “the opt-in.”
3. You’ll get a series of emails giving you “value” in the form of free advice or teachings, but what you don’t realize is that it’s all designed to “indoctrinate” you. They want you to buy a specific thing they’re going to sell you soon.
4. You then get an email that brings you to a sales webpage (usually quite long!) or sometimes you’re invited to a “free” webinar that tries to sell you on the thing they were intending for you to buy, from the very beginning. The original intention was hidden from you until now.
5. You then get cleverly-written email reminders until you buy. It might include scarcity tactics (“Buy in the next 2 hours to get this amazing bonus!”)

The idea of a “funnel” is to squeeze or manipulate people through a cleverly designed persuasion process.

There are many variations of this. You might see an innocent “5 day challenge” to change your life, which then puts you into a Facebook group that is designed to build excitement for you to buy their program.

Or it might be a long webinar that is cleverly-designed to hook you into buying. Sometimes the webinar appears to be just in time for you! What they don’t reveal is that the webinar is auto-playing (they should just call it a video!) and they only make it appear as if it is an event.

I purposely don't use sales funnels in my business. In this episode I discuss this, and also offer what I consider to be a better alternative...

Comment here:

https://youtube.com/live/k6RvWJZ3roo

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit georgekao.substack.com