Upon winning the Two Comma Club Award, Eric Thayne took the time to go deep into the journey he had been on and exactly how he turned a losing funnel around to make it to the Two Comma Club.
It's a long post but well worth the read.
Over to Eric…
"Have you ever launched a funnel, and it didn't work?
Or worse... have you ever NOT launched a funnel because you were AFRAID it wouldn't work? 🤔
Well, let me just set your expectations right.
9 times out of 10, when you launch your funnel…
It's not going to work.
It won't make as much as you want it to.
It might not make money at all.
In fact, it might even lose money.
I'm not trying to be a downer... but hear me out.
Yeah, I know it seems like every time Russell launches a new funnel, it works amazing.
But Russell's been doing this for like 13 gajillion years.
You and me? We got a ways to go 😜
BUT there IS a bright side to this, and here's the kicker:
You can MAKE it work.
Have you ever seen the movie Groundhog Day?
In the movie, the main character (played by Bill Murray) relives the same day over and over again.
Every day he sees the same people, they say the same things, and he lives the same experiences.
About halfway through the movie, he decides to try making a girl fall in love with him.
But it doesn't go well—she doesn't like what he says, and she slaps him in the face.
So the next day, he tries a different approach.
And the next day, and the next day.
Every day he tweaks his approach ever so slightly to try and win over the girl's heart.
And then, after changing just about everything about himself, at the end of the movie, they FINALLY fall in love.
I know this is just a fun fictional story. But the principles are true.
A while back, I shared a post about my funnel that made $1 Million selling a $47 digital product.
But what I didn't tell you is that when I first launched that funnel... it was broken.
I was losing thousands of dollars.
(Side note: I shared this entire story on the ClickFunnels Radio podcast recently—ep. 501 if ya wanna listen)
But by following the process I'm about to show you, I took that funnel from broken to smokin' in no time!
So let's break it down.
The 4-Step Scientific Method I Used To Take My Funnel From A Loser To A Winner
Before I figured this out, when a funnel wouldn't work, I would just ditch it and move on to something else. And then I ended up with dozens of funnels in my ClickFunnels account, and none of them were working.
But you don't have to do that (in fact, DON'T).
When a funnel doesn't work, it doesn't mean it can't EVER work.
(And it's definitely not because "funnels don't work")
It just means there's something off about your offer or your funnel, and this process will help you find out what it is.
STEP 1: MAKE A HYPOTHESIS
First, let's find something to test. Ask your mentor or friends to look at your funnel and give you their gut reaction to it. Ask them if something feels off about it or if anything makes them doubt. Ask your customers why they decided to buy, and what about the sales page or the offer most caught their attention. Even better, ask the people who DIDN'T buy what turned them off.
Collect this feedback, combine it with your own ideas, and write it out into a checklist. This is now your laundry list of hypotheses to test. Pick one, and start running a split test in ClickFunnels.
PRO TIP: Only test ONE thing at a time. If you change multiple things on your page and you get different results (good OR bad), you won't know what actually caused the change.
STEP 2: DRIVE LOTS OF TRAFFIC
Now that you have your split test running, it's time to drive traffic to your page. And you need to drive as much as possible. The key to making this all work is having SIGNIFICANT data. You don't want to make decisions based on a small sample size.
My rule here is that I have to have 100 of whatever result I'm testing for on EACH version of the page. So if I'm testing Cost Per Click, I need at least 200 clicks. If I'm testing for sales, I need at least 200 sales.
PRO TIP: Some of you might be concerned about how much it's going to cost you to get 200 sales on your page. If you don't have a high ad budget or a huge list to promote to then this might take some time. So in the meantime, test other metrics like clicks and leads so you can make adjustments faster.
STEP 3: ANALYZE THE STATS
ClickFunnels makes it really easy to look at your split tests and see which version won. Open up the stats page in your funnel and look at the stats. Or if you're testing an ad metric, look in your ads manager. Take the winning version, drive all your traffic to it, and turn off the other one.
AVOID THIS MISTAKE: Don't let your split test run longer than it needs to! As soon as you have significant data on a test, TURN IT OFF and move on. I lost over 115 sales worth $7,700 on a split test that was a total loser because I forgot about it and let it run for an extra 2 weeks.
STEP 4: RINSE AND REPEAT
Once you finish your first test, move on immediately to the next one. Once you've gone through your entire list of hypotheses, create a new list. Do this until your funnel hits at least $1,000,000. Every day you're not running a split test on your funnel, you're losing money. You can always make it better. Yes, eventually, you'll reach a point where you're happy with your funnel's performance, and you can just let it sail. But until then, keep it up.
Remember my funnel that was losing thousands at first?
By following this method, within just 3 months, we started hitting six-figure months.
Within 6 months, we zoomed past the 2 Comma Club line with our whole funnel stack.
And now that one funnel has made over $1,000,000 all by itself.
So when your funnel seems like it's not working, don't give up on it! TRUST THE PROCESS. Give it a chance.
Hope this was helpful to some of you! Rooting for you!"
