SDH 470: How to Create Urgency with Your Offers with Jack from Deadline Funnel
Hello, hello my beautiful She Did It Her Way listeners. Welcome back to another podcast episode. Today I have a treat for you; today I am welcoming the very first male voice to the podcast! Please help me welcome Jack Born, of Deadline Funnel. Deadline Funnel is a software tool we use at She Did It Her Way and has provided so much value to our business and can help you to automate certain aspects of your own business, generate more leads, increase your revenue, and ultimately grow and scale your business.
Like so many others, Jack got his start working in corporate America and after several years of working in a few different jobs and positions, he finally came to the conclusion that it just wasn’t for him. After quitting his job on a whim, he quickly realized he needed to figure out his next move, fast.
“It’s the entrepreneurial version of jumping out of the top of the penthouse window and trying to build a plane on the way down before you hit pavement.”
He had an idea for a platform that he wanted to build with something he had experience with which was helping to bring together travel nurses and healthcare workers. With his previous experience in recruiting health care workers this was a familiar space for him, and a need he knew existed. He created this virtual job board, while learning how to build his own website (this was circa 2002). He built what he now calls “the ugliest website you’ve ever seen” and it was off and running. When he was one year in, his wife came to him and told him it was time to decide whether it was worth continuously working various side jobs to keep the business going, or if it was time to go all-in on the business.
He decided it was time to go all-in and gave himself a deadline. He made an announcement, launching, without really fully knowing what his ‘plan’ was going to look like. After sending out email after email, he turned the volume all the way up on the final day, reminding people of the value and the deadline. It took off.
“People can be leaning into your message, they can love your product, or your service; and they're eventually going to buy or they're thinking about buying, but they're just procrastinating. They're on the fence, they're dragging their feet, and the power of a deadline gets people to take action.”
He did this for a while before deciding to learn from someone who he admired, author Perry Marshall, joining his team for nearly six years. But of course, he began to get that entrepreneurial itch again, so we started back in software on the side. Perry knew that he was hiring an entrepreneur and that Jack’s focus started to get pulled away as the software became more and more successful.
Jumping ahead, Jack developed and sold another business before he started building Deadline Funnel. He realized that he wanted to be able to use one of the most powerful and consistent triggers for helping someone make a decision, which is having a deadline using urgency to close a sale. But he wanted to do it in a way that did not sacrifice his own integrity. He started really digging into the specifics of what he was envisioning for this ‘tool’ and discovered that no one else had created anything like it. Enter: Deadline Funnel.
Deadline Funnel, at its core, helps creators (course creators, coaches, consultants, etc. - anyone who is selling something) to be able to maximize their sales by automating them. This traditionally is a very labor intensive process but Deadline Funnel takes out all of those ‘middle steps’ taking care of it for you. It helps creators to scale and grow their reach so they can focus on the end-product.
With a sales page, anyone can show up and make a purchase and it works. However, the typical conversion rate of even the most well written sales letter, depending on the origin of the traffic, is going to be on average around 1%. This typically is not enough for you to be able to buy advertising and to really scale your business. What Deadline Funnel offers is the mechanism to give people a timed deadline, and visually see when their specific offer is expiring.
“It gives you the ability to give someone a special offer with a deadline and keep it accurate across devices and make all of the tough technical stuff just happen automatically.”
When you do a launch, or holiday promotion, typically the biggest sales days are when you first open the cart, and the last day before the sale ends or closes. There's a whole bunch of people who have been paying attention to your Instagram or Facebook lives, your webinars, your emails, your replays, etc.; whatever messaging you're using, people are watching and leaning in, but they just haven't pulled the trigger yet. It's right at the deadline that it's either you're in or you're out and that's when people take action.
One thing Jack is passionate about in his own life is mindfulness. Being present and aware so that he can really focus with perspective on what’s most important. He also says that for his team, having integrity is non-negotiable.
“One thing I that communicate to my team is that no one woke up this morning saying ‘I hope someone has yet another software that I can sign up for monthly or annually’. But the reason why we have 1000s of really happy clients is because we understand that what we do is we help people reach a bigger audience and to automate their business so they can do the things they love with the people they love on a time schedule that works for them.”
Want to see how Deadline Funnel can help you with your next launch? Visit their website, or reach out to a member of Jack’s team for a free screen-share or onboarding call. Their customer service is unparalleled and I can honestly say this first hand that you will not be disappointed with their high-level of service.
To all of my listeners out there, until next week, keep doing it your way!
Insights:
“He decided it was time to go all-in and gave himself a deadline. He made an announcement, launching, without really fully knowing what his ‘plan’ was going to look like.“
“He realized that he wanted to be able to use one of the most powerful and consistent triggers for helping someone make a decision, which is having a deadline using urgency to close a sale. But he wanted to do it in a way that did not sacrifice his own integrity.”
“With a sales page, anyone can show up and make a purchase and it works. However, the typical conversion rate of even the most well written sales letter, depending on the origin of the traffic, is going to be on average around 1%.”
“It's right at the deadline that it's either you're in or you're out and that's when people take action.”
Resources:
Check out Deadline Funnel
80/20 Sales and Marketing: The Definitive Guide to Working Less and Making More by Perry Marshall
The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth About Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan