“Funnels just dont work for my audience” – when a coach tells me this, it’s usually right after they’ve switched their funnel off.
Here’s how it normally goes…
You spend weeks building the thing. The lead magnet. The emails. All the tech.
You finally hit publish.
And instead of sales notifications, you get unsubscribes. More than you’ve ever had.
So you freak out and turn it all off.
Then you tell yourself your audience is different.
They need more nurturing.
They don’t like getting that many emails.
They need more time to decide, and all that urgency puts them off.
I get it. But in my experience, when a coach says funnels dont work for their audience, it’s not because they’ve actually done any research.
They didnt get spam complaints. Nobody replied to complain. There were no angry comments on their ads.
They just got more unsubscribes than usual… and it scared them.
But the truth is, funnels do still work.
And while you’re busy blaming your audience, you’re not looking for the real reason your funnel isn’t converting. Which might be a couple of changes away from fixing.
So let’s bust this myth.
Why it’s so easy to believe funnels don’t work for your audience
Now, don’t get me wrong. It IS harder to sell a course than it used to be.
AI has made it super easy for anyone to create a course and a funnel to sell it.
So there’s a lot more competition… and a lot more junk.
Everyone’s talking about a “trust recession
“. Show up live. Get on camera. Prove you’re a real person (and not a bot).
And a lot of funnels that used to convert have stopped converting. Which feels like proof that funnels are dead.
But harder to sell doesn’t mean funnels don’t work.
It means you can’t throw something together, stick it behind a lead magnet and expect it to sell anymore.
How believing your audience hates funnels is keeping you stuck
Here’s my problem with “my audience doesn’t like funnels”…
It lets you off the hook.
If your audience is the problem, there’s nothing you can do about it, right?
So you stop looking for the real reason your funnel isn’t converting.
You don’t dig into the data. You don’t test a different angle. You go with your gut… and your gut is scared.
And that’s when the cycle starts.
You hold back on emails because you don’t want to annoy anyone or cause more unsubscribes.
You go back to launching. Or you start offering sales calls again.
And a few months later, you’re looking for the next funnel, the next launch strategy, the next lead magnet that might finally crack it.
All while the funnel you already built might have been a couple of changes away from selling your program on autopilot.
That’s the real cost. Months of starting over, when you could have been fixing what you already had.
And i get it. It’s work to get to the bottom of why a funnel isn’t converting. And it’s uncomfortable when the thing you’ve worked so hard to create isn’t selling.
It’s much easier to blame your audience than to dig into why people aren’t buying.
But you can’t fix something you’ve decided isn’t your problem.
The truth: funnels still work
Funnels do still work. What doesn’t work anymore is a generic offer with generic messaging.
Your ideal client is seeing more courses, coaches and promises than ever. And plenty of them have bought something before that didn’t deliver.
So yes, they’re pickier. And yes, they’re less trusting of business owners they don’t know.
No, that doesn’t mean you need to chuck your funnel and start showing up live to prove you’re a real person worth trusting.
It means what you’re saying in your funnel needs to be so damn specific that it grabs their attention (fast).
Your offer needs to be great, and everyone needs to be able to see how and why it’s great (not just you).
Because if they can’t see why they need your offer, sending fewer emails won’t fix it.
Neither will giving them another 3 weeks to think about it.
So the better question isn’t “how do I get fewer unsubscribes?”
It’s “how do I make my offer something they can’t say no to?”
To do that, you dont need to give up on funnels; you just need to make the one you have clearer and more specific.
What to do instead of switching your funnel off
Here’s what I’d do before you decide funnels don’t work for your audience:
1. Check your beliefs
Don’t make assumptions.
A lot of coaches come into funnels already worried their audience won’t like this type of selling.
They see the email sequence, notice it has more emails than they’re used to, and decide their audience is going to hate it before a single email goes out.
So when the unsubscribes come in, it feels like proof.
But that’s your belief talking, not your audience.
And here’s the bit nobody likes to hear…
When you’re mostly sending helpful content, people can sit on your list for months without ever deciding whether they actually want what you’re selling.
When you start making offers, you finally force them to decide.
If your offer isn’t something they want, they unsubscribe.
That’s not your audience hating funnels. That’s your list getting more qualified.
2. Check the data
Make decisions from the data, not your gut.
A few unsubscribes doesn’t prove everyone thinks your funnel is too pushy.
👉 Look at where people are unsubscribing. Is it just at the peak of the sale, where you’ve sent 3 emails in 24 hours?
A few more unsubscribes there makes sense.
👉 Has your list not heard from you much lately?
Then of course you’ll get more unsubscribes than usual when you put them all through a funnel without warming them up first.
👉 Have you gotten any spam complaints? Any replies complaining? Any negative comments on your ads?
Those are proof. Not unsubscribes.
👉 Then look at who’s coming in.
Are the people signing up for your lead magnet actually your ideal clients? Because if your ads are bringing in the wrong people, they’ll unsubscribe no matter how good your emails are.
And look at the bigger picture. Are people clicking through to your sales page? Are they buying?
A funnel that gets more unsubscribes than you’re used to AND makes sales is doing its job.
A funnel with hardly any unsubscribes and no sales isn’t doing anything.
3. Fix what’s actually stopping people from buying
Once you know your funnel is fine and you’re not actually upsetting people, you can turn to improving what you have.
👉 After 1,000+ copy reviews, the first place I always start is the ideal client.
Do you actually have a very clear picture of who you want to buy this offer?
Most coaches don’t. Not to the point where they can say what problem is most top of mind for them, and what words they’d use to describe it.
So start by relooking at your ideal client and seeing if you can get more specific.
Because when you’re talking about a problem they actually have, in words that feel like they were written for them, they stick around.
👉 Then look at the offer.
Is it easy to explain?
Is it different enough to stand out from everything else out there?
And is it solving a problem your ideal client actually wants to spend money fixing?
Because if people need a 20-minute sales call to understand why they need your program, no email sequence is going to sell it for them.
When you get this right, you stop panicking every time an unsubscribe comes in.
You know what to check. You can tell the difference between a few people leaving and a funnel that actually isn’t working.
And instead of scrapping your strategy every couple of months, you keep improving what you’ve already built.
“Ok, but how many unsubscribes is too many?”
There’s no right or wrong answer here. It depends on quite a few things.
👉 Which email it is. Your first email will usually get a lot fewer unsubscribes than the last one, or the second last one, in a sales sequence.
👉 How controversial you’re being. If you’re writing about things that might upset people or challenge their beliefs, you’re going to get more unsubscribes.
This isn’t a bad thing. I actually recommend my clients do this to attract the right people and repel the wrong people.
👉 Who you’re bringing in. Obviously if your ads are bringing in the wrong people, they’re going to unsubscribe, because your offers and emails aren’t going to feel relevant to them.
So stop obsessing over your unsubscribe rate because a low unsubscribe rate isn’t much use if nobody is buying.
So before you switch it all off…
More unsubscribes than usual doesn’t mean your audience hates funnels.
It usually means they finally had to decide whether your offer is something they want.
So check your beliefs.
Check the data.
Then fix what’s actually stopping people from buying.
Because a funnel that sells your program while you’re busy coaching (or living your life) is worth a bit of uncomfortable digging.
Trust me.
Want to know what’s really stopping your funnel from converting?
Maybe you’re thinking:
“Ok, Cheryl, I realise now that it might have been mindset holding me back, and it’s not that my audience doesn’t like funnels. But I don’t actually know why my funnel isn’t converting as well as it should?”
I’ve got you.
That’s exactly what I help my clients with in Designed To Scale, my 3-month 1:1 consulting package for coaches who want to sell more of their group program or course, without having to triple the size of their audience.
I’ll help you look at your offer through 4 lenses:
👉 Identify: Get super clear on exactly who your offer is for.
👉 Package: Make sure your offer is stupidly easy to say yes to.
👉 Attract: Say the things your audience needs to hear to buy.
👉 Sell: Find (and fix) what’s stopping more people from buying.
We start with your data, find the place you’re losing people, and focus on the changes that are most likely to make the biggest difference to your conversions first.
You walk away with a funnel that actually makes sales, so you can spend more time coaching, leading and living your life.
