How to Create a Sales Funnel for Your Agency That Converts

Last updated on October 17th, 2025 at 09:56 pm

The #1 challenge any agency faces is getting clients.

That’s why today we are going to discuss:

• Why websites are dead
• The Value Ladder sales funnel
• How to build a sales funnel that converts like crazy

We will also share a sales funnel that a web design agency owner Cathy Olson has used to generate 7,000+ leads and $40,000+ in revenue in just three months.

Ready to explode your revenue with sales funnels?

Continue reading…

Why Websites are Dead

You might have heard this saying that is popular among salespeople:

“A confused mind always says no”.

And guess what?

Your website is a confusing maze of links!

Think about it:

What happens when a potential client arrives on your website?

They see a navigation bar. They start clicking around. They read a bit of this page, they read a bit of that page…

And then they leave. Possibly to never come back again.

How does this help your business?

It doesn’t!

A website is basically an expensive digital brochure that gives people information about your company but doesn’t guide them towards a sale.

Meanwhile, a sales funnel is designed to guide the potential client towards a sale, one step at a time.

At each stage, the potential client is presented with a single “Yes or No” decision, which means that they either proceed to the next stage of your sales funnel or leave the page.

There’s no confusion because at any given point you are asking them to do just one thing!

This is a much better approach to selling online than throwing a bunch of links at potential clients and hoping that they will somehow find their way to your sales page and hire your agency.

Meet the Value Ladder Sales Funnel

Here at ClickFunnels, we believe that the most effective way to sell online is a sales funnel called The Value Ladder (it’s what we used to build a $100M+ company!).

Here’s how it looks like:

It consists of four stages:

1. Bait – You offer the potential customer a lead magnet in exchange for their email address.
2. Frontend – You offer the potential customer your least expensive and least valuable product.
3. Middle – You offer the customer a more expensive and more valuable product.
4. Backend – You offer the customer your most expensive and most valuable product.

Ideally, you also have a continuity program of some sort, which generates recurring revenue.

The reason why this sales funnel works so well is that it enables you to:

1. Start the relationship with the potential customer by offering them free value
2. Nurture that relationship by continuing to provide free value
3. Build trust by providing progressively more paid value at each stage

Here’s how our co-founder Russell Brunson explains it:

We recommend you to build a Value Ladder sales funnel for your agency if you want to maximize your revenue.

How to Build a Sales Funnel That Converts Like Crazy

We understand that The Value Ladder graph above might seem overwhelming. What if you don’t have a lead magnet + three separate products?

The good news is that you don’t need to have an entire product line to build a Value Ladder sales funnel.

All you need is:

1. A lead magnet
2. A free webinar
3. A frontend offer

Let’s take a closer look at each of these three parts of a basic sales funnel

Lead Magnet

A lead magnet is a freebie that you offer in exchange for the potential customer’s email address.

It can be anything that they can either access online or download to their device:

• A report
• An ebook
• A cheat sheet
• An email course
• A video course
• An app

…etc.

What matters is that:

1. Your lead magnet provides a solution to a problem that the potential customer is struggling with
2. That problem is either the same or related to the problem that your frontend offer solves

You know how in supermarkets you sometimes see stalls with free samples of food where you can taste the item on offer and then buy it if you like it?

Your lead magnet should be a free sample of the value that you offer and give the potential customer a taste of what they can expect from your products and services.

Just keep in mind that people are not going to give you their email addresses unless you offer them something super valuable in return.

Ideally, you want to create a lead magnet that is so valuable that you could charge for it, you just choose not to.

Free Webinar

A webinar is short for “web seminar”.

It’s an online presentation that typically consists of a slideshow and a voice-over by the webinar host.

You should create a webinar that:

1. Lasts for about an hour
2. Builds on the lead magnet
3. Includes a pitch for your frontend offer at the end

Note that the webinar should provide genuine value to the audience, not just be an hour-long sales pitch.

You want to make sure that even the attendees that rejected your frontend offer would walk away having learned something.

Also, the webinar doesn’t have to be live, it can be pre-recorded.

Frontend Offer

It’s best if in the webinar you expand on the problem your lead magnet addresses and provide a DIY solution for it that people can implement on their own, then pitch a frontend offer that provides a paid solution to that same problem.

There are several ways to go about your frontend offer:

1. A consultation – You can offer an hour-long consultation where you give the client feedback on what they are currently doing  (e.g. on their web design, SEO strategy, conversion rate optimization, etc.).
2. A productized service – You can offer a service with a clearly defined scope with a set price (e.g. create a website, create an SEO strategy, optimize their sales page, etc.).
3. An info product – You can offer an info product that provides a more detailed DIY solution to that problem and/or related problems (e.g. a video course on web design, SEO, conversion rate optimization, etc.).

Keep in mind that the purpose of the frontend product isn’t to make you a ton of money, it’s to convert a lead into a paying customer.

That’s why you want to keep the price affordable so that it wouldn’t seem like an insurmountable barrier.

Otherwise, the jump from the free offers to the paid offer might be too jarring, which isn’t going to work well (e.g. “Here’s a free ebook, here’s a free webinar, now pay me $5,000 to create a website for you”).

So How Does This Sales Funnel Look?

Okay, so you have your lead magnet, your free webinar, and your frontend offer. Now what?

Here’s how your sales funnel could look like:

1. You drive traffic to the lead magnet landing page.
2. People who download the lead magnet are taken to the “Thank You” page where you invite them to the free webinar.
3. At the end of the webinar, you pitch your frontend offer and direct the attendees to its sales page.

Once you have this funnel set up, you can add a middle offer and a backend offer to it, as well as various bump offers, upsells, and downsells.

But Won’t People Just Do it Themselves Instead of Hiring You?

Agency owners are often concerned that sharing their knowledge for free or in the form of info products will damage their business.

The fear is that if they show people how to do something, then those people will simply do it themselves instead of hiring the agency.

But it’s important to differentiate between two groups of people:

1. Those who have more time than money.
2. Those who have more money than time.

Typically, those in the former group will do it themselves, meanwhile, those in the latter group will hire someone (hopefully you) to do it for them.

However, you aren’t damaging your business by teaching people who have more time than money how to do something, since they wouldn’t have hired you anyway. They simply can’t afford it.

So by selling them an ebook or a video course you are capturing the revenue that you would have otherwise missed out on.

Meanwhile, those who have more money than time might buy the same info-product…

But once they realize how much work it is to implement what they’ve learned they will probably want to hire you to do it for them. They simply don’t have time to do it themselves!

Case Study: Cathy Olson

Cathy Olson is a talented web designer who runs her own web design agency.

She was struggling with a challenge that you are likely familiar with if you run an agency: balancing lead generation with client work.

Cathy was stuck in a vicious cycle where focusing on lead generation would lead to a schedule so full with client work that there was no more time left for getting new leads…

This meant that when the client work would dry up, she would have to scramble to get new leads ASAP to keep her business afloat.

…and then the cycle would start again.

Needless to say, this was stressful.

Moreover, at the time she only offered high-end web design services, which meant that leads that couldn’t afford them would leave without buying.

However, when Cathy discovered ClickFunnels, everything changed.

She built a sales funnel that enabled her to generate leads and convert them into paying customers on autopilot:

1. Her lead magnet was an ebook with 50 color and font pairings.
2. Her frontend product was a collection of logo templates that cost $27.
3. She also had a social media pack as a bump offer for just $12.
4. Finally, there was also a one-time offer called “Web Designer For A Day” that cost $97.

A person who bought Cathy’s $27 product + $12 bump offer + $97 one-time offer was much more likely to pay for her high-end web design services than someone she cold emailed or cold called.

Plus, these offers allowed her to tap into the DIY web design market and provide value to people who couldn’t afford to hire her but were willing to invest in improving their own web design skills.

And what were the results?

She generated over 7000 leads and $40,000 in revenue in just three months.

Moreover, she now has a waiting list of 2-4 months, so she can breathe easier knowing that there’s always work available.

Want Russell to Walk You Through Building Your First Sales Funnel?

Let’s keep it real:

Building a sales funnel from scratch can seem like a daunting task.

That’s why we created our 5 Day Challenge where Russell walks you through it step-by-step.

You will learn how to:

• Generate unlimited leads
• Create your first lead magnet
• Build your first sales funnel
• Create a simple 6-email follow-up sequence
• And launch your funnel!

…in just five days.

So don’t hesitate.

Join our 5 Day Challenge today. It’s completely free!