If Your Business is Struggling, Read This

Last week we launched our new funnel.

The results were elating and deflating. Kind of like the journey of life.

I'm going to give you a peek behind the curtain:

1. How our launch went

2. What did great

3. What did terrible

And what I learned.

I'll present my learnings in a way that you can apply to your business right now.

We launched Craftsmen Lite mini-course.

This course delivers the 3 biggest steps to building a digital course business.

But there's a catch.

If they don't complete the course by Sunday at 7pm, they get banned 🚫 from the community and do not get the reward video 🎁.

We launched with 123 members:

After the Sunday deadline, as promised, we banned 109 people: 

The mini-course mission was simple:

1. Ban inactive members 🚫 (we prefer small and active communities over bloated but not moving).

2. Deliver massive value to every member 💎.

3. Convert those ready to buy the full Craftsmen program ⚔️.

We crushed goals 1 and 2.

But part 3, let me just say it did not go as expected 🤦🏼‍♂️.

Immediately after launching any strategy, funnel, or marketing blitz, I dive head first into the analytics and ask:

1. Where did my funnel leak?

2. What will I do to improve?

What we discovered was not what we expected—in both good and bad ways.

Here we go...

Lead flow: 13%

230 people invited to the funnel

125 landed in the community 😁

16 went through the training 🥺

How could only 13% of the members engage in the training?

Well, we discovered something interesting: Half of these members were more interested in hearing what I (Seth) was cooking up (past followers from our previous company) than they were in building their own digital course.

Takeaway: Poor leads.

Solution: Get more qualified leads.

How? Create YouTube videos that specifically appeal to our ideal client.

The title, thumbnail, and hook must clearly resonate with men of God who want to generate wealth and help others. This will filter out viewers who would not be our ideal prospect.

Course video engagement: 48.9%.

"Engagement" in Wistia (the video-hosting tool we used) means the average percentage of each video watched.

So if the total viewers watched 50% of each video on average, then video engagement = 50%.

(To give you perspective, average video engagement for course videos longer than 15 minutes is 20-30%.)

Takeaway: Our videos have interesting, valuable content. 😁

We were surprised at how many people watched our full offer video. The engagement was the same as our course videos.

But even better, 69% of the total viewers watched it to the end.

(To be frank, this was my biggest concern. I wanted to make that offer video irresistibly enjoyable, so that everyone would watch it).

Solution: Keep creating interesting content that people find valuable.

Sales conversion: 6.2%.

This felt deflating as we expected 10% conversion. (10% is considered solid across Skool platforms.)

Did we miss something? Was our value not connecting? Did they feel overwhelmed? Were they confused by the offer?

So we dug a little deeper and what we discovered fascinated us:

Five prospects told us they wanted to join but could not because of a lack of funds.

Now the default reaction for many entrepreneurs would be to lower your prices.

With very few exceptions, I do not recommend this. Your price is a billboard on the value of your product.

Who goes to WalMart to buy the best quality? No one.

Who buys from Apple because they want the best? Millions.

No wonder WalMart has net profit margins of 2.75% but Apple 24.3%.

Lower your price and you run risk of:

1. Appealing to high-maintenance bargain hunters.

2. Winning a higher number of clients which = more work for less pay.

3. Squeezing your profit margins leaving you with less time and funds to provide the support needed for paying clients.

And if this results in clients not succeeding, your entire operation is put at risk.

So what was the main issue?

1) Prospects without money

2) Prospects following Seth but not for his digital course training.

Takeaways:

We need a bigger pool of leads.

We need more qualified leads.

Solution: Same as above: Get more qualified leads on YouTube.

The big takeaway

Do not change course (not being punny but hey) just because something did not go as expected.

When you expect 10 sales but get 5, or expect 1,000 leads but win 500, you will be tempted to make costly changes.

"Something must be wrong. We need a new strategy. Clearly this isn't working."

But think about what is really happening here...you want to shift course because results did not meet your expected timeline.

But who said you are supposed to get those specific results by a specific date?

Who came up with that?

You did.

But if we are being honest, timelines are largely arbitrary.

We cannot predict the market. We cannot control results.

So if we expect something by a certain date but don't reach it by that date, why would we judge the whole system and consider throwing it all out?

Not getting the results you expected by the time you expected, does NOT mean you are doing something wrong.

What if you are on the right path and it's just taking longer than you hoped for?

What if God is growing your resilience as you build your business with Him?

What if God is ensuring that your sense of value does not come from how many sales you win, but from God who walks with you, even in the valley?

God cares more about your business than you do. Way more.

Of all the traits ascribed to God in Scripture, the only one used as a noun is love.

The Bible never says God is mercy.

Or God is kindness.

Or God is holiness.

Note that these are nouns, not adjectives.

But God's Word says that God is love.

His all-consuming heart and attitude toward you is love.

He loves you when you hurt.
He loves you when you laugh.
He loves you when you sin.
He loves you when you work.
He loves you when you pray.
He loves you while you sleep.
He just loves you ❤️.

So when you hit an obstacle, fuel that disappointment into two paths:

1. Celebrate that God is actively loving you—allowing you to be in the perfect situation that will shape you into the man of God your heart longs to be—even when you don't feel it.

2. Get better. Nothing is more liberating than these words, "My fault." If you aren't getting the sales you want, then tell yourself to get better until you do.

Channel your disappointment into focus.

Because this is the heart of a true entrepreneur ⚔️.

P.S. If you want access to our free mini-course, join the community here. Warning: these men are on fire and it's contagious!