The Funnel Fallacy: The art of balancing automation with creating connection

Jul 12

The Funnel Fallacy: The art of balancing automation with creating connection

What's this episode of the lionhearted ceo podcast about?

Is the idea of an automated funnel tempting but you're wondering if it's REALLY all it's cracked up to be? You're not alone!

In this final episode of The Client Cure mini series, we're busting the myth of the 'set it and forget it' funnel and revealing how to create a client journey that's both scalable and deeply rooted in connection.

Here's what you'll discover:

• The hidden pitfalls of over-automation (and why it might be costing you clients)

• My 'Connection Ecosystem' approach to balancing tech and personal touch

• The three key areas to automate for maximum impact (and minimum overwhelm)

• How to maintain authentic relationships while scaling your business with Meta ads

Plus, I'm sharing my personal strategy for what I automate, what I plan, and what I do live - so you can create a system that feels good for both you and your clients.

Ready to create a funnel that attracts clients while keeping you firmly in the driver's seat? This episode is your roadmap to scaling with soul!

Don't miss this chance to transform your Meta ads strategy into a client-attracting powerhouse that feels aligned with your values. Tune in now and let's put the personal back into your marketing funnel!

Hi! I’m your host Sophie Griffiths, a Meta ads expert and business growth strategist.

The LionHearted CEO podcast is designed for impatiently ambitious women who are ready to scale and often juggling motherhood alongside their thriving online businesses in coaching, course creation, or service-based business.

If you enjoy the podcast, here are some ways you can continue the conversation:

Social:

Love Instagram? Click here to watch a video I made on the Warm audience trap (hint, it's something almost every client struggles with!)More of a LinkedIn fan? I'm there too! Come and follow me here: Sophie Griffiths

Free Resource:

Ready to grow an audience of people who WANT you to sell to them? Radical idea I know, but it shouldn’t be! Click here to get access to my step by step guide to using simple, effective ads to build & nurture a community of superfans,

Work together:

Ready to build an audience of superfans who are excited and ready to buy from you?
Whether you are just starting with Meta (Facebook & Instagram) Ads, you have dabbled but want to build your confidence with your first funnel, or you're already killing it and you're ready for fast growth - I can help! Click here to choose the best option for you

Got questions?

DM me on Insta or LinkedIn
Email me here: hello@sophiegriffiths.co

Thank You for Listening!

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Read the transcript:

NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool. Please forgive any typos or errors.

[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the final episode in the five-part mini series at the client cure. I've been talking all about how to use Facebook and Instagram ads, not just to grow your email list or get more followers, but to actually get clients. If you haven't listened to the previous full episodes, I really recommend you go and listen to them. 

[00:00:18] After listening to this one.

[00:00:19] In this episode, I'm going to be talking about funnels and when automation really works and when the personal touch can be worth the time and energy. Now, most people start with a really simple funnel and they probably don't even think of it as a funnel. So an example of that might be people find you through social media, you create content and nurture them, and then you give them a call to action to buy. 

[00:00:39] Maybe that's your sales page or book a call. Follow is simply a path from someone finding you, getting to know you and buying from you. However, if you're anything like me, The word funnel feels. Clinical tacky, maybe kind of, not really rooted in connection, which isn't how I want to run my business. 

[00:00:58] And probably isn't how you want to run yours [00:01:00] either. But if you can just reframe it and think of it as a multi-step process that someone goes through when they come into your world to get to know you and how you can help them, it can feel a lot more aligned. You can also use words like customer journey or client journey, and that sometimes can feel more connected as well. Now you don't need to run ads to have a funnel that funnel, I just explained it doesn't have any ads to do with that tool. However 

[00:01:23] often when clients start working with me, it's because the simple funnel they started with, like the one I've just described. Isn't reaching enough people. So they want to add ads into their funnel to get more people finding them. So they can then nurture them and turn them into clients. Now. At this point, when you stop thinking about your business, about your marketing, about your offers, about using ads. It can be really easy to go a little bit overboard on the automation and tech and try and automate the entire thing. 

[00:01:52] Now in some cases, it works really well. And I know some people teach a really automated funnel, especially for like evergreen programs so that you're always bringing [00:02:00] people in and always then onboarding them. However, in my experience, when you go from quite a simple organic funnel to a completely automated funnel, it can be a massive leap for you and for your clients as well. And that can really impact the success of it. So I'm going to talk today about some of the common mistakes people make when they start to set up a funnel and are looking at automation. As well as how you can fix them. And which beds I recommend automating. Versus the bits that I would recommend you do yourself to stay rooted in connection with your clients as they go through the journey. So. Let's start with the mistakes that I see. 

[00:02:35] The main way that this happens is when you try and create a funnel that is totally separate from your business. Now, it sounds really great. Doesn't it? I've got people coming in, they watch a webinar, they go through a later sales emails, and then they sort of pop out the other end. It sounds great. 

[00:02:50] Doesn't it? You can just carry on. You can serve your clients. You can just get on with delivery. You don't have to worry too much about social media. You've just got this like [00:03:00] ads powered funnel that just runs all the time. And the reason why I talk about marketing that is rooted in connection, but powered by ads. Is because this isn't the kind of funnel that I create with my clients I have for myself. So you set up this funnel. 

[00:03:14] It's just working in the background. But the reality is when you don't really know if and when clients are going to pop out, the other end is actually not nearly as consistent. And magical as a lot of the times it's made out to be. So you'll often hear like, you run ads, your conversion rates. 

[00:03:30] There's people will just pop out the other end and you know, it's amazing. You'd have to worry about it. The reality is I'm an end to end automated funnel is a. Huge amount of work to set up. It's also got an insane amount of moving parts and things that need to be tested. So if you're setting something up from scratch, okay, you're creating ads for the first time your lead magnet is being tested for the first time you've got a webinar that's you're just literally just created. 

[00:03:57] You don't really know what the conversion rate is. [00:04:00] You're going into a sales sequence that you haven't tested before. You've got a sales page. That's brand new. All of those things in themselves. Are quite big things to do, like getting a sales page, right. To convert people to buy from cold, like literally just cold audience going through a funnel that in itself is quite a big thing. So to have all of that set up just off the bat. 

[00:04:22] Now, even if some of the things are already tested, even if you're like, no, well, my lead magnet is tested because my warm audience love it, or I'm already running lead ads. Even then like the whole thing. If one bit is off, the whole thing is off. Okay. And it takes a huge amount of time and energy and data to manage that kind of funnel. 

[00:04:43] Okay. You need to be all over the stats. You need to be tracking open rates, click through rates, sales, page views, conversion rates. You know, how are the ads performing? How much money we spending on the ads? How long is it taking people to come through? What's the average value? It's a really tacky thing. And the idea [00:05:00] that you can just set up an automated funnel and then like crack on with the rest of your business is just in my opinion, just a total fallacy. You can run really great automated funnels and some people do, but it would blow your mind to know how much time and energy is put into tracking, optimizing, maintaining those like automated funnels. 

[00:05:20] They are not plug and play and forget about them. So if you're thinking, oh, well, I'll just do the work up front and then I can just leave it to run. That is absolutely not the case. Now the second thing that another second issue that I come across is that it actually doesn't feel good for a lot of business owners. 

[00:05:35] So. I've had a couple of clients come to me who have tried to set these kinds of funnels up. And they are like, I just don't feel connected to my audience. I don't know who's going in. I don't know who's going to come out and whether they're going to be a good fit for me, like for me and for my program or not. I can see data. 

[00:05:52] I can see stats, but I can't see people I don't get that connection. I'm not having conversations. No, one's replying to my emails. [00:06:00] It just doesn't feel good. And often a great question to ask yourself is, is that how you like to buy, like, you know, when you're in a funnel like that, , when you're like being told to watch an automated webinar, you know, that. You know, there might be a button that pops up , bonus offer that comes in and then there's a sales page and then there's a timer. 

[00:06:18] And you know, you're literally kept in that funnel. You're not taken anywhere else. You're not given anything else to do. Like, you know, come onto my Instagram. It's literally like you're in this funnel and this is the focus. Is that how you like to buy, because if it is, then that might be something you want to explore, but for most of my clients and for me, that isn't how I liked buy. 

[00:06:34] I'm much more likely to hop out of the funnel and go over onto their Instagram and try and watch some content of theirs. By like one of their small offers, like I want to get. I feel for the person I want to know, you know, is this someone I want to work with? I'm not okay in contact with them. 

[00:06:50] Like I might not message them. I might not comment on any of their posts. I might not even follow them. I have worked with quite high ticket coaches. I haven't even followed until I started working with them. [00:07:00] But I've been stalking them. I've been keeping an eye on them and I've making that decision for myself. Not being put through a very automated funnel when basically being told what to do. I mean, that's probably a bit the story of my life. 

[00:07:10] I don't really like being told what to do, but I guess, do your clients like being told what to do? Do you like being told what to do? So I guess that's just something to reflect on. How do you like to buy and how do your clients like to buy. 

[00:07:21] So those are the two main issues that I see now. We also don't want to do everything manually. We really want to be able to use tech and automation to bring people into our world. You know, show them the content that we're creating, making sure they can see it. And engage with us and buy from us when they're ready. You know, you don't want to have to challenge the Adam's with every person that's buying your seven pounds. Like local Stauffer, but there are absolutely ways that we need to use automation to be able to scale. So, what I wanted to share today was the areas that I automate and use automation. The areas that I plan on schedule. 

[00:07:54] So they're not necessarily totally automated, but that also not done live. So they're not kind of a demand on me [00:08:00] in the day. And then the things that I do personally, and like it live in person. 

[00:08:05] So the areas I recommend automating art, well ads, obviously ads to grow your email list ads, to show new people in your world, your content, people that are already in your world, your content, because let's face it. 

[00:08:16] The reach is pretty Bismal at the moment. Ads to show people you've never heard of you, your content. And there were so many different ways we can use ads to get people on masterclasses to sell your low ticket offer. So many ways that ads are an incredible automation tool. 

[00:08:30] The next thing is emails again, probably my massive surprise. Automated welcome sequences. Nurture sequences, which I tend to do for about a month after the welcome sequence. So those are my, like, My best hits if you like. 

[00:08:42] So my emails I've done really well when I've sent them lies like a weekly email, I get them in a automated sequence. So when people come into my world, Not only did they get my welcome sequence, which is quite structured and really guides people through my content, but they then get my best emails that I know. Either sell [00:09:00] or help them get to know me better or guide them through my content. 

[00:09:02] So automated emails. Big, big fat off. And then many chat is probably my other tool of automation, which I love. So setting up keywords. So when you post, On social media and you've got, you can say like, comment the word socials below and I'll send, you know, Sophie bot will send you the PDF. 

[00:09:20] So I use this for all sorts of things. For the podcast, you can comment podcast on any of my Instagram posts and it will send you the link to Spotify and apple for like to listen to the buy podcast. I use it for lead magnets. Masterclass says I'm trying to think what else I use it for. I've used it to get information on my in person day for my mastermind. 

[00:09:39] I use it all the time and it's a brilliant, brilliant tool to save you, having to comment and say thanks so much. I'll send you the link now and then going into DMS and sending people the link. Okay. So that's the brilliant automation tool. The things I plan and schedule our social media and my podcast. 

[00:09:58] So they're not totally [00:10:00] automated. I do each episode, you know, each. Social media post is created, but I plan them in advance. I schedule them and they're strategic. So if I'm organized enough, I can get quite far ahead, get the content there and then of rolls out and then day to day. I have more capacity for the things I can do personally, to add the personal touch and bring in that connection. And those are things like this year I've started doing in-person days. 

[00:10:25] So training and masterminds did that. That's an incredible way to kind of build connection, but obviously need you present in the room on the day online experiences as well say masterclasses workshops, like absolutely are a brilliant way. To build that connection and trust in a more of a live way. Everyone who follows me on Instagram gets a little note sent to them to say, welcome. It is a pre-written note. 

[00:10:47] Like this is not personalized to each person. But it's a really lovely way to start connections. Start conversation. Lots of conversations have come from those welcome notes. I do stories everyday life. I don't plan my stories, which is probably really [00:11:00] obvious if you've watched my stories. I just like to kind of reflect what's happening day to day and then replies to emails and DMS. 

[00:11:06] So we do use many chat as a system, too. Look at Instagram and all my DMS, because my inbox is insane. And sometimes my team will reply if it's just a quick one, like, oh, you know, could you send me the link to this? Or I'd love to sign up for this. You know, my team can jump in and say, here's the link. Otherwise generally it's me. I'm replying to emails. 

[00:11:26] Cause I love having that connection. I love , knowing who's following me, like finding out about their businesses. For me, it's a really important part of my day. So those are the areas that I automate that I plan and then I do live. And I'd really recommend thinking for you about like, which areas of those would you want to do? 

[00:11:44] To help you kind of build in automation, but also not be overwhelmed by trying to do everything every single day. So if there's three things, I think his takeaway from this episode is that. With an audit. If you're going to start creating a funnel, especially if you're going to start using ads, don't [00:12:00] try and create something that's separate to the rest of your marketing activity. 

[00:12:03] It's not going to build connection. It's not going to build connection and you can use tech and automation to bring people into your world into an ecosystem that leverages your offers that leverages your offers, a marketing that you're already doing. And that's going to have more impact than trying to build something totally separate. The second thing is audience growth is the first step. 

[00:12:26] Not just the end goal. You can't just bring people into your world and hope they buy. Like you do need a path. Even if it's a super gentle path, leading them through your content, helping them get to know you. And the third thing, which I probably haven't talked about enough, but I would really just like to say at this point is test, test, test, like, test everything. 

[00:12:44] Like if you feel like something's not working, you know, with your ads or with many chat or with your emails, Anything really just keep testing it. Don't just say, oh, ads don't work for me or this doesn't work for me. Just try and keep in that mind frame of everything as a test. [00:13:00] Okay. So on that note, this is the last of the five-part miniseries. I really, really hope you found it useful if you have, I would love it. 

[00:13:08] If you'd share it with your audience, if it's relevant or business friends. And then take a second to rate and review it. I would really, really appreciate it and it helps me reach more people next week. I am back on Tuesday and Thursday, which is our normal routine and I can't wait to see them