This is the very first of the Content Empire Takeover series and I specifically wanted to find a coach who was having issues with their sales funnel for getting coaching clients. After posting in one of my favourite communities, Maggie Giele was all over it and there was no looking back. I loved combining my creative strategies with hers to craft a *magical* (more on that later) funnel for her coaching package.
Meet Maggie Giele
Maggie Giele, MSc. is an award-winning business and marketing strategist, helping fiercely dedicated business owners slay strategies and build sustainable, scalable businesses. She was born in Prague, grew up in the US and Singapore, and now lives in Haarlem with her husband and her Aussiedoodle pup, Frodo. She is also the founder of Bosses in Europe, an online community for entrepreneurs in Europe to connect and collaborate and run international business events and retreats. You can check out her website here!
Why did she become a coach?
I've always been a strategist at heart – I have a Master's of Science in Marketing Strategy, and a background in business, so that's how I started my own business.
However, I decided to get trained as a coach too. If it was as simple as ‘just do it', we'd all be billionaires now! So often, it's not just about the strategy and tactics, but having the confidence of going in your own direction (even if no one else has done it yet), of having the steadfast belief in your vision to keep going, of not falling prey to comparisonitis and making you change your decisions or plans.
Strategy is so important – knowing and understanding your business foundations is key, from your ideal unicorn clients and what they want, to how to best connect with them, to your pricing and business model – but combine this with coaching?
Magic.
What does she love most about being a coach?
I love the in-depth connection and intimacy with my clients, but most of all, I love seeing the direct impact of working. Often, you can see the results of a conversation with a client straightaway as they implement something, try something new, or make a small adjustment, to big results! The fact that you matter and that you can see the results of what you do is simply magical.
State of Her Content Empire
Her Core Offer: Slay Your Strategy
Slay Your Strategy is a three-month strategy and coaching package. Bi-weekly sessions, unlimited access over Slack, action steps and check-ins for accountability, validation and guidance.
There are two types of ideal clients for this offer, broken down into Squires or Sorcerers:
Squires:
In business 0 – 18 months.
Need help with visibility, understanding clients, systems, where to focus.
Sorcerers:
In business 2-5 years.
Need help with scaling (who to hire, what to outsource) and higher impact strategy (we've tried all the things, where do we focus)
How is she currently getting clients for the package?
It's quite organic. Usually referrals, Facebook groups (including my own), or through my content, like Youtube. The client books a clarity call, they answer the questionnaire, we have a 30 min session. I either outline how I could help them achieve their next goal, or recommend them to someone else. The client then decides whether they'd like to work with me or not.
The main method of marketing the package and myself as a coach includes engagement in Facebook groups, newsletter, referrals, past clients. I consider my content as touch-points for strengthening those relationships (e.g. Instagram, blog, Youtube).
What isn’t working with her current strategy? What problem would she like a sales funnel to solve for her?
A funnel would help me have a steadier flow of inquiries. Now, it's based on how much time I spend on Facebook, which I'm cutting down on as I don't have that much time anymore.
Referrals are wonderful and tend to convert extremely well, but there's no control over this, so your business is forced to work in ‘seasons' of having a big influx of inquiries, making it challenging to onboard so many new clients while maintaining clear, intimate relationships, to slower seasons on inquiries.
The funnel would make my inquiry stream smoother and more stable, so I could have a longer waiting list (and thus, more income stability).
What are the goals for her sales funnel?
2 new Slay Your Strategy clients a month
What is holding her back from hitting that goal now?
I do hit that goal fairly often, but not every month. Because I've been so busy recently growing my team and community, and running in-person events, my marketing has dropped. I'm now batching more content for my Youtube channel and planning a podcast – it would be great to have a human-centric funnel for these new audience members to walk through, and a steadier flow of leads.
So, my own lack of time (“update welcome sequence has been in my Asana for 8 months”) is the major factor.
What do you already have in place in terms of sales funnels and automated email sequences?
I have a welcome/ nurture sequence that is in desperate need of a revamp.
The Power Hour
I think this one of the most fun sessions I’ve ever done. Maggie is so creative and brings a magical spin to everything she does.
We dove in right away and here were our biggest points of discussion and specifics for her sales funnel strategy!
Takeaway #1 – Her Unique Value Proposition
We dove into really differentiating a strategist from a coach and how she could leverage her hybrid-approach into her “secret sauce” and unique value proposition.
So ask yourself: What is unique about the way you deliver your service? What experience do you bring to the table that makes you different from what others are doing and can you leverage this into a unique value proposition (UVP)?
Takeaway #2 – Reverse-Engineering the Funnel Goals
Then we reverse-engineered her goals. She wants to bring in 2 new Slay Your Strategy coaching clients per month. Her typical close rate is over 90% so to reach her client goals (and to stay a little on the safe side), she’d only need to do 3 free discovery calls per month.
From that number, I was able to set some goals for the funnel both in terms of traffic and conversions:
- Assuming a 10-20% conversion rate in the funnel to a free discovery call, she’d need between 15-30 qualified leads per month entering the funnel.
- Assuming a 20-30% conversion rate of the freebie, she’d need to drive around 100-150 unique visitors to the freebie per month
So consider this: When you’re running a consult call funnel meaning that you’re closing the sale on a call, you want to reverse-engineer your goals based on your typical sales call close rate, the number of leads you need to convert into free calls and the amount of traffic you need.
Takeaway #3 – Increasing the Number of Discovery Calls
Another thing we discussed was increasing the call-to-actions and opportunities to book a free discovery call. More opportunities equal more calls booked.
So we identified a couple of easy placements to add these “book a discovery call” call-to-actions:
- At the end of her videos – Currently she does a ton of live videos and is starting up again her content strategy on YouTube. But she admittedly doesn’t include a ton of call-to-actions in her content. So she’s going to work on always include one clear call-to-action whether it’s to sign-up for her freebie or book a free call with her. I suggested testing and measuring the effectiveness of both.
- On her freebie thank-you page – Prospects will never be as excited about you as when they’re initially signed up. So we came up with a plan to put a short 10-15 minute coaching video with a discovery call booking link on her main funnel freebie thank you page.
Takeaway #4 – The Perfect Coaching Funnel Freebie
Next we chatted about what freebie to use or create for her coaching funnel. Currently she uses a Marketing Research Interview workbook. I’ve used it – and it’s amazing – but I think she could do better.
The perfect coaching funnel freebie for me is one that (a) gives a taste of your personality (b) is aspirational and gets them excited about what working together could mean for their business/life (c) leverages your secret sauce (see unique value proposition above!)
One of my favourites is a quiz that can double as a lead qualifier and diagnostic tool for you to use going into discovery calls.
Maggie’s voice lit up at the idea of quiz. She was already working on a quiz and it was 30% finished. The quiz is going to help her community identify what stage of business they are at (apprentice, squire or sorcerer) and give them some quick wins on what you should focus on at that stage.
The plan was this – get the quiz finished and combine it with a “treasure map” of strategic focuses based on your stage as well as some examples or case studies from clients she’s worked with during those stages. One of the call-to-actions of the quiz was to book a free discovery call. It checks all the boxes – her personality (fantasy/magical), her secret sauce (strategy/coaching hybrid), aspirational (client examples).
Takeaway #5 – Nurture Sequence + System
Our next area of focus was the post-quiz nurture sequence. The main goal with consult call funnels is to sell the free call by proving that it’s worth their time. But in order to make sure you’re getting high-quality leads, you also want to plant the seed that the goal of this call is to help them find clarity on something big that’s holding them back (a taste of your coaching) but also to see if your coaching services are a good fit for them.
Email 1 – Deliver the freebie, present 3 quick action steps (aka quests). These may be to: review the treasure map, pick one quest for this week, watch the video (in case they missed it)
Email 2 – Check in to see if they’ve taken a quest yet. But tell them more about your unique philosophy – what does a slay-your-strategy business look like? Show a variety of applications based on their business stage.
Email 3 – Encourage them to get a small win that demonstrates you know what you’re talking about and know how to get them the results they’re looking for.
Email 4 – Show proof. Use a case study or video interview. Help them see the similarities between your clients and their current pain points and desires.
Email 5 – Direct invitation to a discovery call. Use the same points from the thank-you page coaching video.
Email 6 – Reminder of the discovery call invitation.
Other notes:
- Make sure your consult call calendar software is integrated with your email service provider. You want to be able to tag people who’ve booked a call so you don’t continue to invite them again and again to a call.
- Create an interest-based tagging system in your email service provider:
- Coaching Interest Level 1 | Took the Quiz
- Coaching Interest Level 2 | Engaged with Nurture Sequence Content
- Coaching Interest Level 3 | Clicked on Discovery Call Link (No booking)
- Then create a plan to follow up based on interest levels:
- Level 1-3: Send through a quarterly email consult call invite mini sequence
- Level 3: Personally reach out
Takeaway #6 – Getting Traffic to the Funnel
So based on the intake interview, this was an area that Maggie definitely wanted to focus on so that even when she was busy with clients, her leads wouldn’t just dry up. She wanted more consistency and predictability with her leads and didn’t want to just rely on referrals.
She had recently taken 10 months off of creating content but was still really focused on Instagram and Facebook groups.
Simple Facebook Ad System:
- Set up a custom audience in Facebook to collect anyone who’s checked out the consult call page but hasn’t booked
- Then one week a month, run a consult call ad to that audience with a budget of around $50 for the week.
- If the audience isn’t big enough, run the ad to your Interest Level lists from your email service provider.
Other Notes:
- Earned traffic – Wants to focus on booking podcast interviews, create a sprint system for sending out these pitches (one week a month or quarter)
- Referral program – More formalized. Create an Offer PDF for Slay Your Strategy that you could send to referral partners.
- Content strategy – Choose a promo focus for the month. August = mastermind. September = Slay Your Strategy. October = Affiliate promotion. And release content around those themes.
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