The Money You're Leaving On The Table
Everyone Has a Funnel. Yours is Just Leaking.
Let me tell you something that's going to p**s off the "I just show up authentically and the right people find me" crowd:
You have a funnel.
Yes, you.
Even if you think funnels are "icky" or "too salesy" or outside of your artisanal, hand-crafted, boutique approach to business. Even if you've never built a landing page or written a sales email in your life. Even if the word "funnel" makes you want to throw your laptop into the ocean and go live in a yurt.
Here's What a Funnel Actually Is:
A funnel is just the path someone takes from "Who the hell is this person?" to "Here's my money." That's it. That's the whole thing. If someone can:
- Find you (somehow, somewhere)
- Pause to wonder what you actually do
- Try to piece together whether you can help them
- Eventually decide if they want to work with you
There's a funnel at play. The only question is whether it's intentional or leaking opportunity like a sieve.
The "Organic" Funnel Delusion
I see this constantly with the people I talk to. Smart, talented people who've convinced themselves they don't need a funnel because they get clients "organically." You know what "organically" usually means?
It means you have no idea how people are actually finding you, what's making them say yes, or why half of them disappear into the ether never to be heard from again.
It means your client acquisition process is about as systematic as throwing spaghetti at a wall and seeing what sticks. And sure, some spaghetti sticks. You get clients. You make money. You tell yourself it's working.
But here's what you don't see: The person who landed on your website, couldn't figure out what you do, and left. The potential client who wanted to work with you but couldn't find a way to actually start. The qualified lead who was ready to invest but got confused by your seventeen different offers and chose someone else instead.
Every single one of those is money you left on the table.
What a Proper Funnel Actually Does:
A proper funnel doesn't make you "salesy." It makes you clear. It means when someone discovers you, they can quickly understand:
- What you do
- Who you do it for
- What happens next
It means you're not relying on people to "figure it out" or "reach out if interested" or decode your cryptic Instagram bio like it's a fucking treasure map. It means you've thought about the journey and removed the friction.
But, leaving it to chance is the worst strategy of all.
When you don't have a thought out funnel, you're basically saying, "I hope the right people find me, understand what I do, and are persistent enough to figure out how to give me money despite me making it unnecessarily complicated." That's not a business model. That's a prayer...
Let me show you where you're haemorrhaging opportunity right now:
Leak #1: Your website is a mystery novel
People land on your homepage and genuinely cannot tell what you do or who you help. Maybe you've got beautiful branding and poetic copy about "transformation" and "embodiment," but zero clarity about the actual problem you solve.
Leak #2: You have no clear next step
Someone's interested. Now what? Do they DM you? Email you? Book a call? Fill out a form? Apply? Wait for you to open enrolment in six months? Your potential client shouldn't need a PhD in detective work to figure out how to move forward.
Leak #3: Your offers are a buffet of confusion
Courses AND mini-courses AND group programs AND masterminds AND more courses AND 1:1 coaching. Which one should they choose? When? Why? You've given people so many options they choose nothing.
Leak #4: You disappear between touch points
Someone finds you, thinks you're great, but they're not ready yet. Then... nothing. No nurture sequence. No follow-up. No staying top of mind. They forget you exist and hire someone else three months later.
Build It Once, Use It Forever
Here's what makes me cry: experts will spend HOURS crafting the perfect Instagram caption or showing up on stories every single day, but won't spend a weekend building a funnel that could work for them 24/7 for years.
A funnel isn't about being constantly "on." It's about building the infrastructure once so you can be more human, not less. So you can have conversations with people who actually get what you do. So you can work with clients who are the right fit instead of anyone who happens to find you.
So you can stop leaving money on the table because your path to working with you is held together with sticky tape and hope.
A real funnel for an expert business doesn't have to be complicated:
Someone finds you → They immediately understand what you do and who you help → There's a clear next step that makes sense → They take it → You show up in their inbox consistently → When they're ready, working with you is obvious and easy.
That's it. No seventeen-step email sequences with manipulative countdown timers. No fake scarcity or gross tactics. Just a clear, intentional path that respects people's intelligence and makes it easy to say yes when they're ready.
You can keep pretending you don't have a funnel. You can keep telling yourself that the "right people just find you." You can keep making it unnecessarily hard for qualified clients to work with you. Or you can acknowledge that everyone has a funnel, and yours might as well actually work.
Because the experts who are booked solid, charging premium prices, and working with dream clients?
They're not hoping people figure it out. They built a path. And they made it intentional.
AS SEEN iN
