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Your ads are running. Leads are coming in. But sales? Not so much. If this sounds familiar, the problem might not be your offer, your funnel or even your ads. The problem might be that you’re asking people to buy before they’re ready.
This is something I see across so many businesses I work with, and it often comes down to one overlooked concept and that is buyer readiness.
Every interaction is an ask
I want you to think about every action you ask someone to take in your marketing as an ask. Watching a Reel is a small ask. Giving you their email address is a bigger ask. Registering for a masterclass is bigger again. And spending $2,000, $5,000 or $10,000 with you is obviously a much bigger ask.
The mistake many coaches, course creators and online experts make is trying to jump straight from “Hi, I’m Jayne, you’ve never heard of me” to “Would you like to invest thousands of dollars with me?” Can that work? Yes, in certain situations. But for most businesses selling something that requires trust, there needs to be something between those two points.
Instead of asking “How do I get this person to buy who hasn’t heard of me before?” I’d encourage you to ask “What is the next reasonable step for this person?”
Your marketing should move people forward
A funnel isn’t simply an ad to lead magnet to emails to the sales page and done. The purpose of your marketing system is to move someone from where they are now towards being ready to make a buying decision. Every piece of marketing should help with that.
Your ad might introduce an idea they’ve never considered. Your lead magnet might help them understand their problem differently. Your emails might deepen that understanding. Your masterclass might show them your methodology. Your case studies might show them you’ve solved this problem for someone in their situation.
Gradually, that person starts thinking: “She understands my problem. This approach makes sense. I think she could actually help me.” And then the offer becomes a much more reasonable next step.
Buyer readiness is not about time
When I talk about warming up an audience, I don’t mean someone has to follow you for six months before they’re ready to buy. Time is not what creates buyer readiness. The right experiences and touchpoints create it.
Someone could follow you on Instagram™ for two years and still not be ready to buy because they’ve never really engaged with your content in a meaningful way. Compare that to somebody who discovers you today through a Facebook™ Ad, registers for your masterclass, watches it, reads your emails, listens to a podcast episode you mention, and suddenly this person has had multiple meaningful interactions with you within days.
This is why I don’t like the idea that nurturing automatically means waiting. We can intentionally build a marketing system that helps the right person move towards buyer readiness much faster.
You can accelerate trust
You can’t force someone to be ready to buy. But you can remove unnecessary delays in the process. If someone needs to understand your methodology, show it to them. If they need evidence that your approach works, give them relevant case studies. If they have a common objection, address it.
This is why I’m such a big believer in having a marketing ecosystem rather than relying on one campaign to do everything. One ad shouldn’t have to take someone from complete stranger to paying client. Your marketing can do that collectively – different ads, your funnel, your email marketing, your organic content, your podcast, your retargeting and your sales page. When those things are strategically connected, buyer readiness can happen much faster than people assume.
Sometimes the bigger ask is appropriate
There are exceptions. I recently shared a case study on the podcast of a book-a-call funnel where we take a cold audience from a Facebook™ Ad directly to a sales page for a service costing just under $2,000. That’s a reasonably big ask, and it works.
Why?
Because it targets a very niche audience who already know they have the problem, actively want it solved and generally have the capacity to pay for the solution. Even within that short funnel, the sales page does significant work explaining the service, providing the price upfront and inviting them to a free conversation.
This is why I don’t believe in blanket rules like “you should never sell to cold audiences” or “you need to nurture for three months.” It depends on the problem, the offer, the price, the audience, their awareness, their urgency and the amount of trust required.
Final thoughts
If your funnel isn’t converting, ask yourself: where is my ideal client when they first enter this funnel? How aware are they of their problem? Do they understand why my approach is different? Are there beliefs that need to shift before they’re ready?
Because someone who discovered you this week can absolutely become a buyer this week if they’ve had the right experiences along the way. And someone who has followed you for three years can still be nowhere near ready if those experiences haven’t happened.
Buyer readiness isn’t measured by a calendar. It’s created through the journey. And when you have the right marketing system in place, you can make that journey significantly more effective.
I would love to hear your thoughts...