Vetting clients for your service business can take a lot of your time.
Whether you own a lawn maintenance company, or you are a business coach offering up your time to help others, vetting is all a part of the process.
One way to help save you all of this time making sure that people are a good fit to work with you and your company is to set up an automated process before hand that whittles down the numbers to those most likely to be a good fit to work with you.
This process is done through an Application Funnel.
Introduction to the Application Funnel
In an Application Funnel you start by running ads or other means of traffic to an offer page.
The offer page will contain information on the services you are offering people to help solve their problems.
By showing what you are offering them and the price point, you will save tons of time by getting rid of the people who don’t want to commit based on preliminary information. This saves you time telling people the same basic information every time.
If people decide that they like what you are offering at the price you are offering it at, they can then click through to your application page.
The application will contain more qualifying questions that will whittle possible candidates down even further. If something doesn’t sit right with the person filling out the form, then they will back out, and you won’t have to spend time talking with them.
If they do complete the form, they will be taken to a page where they can book a time to talk. This is just a tentative appointment because you still have to make sure they are a good fit based on their application. Let them know on the calendar page that this is the case.
Next, they will be taken to your confirmation, or thank you, page where you will give them instructions on what information they need to have prepared if they are selected for a call or a meeting.
After you review the application and decide you want to work with them, send them a confirmation email confirming that you are good to go for the time they have selected.
What Type of Business Is An Application Funnel For?
If you run a business that requires vetting clients to see if they are a good fit to work with you, then you should have an Application Funnel.
Also, if your business requires your own personal time (or your employees’ time) to perform a service, then you should use an application funnel to weed out the good candidates from the bad.
An example may be a lawncare service. You don’t perform every type of service, and you don’t travel any distance to reach your clients. An application funnel can make sure the person trying to contact you wants services that you offer within your service range.
Another good example would be a life coach. Your style of teaching may not be for everyone, and your services may be too expensive for others. An application can help weed out people who aren’t a match to your methods, or who aren’t willing to invest to better themselves at the price you are charging.
It’s your business, so you know the questions that should be asked to weed out people who you wouldn’t end up working with anyways.
Why You Get Better Leads From an Application Funnel
You get better leads from an Application Funnel because you are implementing the vetting process on auto-pilot.
Basically, visitors are disqualifying themselves by showing you (through their application) that they won’t be a good fit to work with you.
Instead of getting these same people calling you on their whim and spending half and hour on the phone, only to find out an underlying reason they can’t work with you, you leave this process to your funnel.
Only then do you see who is a good fit, and you can manually choose who to reach out and contact.
How Can You Implement This In Your Business?
Implementing your Application Funnel in your business can be really difficult, or really easy.
If you know how to build a website, you can piece together the different plugins or code needed to assemble the different aspects of a sales funnel like this.
You will need a website to build the funnel on. You will need a form plugin to ask questions and collect information from your leads. You will need a booking or calendar plugin to allow people to secure their appointment. You will also need some type of email marketing system that can send out automated emails based on actions that people take within your application funnel.
Or you can use a funnel builder like ClickFunnels.
ClickFunnels has built-in templates for application funnels that house all of this technology for you.
Just swap out the information for your own and the ClickFunnels technology will handle all the hard stuff.
The good news is that they have a 14-day free trial if you want to give it a shot and get your Application Funnel up quickly.
The Application Funnel Thank You Page
The thank you page on an Application Funnel will mostly be used to confirm with your lead that they have filled everything out correctly.
If they got past your initial application and were able to book an appointment with you, the thank you page should confirm this appointment with the caveat that the appointment only stands if the application passes your manual review first.
Let them know the timeline for when they can expect a confirmation on their appointment.
You can also offer additional resources or homework for the lead if your service would benefit from such things.
Learn More About Lead Funnels
The Application Funnel is a great way to get top-quality leads to your service business, but sometimes you just want to build your email list.
That’s where other lead gen funnels may come in handy.
If you don’t have a lead funnel for your business yet, you need to check out the Lead Funnels Swipe File.
It will give you all the information you need about the different aspects that go into a lead funnel, and a little history and information behind how lead funnels came to be and why they are must-have for any business.
You will also get over 106 world-class examples of lead funnels that have brought in millions of leads to successful companies worldwide.
What are you waiting for? Check out the guide below.
