Now here’s a summary of Chapter 11 – “The Ultimate Funnel”.
This Chapter is the longest Chapter in The Iceberg Effect book and, therefore, this blog post is even more of a summary than all of the previous ones. To get the full benefit of what this great Chapter reveals you must acquire your own copy of the book. You will find more details of how, and why you should do that in the next, and last, blog in this series of posts.
There are several different types of funnel that fulfill several different purposes, but at least the first 3 “stages of the one outlined in this Chapter are aimed at most of us who are still in the “Connector Phase”. Russell Brunson has named it “The Ultimate Funnel”, and Dean has spoken about it in front of 3,000 entrepreneurs at Russell’s famous, and expensive annual event, “Funnel Hacking Live”.
There are 5 “stages” in “The Ultimate Funnel”
- Lead Capture
- Customer Acquisition
- Value Maximization
- Recurring Revenue
- Premium Products
The chapter describes the contents of these stages in some detail, emphasizing the links to matters raised in earlier chapters of the book, especially Chapter 5, “The Four Core Areas of Focus. It took me four blog posts to summarize Chapter 5 properly. Traffic, Capture, Follow-up, and Sales System.
One interesting point raised in the “Value Maximization” section of the chapter is that the price of the upsells offered as additional products to the main front-end free plus shipping offer, not only should be congruent to the front-end product but should be priced at a level to recoup the cost of acquiring the customer. If this is achieved, it means that all money received from any sales made in the “back-end” of the business is pure profit.
To operate the final 2 stages of “The Ultimate Funnel” on his or her own, a marketer has to move from “The Connector Phase” to The “Creator Phase”, or even, in the final stage, to “The Commander Phase”. (Click here to be directed to the appropriate blog post).
The “Recurring Revenue” section of the chapter, outlines Dean’s experiences of making regular (usually) monthly income from subscribers who attend a long term series of instructional classes. The final stage, concerns the importance of discussing the sale of high-ticket premium products, or services, valued at $1,000 upwards, on the telephone with prospective customers. Selling on the telephone is a time-consuming and an acquired skill, and may have to be sub-contracted out to people with the required skills. This fact, together with the difficulties of running your own membership scheme, means that for the majority of us, including me, who just want to stay in the “Connector phase”, need a mentor, who will perform these more involved functions for us.
Cheers
Phil