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The secret to generating sales online really boils down to these three simple steps:

1. Get someone’s attention.
2. Tell them a story that builds belief, emotion, and trust.
3. Offer something absolutely irresistible that they have no choice but to purchase.

The reason why you are unable to make a dime online yet is because you suck at one of these things.

If no one pays attention to you, they won’t know about you and what you have to offer. As a result you won’t make any money.

If you somehow managed to get their attention, but if you fail to create a desire for them to take action, you still won’t make any money.

If you managed to build up their desire to do something about the problem they have, but they don’t see what you offer as the answer then you still won’t make any money.

Those are a simplified version of a sales process, or also called sales funnel. In brief, it is a structured process of qualifying and converting prospects into consumers, who are willing to pay for what you are offering.

Hopefully you’ve heard of sales funnels at this point. Perhaps you’ve even crafted one if you’ve tried making money online before. If your sales funnel is not converting (not making you any money),  the problem is likely related to one of these three things:

• The Hook,
• The Story, or
• The Offer

So if you’re looking for a way to succeed online, so that you can earn some extra cash, or to quit your day job, or to grow your existing business, you need to master those 3 things.

Let’s go into a bit more detail about each of these areas and I’ll help you understand how to make your sales funnel bulletproof.

The Hook

We all know that hooks are used by anglers to catch fish. Simply put, hooks are “baited” with things that attract attention so that fish will take the lure. Without a hook, you would have a much more difficult time of catching fish as while you might be able to attract them, you need a way of reeling them in.

The right bait combined with the right hook though. That’s a recipe for success. The bait pulls them in and the hook keeps them from swimming away and helps you land your prey. The hook is essential as it serves two purposes:

1. It interrupts people from their regular activities – be that reading, scrolling or surfing.
2. It directs their attention towards you- your ad, your sales page, or your offer.

The hook lets you pull in your target through a variety of different methods. You can stimulate their attention through the title, a video, an image or even a question in your text.

Imagine going through your feed on Facebook or Instagram and you saw something that jumped out at you. Perhaps a post that talked about “How I made $1 million by working from home” along with a video. You’d probably click the link or read the post right? After all, we’re all looking for financial success aren’t we?

This is a good hook. It grabs your attention and keeps you focused and looking for more. Hooks are everywhere, you look online and they should be part of all of your interactions. All of your emails, landing pages and sales pages need to have hooks, or people will just ignore you.

Finding a Hook

Finding a hook that works isn’t easy. However, once you’ve found a hook that works, you’ll be set and you’ll find things to be a lot simpler. Here are some ideas to help you get started –

1. Look at your hardships. Is there something specific that you find difficult or that you’ve struggled with? Would it make a good story? Pick the best part of that and lead with it as a hook to entice others in the same place.
2. Find a story from your past. Can you talk about something from your own history that people would be interested in? Use that and pick a specific element that you can use as a hook to draw people in.
3. Do something exciting. If you don’t have a struggle to talk about or something from your past, don’t fret. Perhaps this is time for you to take a risk by doing something crazy. How would that pull people in?
4. Challenge the status quo. Is there something out there that everyone believes in but you know is wrong? Don’t be frightened of poking holes in common wisdom. Perhaps you can use this as a way to bait your hook.

The Story

Ok, you’ve managed to attract your prospects’ attention, but what’s next? Well, from the hook you need to get into the story. The story gives people the reasons to purchase whatever you’re selling. Remember, we buy things emotionally, not logically. We only backup our emotional purchase with logic afterward.

This is why a story is so important. You want to entice your readers with something they can connect to at an emotional level. By bringing on these emotions they are more likely to buy.

A story ties to a hook by giving it context and helps bond the buyer and seller together. You’ve probably read a book where you simply don’t care about the title character? If you’re anything like me, you probably ended up putting that book down unfinished. That’s because the author didn’t tell you the right story with the right detail that let you feel something. Selling is an emotional process so you need to be really good at telling stories.

If you’re interested in learning some secrets from the pros on this, I recommend that you read the books: Dotcom Secrets and Expert Secrets. By reading these books, you’ll get a simple script that you can follow which will guide you to success. Expert Secrets is especially good at showing you how to portray yourself as an expert. This is key in attracting customers as they are much more likely to trust someone with experience than otherwise.

The Structure Of A Great Story

While these books are great, it’s really important to try to have an attractive story ready. An Epiphany Bridge script is something you will learn in the One Funnel Away Challenge. It goes something like this and with practice it will come really naturally.

1. Backstory – Why are you doing this? What happened in the past that led you to this point? Why are you looking for a solution?
2. Desire – What do you want to get out of this? Where do you want to end up?
3. Wall – What were your blockers and things that stopped you from succeeding? What could you have done differently?
4. Epiphany – What was that “light bulb” moment for you? What made you realize there was another way?
5. Plan – What did you do to make a change?
6. Conflict – What challenges did you have along the way and how did you overcome them?
7. Achievement – What did you achieve and how successful were you?
8. Transformation – What did this do to or for you? How did it make you feel and what changes did it lead to?

When you tell a story in this order, it will build a desire in your prospect and make him/her want the same result as you do. In turn, when you make the offer of the thing that brought you the result in your story, your prospect is much more likely to purchase.

The Offer

If you have a good hook and story, so that the customer is in the right frame to buy, but they don’t commit, then your offer is probably an issue.

The Offer is probably the most important part of your sales funnel. You could do terrible at the hook and story, but if you have an amazing offer that people can’t resist then you would still be able to make the sale. It’s important to ensure that your offer really matches their needs. It has to be what the customer wants, not what you think they want.

Hopefully you’ve realized that I’m talking about an “offer” here and not just a specific product. This is because, products are commodities. They are the same from business to business, with prices being the same or similar also. If you’re trying to compete only on price, your margins are constantly going to erode leaving you with less and less profit.

Building a Great Offer

An offer can be explained as a package of products and/or services that is tailored to your specific needs. And because everything included in the package is perfectly for your needs, the perceived value is much higher than buying a product by itself. For that reason, the offer is irresistible for you not to make the purchase.

By focusing on an offer though, you’re changing the argument entirely. You’re removing the competition from the equation and focusing on the differentiating factors.

This is why lots of online sites provide freebies like ebooks or video courses as addons to their primary products. These things don’t cost significantly aside from the initial creation. The value to the customers though is quite large. In this case, customers don’t really have to think too long and can easily make a decision.

I could go into a lot of detail on this topic by itself, but I’d urge you to take the One Funnel Away Challenge as you will be able to learn about it in depth. Suffice it to say that the perfect offer is one where the customer doesn’t even have to think before saying yes.

Conclusion

So, if you’ve got a sales funnel and it’s not giving you the desired result, take a look at your hook, story and offer. It’s likely that one of these three misses the mark, but with some simple tweaks you can make the changes you need to achieve success.

If you want to master your Hook, Story, Offer and start generating sales online in the next 30 days then make sure to check out the upcoming One Funnel Away Challenge. It will walk you through the process of putting together a high converting hook, story and offer into a sales funnel. Click here to learn more about the challenge.