What is a Sales Funnel and How to Use it?

So, you have heard of the One Funnel Away Challenge and you keep wondering what is a sales funnel? In the last year, Julie Stoian and her business partner came up with feminine sales funnels in the form of Funnel Gorgeous. If you ever worked with a business coach on any level one thing that is common for them to mention is using a sales funnel. Let me know if this sounds familiar. You started your business in the last 1-3 years or you decided to turn your blog into a business in that time period. However, you feel stagnant because you know that you need to scale things up to take things to the next level but you are not sure how to do it. Everyone and their cat talks about automating parts of your business to make it scalable but you have no idea what that means. The truth is that it is very easy to get lost with all this terminology especially if you have no idea what it means. In this post, you will learn what is a sales funnel and how you should be using it to scale your business. This post is a 4-part series where you will learn what is a sales funnel, types of funnels, sales funnel templates and webinar funnels. Disclosure: Please note that this post may contain affiliate links which means that if you buy one of my recommended products I get paid a commission for sharing the link at no additional cost to you.  I only recommend products that I have tried myself and have experienced success. The Sales Funnel Explained Over the last few years I have been racking my brain to try and find another name for a sales funnel. Believe it or not I still have not found a word that really incorporate the meaning of sales funnels except to say it is part of the sales process. If you think of the sales funnel like developing a relationship with the person or company selling the product or service then it is easier to understand. In simple terms a sales funnel is the mechanism that you go through as a buyer to build a relationship with the seller. The three key elements of this relationship is the know, like and trust factors. You can find sales funnels everywhere you shop. A great example would be a blog post which is normally preceded by a post on social media or a Pinterest pin. So, think of it as the steps you go through as a buyer before taking out your credit card to make a purchase. The end goal of course for the seller is for you to make a purchase of their product or service. As the buyer your end goal is for you to solve a problem or challenge in your life. Sales Funnel Examples To help you to really appreciate and understand what sales funnels are for any business let's look at a few examples. Let's use the popular example of Amazon. Everyone and their children have Amazon Prime right? Amazon example You know that you need to buy a tripod stand since you will be doing more photoshoots this year. So, you head over to your favourite photography blog. The blogger mentions several options to choose from. You click-through and look at the reviews. There's one that looks fine so you add it to your basket and the phone rings. That phone call from your sister lasted forever and you need to cook...