The Self-Filtering Funnel: How I Scaled My Business To Over $700k/month With A High-Ticket Sales Funnel
The Gurus Don't Even Know Exists
In this step-by-step guide I'll show you exactly how to implement my unique funnel strategy which transformed my business revenue, and leaves the gurus scratching their heads.
PLEASE NOTE: The strategy I’m about to walk you through is not suitable for all business owners.
It is designed specifically for business owners offering a high-ticket service, who are struggling to scale their business to $100k per month.
Maybe your monthly revenue has hit a seemingly unbreakable ceiling
Maybe you have never used a marketing funnel before.
Or, maybe you got caught up in the buzz of funnels and made one for yourself, but have been extremely disappointed in its performance.
Regardless of your situation…
If you offer a high-ticket service, and you are
desperate to skyrocket your revenue, then this is the strategy for you.
My Self-Filtering Funnel strategy has been road-tested in the most high-stakes situation possible -
my own business.
A lot was riding on the success of this strategy.
It not only had the potential to make or break my
own livelihood, but I had multiple employees relying on me too…
This is what happened:
I gained a steady flow of traffic to my business’ website,
I generated a reliable stream of committed, pre-sold leads,
My monthly revenue skyrocketed, and I began consistently generating over $700k per month.
This result was no accident - it was achieved through the strategic initiatives and a proven framework I’m going to share with you today.
If you want me to work directly with you to achieve similar results, click the button below and book your call. Let’s discuss how we can unleash the power of my
proven Self-Filtering Funnel strategy for your business.
Read on to find out
exactly how I do it.
TABLE OF OF CONTENTS
Intent Can Make or Break Your Business
When you break it down, scaling your business to 100k+ per month is pretty simple.
You just need 2 things:
1. The right funnel, and
2. The right sales skills.
Today, we’re going to zoom in on that first point - I’m going to walk you through the funnel strategy I used to scale my own brick-and-mortar business to $700k per month.
See, there’s a million and one marketing gurus out there - each of them with their own strategy for ad funnels.
And over the years, I’ve tried an unthinkable amount of these strategies.
But throughout my trial and error, one thing became glaringly obvious:
These gurus had never taken their own advice.
They didn’t understand the faults in their systems; they didn’t understand the roadblocks and the frustrations of trying to find solutions.
They just pumped out content, pushing their new, improved, life-changing method, and moved onto the next strategy once the money dried up.
After years of putting these hit-or-miss
(mostly miss) methods to the test on my own business, this is what I learned:
Traditional ad funnels revolve almost entirely around vanity metrics - it’s all about the numbers.
All the marketing gurus know that your conversion rates are likely going to be pretty low.
They compensate for this by making their funnel strategies focus on getting as many people into your funnel as you possibly can.
And sure, having 10,000 leads looks great on paper.
But if only 1% of them are
actually converting, that’s a massive waste of time, money, and resources.
These strategies run on the principle that more people in your funnel = more sales - but this couldn’t be further from the truth.
In my experience
(and if you have a funnel, you’ve probably experienced this too), more people in your funnel =
more time wasters.
This is because there is one key element that is completely missing from traditional ad funnels.
Intent.
Note: The easiest way to bypass the time wasters is to work with someone who knows exactly how to filter them out. Click for details.
There’s two types of leads in this world: low-intent, and high-intent.
Low-intent leads are the time wasters.
They’re wishy-washy and uncommitted to your service, because they never really needed it in the first place.
They just happen to see your ad on their Facebook feed, and think
“Yeah that sounds alright - what have I got to lose?”
They opt-in and go through your funnel. From there, one of two things happens:
1. They don’t go any further, and don’t make a purchase. They are forever stuck as an unconvertable lead.
OR
2. They book a call with you, but they still need convincing. Now you or your team need to waste time trying to twist their arm. And after all that, they probably won’t even go through with the purchase anyway.
High-intent leads are where the money is - they know exactly what you offer, and they want it.
They see your ad, and it resonates with them deeply. They have a problem, and they see that you can solve it.
And so they go through the same process as the low-intent lead; they opt-in and go through your funnel.
This time, there’s really only one outcome:
- They enthusiastically hop on a call with you. They’re practically pre-sold on your service; there’s no convincing or arm twisting required. You discuss the practicalities of what you will do for them, they love what they’re hearing, and you close the sale.
Think back to what I said about traditional ad funnels and vanity metrics.
In order to get as many people into your funnel as you can, you have to cast your net pretty wide - your offer has to appeal to anyone and everyone.
When the lead generation portion of your funnel is
that broad, you exponentially increase your chances of ending up with a bunch of low-intent leads.
These leads get stuck in the middle of your funnel, and you waste countless amounts of time and money as your conversion rate plummets.
But imagine what your conversion rates
could look like if your funnel only captured high-intent leads.
That right there is the power of my Self-Filtering Funnel strategy.
There is a filter at every level of the funnel - this sifts out the low-intent leads, and lets the high-intent leads flow through seamlessly.
The people that actually make it to the point of talking to you or your team are almost
exclusively pre-sold and ready to purchase.
When you have a Self-Filtering Funnel, you can:
Increase your conversion rates
Boost your return on ad spend, and
Smash through any monthly revenue ceilings with ease.
This is the exact funnel strategy I used to scale my own business to over $700k per month.
So with all that being said, I’m going to take you step-by-step through how to build a Self-Filtering Funnel for yourself.
Stop wasting valuable time and money trying to tally up low-intent leads.
Start targeting high-intent leads who know their problems, know you can solve them, and are ready to work with you.
When your marketing strategy is tailored specifically to capture those who are high-intent, your conversion rates are boosted, and you get higher return on ad spend.
INTENT = $$$$$$
Click the button below to get a high-intent marketing strategy done completely for you.
(We guarantee to build your traffic-ready sales funnel in 7 days or less)
SECTION RECAP: There are two types of leads you’ll encounter in your business life - high-intent, and low intent.
The high-intent leads are where the money is; they’re essentially pre-sold, so your chances of conversion are much higher.
The trick to boosting your conversion rates, and therefore your revenue, is to filter out the low-intent leads. You can do this by using my Self-Filtering Funnel strategy.
The Self-Filtering Funnel strategy is exactly what it sounds like. It’s an ad funnel with a built-in leads filter at every level.
As you can see, it has the same stages as a regular funnel:
Awareness (your ad) → Nurturing (your landing page) → Selling (your sales call)
But the difference with the Self-Filtering Funnel, is that it qualifies your leads at each of these stages.
This allows
only high-intent leads to flow through the funnel towards a sale.
These filters are not separate add-ons to your funnel - they are integrated into the funnel during its construction.
But this doesn’t mean that they’re set in stone. Your filters are flexible, so you can adapt them as your business grows and changes.
The Self-Filtering Funnel construction happens in just 3 steps. Let’s go through them.
STEP 1: The Big Promise
The first step to building your Self-Filtering Funnel is to nail down your big promise.
This step acts as the foundations of your funnel - you need to get this right in order for the following two steps to be effective.
Your big promise is essentially the result you promise you will achieve for your clients; it's how you will hook people in.
It could be an impressive client result, or even the result of your own experience using your methods on yourself.
(Sounds familiar hey?)
Where most funnel gurus go wrong is that they instruct you to shout out a big promise that is so broad, it attracts anyone and everyone.
So in saying that, this step is where the first filter comes into play.
You want to craft your big promise in such a way that it hooks
only the people you want it to hook.
When you narrow down your promise, you filter out the people who it doesn’t resonate with, and therefore the people who are unlikely to actually need your service.
AKA Timewasters.
Now, it’s just about impossible to have your big promise speak to
only your ideal clients - but that’s why it’s just the first of 3 filters
It is, however, your first opportunity to begin that filtering process. Take advantage of it.
Crafting an effective, self-filtering big promise comes down to one thing:
knowing your ideal customer.
? What are their pain points?
? What are their desires?
? What are their goals?
? What are the barriers preventing them from reaching those goals?
When you can answer those questions, you can frame your big promise to appeal to all of those points.
The end goal of this step is for you to have a big promise that reaches out to your ideal customer, and says,
“hey, I know what your problems are, and I will solve them. I know what your goals are, and I will help you achieve them.”
HOW TO DO IT:
The Big Promise: Your To-Do List
Create a client profile to gain a deep understanding of your ideal client’s problems, wants, and needs.
Conduct market research to discover your key demographics - who is most likely to be in need of your service?
Interview past or current clients (if you have any). Get information about their issues before working with you, why they needed your service, and the results they’ve gotten with you.
STEP 2: The AD
If Step 1 was the behind-the-scenes work, Step 2 is where you position yourself front and center, and begin to create your ad.
This is where the information you gathered in Step 1 is put into action.
Your ad is your audience’s first exposure to you, your service, and your big promise; it needs to resonate with exactly the audience you are trying to capture.
And you can’t do that without knowing who you’re looking for.
See what I meant when I said Step 1 was the foundation of your funnel? It’s absolutely vital that you know who you want to attract, and how to attract them so you can craft your ad to suit.
Your ad is also your pre-qualification phase; you will explicitly lay out some of your criteria that your clients must meet so they can pre-qualify themselves for your service.
Again, this will require some brainstorming and pre-planning.
You will need to create a list of criteria specific to your business, and choose those that are relatively broad, but still important.
You want to narrow down your audience, without scaring them off. If your criteria is too specific at this stage, perfectly suitable people may disqualify themselves too soon.
But don’t throw away your other qualifiers just yet - you’ll use them in the next step.
So that’s the content of your ad, but what type of ad should you use?
For my own Self-Filtering Funnel, and the ones I build for people, I advertise on Facebook, and opt for video ads as opposed to static image ads.
Here’s why:
- Ability to communicate more information: there’s no need to condense your information down into one single frame. With video ads, you’re able to communicate larger amounts of information, quicker.
- More capacity for storytelling: the combination of audio and visuals allows you to better convey emotion, allowing you to form a stronger connection with your ideal clients.
- More creative flexibility: there are plenty more options for communication with video - you can make use of music, animation, or sound effects. You’ve got more freedom to incorporate elements that will capture people's attention, and keep it.
HOW TO DO IT:
The AD: Your To-Do List
Create a list of your client criteria. Pick out the ones that are important, but also the easiest hurdles to clear.
Get clear on the impression you want to make. This will also influence the type of leads you’ll attract.
Create your video ad. Use the knowledge you gained in Step 1 to speak directly to your ideal clients.
Your Facebook Ad is your first point of contact with potential clients.
Their first impression of you, your offer, and your business will be shaped completely by what they see.
Getting this ad right takes knowledge, skill, and above all, experience.
Click the button to get not only your ad, but your entire Self-Filtering Funnel done entirely for you.
(We guarantee to build your traffic-ready sales funnel in 7 days or less)
STEP 3: The Landing Page
The final step of building a Self-Filtering Funnel is constructing your landing page.
But it won’t be just any old landing page.
See, this is the final stage of the funnel - this is the final hurdle that leads need to clear in order to book a call with you or your team.
And if you want to only spend your time directly communicating with high-intent leads, this filter needs to be pretty powerful.
Through my own experience, I found that the single most powerful landing page filter is a qualification quiz.
Because you no longer need to rely on your leads to qualify themselves for your service -
you qualify them.
Here’s how it works:
→ Leads click through from your ad, and get to your landing page
→ They are met with a quiz - all of these questions are based on your own personal criteria for who you want to work with.
(I told you not to throw away those more specific qualifiers from Step 2 - this is where you use them!)
→ They complete the quiz, and one of two things happen:
1. They meet a certain, predetermined threshold of qualifiers, and are redirected to a “book a call” page,
OR
2. They do not meet this threshold, they get disqualified, and therefore do not get the chance to book a call with you.
This completely ensures that you or your team only spend your time on sales calls with leads that are a pre-sold, perfect match for your business.
💡 TIP: There’s also an extra, hidden benefit to the qualification quiz: it can be used as a tool to gain insights into your target audience.
These insights could be the actual answers they give you, or it could be patterns of behavior - are leads constantly tripping up on a certain question? Are you setting the bar a little high, and losing potentially perfect clients as a result?
You can use the information gained through your quiz to tailor your advertising, or even your offer itself.
This allows you to get more people into your funnel, without compromising lead quality.
Fully Leverage the Power of the Landing Page Qualification Quiz
At this point you’re probably wondering what types of questions you should be asking in your qualification quiz.
The specifics of your questions will be highly dependent on your industry, your business, and your ideal client.
So in saying that, I obviously can’t tell you what questions you should include without knowing these things…
(Nudge nudge wink wink: I
can get to know your business, and create not only your landing page quiz, but your entire Self-Filtering Funnel for you -
click here for details.)
But I’ll give you a few universally important areas of questioning to get you started.
Tip # 1: The Bare Necessities
You don’t want to overwhelm your leads with an endless page of exhausting questions - so keep it short.
Only ask the absolute
minimum amount you need for your clients to qualify.
2 - 4 questions is typically all you need.
Surprisingly, this is where people stumble the most when creating their quizzes.
They think the more questions, the better. And so they set out to write as many questions as they can think of.
They eventually hit a wall. So they scramble, and start thinking up these highly-specific, but equally as unnecessary questions.
(We’ll talk more about specificity in a minute.)
In turn, they end up unintentionally disqualifying leads that would have been a perfect fit for their offer.
All because the lead didn’t correctly answer a totally redundant filler question.
Tip #2: The Sweet Spot of Specificity
You can’t make your questions too broad, or too specific - you have to find a middle ground.
This very much goes hand-in-hand with the first tip.
By making your question too hyper-specific, you run the risk of disqualifying leads that would otherwise make perfect clients.
On the flip side, when your questions are too broad,
anyone will be able to clear that hurdle - it pretty much defeats the entire purpose of a qualifying quiz.
Let me give you some examples:
Imagine you have a marketing advisory service - you help business owners overcome roadblocks to increase their return on ad spend.
Let’s say you only help those generating under 30k per month.
Too broad:
“Do you need to increase the amount of money you have?”
I’m pretty sure
everyone wants this - therefore, too broad.
Too specific:
“Do you need to increase the amount of dollar bills you find under your couch by 35.4% every full moon at exactly 2:17am?”
I don’t even know what this means - too specific…I think…
Just right:
“Do you need to increase your ROAS to at least 30k per month?”
Those generating over 30k (aka people you don’t take on) will disqualify themselves. And those who need your help will clearly see that they
do qualify - just right!
Tip #3: Keep Them Engaged
Ensuring your landing page quiz is engaging achieves a couple of things:
As with keeping it short and concise, it prevents quiz takers becoming bored and clicking away.
But more importantly, it keeps them focused. It makes sure they give accurate answers, and get qualified or disqualified appropriately.
I’ve found that the best approach to keeping your quiz engaging is by incorporating images into your questions, as opposed to just text on its own.
Our brains decode images faster than we can read text. Your leads won’t have to waste time interpreting your questions - they’ll understand exactly what you’re asking from the jump.
The obvious point here is that your images need to be relevant to the question you’re asking.
Maybe an image could highlight a key point of your question, illustrate your point, or add context.
Also don’t be afraid to inject a little personality and make it fun - believe it or not, I’ve often seen that including memes can actually increase conversion rates.
LANDING PAGE QUALIFICATION QUIZ QUESTIONS - AT A GLANCE:
Only ask the minimum amount of questions you need - don’t overwhelm your leads and make them jump through unnecessary hoops.
Find the sweet spot of specificity - ensure your questions are not so broad that everyone can qualify, but not so specific that even perfect leads get tripped up.
Keep your leads engaged - make use of images to support your questions, add context, and keep participants focused.e your video ad.
Implementing these 3 tips will ensure your landing page quiz reaches its full lead-filtering potential.
You’ll get to witness first hand the lead-generating power of a Self-Filtering Funnel.
But keep in mind, the results you’ll get will barely scratch the surface - there’s one extra ingredient you need to get the Self-Filtering Funnel firing on all cylinders.
Ready to step it up and go beyond the basics?
I’m excited to talk more with you about how we can dial in your landing page and explode the revenue growth of your business.
(We guarantee to build your traffic-ready sales funnel in 7 days or less)
Unlocking the Full Potential of a Self-Filtering Funnel
Let’s rewind a bit - I want to remind you of something I said at the very beginning of this post…
“Scaling your business to 100k+ per month is pretty simple.
You just need 2 things:
- The right funnel, and
- The right sales skills.
After taking you through the steps of building a Self-Filtering Funnel, we’ve got that first one down.
But the second one? Yeah, not quite…
See, you can’t skate by with just one of those elements under your belt - you need
both.
Let me explain why.
While the Self-Filtering Funnel will ensure you’re only dealing with high-intent leads, you still have to close that sale.
At the end of the day, no matter how committed and pre-sold your leads are, it only takes one wrong move on a sales call to turn them off your service
completely.
So the obvious solution to this is to improve your sales skills, right?
But you’re
running a business - I would guarantee that you’re already wearing far too many hats at once.
You simply do not have the time to plan, build, and fine-tune your Self-Filtering Funnel,
and train yourself or your team to become master salespeople.
You can only effectively focus on one thing at a time - so you need to choose.
To be totally honest, if you asked me which of the two is more important…I would say sales skills.
That is where you need to be directing your focus.
But that choice raises a few questions:
? What sales tactics do me or my team need to learn?
? How do I go about training them?
? While I'm learning these tactics, who is going to build my Self-Filtering Funnel?
The answer is my True Sales Alpha PRO service.
I designed this service with business owners like you in mind.
When you sign up for the service, you get:
Your Self-Filtering Funnel, built completely for you
Lifetime access to our True Sales Alpha Sales System, and
Lifetime access to our True Sales Alpha Mindset Blueprint.
We build your funnel for you, the high-intent leads come to you, and all you have to do is be ready to close those sales.
Leverage the full power of a Self-Filtering Funnel by becoming a True Sales Alpha
It only takes one wrong move on a sales call to turn an enthusiastic lead into a missed opportunity.
Don’t let perfectly qualified, high-intent leads slip through your fingers because of shoddy sales skills.
When you sign up for the True Sales Alpha PRO service, you gain access to our exclusive Sales and Mindset Blueprint courses.
You can focus on becoming a better salesperson, and we’ll take care of the rest.
(We guarantee to build your traffic-ready sales funnel in 7 days or less)
Get a Self-Filtering Funnel Custom Built for Your Business
True Sales Alpha Pro is our completely done-for-you funnel building service.
But when you sign up, you not only get your Self-Filtering Funnel, you get exclusive access to our library of digital resources.
Let’s dive a little deeper into exactly what you get:
True Sales Alpha Pro
Done For You High Converting Sales Call Funnel - You don't lift a finger
We’ll build you a Self-Filtering Funnel, complete from top to bottom.
We’ll interview you, and dig deep to truly understand your offer, your business, and your ideal clients.
This will allow us to define your big promise, nail your ad, and create a high-powered lead-filtering landing page quiz.
Your entire funnel will be complete and traffic-ready within 7 days.
The Human Polygraph Method - Sales System For Your Closers
You’ll get instant, lifetime access to our exclusive sales system, designed specifically for business owners who want to scale to consistent 100k+ months.
With over 40+ easy to learn video training, it’s our go-at-your-own-pace course that uncovers the secrets and strategies of the world’s top performing sales people.
You or your team can focus on honing your skills and becoming confident salespeople, and be ready to strike when those high-intent leads begin rolling in.
Here is a sneak-peek of what you will see inside the membership training area when you join:
- How we 3x’d sales revenue by getting prospects to stop lying to us in sales meetings.
- Discover the 'counter-intuitive' influence secrets learned from Intelligence agents.
- Get prospects to like, trust you and finally be honest with you.
- Learn how to detect lies and close like James Bond.
- Avoid the hidden mistakes almost all salespeople make that's killing your sales.
- And that’s just scratching the surface…
I am giving you
everything you need to go from 5 to 6
or even 7 figures in sales.
You’ll become the True Sales Alpha you were always meant to be.
The True Sales Alpha Mindset Blueprint
To reach your full True Sales Alpha potential, it's not just about the sales funnel. You need to become a well-rounded business person as well.
That's why I’ve included this powerful training that is specifically focused on cultivating a winning mindset, and developing the skills you need to succeed.
I will show you how to overcome limiting beliefs and boost your confidence, giving you the tools to remove outdated beliefs that are holding you back from achieving massive success in your business.
My proven strategies will equip you with practical tools and techniques to help you become the business owner you were meant to be.
When you click the button and book a call, this is what happens:
When you click the button, you will choose a suitable time to get on a 20-minute Roadmap Call with me - the True Sales Alpha PRO Founder, Stephen Whittaker.
This Roadmap Call is for introductory purposes
only. It’s important that we ensure we’re a good fit for you, and you for us.
This call allows me to see what’s going on with your current situation, and begin to talk about a potential plan of attack.
And rest assured, we don't do high-pressure sales pitches - we will only onboard you when we're confident that we will deliver tangible results.
There’s Only Two Boxes You Need To Check…
To get inside True Sales Alpha PRO, there is a couple of criteria you
must meet:
You currently have an existing business.
Your business currently turns over a minimum of $20k revenue per month.
NOTE: The skills you’ll learn in both the Sales and MIndset Blueprint courses are full of lessons that I had to learn the hard way.
But when I did, it paid off big time… $700k per month big time.
Don’t let a lack of sales skills or a poor mindset stand in the way of you pushing your business to the next level.
(We guarantee to build your traffic-ready sales funnel in 7 days or less)
Now, You Try It
After years of trying and failing with countless different ad funnel strategies, there was one glaring problem with every single one of them:
They may have generated a ton of leads, but the conversion rates were borderline embarrassing.
Building a Self-Filtering Funnel bypasses this problem entirely.
So now it’s your turn - I’ve laid out the steps to constructing this lead-filtering funnel, all you have to do is put it into action.
Just in case you need a reminder, here’s a to-do list for all three steps:
SELF-FILTERING FUNNEL TO-DO LIST
STEP 1: The Big Promise
Define your big promise to hook in your ideal clients.
- Create client profiles
- Conduct market research
- Interview past or current clients
STEP 2: The Ad
Lay out the content of your video Facebook ad.
- Create a list of client criteria
- Get clear on the impression you want to make on leads
- Create your video ad
STEP 3: The Landing Page
Create your ultimate lead filter: the landing page qualification quiz.
- Only ask the minimum amount of questions you need
- Find the sweet spot of specificity
- Use images to keep leads engaged and focused
I’ll leave you with two options:
- You can check off this list one-by-one, or
- You can have your Self-Filtering Funnel built completely for you, and gain access to exclusive resources to improve your sales skills, and yourself.
The fastest, easiest, and most effective way of fully leveraging the Self-Filtering Funnel is to become a True Sales Alpha.
When you sign up for the True Sales Alpha PRO service, you’ll get a new, bustling stream of customers and revenue - without you having to lift a finger.
We will completely build out your Self-Filtering Funnel from top to bottom.
We’ll dive in and discover who your ideal client is, and what makes them tick.
Your entire funnel will be constructed with the sole purpose of attracting exactly the clients you want - it will capture high-intent leads, and channel them directly into your business.
While we take care of your funnel, you or your team can work on your sales skills with our True Sales Alpha Human Polygraph Sales System. It will ensure that as soon as those qualified leads begin rolling in, you’ll close those sales with ease.
You will also get exclusive access to the True Sales Alpha Mindset Blueprint. You and your team will gain the confidence, skills, and mindset to tackle any challenges you may face, both inside and outside your business.
When you become a True Sales Alpha, you get a constant flow of high-intent, pre-sold, qualified leads; all you have to do is be ready.
