Episode 85 Transcript
Heather (00:10.495)
So happy that you are here because there's multi facets to this conversation and where I want to take it. Now, of course you're going to talk about your business and give some amazing tips and ideas around what you do with funnels, but also a little backstory around how you got there. So we'll, we'll get into that soon. Definitely. But as always, I love to start with some really great little tips. So think about the times in your business, multiple businesses, because I know you've kind of shut things down and started things.
Heather (00:40.379)
Over the years, when you're in a time of high growth, high stress, what do you personally do to manage those moments, to stay a little bit more grounded and a little bit more sane?
Kate McKibbin (00:41.054)
Yeah. Yep.
Kate McKibbin (00:52.002)
I try and, there's two things that I try and do. One is I'm very structured in my week because I'm not actually a person that likes structure, like if that makes any sense. So I actually hate having lots of things in my calendar. So I try and make sure that it's all in one day. So I have like one day a week where I do like all my meetings and all my client calls and I just like rip off the bandaid, get it done. But then I feel like then it gives you just this space in the rest of the week to be like, okay.
Heather (01:01.227)
Yeah!
Heather (01:13.781)
Yeah!
Kate McKibbin (01:19.586)
well, this is my creative time, or this is where I'm working on big projects, and you can do it fairly uninterrupted. And I find that just, I know that seems to work for me. And then I have a very unofficial project management system, which drives my team a bit mad, but I call it the one post-it note a week system. And that is basically like, what is my top priority for this week? And I don't know if you can see it behind me, you probably can't, but I have like a, yeah, anyway, I have a calendar on the wall there that's just like...
Heather (01:28.171)
Smart.
Kate McKibbin (01:49.77)
And I have one post literally on each week. It's like, that's the thing I have to do. And if I get that thing done, we're on track. Like that's the, and obviously there's other little things that come up, but I'm like, that's my, my one focus and you know, it's, it's all in like a proper project management software somewhere, but I just need to go analog and then I need to like, if you had to go, okay, I've done that. And I take it down. And for me, that just feels, I don't know, it just makes it feel really simple and not super overwhelming. And that's been really useful.
Heather (02:07.017)
Yeah.
Heather (02:15.711)
Do you, um, is that a tip that you, that is like a task for your business? Do does client work ever creep into that particular post-it note? Or is it just business stuff for your business?
Kate McKibbin (02:26.75)
It, yeah, it's just the business, like the growth side of the big approaches, like we're creating a new program or we're updating, you know, doing big website updates or something like that. So that's my, like my one big task. And then like the smaller tasks always, you know, they, they get done as well. But I'm like, that's the thing I do first, the big thing. And then I kind of fit everything else in around.
Heather (02:47.911)
Really, really smart structuring your time like that. I am a little analog as well. I have obviously all the tools and the project plans, but I have, I literally have a board that's up. I'm like looking at over here now and it has cute little magnets. And I have like a core focus. It's just magnet onto the board so I can stare up at it. I get it.
Kate McKibbin (02:54.314)
Yeah.
Kate McKibbin (03:00.087)
Yeah.
Kate McKibbin (03:06.858)
Yeah, yeah, like, it's like, you have all the tools in the world that is like automated and whatever for your project. I'm like, I just want it, I want it on a piece of paper and I want it right in front of me.
Heather (03:13.236)
Yeah.
Heather (03:16.943)
Yeah, so true. What else? Are there any other tips or ideas of things that you do?
Kate McKibbin (03:23.094)
Um, the other thing is just, yeah, trying to make sure you have some away from the computer time. I just, you know, even like when, you know, when things are going well and it's busy and you're, that's really fun. You kind of forget that you actually have, well, I don't know. Anyway, I, like I say to my husband, sometimes I feel like I'm just like a brain wandering around and I forget that I actually have a body attached to it and you know, that you need to go and like actually move and do other things and have fun. And you know,
Heather (03:29.587)
Yeah.
Heather (03:46.448)
Oh my god.
Heather (03:52.628)
Totally.
Kate McKibbin (03:52.862)
Um, so like, yeah, you can just get so like in the business and it's just like, you know, all up here. And it's like, no, I have to do things that just shut that off and just go out and yeah, enjoy myself. So, um, it's sad that you have to remind yourself about that.
Heather (03:57.801)
Yeah.
Heather (04:08.479)
think that's, that's so fine. I relate to that so much of a walking brain. Oh my gosh. Yeah, because you literally just constantly in that mindset of what you're working on. And it's a challenge to sort of step away from that and get out there and do different things. So yeah, totally get it.
Kate McKibbin (04:13.107)
Yeah
Kate McKibbin (04:22.458)
Yeah, I don't, I don't mean it's super lucky that I love, I love my business. I love like, I love thinking about it. Like it's not like it's a chore, but you do just have to, yeah, you've got to separate it somehow.
Heather (04:31.337)
Yeah.
Heather (04:36.135)
Yeah, no, smart. I love it. Really good tips, structuring your time, you guys, and just keeping an eye on one core thing at a time can really be helpful and strip away that overwhelm. So, okay, I'd love to talk a little bit more about your journey, and it sounds really interesting, and I've saved purposely. I was gonna ask you pre-record, and I'm like, no, I'm just gonna ask her everything on our chat. So you have...
Kate McKibbin (04:37.89)
Hehehe
Kate McKibbin (04:53.911)
Yeah.
Heather (05:00.971)
quite the background of having different businesses, you've shot some down, you've started again. You basically say that the ups and downs of entrepreneur life are not new to you. So I'm really curious about these ups and downs. So perhaps what we could do is start back in time of your journey of where you got to with HelloFunnels today. Like what's happened to get you here?
Kate McKibbin (05:13.717)
Yeah.
Kate McKibbin (05:27.086)
Yeah, okay, so I think that you mentioned I had a couple of businesses prior to this one and I think I was just one of those people who I always knew that I wanted to work for myself. I think, you know, I felt a bit limited being in like a standard nine to five job. I got bored really easily. I was trying to do fun jobs, but they never paid very well. Like I was a fashion journalist at one point, which should be like, you know, super fun. I mean, you wouldn't know it now.
Heather (05:32.894)
Yeah.
Heather (05:50.513)
Oh well.
Kate McKibbin (05:53.494)
run around in like hoodies and sweatpants all the time. But you know, but it's still like, you know, there was, it wasn't a particularly well paid job. And I was like, I just, I don't know, I just needed something a bit more, you know, one that's gonna give me some more possibilities to be able to actually potentially buy some of these amazing clothes I'm writing about. And also just, yeah, just to have some more things to do. Like I was always at work going, can I do this? Can I do this? And they're like, no, that's your job. You just do this one little job. And I'm like, that doesn't work.
Heather (06:21.713)
Right.
Kate McKibbin (06:22.466)
for my brain. So I was just kind of waiting for an idea. I had the sort of the first idea that kind of felt like a real light bulb moment for me was I was working on and this is going to age me a lot, but I was working on like the first website for the magazine that I worked like they didn't have a website yet. So I was helping them get their website online. And at the same time, online stores in like American things are starting to ship to Australia. So
Heather (06:38.567)
Yes! Oh my god.
Kate McKibbin (06:49.374)
online shopping was starting to become a thing. It's like 2006, 2007. And I was like, well, you know, so much of the magazine is dedicated obviously to things you can buy in stores. And I said, what if the website was just things you could buy online and, you know, we could just feature the stuff that actually delivered to Australia, because it was kind of getting harder to find those things. And like the sort of...
Heather (06:54.793)
Yep.
Kate McKibbin (07:15.458)
paraphrase feedback from my boss at the time. I was like, oh, this online shopping thing, people are, you know, it's not gonna, not gonna be a thing. It won't take off. Let's not focus on that. So I was like, oh, I kind of feel like it's something here and do you mind if I go and do it? And they're like, no, you know, knock yourself out. And so I did, I did that. It took off really quickly and it became, I sort of set it up in the model that I knew, which was magazine publishing. So, you know, relying on ads as the main source of revenue and
Heather (07:21.923)
Yeah, right. Oh my gosh, yep.
Kate McKibbin (07:43.818)
You had to create a lot of content. And this was like back before, um, before you even could schedule things onto Instagram or social, or it wasn't even Instagram, but Facebook, like you couldn't schedule things. So it was literally like a ding would pop up on my calendar. And I was like, post to Facebook. And she's like, yeah, post now. Um, and you got rewarded for posting multiple times a day. So we were doing like six to 10 pieces of content on Facebook. And it's anyway, ended up with a team and.
Heather (07:59.992)
Post now.
Kate McKibbin (08:12.458)
It was super fun. Did that for probably like six or so years. So it got to a point that was just like the, it's really hard work. I've ended up doing all the things I don't like all the creative stuff I've given to the team and I am now an ad salesperson, which is not something I ever wanted to do. And there was such a, you know, like as soon as anything happens in the economy, again, around that time of there's quite a few fluctuations over that period. Um, similar to kind of what we're seeing.
Heather (08:29.767)
Okay.
Kate McKibbin (08:42.466)
now, but first thing people pull is their ads budget. So I'm like, we have no other way of making revenue. And it was just, yeah, it's always like a terrible, terrible knee-jerk reaction that happens. But I was just like, I kind of found myself in this place. I was working super hard. It was really stressful. I didn't love it anymore. And but I was like, you know, what else do I do? And then I think, you know, as kind of seems to happen,
Heather (08:49.931)
Don't pull your marketing. Yeah.
Kate McKibbin (09:11.314)
I had a whole bunch of people ask me around at a similar time, like, how did you grow it so quickly? Like, can you show me how you, like how you get your traffic, how you actually monetized it, how you, you know, started creating partnerships with brands and all of that stuff. And I was like, all right, all right, I'll create an online course. I'll see, you know, like, you know, three people ask you for something. Why not give it a shot? And it was the most.
low tech thing ever. I hadn't fully embraced my nerd era at this point. And I was just like, I figured out how to make a PayPal button, embed it in a blog post. And then I had to manually be getting people's email addresses out of PayPal to send them the manual details of like the folder to go and like it was so low tech. It was crazy. But
Heather (09:42.204)
Yeah.
Heather (09:54.463)
I love that. That's where you kind of started, was the course into this next phase.
Kate McKibbin (09:58.554)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so then sorry, I was just coming very long story. I was trying to speed it up, or we'll be here the whole time.
Heather (10:02.947)
No, it's great. No, it's really, it's making, it's making sense though, why you're doing what you're doing. Yeah, so yeah, you got the course up and going, then what happens?
Kate McKibbin (10:12.63)
Um, so then I did that for a few years and it was amazing to have so much more control over your, I, you know, how you, your revenue to be not just reliant on like other people to be able to actually have different strategies. Like I just enjoyed that so much more. However, I didn't love the topic that I was teaching because I'd sort of. Grew up fallen out of love already with by this point, it was called blogging. I had always thought of it more as publishing, but, um, you know, and, and now it's
I was like having to get up and get people excited about it. And I wasn't excited about it anymore. Um, so there was just started to be that disconnect. Um, and the stuff that I was really loving was the nerding out behind the scenes and, you know, at this point we were, you know, very deep into funnels and automations and trying webinars. And I've been playing with all of this stuff now for, for several years. And that was the bit that I loved. And that was the bit that like my girlfriends who I'd met through, like, you know,
Heather (10:44.383)
Yeah.
Kate McKibbin (11:08.902)
masterminds and things, they'll be like, you know, ask Kate, Kate will help you fix this thing or Kate will help you to set this up. And I remember speaking with a coach at the time, just being frustrated. I'm like, I don't know what else I would, you know, what else I would do. And they're like, well, what if, you know, if it didn't matter, like, what do you like helping people the most with? I'm like, funnels, but everybody like can't just do funnels. And they're like, why can't you just do funnels? And I was like, oh, yeah, why, why can't I? So that, yeah, that became sort of
terribly timed because I just shut everything down. I was like, you know, very used to the shutting it down. Didn't have any real responsibilities at that time. And then shut it all down. And then very quickly found out that I was pregnant. I was like, oh, okay, must get this up and running faster than I was originally intending. So nothing like a solid deadline to do that. Really, yes.
Heather (11:47.602)
Yeah.
Heather (12:01.243)
and a really solid one, yeah.
Kate McKibbin (12:06.21)
And yeah, it's been, you know, that was, well, that he's four. So that was probably like, you know, for nearly five years ago. And, um, yeah, I've been loving it ever since.
Heather (12:16.363)
And that's what you're doing. So this is what you've been doing for the last four or five years is hello funnels. Yeah. Excellent. Oh, and now like that sort of evolution of who you are and where you came from, where it makes perfect sense as to why you're so good at what you do. So I think the backstory was important.
Kate McKibbin (12:20.343)
Yay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kate McKibbin (12:35.051)
It's like you can, it's one of those things like you can see how the dots connect when you look backwards, but looking forwards, if someone said you would end up doing this, I'd be like, what, what do you mean? Yeah.
Heather (12:39.327)
Totally.
Heather (12:43.919)
Yeah. And now funnels are everything and like everywhere, but good ones are hard to find. So it's, um, it's an interesting, so I think what we should do now is talk a little bit about what you do because. There are a lot of platforms out there to build funnels and marketing processes and I guess let's start with that. Um, do you have tools that you prefer? Do you work with anything? Like, how do you.
Kate McKibbin (12:52.467)
Yes. Yeah.
Kate McKibbin (12:59.799)
Mm-hmm.
Heather (13:13.055)
How do you start with somebody?
Kate McKibbin (13:15.258)
Um, we try and be bit platform agnostic. There's a couple of tools that I don't love and try and steer people away from just mostly because they're buggy. Like I don't think that anything that you're relying on to either deliver something to your customers or to, you know, deliver your revenue, you want that to be a stable platform. So if there's anything that's notoriously buggy, I try and get people off it. But otherwise I'm not, you know, like I, we have the tools we use and I like, but I'm like we.
Heather (13:18.468)
Nice.
Kate McKibbin (13:44.69)
My, my, my 14, we're all pretty across, like we have to sort of have, uh, memberships to everything so that we can go in and, you know, try and figure something out for somebody if they're trying to, you know, like we're sort of like secondary tech support for a lot of people's, um, platforms when they can't actually hear from the platform themselves. Uh, yeah.
Heather (13:52.339)
Yeah.
Heather (14:03.291)
Get that and you know the questions to ask as well. Are you happy to share which ones you think are not great versus the ones you prefer?
Kate McKibbin (14:11.814)
I mean, I'll share the ones I prefer because I don't ever, you know, and the platform is always being updated and changed and you, I don't want someone to listen to this in three years time and go, oh no, this is terrible and they've totally fixed it. Um, but you know, I mean, my favorite email software is ActiveCampaign. Um, second favorite is ConvertKit. And I think for the difference between the two is like either, it's like a Sam, it's like an Android iPhone kind of thing, like people either love one or the other and it's...
Heather (14:13.439)
Let's do that.
Heather (14:20.323)
Yeah, very, very valid point. Yeah.
Heather (14:30.244)
Yes.
Kate McKibbin (14:38.902)
you know, and that's fine. They're both great. It just seems to be like, this works for my brain or this works for my brain. So I don't have a preference between those two that I'm an active campaign person. Yeah. And then as far as the like where courses are hosted and things like that, I'm actually at the moment quite liking like it used to be very much you wanted like the prettiest and all the fancy.
Heather (14:46.959)
Excellent. Yeah, that's I know that one too. It's good.
Kate McKibbin (15:05.922)
things for the actual program delivery. And I think over time we've kind of come to the, actually it just needs to be clean and easy to use and simple. And actually if you're gonna be weighing out one over the other, I would rather have a really high functioning checkout system. So something like, even like a Sam cart where you've got then can use their thing built in the backend or thrive cart similar, because it then, you know, it'll talk to each other nicely. You don't need zaps.
You don't have to worry about things not communicating well, but you can have the bit that I think matters, which is, you know, stuff that you can test with your conversions and all that kind of stuff from the front end. So, um, I think you can have good email software, good checkout slash courseware. And then, you know, wherever you want to host your, if you're a WordPress person or a Squarespace or a show it like they're all kind of these days, all pretty good. So that's my kind of my stack. Yeah.
Heather (16:00.139)
Perfect. Good. I had to ask, I had to start there because it obviously might go over some people's heads, but I think a lot of people that listen to this will be like, oh, interesting. Okay. Tell me more. So now we want to know with some of these different platforms that you do, what do you specialize in as far as the type of client work that you guys do?
Kate McKibbin (16:12.246)
Yeah.
Kate McKibbin (16:23.174)
Yeah. So we help, um, course creators, uh, to set up their automated sales and marketing systems and sort of what I really like to do is go beyond like that one off funnel piece and actually set up something that's more of an ecosystem. So something that, and this isn't something that gets done in a weekend. This is something that, you know, deliberately kind of gets done. One piece runs for a while the next piece, but it's sort of designed so that
Heather (16:36.234)
Yes.
Kate McKibbin (16:50.666)
one that's done properly, like your marketing should be able to be semi-automated. Your sales, you know, and your conversions should be mostly automated and they should all sort of work together really nicely. And then your live anything, you know, like they can support those as well. And that kind of becomes the icing on the cake. Like I always sort of talk about how like your funnel should be.
that should hit your, we have thing called the financial freedom checkpoint. So that's basically whatever it costs to run your business, to pay yourself, your bills, everything. It like in an ideal world, your funnel would cover that plus about 20% every month. And that's kind of like getting like almost like a paycheck from your funnel. So then you know, every month, like I'm good. Doesn't matter if it's I get sick or kids are sick or we go on holidays, everything is covered. And then I feel like
uh, clients, they're not able, like they're able to show up very differently in their business when they're not coming from this place of survival mode. And also then you're able to sort of deal with things like launches and stuff, which are a very stressful thing. And, you know, I'm even though we love funnels, we still, we don't hate launches. Um, but I think that when you actually have the space and the capacity and it's not such a, like, if this doesn't work, our business is going to, you know, be destroyed kind of.
Heather (17:51.679)
Holy.
Kate McKibbin (18:13.378)
feeling to it, then you can do it and it's something that's fun and it's, you know, it's different energy and it just makes business a lot more enjoyable. So I feel like I went on a major tangent on that, but I hope that makes sense.
Heather (18:23.5)
So good. No, you're answering my, you're totally answering my question because now I'm going to lead into something else. So you build the funnels for course creators. You set all of that up. Do you drive traffic into it as well?
Kate McKibbin (18:31.47)
Mm-hmm.
Kate McKibbin (18:35.934)
Well, so we teach them how to do it. So we're very much a dumb with you. We're not dumb for you. So yeah, so we show them, like we have our, we have like mentorship programs or we help them to map this out. We give them the templates, we show them how to do it, but it's more, you know, we help, we can guide their teams and that kind of thing. We don't do traffic driving, but we do share our traffic driving strategies. And yeah, again, sort of like, so it's another one that I really believe in is that,
Heather (18:38.671)
Excellent. Cool. OK. Yeah.
Heather (18:48.114)
No.
Heather (18:57.995)
strategies, yeah.
Kate McKibbin (19:04.202)
It makes a really big difference to your business, to your stress levels as well, when your marketing can pay for itself. So that's sort of like, we always like to get your sort of like engine set up in the first place. So you've got something that's converting well that you know, X number of people come through here, you'll make roughly X number of sales. And then once you know that there's like, okay, how do we get more people through it and how do we do it in a way that's actually.
profitable and not a big, you know, just let's go donate money to Facebook and hope something happens like, you know, something that sort of, you know, feels a bit more manageable as well. So yeah, I like the, like the, you know, here Mark Zuckerberg have a dollar and he gives me one back. I like that exchange. That works well for me. And so we'd, yeah, we're trying to help our clients to set that up.
Heather (19:40.993)
Yeah.
Heather (19:49.422)
Yeah, totally.
Heather (19:53.647)
I like that there's a bit of empowerment in that as well, because you're giving them this incredible platform and system that they can scale and put traffic into, and then the knowledge behind how, you know, how does it work behind the scenes? And so that's nice little system, I think. Because I always like to think, you know, as a business owner, you should have a certain level of education in each area in your business. So it makes sense.
Kate McKibbin (20:16.976)
Yeah. And you hear so many stories of people and it like, it makes it like people are like, they're the experts in whatever it is that they are doing or teaching. Like they might be a health expert or something like that. Like you can't expect someone to also be a marketing expert, but I think it kind of, it can be a bit dangerous when people go, oh, okay, well then I'll just going to completely outsource this because I don't understand it. And so this person seems expensive, but therefore they must be good.
Heather (20:39.176)
Yeah.
Kate McKibbin (20:43.318)
I'm going to give them all this money and then they don't because they don't know what they don't know. They can't tell if that was the right decision. They also can't tell if what the results they got back were good results. And I think it just ends up being like, quite often people feel very disappointed even if sometimes they actually got a good service. They just didn't know. Like, so I think, yeah, knowing. Yeah.
Heather (21:01.227)
They don't know. They don't even know what to look for. I kind of always think of it like finances and business, right? So if you were to just sort of hand everything over to a bookkeeper and accountant, then you never really understand the financial flow of what to even look at. You still need to understand it and yes, you can still give it to people as well or train people up. But I think a lot of people don't necessarily look at marketing in that way. Like you said, it's kind of like, oh, this isn't my talent.
Kate McKibbin (21:16.187)
Yeah.
Kate McKibbin (21:20.663)
We
Heather (21:29.703)
I'll just give it to somebody, but then you have no idea what numbers you're looking at. It might be an excellent result, but you don't know that as well.
Kate McKibbin (21:34.974)
Yes. Yeah. Like just like I've spoken to people before and they're like, oh, I hired this thing. They were terrible. Like they only got me 10 sales. And I'm like, oh, okay. Well, how many, like, tell me more about it. And like 10 sales end up being like a 20% conversion rate or something. I'm like, they actually got you a really great result, but yeah, they weren't good at setting your expectations perhaps. But yeah, it's just, I think there is something like an obviously not.
Heather (21:48.404)
Yeah.
like oh it's really good
Kate McKibbin (22:02.038)
People don't have to go and become an expert in it, but I think there's definitely something in understanding the fundamentals and understanding how the pieces work together and what success looks like in something so that then when you do outsource it, because who wants to do everything? Like, no, you can do it with a bit more of a level of, okay, I feel like I know that I can tell if I've made the right decision and if this is working and I can trust that person, then I just think it's a bit more, yeah, it's more an empowering place to be.
Heather (22:28.939)
Now it makes perfect sense, perfect sense. And especially cause you guys know the course intimately within the funnel that you're building for your clients. And then, so you're going to give them very great training and advice on how to get the best results off of what you built. So perfect. Yeah, it makes good sense. I'm happy to share a case study just so we can understand how you work with somebody. I'm happy for you to shout out their name or not, or it's up to you, but like when...
Kate McKibbin (22:42.478)
Yeah.
Heather (22:54.227)
Give me a story of somebody that has come to you and what's happened as a result of working with you before and after.
Kate McKibbin (23:00.022)
Yeah, sure. So it was one of my favorite, this is actually a very, like, she's actually technically a friend. And she's one of the first people that I coached with their funnel. And it kind of inspired like the process I took her through then became the process that I started working with other people with. And I love this story, because it's now been over five years and the funnel that we set up together, she still has running and has made like multiple millions of dollars. And so like, it just kind of shows you that if you kind of
Heather (23:24.747)
Well...
Kate McKibbin (23:29.334)
can set the piece up in the right way in the first place, that it can be something that lasts a long time, which I think so much marketing is just sort of like, it's just for this month or it's just, this algorithm changes and it doesn't work anymore. But anyway, sorry, yeah, a friend of mine, Vezna, she's a naturopath. When we first, like when I first started helping her, she was trying to sell a program that was like a lot of, with a lot of one-on-ones. So it was like a higher ticket. I think she'd been told that she needed to do a higher ticket.
Heather (23:35.101)
Yeah.
Kate McKibbin (23:58.85)
Um, she was trying to sell via sales call the pro the package was like 10 one or ones or something like that, but she was really burnt out. Like she was maxed with her. Like she was kind of at that, you know, that kind of point where it's like, I know I need to make more money. I haven't got any time necessarily for more clients or to be doing this thing, to figure out how to make more. So she was in that bit of quite a bit stuck. Um, and the, like the, the first of conversation that I sort of had was like, okay, what's.
Heather (24:21.32)
Yeah.
Kate McKibbin (24:28.17)
What are you sort of wanting to get out of this? It's like, I need another revenue stream. I need more space. I need more time. And I'm like, well then maybe you shouldn't be selling something that's 10 hours of work once you sell it and multiple sales calls to be able to sell it in the first place. Like, is there something you can sell that's a bit more leveraged? And that could be sold in a more automated way. And she had a program that she'd created and just had never, like she'd run it once, had three people through it, went, oh, this didn't work. Cause not enough people went through it. And then, you know,
put it in, put it to the side. And so we kind of looked at that and like, okay, well pricing wise, this would be a great fit for a webinar, like a webinar funnel. Again, she kind of had all those stories, all that resistance. She's like, webinars don't work for me. I'm no good at webinars. People have to talk to me for me to convert them. Like all of these stories I know so many people have. And so she started doing a webinar a week. Like that was like the process she started with doing a live webinar a week and just.
Like she's, yeah, I have to give her all the credit here because she was committed to that. And that's, you know, that's a big, that's quite a lot to do. It is a big commitment. And to after each one, she went kind of went through it. She saw what people were dropping off. She looked at the questions and she tweaked it. And she did that for like, I think over a month, just to really refine that webinar. So it went from being the first webinar, people like, oh, this is great. It's amazing. Thank you so much. And they didn't buy anything.
Heather (25:33.555)
big commitment. Yeah.
Kate McKibbin (25:52.514)
to the last one she did, like it was converting like, I think about 15% or something of people on the webinar, which is great numbers. And then her problem was like, well, okay, this is good. Like I know I can now make sales every week, but I'm really sick of saying the same thing over and over again. And I feel like I'm not doing it as well now each time because it's not fresh for me anymore. She was, but I don't believe that if this is automated, it will work. I think people still have to speak to me live. So.
We sort of, then we did a hybrid where basically she had the middle bit recorded. She got on, did a live intro, then switched to the slides, which was all the recorded portion and then came back live at the end to answer questions. She did that for a few weeks. It's still converted really well. Um, and then she's like, Oh, I'm just really sick of listening to this presentation. Now, like it was just this whole journey. I'm like, how about you just try it? Like just try, I think she even said, Oh, I'm only going to do like 50% of traffic. Like she just wouldn't let it go.
because obviously that was her main source of income. And like, just try some traffic to an automated version. Like, let's just see what happens. And she did, and it worked just as well. Like it was the, her conversion, because, and so, you know, then she's like, was able to, you know, quite quickly was able to scale it up. And so she went from initially a sailor to a month of this program, which was then taking her, you know, majority of her week to deliver.
Heather (27:00.444)
So good.
Kate McKibbin (27:17.27)
to then making, I think, 20 sales a week of a completely leveraged program. And she's like, since, you know, scaled that from there, but, and she's had thousands of people through it now, you know, five years later. So it's just sort of, I just, I loved it because it was just like at every point, it was like resistance. It's like, no, I'm no good at it. I can't do this. Or I did the first time it didn't work, but she didn't give up. She kept kind of doing it piece by piece. And then, you know, once you had those couple pieces together,
Heather (27:30.411)
Oh my gosh.
Kate McKibbin (27:47.274)
It was amazing. Like it just made such a huge impact on her business.
Heather (27:50.675)
That's why I like what you said as well. Um, like you were saying, just keep going and tweaking little things over time because so many people are like, Oh, it just didn't work. Like, you know what she'd said as well. And it, I mean, you probably know this more than me, but like how many times does a funnel first when it's built is it it's perfect and it's delivering exactly what you want.
Kate McKibbin (28:12.487)
Yeah. Like anything like first time you offer a program, first time you, you know, it's the, it's always the, it's the beta, it's the test draft is, you know, needs, it needs some optimizing. But I think when you know to how to, when you know how to know that it's got promise, I think that's kind of can make such a big difference to be like, okay, this is 80% there or 70% there versus.
Oh no, I just completely missed the mark and you know, maybe we should pivot. Like that's kind of a tricky thing. But I think, yeah, when you can tell that, okay, this, yeah, this is going to get me. I can see how this could work and I can see that this is getting me towards where I want to go. Then it's always worth doing the iterations and the raps and getting it. Yeah. Getting it better. Yeah.
Heather (28:57.387)
keep getting it better and better. What, what would you say conversion wise these days would be a good number for people to aim for. So with the funnels that you built, so it sounds like they're a bit of automation at the front end. And then what would be the key, I guess, moments and conversion rates throughout each of those steps to aim for?
Kate McKibbin (29:17.394)
Um, yeah, sure. Sorry. I mean, it's very, I mean, the number one is obviously, I mean, it depends on again, the objective of the funnel, but the number one is, is it, is it a profitable? Like if it is set up to be profitable, is, is it profitable? Is it something that when you add paid traffic to it, um, with a bit of, you know, to a level of scale that you're looking at, is it still coming out the other end? And you know, you're getting, it's not just, it's not negative. It's not just being re-invested. It's, you know, it's profitable. Obviously that's.
That's like goal number one, because I think, um, kind of people can get too, uh, you know, stuck in the like, Oh, it's supposed to be, this is supposed to be 2%, but it's only 1.8%. So maybe I'll just stay here. And you're like, actually it's, you're getting 10 X profit. Don't worry. Like leave that. That's fine. So that's like always like check number one. Um, but then like, as far as like breaking down, like some of the more key pieces.
Heather (29:59.823)
There you go. Yes.
Kate McKibbin (30:10.778)
Um, so it was a funnel that was designed to be self-funded, for example. Um, you'd want to see that you were getting that within the first seven to 10 days, um, usually that you're getting that revenue through. So whatever that you, you spend on ads that you've getting that back within seven to 10 days. Um, it depends on what kind of mechanisms you're using in it. So like this, lots of like, um, you know, the good old, the funnel should convert at 2%.
I think that's still fairly, you know, for that seven to 10 days, if you've got it set up right, I think 2% is a good benchmark. Definitely you can do better than that. And if you're at 1.9 or something, I wouldn't stress it's close enough, but you know, anything that's too far below that, um, unless you've got crazy cheap traffic, this is why I always come back to the, it depends on the, uh, you know, on the overall profitability. Cause we've seen, like I've had clients who have, you know, their overall funnels only converting it like.
0.5% which shouldn't be profitable, but their traffic is so cheap. And it's just because of the market that they're in that actually that's a really good conversion rate for them. And then other ones convert at a really high percentage, but they cost them like $25, $30 to get a lead. So they have to have that higher rate. So yeah, unfortunately, I can't give a cookie caro on that. But okay.
Heather (31:31.567)
No, it's the right answer. It's the right answer. Cause it shows it to me. It says that you know what you're doing. Um, and what, what you said too, cause people get so hung up on the numbers, right? Is it the right number to be paying attention to? Like you were saying, ah, it might be this conversion rate, but you're 10, 10 times in your ad spend or whatever it is. Um, there's so many other facets. And that's why working with somebody like you that knows all the different layers is important. That's yeah. No, it was the right. It was.
Kate McKibbin (31:38.03)
I'm gonna go.
Kate McKibbin (31:51.868)
Yeah.
Heather (32:00.831)
the right answer, okay, so it's all good. I feel we got that one nailed, that's good. So one last question and then we'll start to wrap up and that is around what's working now that you're finding works well in a course funnel. What is maybe a few things you find it's working well, whether it's sort of the entry point or something that's said on a webinar, what would you say?
Kate McKibbin (32:02.079)
Oh good, thank you!
Kate McKibbin (32:23.094)
So one thing that we've sort of a shift that we've made with, and a lot of clients are making this year is around the, I guess the first sort of part of the funnel. So it used to be that you would set up, um, you know, like seven to 14 days sort of warmup sequence that inside that would be inviting people maybe to a webinar or something like that. And then, you know, the first goal would be like, get that piece converting well. And there's like, okay, how can we get affordable traffic into it?
with the way that traffic is doing so many crazy things at the moment and Facebook is fluctuating and you know the new regulations and things like that, people would then get really stuck on that okay how do I get affordable traffic in there and they'd be trying to test seven dollar products and memberships and 27 dollar this and this upsell and that upsell and you could stay stuck there for a very long time to um and yeah.
It was annoying me basically. So we, we kind of shifted every, a few things around and that sort of first seven to 14 day, you know, webinar funnel, for example, you know, that actually for a lot of our clients has become the thing that is now the thing whose goal is actually to be self funded. So it's no longer try and get a $7 offer working up front and try and get a webinar. It's like, let's try and get a webinar that selling your thousand dollar offer.
And that's what gets reinvested. You can then have a longer funnel on top of that, which will have other opportunities to invite, make invitations and, you know, potentially upsells, downsells, cross-sells, like you can do all kinds of different things there, but it's just the velocity that you can get for, you know, for example, I can go too much into nerdy maths, but, um, if you think about it with like one of these mini or micro offers, like it, maybe it's costing you $50 to sell a
know, a $27 product or something. Um, and with your upsells and stuff, maybe you're coming in cost neutral, but it's still $50. And a lot of people aren't very comfortable spending like $5,000 a day to get, you know, hundreds of people. Therefore into their funnel, they might be spending a hundred dollars a day. And that means they're getting two people in and that just slows it down too much. But for a webinar funnel, maybe it's costing you $10 to get a lead. Maybe you're getting two sales out of every hundred. So out of.
Kate McKibbin (34:49.27)
that and that's then becomes cost neutral. I think that's why maths is doing right there, but you don't have 200 people going through rather than two. So it just means everything else. So it's just flicking and people sort of releasing that need for like, oh, but this lovely webinar final I've built, like, shouldn't it be making me profit right now? It's like some do, many do, but for some, particularly those in a more expensive market, if you can have a...
higher value offer upfront, knowing that yes, only a certain percentage of people are gonna buy then, they are ready to go buy now buyers, but all these, you're gonna have all of these other people who are gonna come through, they're gonna get warmed up really well, nurtured really well, they're gonna come into your world, and then that's gonna make everything else you do work so much better. And just flicking that sort of emphasis, I guess, it just means that yeah, you can scale up much faster and with a lot less risk.
So that's kind of what we've been. Sorry if I just went full nerd on you then. Yeah.
Heather (35:51.083)
So rather than going, no, it's all good. Rather than going straight into like the old school sort of freebie into an upsell at a cheaper price, you going straight to webinar. That's what you're, or yeah.
Kate McKibbin (36:04.558)
Well, yeah, I mean, not for everybody, obviously, but yeah, for the people who can sell to cold traffic for their sort of more DIY style signature offers, like the 500 to $1,000 kind of offers, going straight to webinar with cold traffic and just releasing the expectation that you're going to get any more than a break even ROI on it, but that that's actually okay, because it's still paying for your traffic and allowing you to get a lot more traffic.
Heather (36:25.937)
on it. Yep.
Kate McKibbin (36:33.226)
into everything else.
Heather (36:35.027)
And to me, that also means that if they're attending the webinars, they're way more highly qualified because there's more time investment straight off the front end, right? So they probably are more keen to hear what you have to say after that and would eventually convert probably quicker than if you did like a cheap, like a leadback there at the start, maybe.
Kate McKibbin (36:43.452)
Yeah, yeah.
Kate McKibbin (36:52.662)
Yeah, exactly. Someone who's willing to invest time is definitely someone who's further along in that buying journey than someone who's just collecting PDFs to look at later.
Heather (36:56.464)
Yeah.
Heather (37:00.061)
Yeah, yeah.
Heather (37:03.531)
Yeah, which might not ever go anywhere. So it makes a lot of sense. And it's a really good tip. And again, what I'm hearing in this conversation is that numbers aren't always what they seem, and that there's going to be better questions that you can ask and everything that you do if you're thinking about funnels, you know, whether you're supposed to be looking at the conversion or the profit, and then also not getting hung up in all this is this is what other people are saying to do and maybe flipping things around and going back to front.
Kate McKibbin (37:06.463)
Yeah, yeah.
Heather (37:32.555)
can be really valuable and much needed for people right now if they're getting kind of like jaded with what they're trying.
Kate McKibbin (37:38.99)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's still, you know, a lot of the stuff that's working for people well is still sort of like that tried and true stuff, but it's just being done in a slightly different way. Like, you don't need to throw out every strategy that's ever worked for you. It's just like thinking like, okay, how can we make it work better for right now? And, you know, I'm sure it will continue to change. But, you know, that's business. That's why we signed up for.
Heather (37:47.855)
Yeah.
Heather (38:01.707)
Smart.
Kate McKibbin (38:08.35)
a life that was slightly more interesting. Sometimes we might go, oh, 95 sounds nice right now, but I think we'd all be very bored. Ha ha ha.
Heather (38:16.971)
Yeah, I think I would agree if that's what you're wired for is doing something as crazy as us. So oh my gosh. So we already know that you work with course creators and you build funnels. Are there any specific industries that you prefer to work in?
Kate McKibbin (38:22.548)
Yay!
Kate McKibbin (38:34.954)
prefer, I think we tend to, and I don't know if it's just one of those self-fulfilling prophecies because we've got a lot of testimonials from people in certain industries, so we get more of those, but we tend to get lots of people in the like the health and wellness spaces, so like um, national paths, fertility experts, things like that, and then also lots of people who are in like the business marketing um, space as well, so um.
Heather (38:40.286)
Yeah.
Heather (38:47.339)
Perfect.
Kate McKibbin (38:59.282)
And that's kind of real. I mean, the business market space is always fun for me because I'm like, I know this one intimately, like you're in this one set, but I'm learning a lot about all kinds of modalities of natural health and all kinds of things as well. Um, through our lovely health clients. So that's also really interesting.
Heather (39:15.727)
really good to know. We have a lot of listeners on both sides of the equation, but loads of people in the health and wellness space. So they might be listening to this going, okay, I'm loving the story that you told about trying to do the 10 hour sessions and all that. And yeah, they're, guys, if you're listening to this, and that's you, and you're like, yeah, I just am trying to grow and scale, but I'm at capacity, I'm exhausted, then maybe a conversation with Kate is exactly what you need. And how do they find you? How do they reach out to you?
Kate McKibbin (39:20.225)
Yeah.
Kate McKibbin (39:26.626)
Yeah.
Kate McKibbin (39:46.706)
So we're HelloFunnels. So hellofunnels.co or hellofunnels on Instagram and you can DM us if you've got any questions and either myself or my team, we're in the inbox all day. So we're there to answer any questions. Yeah, it's always lovely to hear from people. Yeah.
Heather (40:01.835)
Excellent. And you gave, I think you gave me a little freebie to share with the listeners as well, didn't you? What was that you gave us?
Kate McKibbin (40:09.33)
Yeah, so it's our seven figure scaling checklist. And it's a checklist of all the steps to go through, literally from zero. So a lot of, most of your reads will probably skip the first page or so, but that sort of the, everything that kind of needs to be done in roughly the order that we sort of see it work best to get from that sort of starting place of creating your first program and growing your first audience through to actually scaling it up to
Heather (40:34.772)
Yeah.
Kate McKibbin (40:38.122)
something that's really sustainable and stable and, you know, has potential to scale up to seven figures. So, yes, we've got that for you guys. Do you want me to give the link or, yes, yes.
Heather (40:49.319)
Yes, shout out for the link and you guys will have it in the show notes too. But do please shout it out for people that are listening to their earbuds right now. And they're like, wait, stop. What was it again? Say what it is.
Kate McKibbin (40:57.19)
Yeah, so it's my adult hello funnels.co forward slash checklist.
Heather (41:05.387)
There you go. My.hellofunnels.co forward slash checklist. Guys, it sounds like a really valuable piece of content. So I go check that out, especially if you're thinking about, you know, doing a course, you, or maybe even you've created one and you have no idea where to take it next, or you've not gotten great results. Um, Kate, your girl, reach out to her and Kate, as we start to wrap up, are there any last comments or ideas just from our conversation together, um, for business owners that are in that space of growth and are just a little overwhelmed, maybe just looking for a little.
extra inspiration from this conversation.
Kate McKibbin (41:39.314)
Um, I think the thing that I think I would love to say is that I know a lot of people when they hear talking about like funnels and automations and things like that, and they think that's like a later thing. Like that's something that, you know, that should be done when I've hit a certain number. And I actually personally believe that, you know, you can start adding sales automations into your business as soon as you have something that can be sold and delivered.
in an evergreen capacity and it doesn't have to be, you know, it can be something really simple to set up. Like it doesn't have to be this crazy complex thing, like some of the stuff we've been talking about, um, today, but just to have something that's running and it's maybe catching you an extra two, three handful of sales a month without you having to do anything like that can just start to be the, like that foundation and then you can, you know, that will grow with you over time. So don't.
think because it's, you know, there's nerds like me who think funnels are amazing. And then there's everyone else who are like that scary. I want to put off too later or, you know, it's not gonna work for me, but you can start simple, but just don't. Yeah. The sooner you start, it's like list building. As soon as you start, you're going to be, you know, the sooner it can kind of start compounding and working for you. And you'll just be so glad that you started early. Um, and yeah, who doesn't want to, if you can have a couple of extra cells a month for doing literally nothing, why, why wouldn't you? That's my.
Heather (43:01.595)
I am in complete agreement of that for sure. So yes, thank you so much for being on the show. Okay, it's been a great chat and your numbers were great and not too crazy and numbers are after all what helps drive a business forward. So I'm glad you shared that part as well as sharing just some of the practical advice and ideas and understanding of how you work with people, which is a really great little formula and process that seems like you have. So thank you so much for being here.
Kate McKibbin (43:04.226)
Hehehehe
Kate McKibbin (43:27.606)
Thank you so much. My pleasure.
Heather (43:32.256)
Alright!
