5 Things Every Coach Needs Before Building Your First Funnel
Everyone is talking about funnels. And honestly, for good reason. A well-built funnel can bring in leads, nurture relationships, and convert strangers into clients while you’re busy doing what you do best, coaching. But here is what you need to know before building your first funnel. The things nobody tells you before you dive in headfirst and spend three weeks building something that doesn’t work the way you hoped.
A funnel is only as good as the foundation underneath it.
What is a Marketing Funnel anyway?
If you have been hanging around the online business world for any length of time, you have probably heard the word “funnel” thrown around like everyone already knows what it means. Not everyone does, and that’s completely okay. Let me give you a quick, jargon-free explanation before we dive in.
A marketing funnel is simply the journey a stranger takes to become your client. It starts the moment someone discovers you, maybe through a blog post, a podcast, or a social media post, and it ends when she decides to invest in working with you. The “funnel” name comes from the shape of the process: lots of people enter at the top, and a smaller, more committed group makes it all the way through to becoming a paying client.
In practical terms for a coaching business, a funnel usually looks something like this. Someone finds your free resource, downloads it, joins your email list, receives a series of helpful emails that build trust and demonstrate your expertise, and eventually sees an offer that feels like exactly what she needs. That whole sequence, from free resource to paying client, is your funnel.
Now that we’re on the same page, let’s talk about what needs to be in place before you start building yours.
I have worked with enough coaches to know that the excitement of building a funnel can make it really tempting to skip straight to the tech, the landing pages, THE LOGO, the email sequences, and/or the payment processors. But if certain pieces aren’t in place before you start building, you end up with a beautiful funnel that sits on a shaky foundation and you’re left wondering why it isn’t converting.
Before you touch a single tool, here are the five things I want you to have in place first.
A Clear Picture of Who You’re Talking To
This sounds obvious, and yet it is the most commonly skipped step I see. A funnel is a conversation, and you cannot have a meaningful conversation if you don’t know who you’re talking to.
Before you build anything, you need to be able to answer these questions specifically. Who is your ideal client? What is she struggling with right now? What does she want more than anything? What has she already tried that hasn’t worked? What words does she use to describe her problem?
The more specifically you can answer those questions, the more your funnel copy will feel like it was written directly for her, because it was. Vague answers produce vague copy, and vague copy does not convert.
An Irresistible Lead Magnet
Your lead magnet is the entry point to your funnel. It’s the thing you offer in exchange for someone’s email address, and it needs to do one job really well: solve one specific problem for your ideal client quickly and deliver immediate value.
Notice I said one problem. Not five. Not a comprehensive guide to everything. One problem, solved well, in a format she can actually use. Be honest, how many lead magnets have you downloaded and never touched again? #nojudgment
The best lead magnets for coaches are specific, actionable, and give the reader a quick win that makes her think “if this is what she gives away for free, I can only imagine what it’s like to work with her.” That’s the feeling you’re going for.
If you don’t have a lead magnet that does that yet, build that before you build your funnel. Everything else depends on it.
A Simple, Tested Offer
Your funnel needs somewhere to lead. Before you build out the tech, get clear on what you’re actually selling and make sure it’s an offer that resonates with your audience.
This doesn’t mean you need a perfectly polished sales page or a fully built out course. It means you need to know what the offer is, what it costs, what’s included, and why someone would say yes to it. If you haven’t tested your offer at all, even informally through conversations or a simple email to your list, consider doing that before investing time in building a funnel around it.
A funnel amplifies what’s already working. It doesn’t fix what isn’t.
An Email Platform That’s Setup and Ready
This is where the tech comes in, and it matters more than most coaches realize. Your email marketing platform is the engine of your funnel. It’s what delivers your lead magnet, sends your welcome sequence, nurtures new subscribers, and eventually makes your offer.
Before you build your funnel, you need an email platform that is fully set up, connected to your website, and tested end to end. That means your opt-in form is live, your lead magnet delivers automatically, and your welcome sequence is loaded and ready to go.
If you’re not sure which platform to choose, I have a whole post dedicated to that exact question right here, How to Choose the Right Email Marketing Platform for Your Coaching Business. Go read that first and then come back.
A Simple, Clear Funnel Map
Before you build anything in any tool, draw your funnel out on paper. Seriously. Even a napkin works fine.
What is the entry point? Where does someone land first? What happens after they opt in? How many emails are in the welcome sequence? Where does the offer show up? What happens if they say yes? What happens if they say no?
Mapping this out before you start building saves you an enormous amount of time and confusion. It also helps you spot gaps in the journey before you’ve already built everything and have to go back and fix it.
Your funnel map doesn’t need to be complicated. In fact, the simpler the better, especially for your first one. Entry point, lead magnet delivery, welcome sequence, offer. That’s a complete funnel. Start there.
A Note on Tech
Once these five pieces are in place, then, and only then, it’s time to think about the tech. And even then, I want to encourage you to resist the urge to overcomplicate it. Your first funnel does not need to be a sophisticated multi-branch automation with seventeen decision points. It needs to work. Simple and functional beats complex and broken every single time.
If you get to the tech side of things and feel overwhelmed by the options, that’s exactly what I’m here for. The Personalized Tech Audit is a great way to get clear on what you actually need for your specific business, no guesswork, no overwhelm, just a clear recommendation you can actually follow.
Before Building Your First Funnel Are You Ready to Get Clear on Your Foundation First?
If reading through this list made you realize there are a few pieces you need to put in place before your funnel, start with the free Clarity to CEO Planner. It will help you see exactly where your business stands right now so you know exactly what to build first.
Because a funnel built on a solid foundation? That’s the one that actually works.
