← Strategy Hour | Online Marketing for Business Growth
Strategy Hour | Online Marketing for Business Growth
938: Why I Avoided Evergreen Funnels for Years (And What Changed My Mind)
00:36:01
Learn why balancing evergreen funnels with live marketing can create a sales system that converts on autopilot.
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- [00:00]
Emily Williams
I have experienced a small business owner and creator in nearly every single niche that exists and everyone has something to teach. Everyone has knowledge that they can pass on to someone that is of value.
- [00:19]
Abigail Pumphrey
Welcome to the Strategy Hour podcast brought to you by Boss Project. I'm your host, Abigail Pumphrey and I'm dedicated to supporting online businesses. I don't believe in one right way to build a business. I'm here to help you build business your way. One that supports not only the life you have, but the life you want. I'm on a personal mission to help you become financially free. I'm taking all the lessons learned as I turned a layoff into a seven figure online business. I'm here to help you prioritize your life every step of the way. Whether you're creating your first digital product, growing an email list, or scaling an already profitable business. Settle in. It's time to talk strategy.
- [01:00]
Emily Williams
For actual years, I avoided Evergreen Funnels like the plague. I was always, always in live launch mode, always planning for this month's sales and never thinking about what was happening down the line. I was actively promoting and if I wasn't, I felt like my business was stalling. But let me tell you, that is the most stressful way you could possibly run a business. When I finally cracked the code on Evergreen Funnels. Oh, how to make them work without sacrificing engagement or live connection, it changed absolutely everything for me. I was able to get out of the live launch cycle, the never ending life launch cycle. And that's exactly what I'm teaching you how to do in Next level Funnels. I am helping you build an automated funnel that's going to continue to work for you all the time and show you how to balance that with live marketing so that you can turn it into a sales system that actually converts on autopilot. If you want to find out more about next level funnels and everything I'm teaching, head to bossproject.com funnels. Before I get into today's topic, I need to go on a side quest. Mostly because I need to know, am I the only one going through this or. Or is it just me? Is it truly just me? I don't think it is. I don't think it is. We have officially reached the point in our lives where we are bird watching people. I'm like, frankly, I'm embarrassed. I'm embarrassed my husband has turned into the bird guy.
- [02:56]
Abigail Pumphrey
Like he was already the fish guy.
- [02:58]
Emily Williams
And now he's also the bird guy. And I fear I'm Going to completely lose him to our yard. I started the problem. It was me. I saw this bird feeder that had a camera on it so that you could watch the birds eat.
- [03:18]
Abigail Pumphrey
I thought that sounded so cool.
- [03:20]
Emily Williams
We could see the kind of birds that ended up in our yard. We could get a better look at them. We could see their colors. Like, that just sounded so fun. And so last year for his birthday, I got my hands on one and he was like, a little bit skeptical at first, but nonetheless, we built like a custom post for it to go on. We hung it up and he started getting notifications. He was getting notifications every single day for the birds that were visiting. Well, since then, I don't even know how many other bird feeders he has gotten. He now, this is not to say we didn't previously have bird feeders. We did, but they were just like, they were there. He would fill them up. Sometimes a lot of the times they would end up empty. Like they. We got some bird visitors, but it was, it was nothing to, like, write home about. Y'all, we have so many birds. Bluebirds, blue jays, cardinals, starlings need to go. If you don't know, they need to go. Crows, a whole bunch of like, little birds. I don't even know what they're called. Now, granted, we're still technically like in winter season and so the kinds of birds that will come in the spring will be different. But we even found like a bird store. He made friends with the bird store guy who, like, his wife had, like, quit her job in healthcare so they could start this little store that is popping, mind you. We go in there and we are with every other mid-30s millennial in like a 25 minute area that have all turned into bird people. I. I don't know. It's. It's a wild adventure, but nonetheless, I just need to know if I'm the only one and I'm forced to, like, learn about bird species or if my husband is just niche and very specifically interested in nature.
- [05:30]
Abigail Pumphrey
Okay, back on track, guys.
- [05:33]
Emily Williams
Let's talk about why I avoided funnels. Why did I ignore them for so long? I think a lot of it came down to the fact that I felt like I had to always be selling. Like, if I wasn't selling, that I wasn't doing my job, that if I wasn't talking about my offers in real time, that I was going to lose momentum or lose customers or lose interest, that the people that I had gathered around were going to go away. It's sort of like the only equivalent I can think of is like, if you're from the Midwest, you know exactly what I'm talking about. You have a group of people over for dinner and then someone says bye. And bye never means bye in the Midwest. You go on to talk about five more subjects, potentially for an additional two hours. Like you just don't stop talking and people don't know how to like let go and move on. I think it's just baked into my DNA to act like that. And so even on social media I'll say something. And then in the same way I fear if I say nothing, all the people who ever loved or cared about me or liked the content I was producing were going to disappear. Could not be further from the truth, but nonetheless, that was a lot of what was fueling my mindset. I also felt like if I wasn't actively launching that, I was losing money. Like it was costing me something. And that's not completely untrue. There is absolutely opportunity cost to every single thing you do. But you have to understand what something is worth. And when it's the first time you've done something, you don't always know the answer. So you just have to take your best guess in where you should be prioritizing your time. I also think part of what fueled this is because I started with an agency is because I started with clients. Because in that world, when you have a client and you serve a client, unless you're on some kind of retainer, like if you're just working on project based work, one on one consulting, I don't care what kind of project it is, you do a project, you work on a project, you offboard a client, and you're not going to make more money until you get a new client in the door, right? So if you want to keep getting paid, you have to always be focused on client acquisition or getting people interested, getting people on your waitlist, getting people on sales calls. In the world of digital marketing, when you're selling your knowledge, it's not necessarily that untrue. But I was starting from scratch every single month. So the moment midnight struck and it was the first of the month, all of a sudden my books were zero and I had overhead, I had software, I had contractors. Eventually I had a team of employees that cost money. And I was always worried about how I was going to make my bills because I didn't want to have to pay for it myself because the money that was coming into the business was paying for my expenses and it was paying me. But in the beginning it wasn't giving me this, like, huge opportunity to save. I wanted to be saving personally. I wanted to be saving and investing personally. And so I wasn't necessarily keeping a ton of extra in the business to float things month to month. Now, for sure, I don't want to, like, give you this misconception that funnels were the only thing that fixed my life. They weren't. I mean, there was plenty of things I. I needed more support, I needed better systems. I needed to, like, give myself some grace. I need to work on my mindset. All of those things are true. I also built mrr, or what's called monthly reoccurring revenue, so that when the clock struck the first, that I would have a set amount that was nearly guaranteed to come in. And once I was able to get that to the point where it was covering expenses, there was a lot less weight. But I always felt like funnels were unattainable. Like, I didn't have a big enough audience, or even if I did have an audience, that I wasn't possibly going to be able to be engaging enough or create enough urgency. Or maybe somewhere in the back of my head, I thought, if I automate, I will lose this connection that I've built with my audience. I won't know them anymore. I won't know intimately the things going on in their life or their business. And my clients are freaking cool. Like, y'all are so interesting. I have people out there, they're working in wildlife rescue, they are working as a florist, they are in a health field, they are a coach, they are in law, they are in accounting. Like, I have experienced a small business owner and creator in nearly every single niche that exists. And everyone has something to teach. Everyone has knowledge that they can pass on to someone that is of value. But I think it's really easy to get caught in this rut that you're not good enough or you're not ready, or it's for them and not for you. Your business is too small. And that could just not be further from the truth. I was so focused on making enough to make my life work, to build stability, to build security, which I don't regret, by the way. Like, I don't regret being focused on getting to the point where I felt like my finances were stable. When you grew up with two parents on disability and then, like, nearly lost everything in your 20s, getting to the point where you know you can feed your family and pay all your bills and actually save for your future, like, that is massively Huge. But I think I could have gotten there a lot faster if I had been building for my future and not just trying to make today work. I was stuck in a cycle of chasing today's sales instead of creating a system that could sell for me long term. Now, I'm sure there's a better analogy, but for the sake of symbolism, for the sake of you really understanding what I'm getting at, I need you to think about live launching, like sprinting. I love to sprint, by the way. I loved short distance running as a kid. So. Loved it. I was way better at shot put than I was a 60 yard anything or 100 yard anything. But nonetheless, sprinting is intense, it's fast, and if you go full out, you're going to burn out real quick. You only have so much energy and you're putting it all in up front. You're not pacing yourself. Right. If you were running a marathon, you'd be pacing yourself. Now. I think it's really easy to think, well, then Evergreen funnels are a marathon. No, no, they're not. You're building a machine. Evergreen Funnels are a machine. You still got to keep running regardless. Okay? You still got to run your business. So, sure, you got to figure out how to move from sprinting season into marathon running so that you can be a long distance runner and keep going and keep running your business. That is you. But what if part of the business was run by a machine? Let's talk simple machines, right? Evergreen Funnels can be a lot like a train. Once you build the tracks, it's going to keep moving whether you're pushing it or not. Now, I realize trains need fuel and all the things. Well, sure, so do funnels. Okay? Funnels don't just work flawlessly on their own. They will fire on their own. But you have to, like, give them traffic. You have to give them coal, right? Our trains still run on coal. I actually don't know the answer to that. Someone should school me the machine. Regardless of what kind of machine it's not, set it and forget it. It can still break. It's still going to need maintenance. You still got to give it energy, some kind of energy. It doesn't matter what kind of energy, but it needs energy. Traffic is what fuels most funnels. Okay? But I gave myself this complex, that I wasn't smart enough, that I didn't know how, or that I wasn't going to be able to figure it out, or that it had to be so complicated. I think that was a big part of it, honestly. Like if I really, really break down why I didn't pursue them sooner. I think so much of it came down to thinking I needed another piece of software or another piece of tech, or another thing I had to install, or another that I had to set up or another thing I had to learn how to do. And it doesn't have to be all that different. You can use simple systems, simple workflows, simple sequences that convert. I used to think success was all about guessing. Guessing how to market, guessing what to.
- [16:06]
Abigail Pumphrey
Charge, guessing what would actually move the needle. Turns out there's a better way. The co op is built on real, proven strategies.
- [16:14]
Emily Williams
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- [16:16]
Abigail Pumphrey
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- [16:41]
Emily Williams
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- [16:43]
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- [17:50]
Emily Williams
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- [17:52]
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- [18:31]
Emily Williams
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- [18:32]
Abigail Pumphrey
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- [18:46]
Emily Williams
I just made it out in my head to be so much harder than that. And a huge part of it was this constant need to reinvent the wheel. Like, I was treating every launch like it was brand new. Every page was new, every email was new, every post was new, every graphic was new, Every, every everything was new. Now, I could blame a brain injury. When you don't remember what you did or you don't know where to find it. That definitely makes it hard. But many years later, a lot of great systems and an incredible team that helps me stay far more organized. I don't have to reinvent the wheel every time I launch. If I'm launching the same product, I can go back and find very easily emails and posts that convert it. I can see the exact language that I used. I can even copy the email word for word, potentially even the formatting, assuming we're talking about the same email system. And it's really easy to get caught up in this, like, idea that if you do something the same, that people will just, like, start tuning it out. The thing is, if you don't remember what you did, they have no clue. No one is consuming as much content as you're putting out there. No one. You are the only one who sees all of it. And if you can't remember what you sent a week ago, neither can they now. Maybe they open an email and there's some inkling of them that was like, this feels familiar. Is that actually a problem or is it reinforcing something that matters? Is it helping them process something that they set down? Maybe they got stuck in the middle of doing it and they didn't move forward because life got in the way and now they're ready. Like, what would that look like to not always be starting over now? I also think part of it. I love to tell stories. Like, some feel more important than others. And there's certain stories that I come back to again and again and again. But I love, like, taking from things that are happening right now. You know, an experience. I just had something I just saw Something I just witnessed. And I'll talk about it and I'll share about it. You know, maybe I saw a quote, Maybe I read a book. Maybe I went to a conference. Maybe I was sitting by the ocean. Maybe I was at home with my dogs. Like, you pull from these moments that are happening in real life and you're relating them to something that's relevant to your audience. You do that all the time. And I think there was something about building a funnel that made it feel like I had to remove those things, that made it feel personal, that made it feel like I was having the conversation, that I wasn't just some robot selling them things needlessly. But Evergreen doesn't have to feel impersonal. It can still feel engaging. It can create urgency without fakeness. It can feel like a conversation, not some automated script. I let go of so much to get to the point that I was comfortable even pursuing Evergreen. I think a lot of it was my own fear. I don't know, even, like, if I really dig deep, like a little bit, it's really easy to say that I didn't have time or didn't slow down enough. I mean, which is not untrue. Like, when you're live launching constantly and you don't pause to, like, take what works and automate it and you just keep going. Like, obviously it's not that you don't have the time. You just immediately moved on. That. That is truly an issue. But I think if, like, we were to actually, actually, actually go to the root of it, I think there was some part of me that felt like I didn't deserve to make money without working. Does that even make sense? Like, to this point in my life, I had always exchanged my labor for dollars in every scenario, regardless of, you know, when I worked in a movie theater or when I worked retail or when I worked in the food industry, before my professional career, before I worked in corporate. But, you know, in. In an agency, like, I've lived so many lives, my friends, and every single one of those experiences, my labor resulted in dollars. And I think there was some element of me that knew that Evergreen had the opportunity to make money without more work. And I think I felt unworthy or that I was somehow taking advantage of. Of a situation. That's some you need to go therapy over, truly, because you are worthy. Just because your business is functioning without you in it doesn't mean you're like, taking advantage of someone else. If anything, your help solving their problems in the moment, they need them solved, not them Waiting around for you to get back to them. They get to act now. Like, how many times have you been at your computer after hours, late at night and you have this specific thing on your mind and you Google it, or you search on social or you find this article and you go down a rabbit hole and you want to solve it right then. I don't care how big or small, personal or business related it is, but you want to solve it now because we've built this culture where everything is all the time. I also like, think there was a part of me that liked the idea of this tradition where I was forcing people to like, slow down, to like take a breather. Like, I was very, very, very vocal about my working hours. I was vocal about when I was available. I was setting boundaries out loud. But my boundaries are not the same as other people. Not to mention there's an entire world that has all these different time zones. So my working hours are not the same as the people in Australia or as the people in the United Kingdom or the people of Greenland or the Netherlands, or like, I could keep going. It's not. And so why am I preventing someone from solving a problem now? Now you could sit here and come back at me and you're like, well, it sounds like the problem isn't live launching versus evergreen. The problem is, is my offer available publicly or not? And that's partially true. Are you preventing the sale is a solid question you should be asking yourself. Like, could someone go buy your things whether you're there or not? That's a solid question. But an evergreen funnel is providing someone an experience without you being present. And some of that can be sales focus, but not all of it has to be. And it can be tied to something that potentially started out as free. Now I have two kinds of funnels in my business. I have funnels attached to free offers. Whether that's a opt in, that is simply like a PDF that gets emailed to someone. Or maybe it's more of an experience like my one day launch challenge. Someone is signing up for something. A funnel follows that. It's a follow up feedback loop essentially. And somewhere along the way, and in multiple touch points, selling to them, selling is simply sharing how someone can solve their own problems. Okay. Now the other kind of funnel I have in my business is actually what I would consider an onboarding funnel. So when someone purchases a product, it depends on the product, but sometimes they're getting just one follow up, sometimes they're getting a series of follow ups. Now the series of follow UPS could have opportunities for upsells. It doesn't have to, but more than anything, I want them to have a good experience with the thing they purchased. And so some of my funnels are actually not selling at all. They're simply enhancing someone's experience. So if someone does buy something, they're getting reminded about it, they're getting like little behind the scenes about it. They're getting little tips and tricks or things maybe they hadn't thought of at all, or prompts to start a conversation. In my community, like there are so many additional ways funnels can be used, and I think so often we assume they're only for selling. And that's not true. That is just one mechanism. I love a hybrid model. I have preached it from the rooftops. I love these elements of live events and workshops. I love not always launching. I like doing live content like posting on social or putting together a podcast, but then turning people on to my evergreen offers to get daily sales. And because they exist, I can focus more on freely teaching because I can drive sales to things that I've already put time and effort into and I can continue to give away my knowledge for free. I've doubled down on things like SEO and podcasting, but I've also came across more ways that I could bring in and create consistent, high quality leads. And some of that is with partnerships, collaborations, where I'm creating this mutually beneficial experience that allows me to generate a result for the sponsor, but also create opportunities to connect with their audience. I want you to ask yourself, are you stuck in launch mode because you feel this need to constantly chase the sale? Have you not set up evergreen funnels because you feel like you don't deserve to make money without quote unquote working for it? Do you feel like they won't work for you because your business is built different? Are you willing to test and tweak? Are you willing to slow down enough to take the things that are working and automate them? If you're willing to do that work, I want to help you see results. I want to help you build and optimize something that over time is going to help you generate daily sales. Getting to the point that I can make daily evergreen sales that pays my bills, that pays for my team, that pays the overhead for my company and allows for the long term longevity of this business. I cannot tell you the kind of weight that takes off. It's not about replacing the live marketing. It's about creating consistency so you're not constantly starting over. If you're tired of this like launch roller coaster with these high highs and these low freaking lows. Then I want to teach you how to build a funnel that works inside next level funnels. It's how I take what's working in live marketing and turn it into an automated system that actually converts. You can find out more@bossproject.com funnels and if you are in full on live launch mode right now or you have an evergreen funnel that's working for you, I want to hear about it. Like where are you at in your marketing season? Send me a DM over on Instagram. I'd love to hear from you and hear what you have cooking.
- [33:29]
Abigail Pumphrey
Hey, a few quick favors before you leave. I'd love if you'd share today's episode, send it to a friend who needs to hear it and post on social. You can show us where you're listening from, your favorite takeaway, or why someone else should listen. Be sure to tag me, Abigail says and bossproject so we can share it.
- [33:46]
Emily Williams
Okay.
- [33:47]
Abigail Pumphrey
Second favor to get podcast updates and all the behind the scenes news from Boss Project. I'd love if you'd join my VIP list. Just head to bossproject.com signup to make sure I have all your contact details. Really love this show. It would mean so much to me.
- [34:02]
Emily Williams
If you'd leave a rating and review.
- [34:04]
Abigail Pumphrey
It not only helps more listeners find the show, but allows us to bring on quality sponsors so we can keep bringing you this valuable content for free. Thanks so much for listening.
- [34:13]
Emily Williams
Until next time.