High Ticket Coaching Offer #3: The VSL Funnel

Video Transcript

Introduction: What is a VSL Funnel

Hi, this is Terence from Radical Marketing. Today, I want to share with you a High Ticket Coaching Funnel, which is called the VSL funnel. So what does VSL stand for? VSL stands for Video Sales Letter. So today we’ll dive a little bit deeper into what a VSL funnel is, and I will show you an example of a VSL funnel at the end of this video. I’ll also explain what should go into a VSL, and also what are the pros and cons of running a VSL funnel. So let’s get into it.

Understanding the VSL Funnel

So let me give you a broad overview of what a VSL funnel is. Basically, you’re running ads to a squeeze page where you first collect some information from them, like contact information, before you allow them to actually watch the VSL, right? So you need to position your VSL as a very valuable piece of information that they need to sign up for in order to get it. Of course, you can also go direct and just eliminate the squeeze page and get them to go direct to the VSL page. That’s totally fine too. You need to test both to see which one is better. And finally, you have the appointment page where they can actually sign up for an appointment with you, right? It could be calendly, or it just could be the contact details where someone from your team actually does a qualifying call to make sure they are the right fit before you actually get together and kind of spend time with the prospect.

Example of a VSL Funnel

Alright, so let me give you an example of a VSL page from one of our clients that we created. This is Mark Harvey from the UK, and he basically, we created this VSL funnel. As you can see, we have a headline here. We have a video sales letter here, which is about six minutes long to detail what is the program about and what they can expect to get from the program and who is it for and an application button. So when you click on the application button, you basically can sign up, right? Obviously, this is a past event, so it’s no longer active. That’s why countdown has gone down to a zero here, right? And in fact, what we did in this particular case is that we also had text as well, right? So, because why do we have text as well even though we have the VSL? It’s because some people just prefer to read text or then their offices is not convenient to actually listen to the video, so they might just read text, right? So we want to cater for both audiences, both the visual video viewers and the ones that like to read, right? So, okay, and then we have testimonials at bottom.

Key Elements of a VSL

So I just want to give you a big rundown and then let’s recap, recap with the key points of the program and basically a bit of future pacing to see where they want to be in 12 months, bit of credibility, bit of videos, scarcity, 20 spots available so that people act. And yeah, so that’s the whole thing with this VSL. So just want to show you a VSL so you can at least get a visual of what a VSL page looks like, right? I won’t go through the whole video because this is kind of 6 minutes long, but what I’ll do is I’ll break down what are the key elements of a VSL, which I think will be more useful to you as compared to just letting you watch the video, right? So let’s get back to slideshow. I’m giving you a framework that you can follow. Obviously, feel free to tweak it, but this is what we know works for us, okay?

The VSL Framework

First of all, you should ask a question. Ideally, you want to call out a pain point. So for example, in this case of Mark’s case, well, they were basically calling out to people who are sick of working at a 9-5 and 1 way to kind of increase, get some income from actual properties without wasting time on all these other courses, right? So that is the main thing that they were calling out in this VSL. The next thing you need to do is you need to empathize with the listener. You could do this through your own story, but if your own story is not true, don’t fake it. Basically, get someone that is, you can just basically talk to them about the pain points, like say, hey, if you fit this description, let me know. Tell me if you are working, like say, for example, 9-5 and you don’t have time for the kids because you’re overworked, you don’t have energy left. And the weekends are just like, you just work and look forward to the weekends and you realize this is not the kind of life that you really wanted when you first graduated. So you can talk a lot about those particular pain points without kind of like telling a story. And bear in mind, you can also tell stories of your past students as well, right? Which will totally work as well. In fact, sometimes it works better when you tell stories of your students rather than yourself.

Creating Hope

And the third thing is give them hope. So, and this is where you could say, so if this sounds like you, listen on, because I have a solution that might fit your problem and I’ll explain how you can actually get additional income from properties without sacrificing a day job or spending your weekends out hunting for properties, something along those lines, right? So tell them how you can give them a solution in this video so that they will watch to the end of the video because people are quite fickle. So if you don’t tell them what they’re gonna get later on in the video, they’re probably not gonna listen to it.

Demonstrating Credibility

Okay, and the next thing is you need to demonstrate credibility. So this is where you can weave your expertise into a storytelling format or you can actually demonstrate by, in Mark’s case, what he does a lot of is like he goes to actual properties that he’s invested in and he talks about the property, shows before and after photos, right? So that’s demonstration as well, right? So in those ways, you can actually, because one of the key things you want to do in the VSL is to get people to trust you, right? And you need to do that by storytelling or demonstrating that you actually know what you’re doing.

Why You?

And then next step is like, why you? Because chances are like, whether you’re an agency owner like me or whatever business you’re doing is that, hey, there are 5,000 other people offering you the same thing. So why is it that people need to choose you? So talk about maybe you have some unique framework, how your solution is unique. Maybe you, instead of like approaching it from strategy A, you do a counterintuitive approach to it, right? So you need to explain why you are unique and how you’re uniquely positioned to help solve the problem, right?

Making the Offer

Okay, and then the next step is to basically make the offer, make the offer as to, you know, now that you’ve demonstrated how you can actually help them solve the problem and how your unique solution helps them to solve the problem if you can list down step one, step two, step three, this is how it works. Now you say, all right, if you’re interested to work further with me, here’s my offer, right? Basically you tell them the offer and what they can expect from the offer, right? So this offer is a free strategy consult where I will help you to do A, B, C, right? These three things, and you walk away with a brand new strategy on how you can get started on your first property. And if you already have existing properties, here’s how I can help you to accelerate the growth of your investment portfolio, just as an example, right?

Addressing Objections

The next thing is you need to address some of the objections which are like, oh, okay, will you hard sell me during the call? Will I have time to do it, right? So address the common objections that people might have, like, do I have to pay for this? How much is it gonna cost? All those kinds of objections you need to address them, right? Whether it’s time, money, ability, or trust in themselves or trust in you. So address those four big common objections, and then you will more likely get them to take action next step.

Taking the Next Step

And finally, this is where you tell them to take the next step, which is click on the button below to schedule a call or whatever step they need to take next in order to get your offer, right? So that in itself, that’s a powerful framework that works 99% of the time with VSL. So yeah, you can take this VSL framework and use it in your VSL. So I hope this VSL framework is gonna be useful to you. And let’s take a look at the pros and cons of using a VSL funnel next.

Pros of Using a VSL Funnel

Right, so just quickly, the pros are it’s great for showcasing abilities, right? Because you have video, you can showcase your abilities, you can show like properties that you’ve renovated, you can show photos of your clients and whatever it is that, you know, depending on your industry, right? You can engage multiple sensors because you’re using video, right? So you’re not just using text, you’re using video, you’re engaging the visual, the audio, you know? So that is very powerful as well. It’s also very scalable. So once you have a VSL funnel, all you need to do is keep driving traffic to it. And if you know that if you spend for every $200, you can get one appointment. If you want 10 appointments, spend 2000. If you get 100 appointments, spend 20,000. So that makes your business very, very scalable, right? So that is another one of the pros of using VSL funnels.

Making Sales and Evergreen Aspect

The other thing is, yeah, you can make a sale during the VSL, of course, like, you know, to a continuity program, which is quite common, like, you know, $1 trial and then you’re like 50 bucks or 100 bucks every month. But you can also use it to get people to schedule strategy or discovery calls. And at the call, obviously that is your opportunity to sell them a high ticket offer. And in fact, my agency, that’s what we do too, using a VSL to get people to schedule high ticket offers, to schedule appointments so that, you know, we can discuss the strategy and whether we are a good fit to work with them. So this is a very powerful thing as well. And the great thing about it is VSLs are evergreen. Unlike if you’d say do webinars and all that, where you have to maybe, you know, do live webinars, tweak them all the time. Your VSL, once you do it once, and if it’s good, you might want to do it once or twice again, just to fine-tune it. If more, of course, if you want, but in general, once you have that VSL, it’s kind of like evergreen. It just runs, keeps running in the background, keeps generating more and more leads for you every single day, every single week.

Cons of Using a VSL Funnel

So that’s the pros of using a VSL funnel. All right, so let’s have a look at some of the cons of using a VSL funnel. So you know the bad side and dark side of VSL funnels as well, right? First of all, because it’s a recorded video, it’s not very, well, it’s not interactive at all, right? It may come across as impersonal, even though it’s much better than just using text-based, kind of long-form sales letters, but it may come across as a little bit impersonal, right? And optimization can take time and money, right? So most cases, it’s like, okay, once you get a VSL optimized, it’s like evergreen. But in the meantime, while you’re optimizing, I know I kind of like contradicting myself a little bit there with the previous slide, but if you want really, really good results, you really need to optimize, which means you kind of like tracking where people are dropping off on your VSL or where people are dropping off on your page. And from there, you can make tweaks to make sure that people don’t drop off and more people sign up for your final call to action, right? So that’s where you need to spend a bit of time and money making tweaks. And because it does cost a fair bit if you’re doing consultations for people to actually sign up for the consult, yeah, you might have to spend a fair bit of money before you get a really working, predictably scaling VSL funnel, okay?

Show Up Rates and Sales Skills

And the thing is, if you’re generating appointments, it does take a bit of effort to get good show up rates, right? So in this case of our client there, basically we had a two-call system, a triage call is what they call it. Basically, we had someone, his assistant, call up all the people who applied to make sure they are qualified, to make sure that they do have the money to invest in this program before she set up a time for them to talk to the actual coach himself, right? So I think that’s a good practice because a lot of people would just, if it’s free, they will sign up for it and then they don’t show up and then you schedule that one hour of time to speak to this prospect and they don’t show up, right? And that’s really bad time management for you. So I would suggest to actually get someone to actually pre-call, pre-screen these prospects to make sure you have a good show up rate and they actually show up on time and actually talk to you and they want your program even more, okay? The other thing is that you probably need some pretty decent sales skills to convert at your appointments, right? You could waste time with unqualified prospects but that’s where the triage call comes into place to actually pre-qualify the people that you’re about to speak to.

So yeah, I know this talks a lot about appointments but because we are focusing on high-ticket coaching funnels, right? We’re not focusing on low-ticket ones. That’s why I talk more about generating appointments this way, right? But bear in mind, VSL funnels can also be used, as I mentioned just now, to sell lower ticket or continuity programs or even like events, right? You can use that, use VSLs for that purpose.

But for this particular instance, what we wanna talk about is using VSLs to sell high-ticket coaching offers. So I really hope that this gave you some enlightenment, some aha moments on how to use VSLs in your coaching business.

So I hope you really enjoyed this and if you liked it, please subscribe and like this video.