The line from someone having zero clue who you are, to becoming a customer.... looks something like this:

Attention > Attraction > Education > Belief > Trust | Desire > Objections > Sale

If we were to make a clear line between marketing and sales, I'd say the first five in the line are marketing. The last three are sales.

Marketing builds demand, sales exchanges the money.

Of course, the line isn't always clear and that can be difficult for bootstrapping business owners to know: Do they really have both marketing & sales covered adequately in their business?

It's also possible that the business has run on referrals or word of mouth, so by the time the prospect arrives to them, they are already at the desire level (bypassing marketing systems all together).

Let's look at each one a bit more in depth:

1. Attention - This might be a reel, a viral post, or an ad. It could also be you getting up on stage, being introduced on a podcast, etc.
2. Attraction - This is the moment they like what you're saying. Maybe they check out your profile, decide to optin, or follow you.
3. Education > Belief > Trust - Oftentimes this is where your lead sits for a while. If they go in a loop here, this is what we call nurturing. You can do this type of marketing in email, on social, in a webinar, etc.
4. Desire - This is the point at which they know you and know your product and think "I want that". It could happen at the end of a sales page or webinar, it could be signing up for a call or reaching out in the DMs.
5. Objections - The voices in their head that are saying "yea but". You can crush these in a conversation, sales call, webinar, sales page, retargeting ad, etc.
6. Sale - The moment at which money is exchanged. Usually on an order form or in an invoice.
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It's all super clear right? Wrong. When a business owner decides they need to do marketing and sales activities, overwhelm ensues.

Which platforms? How often? How long will it take? How much money will I expend? Which type of content?

This leads to an expensive, exhausting, spray and pray method. And when that happens, there are inevitable gaps in your line.

Maybe you're really good at longform articles (the education > belief > trust loop), but you never run ads or do anything to get attention so you sit in obscurity for a long time. You determine the longform articles are useless.

Or, perhaps you're really good at reels and IG, and you have followers, but you lack any true automated funnel so you amass people who never make it past attraction or maybe they get all the way to trust but never do anything more.

Or, let's say you have a great podcast (education, belief, trust), and you also have a great sales call script, but you're missing the bridge for podcast listeners to make it to your calendar. Sometimes you have everything in the line, but they are disconnected from each other.

I sketched out my analysis of the different marketing initiatives and how I think it performs in each of the areas.

This is definitely not a science. And yes, technically you could probably move someone through most of the process in a DM let's say, but DM's are not primarily used for that purpose. I sketched it out in my notebook and then asked Claude to digitize it.

I want to make a quick point about my "big daddy funnels". 🤣 These are funnels that are built and designed to basically pick someone up right after you've gotten their attention, and take them ALLL the way to the sale, with minimal involvement from you.

Not all funnels do this. The one that does it the best? The webinar funnel (and why I spend so much time discussing it). But you can also get this outcome with a Low Ticket Funnel (I call it a paid lead maker, but it's commonly known as LTO or SLO). You can also do it with a well designed application funnel as well.

The checkmarks were just my best guess. I'm still ironing out some of the details of this rainy Sunday framework I was sketching out.

But here's the primary takeaway I want you to hear:

If you feel like posting reels is a waste of time because you're not getting sales, posting reels doesn't really have much to do with getting sales. It's primary job is to get attention and attraction. You need to move them into a freebie, or a big daddy funnel, or get them in the DMs. That's where you can continue the line.

If you need money like TODAY, and you're feeling taxed at the idea of outbound DMs, that makes sense. DMs primarily work best as a sales tool. Does that mean it can't do marketing? No. It could. But it's marketing through a conversation that might take place over a period of days or weeks. Can you gift people in the DMs a lead magnet, or even just a podcast episode or long form article? Invite them to your webinar?

Last thing - I noticed that speaking (aside from funnels) has the biggest ROI. If that's something you're thinking about, I recommend you check out my client Aurora Gregory. She runs a free class on speaking and her Speaker Brand Academy is worth it! Also, Amber Housley teaches retreats (another client) and that in person experience for your customers is hard to beat when it comes to getting someone to trust enough to buy.

And lastly, I'll say it again until I am BLUE in the face. If you don't run a funnel (like a webinar funnel, LTO funnel, or application funnel), you're doing more work than you need to. These funnels can absolutely change the course of a business. Please reach out to me as I work closely with clients day in and day out - helping them with their funnels, watching their webinars, and giving strategic & tactical advice both.

Just reply to this email. Happy Monday!

xx Julie