When your funnel isn't converting, the usual move is to rebuild it.
New headline. New layout. New button color.
But if you built it before deciding in detail who it's for and what you're offering them, no amount of rebuilding will fix what's missing underneath.
Our co-founder Russell Brunson has a name for what's missing. He calls it the Secret Formula, and he teaches it in DotCom Secrets.
It starts with four questions: who you want to serve, where they hang out, what bait will pull them in, and what result you'll give them.
"What should my funnel look like?" comes fifth.
Start with design, and you're building on guesses.
It's easy to think you've got these covered.
But very few people have answered them specifically.
Say you want to help bookkeepers. Here's what vague sounds like next to specific.
1. Who
Vague: "Entrepreneurs."
Specific: "Bookkeepers who just went out on their own and have about three clients."
2. Where
Vague: "Social media."
Specific: "The two Facebook groups where new bookkeepers ask each other what to charge."
3. Bait
Vague: "A free guide."
Specific: "The pricing sheet that answers the exact question they keep asking in those groups."
4. Result
Vague: "Grow your business."
Specific: "Stop underpricing and raise your rates without losing the clients you have."
Notice how the more descriptive answers connect.
The bookkeeper you picked spends time in those Facebook groups.
The bait answers the question people are already asking there.
And the result is about the thing they're actually worried about: losing clients when they raise their rates.
If your answers to the Secret Formula don't connect to each other, that's the first thing to fix.
So try this.
Write all four in one sentence each.
Whichever one you're struggling to make specific is probably where your funnel is leaking.
Once you can answer all four definitively, building the funnel is the fast part.
