Over the past 3 months, I’ve been building a marketing funnel I can grow into over the next 5-10 years as a broker.

Today, I’m going to give it to you.

Read time: 5 min 46 sec

Here it is:

There are 3 main phases of a funnel:

1. Awareness

2. Trust

3. Action

But first, what’s the goal?

I want to make a funnel that leverages my time.

Increasing leverage means each input creates more outputs.

Basically, each hour I work creates more money than before.

So, the end goal is to spend about 3 or 4 days per month on marketing activities and have the funnel create a constant influx of hot leads year round.

These few days will allow me to spread content across all 30 days each month, both short-form and long-form, that will earn me a larger audience year after year.

There’s a compounding effect to an audience that’s similar to finances. A quality investment builds exponentially over time.

That way, all my time spent in the office is:

1. Meeting people

2. Servicing clients

3. Learning about products

So, let’s dive into the funnel!

1. Awareness

There are 2 ways to gain awareness online:

1. Organic content

2. Paid Advertising

My funnel will use both.

I will start by consistently creating 29 short, vertical videos per month.

I will distribute these across:

• Facebook

• Instagram

• Tik Tok

• YouTube

• Snapchat

I’m also repurposing those videos as ads on the same platforms.

As I gain an audience online, I need a way to capture their contact information.

Social media followings are like renting an audience. Getting their permission to contact them directly is like owning your audience.

I will do this through Lead Magnets.

These are free resources that solve a narrow problem I hint at in my social media content.

A few lead magnets I’ve made are:

1. Medicare Mastery Course: an 8-video course to help melt away your Medicare worries in 53 minutes

2. 9-month Medicare Checklist: A printable PDF they can hang on their fridge to help keep them on track throughout the Medicare Process

3. Medicare Decision Map: A decision tree that leads them to a detailed plan of action based on their specific situation

4. Wealth Projection spreadsheet template: Enter a few numbers and see how their money will increase or decrease over time.

5. Fitness Tracker spreadsheet: See trends over time in the biomarkers that correlate with living a longer, healthier life.

Now that I have their attention, and they’ve given me permission to contact them, I need to build trust.

2. Trust

If you truly help people with no expectation of compensation, you earn their trust.

My trust builders are:

1. A weekly newsletter called Retirement Reimagined

2. A 160-question journal helping people live a stress-free-retirement

3. My Medicare Mastery Course (also technically a lead magnet)

The Newsletter is the primary trust builder where I write about about:

• Medicare

• Social Security

• Retirement accounts

• Fitness & Biological age

• Passion Projects

• Life insurance

I get people into my newsletter primarily through the lead magnets mentioned earlier.

These trust builders took a long time to make because they must massively exceed expectations.

Here’s a general rule of thumb:

• Spending 1 hour on a lead magnet/trust builder will hurt your cause. People will be mad at you for wasting their time.

• Spending 100 hours on a lead magnet/trust builder will help your cause. People will thank you for going above and beyond for (seemingly) nothing in return.

If 100 hours sounds like a lot, imagine it creating thousands of leads for you over the next 10 or 20 years without you having to lift a finger…

Worth it!

Now that people trust me through my newsletter and expectation-exceeding lead-magnets, we will get them to take action.

3. Action

There are countless psychology hacks to make people take action, but most of them only work at the impulse-buy level.

We are going for the “I wouldn’t want help from anyone else” level.

Most of the legwork is done from the “trust” part of the funnel described earlier, but here are 3 steps to making your call-to-actions irresistible.

1. Know your products

Most importantly, know the main pain-points they solve.

People don’t want an annuity, they want a guarantee they won’t outlive their income.

People don’t want a Medicare plan, they want to know they won’t drown in medical bills.

People don’t want life insurance, they want their family to be taken care of when they pass.

2. Know your offer

Stack the main benefits of using your service. The things that set you apart from the rest of the market. Keep it short and sweet.

For example, mine is:

• No fee… ever.

• In-person, year-round service.

• Licensed to sell all the top providers (so I remain unbiased)

3. Formulate your Call-to-Actions (CTAs)

Here are 2 steps you should take every time you want someone to take action:

1. A formula to choose the CTA

If this CTA is featured in the “Awareness” stage of the funnel (social media content or ads), point to a lead magnet (free course, checklist, newsletter, etc.)

If this CTA is featured in the “Trust” stage of the funnel (newsletter, book, course, etc) point to your final offer (book a meeting, call my assistant, etc.)

2. A Formula to communicate the CTA

{Offer a solution or answer for free} + If you want to {solve the problem better, easier, faster} + {CTA}

Two CTA examples

People often ask me about the “Medicare Part D Donut hole”.

Here’s how I’d phrase a CTA at both stages in the funnel 👇

My Exact funnel

This funnel is simple, but it took months to create.

That’s because I want each stage to be extremely helpful.

In a world of spam calls and silver-tongued salesmen, I want to massively exceed expectations.

If you spend an exorbitant amount of time building the choreographed dance someone will experience when they enter your funnel, it will practically make the sale for you before you even meet them.

During my first AEP a few months ago, I got about 15 clients from my Medicare Mastery Course funnel.

Most of them were ecstatic to work with me before I even spoke with them on the phone.

“Whatever you think is best… I trust you… You are the expert.”

It’s normal to hear this from referrals, but this is rare to hear this from cold Facebook leads.

Stay tuned for a deeper dive into exactly how I built this funnel.

I’ll also report the results over the next few years to show how it’s working.

Hope that helps!

See you in 2 weeks.

— Braden