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Move to FGF!

Kim · June 26, 2024 · Leave a Comment

Sick of Clickfunnels and all their drama? Thinking about using the robust platform available on HighLevel? Consider FG Funnels! It’s a powerful software for digital marketers, built on HighLevel, that includes professionally designed funnel collections, onboarding training, and access to their extensive FGF University training program.

FG Funnels, like any version of HighLevel, is a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool that allows you to:

Organize contact information
Manage relationships with current and prospective customers
Streamline processes
Improve customer service
Increase sales and profitability

YES! Sign Me up for FG Funnels!

Let’s Chat About Your Options

FG Funnels is a part of Funnel Gorgeous, a massively successful female-owned marketing-training business and platform. It is ran by Julie Chenell (formerly Julie Stoian, who you may recognize from ClickFunnels several years ago) and Cathy Olson.

FG Funnels stands out as one of the best versions of HighLevel due to its highly specialized features tailored for online business owners. While HighLevel provides a robust CRM and marketing automation platform, FG Funnels takes it a step further by offering pre-built, high-converting funnels designed specifically to boost client acquisition and retention. These funnels are meticulously crafted based on proven marketing strategies, ensuring that users can hit the ground running without needing to build from scratch.

BUT…you are NOT limited to using the pre-built funnels and templates! If nothing strikes your fancy or you simply want to rebuild a funnel you used on another platform, you can absolutely do a custom build on FG Funnels. (I’ve known some people to be confused about this aspect, which is why I am mentioning it.) I can help you do this, so feel free to schedule a discovery call with me and let’s explore your options.

FG Funnels has all of HighLevel’s core functionalities, such as automated follow-ups, SMS marketing, and email campaigns, making it a comprehensive solution for digital marketers looking to streamline their operations and maximize their marketing efforts.

Perhaps best of all, FG Funnels offers unparalleled support and resources, which significantly enhances your experience. (This is a level of support that is NOT available through the main HighLevel platform!)

FGF comes with a wealth of amazing training materials, including video tutorials, webinars, and documentation, all designed to help you make the most out of your investment. This helps to ensure that you can quickly overcome any hurdles and fully leverage the platform’s capabilities.

And then there is the FG Funnels community, a vibrant and active group, providing a space for users to share insights, troubleshoot issues, and collaborate on best practices. This sense of community and ongoing support makes FG Funnels not just a tool, but a partner in achieving marketing success, setting it apart as the superior choice among HighLevel versions.

So, as a quick overview, WHAT can you do with FG Funnels? Just about everything! You can:

Build incredible funnels (of course!)
Use a pre-built template/funnel or custom build your own, or anything in between
Build and host your entire website
Have a blog
Manage your email list
Send emails and texts to your list
Book appointments on your calendar
Automate workflows
Host your course
Sell your products
And more!

YES! Sign Me up for FG Funnels!

Let’s Chat About Your Options

Still not sure? Let’s talk about HighLevel, the platform FGF is built on. HighLevel (often referred to as “Go High Level”) stands out due to its comprehensive suite of tools that cater to various aspects of business management, from marketing automation to CRM functionalities. Unlike many other platforms that require integrating several third-party applications to achieve the same level of functionality, HighLevel offers an all-in-one solution. This not only simplifies your workflow but also significantly reduces costs and the time spent managing different systems. With HighLevel, you can streamline your operations, allowing you to focus more on growing your business rather than getting bogged down by technical complexities.

One of the key benefits of using HighLevel is its robust marketing automation capabilities. The platform allows you to create detailed customer journeys, automate follow-ups, and manage leads efficiently. HighLevel’s automation tools are designed to enhance customer engagement and boost conversion rates, making it easier to nurture leads into loyal clients. Additionally, HighLevel offers advanced analytics and reporting features that provide valuable insights into your marketing campaigns’ performance. This data-driven approach enables you to make informed decisions and optimize your strategies for better results.

On the other hand, many other platforms often come with their own set of drawbacks. For instance, some platforms may lack the depth and breadth of marketing automation tools, forcing you to rely on multiple third-party applications to fill in the gaps. This can lead to a fragmented system where data is siloed across various platforms, making it challenging to get a unified view of your business operations. Moreover, integrating these disparate systems can be time-consuming and expensive, not to mention the potential technical issues that can arise from trying to make different applications work together seamlessly.

Whatever version of HighLevel you choose, whether you go with FG Funnels, another white labeled version, or you choose to operate your own HL agency, I can help you design and implement your incredible custom funnels, sales pages, website and more. Contact me today or schedule a discovery call and let’s chat about it!

Why I still love WordPress

Kim · June 23, 2024 · Leave a Comment

Many years ago when I first started in the online business world, I stumbled my way through learning WordPress. At that time I was working as a virtual assistant in the Real Estate industry and blogging was at the top of every realtor’s to-do list. But most hated doing the writing, and even more hated the tech side of it. So often they hired folks like me to ghost write for them and post those articles to their websites.

WordPress was a baby at the time, of course, and pretty much nothing like it is today. It has grown from just a place to have a simple website and blog into one of the most powerful website platforms on the internet.

You most likely visit WordPress websites every time you are online. They include: Sony, Vogue, TechCrunch, Microsoft News, SnoopDog.com, The White House, Meta Newsroom, Fortune Magazine, and many many more!

Today WordPress has evolved into a powerful website tool that every business can effectively use, whether they have a blog or not!

I have even built several impactful funnels solely on WordPress without using any of the fancy sales funnel builders. You will need to integrate a way to capture and mail your leads and a way to process payments, so for those reasons sometimes a comprehensive funnel system is better. But even those usually integrate nicely into WordPress!

Here are the top 10 advantages of using WordPress for your website:

User-Friendly Interface: WordPress offers an intuitive and easy-to-navigate dashboard, making it accessible for users with varying levels of technical expertise.
Extensive Plugin Library: With thousands of plugins available, you can easily add features and functionality to your site without needing to write code.
Customizable Themes: WordPress provides a vast array of themes, both free and premium, allowing you to customize the design and layout of your website to match your brand.
SEO-Friendly: WordPress is built with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind, making it easier to improve your site’s visibility on search engines.
Responsive Design: Most WordPress themes are designed to be mobile-friendly, ensuring that your website looks great on all devices.
Strong Community Support: With a large and active community, you have access to countless tutorials, forums, and resources to help you troubleshoot and optimize your site.
Regular Updates: WordPress frequently updates its software to enhance security, add new features, and improve performance.
Scalability: Whether you’re running a small blog or a large e-commerce site, WordPress can scale to meet your growing needs.
Multilingual Support: WordPress supports multiple languages, making it easy to create a multilingual site for a global audience.
Cost-Effective: As an open-source platform, WordPress is free to use, and there are numerous free plugins and themes available, making it a cost-effective solution for web development. (The cost of hosting it depends on your choice of webhost.)

Ask me how I can help you with your next website project.

My Comparison of Clickfunnels VS Simplero

Kim · March 31, 2022 · Leave a Comment

I’m often asked which marketing automation software I prefer. And that’s a hard question to answer. Because there are several that I love almost equally! Two of my favorites are for sure ClickFunnels and Simplero. They do similar things, some things one does better and some things the other does better. And some things only one will accomplish. Here are my thoughts on these two platforms, in no particular order, as a freelancer who builds and manages sales funnels and email marketing for my clients.

What I love about ClickFunnels

The people who run ClickFunnels KNOW digital marketing. Like, they are the expert of experts. And that’s evidenced by how well their brand is marketed. And thus all of their funnel “recipes” are designed to create “perfect sales funnels”.
They teach you what they know! If you are brand new to sales, digital marketing, and other aspects of the online business world, you NEED to check out their free and low-cost training opportunities. Start with the books by Russell Brunson. Grab Expert Secrets here through the ClickFunnels website. (Pay attention to how the funnel flows! That’s where your education begins!) Another great resource to really dive in and start learning funnels is the One Funnel Away challenge.
Amazing sales funnel and landing page builder. Whether you choose to use a free or premium template or create your own from a blank page (or have your team’s funnel builder or techy VA do it for you), you can rest assured that the basic elements of quality web design and sales funnel design will be in place when you are done. It’s a relatively simple drag and drop platform with an uncomplicated way to embellish your design with CSS code.
Payment processing is smooth. You do have to choose one payment processor, but using Stripe (for example) through ClickFunnels has always been a very smooth experience.
Set up of multiple products is straight forward.
Upsells are done nearly perfectly as well. This software was absolutely designed to perfect the art of the upsell. (You know, “Do you want fries with that? Or a dozen of whatever you just bought? Or an upgrade to the VIP package?”)
You can place your ClickFunnels pages on your WordPress website using their plugin. (Not free from glitches, unfortunately, but overall it usually works quite well.) This means that you don’t necessarily need a secondary URL or subdomain to present your ClickFunnels pages to the world, and you certainly don’t want to put out your landing pages with the default ClickFunnels url on them.
They have a fantastic affiliate program. Want to be in the affiliate business or simply refer your clients to them and cash in on their account month after month? Make sure you sign up for an affiliate account! (That’s why I’m using my affiliate links in this blog post, by the way. Because why would you want to talk about and send someone to a platform and NOT use an affiliate link?)
They also allow you to have your own affiliate program for your products and it works pretty well, also. Affiliate links use cookies that embed themselves on the user’s browser memory and tell the seller who provided them with the link so that they can compensate the referrer appropriately.

Cons of ClickFunnels

Their funnels aren’t always pretty. They actually like to say that ugly funnels sell better than pretty funnels. I’d have to see the stats on that one and understand their definition of “ugly”. Because I wouldn’t describe their funnel templates as ugly at all! They are neat and aesthetically pleasing and well designed. But they do tend toward feeling quite masculine. So maybe that’s why they aren’t “pretty”? And maybe what matters in how well an “ugly” vs “pretty” funnel sells has to do with your product and target market? I know I’m biased because of my profession, but I always find myself more inclined to purchase from a beautifully done funnel.
The tech issues. Things break…alot. Cache doesn’t purge when you’ve made changes…alot. Little glitches abound.
Related to that, their tech support has a reputation for being terrible. They have made strides to do better in the past couple of years, but seems that it’s still lacking compared to other platforms. And while, maybe, someone is working on the tech issues on the backend quickly, they tend to not let you know about it. The best tech support for ClickFunnels that I’ve found (other than hiring your favorite funnel geek)? Head to the official Facebook group and scroll/search for the issue you are experiencing. You are likely to find the solution, or the lack of solution other than “just wait it out”. If you can’t find a solution, post your question. You will probably get a couple of helpful answers and a ton of “I can fix that for you” offers.
Their membership site platform leaves a lot to be desired. It’s great for a simple member offer, such as lifetime access to a virtual summit recording. But if you want a more robust interactive membership site, this is not the solution for you.

What I love about Simplero

Simplero will do what ClickFunnels will do, and more. The sales pages you can build (from template for from a blank page) can look just as good as any other landing page builder. Mostly this has to do with educating yourself.
You can put almost everything in Simplero… your email list, your subscriptions, your website, your blog, your membership site. And it all works so well!
Payment processing is smooth and you can choose multiple payment processors (Stripe and PayPal, for example).
Their tech support is on point! Have a problem? They respond within minutes or hours (depending on complexity and time of day). Just can’t figure something out? They almost always know the answer.
They have extensive, searchable, free trainings available, using their own course platform.
They make constant improvements! Nearly every single time I log in, I get a notification of a list of things they have improved.
They really listen and care about their users. Many of the ongoing improvements are based on user suggestions. Want the platform to do something that you loved about another platform? Just have a vision of what would make a certain aspect of Simplero even better? Submit a suggestion and they will read it, consider it, and implement it at some point if it makes sense and is possible.
They also have a great affiliate program, both for you to help promote Simplero (here’s my affiliate link!) and that you can use to promote your own programs with your own affiliates.
One login for everything housed in Simplero. Let’s say you have purchased a course from 2 other people and you have your own Simplero account. If you use the same email for all 3, you will find it all under your profile. I love that feature!

Cons of Simplero

When I first started using Simplero for a client’s projects a year or so ago I was amused by the title. “Simplero” suggests its “simple”, right? It’s most certainly not simple! I screamed at my computer a great deal while learning this platform. lol But now that I’ve mostly mastered it, I find it to be simply wonderful. Maybe that’s why they use the name Simplero?
Some aspects are a bit limited. But again… they listen and if you want a particular new feature or upgrade to an existing feature, suggest it and it just might happen within a few months.

Let me know which platform you love, hate, or want to know more about. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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***This post or website contains affiliate links, which means that I may receive a commission or other compensation if you make a purchase using these links. As someone in the digital marketing industry, I strongly recommend that you also start to share affiliate links of your own! But be kind and honest when using them. Don’t just randomly throw affiliate links out there. Use the product first, know the seller first, or at least do your research first. Everything you see referred to on my website is either a product I have used for myself or a client or is from someone who I know and respect in the virtual business world. Enjoy!***

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Stop the squirrels from climbing your value ladder!

Kim · November 2, 2020 · Leave a Comment

Those pesky squirrels!

Not the cute brown ones I have running around outside my house.

But those squirrels that seek to derail my best laid business plans with yet another free offer or fabulous webinar or amazing course.

I see first hand where that expression came from because if there is one thing that gets my dog distracted from what he is outside to do, its squirrels! They jump off the neighbors house, run along the power lines, leap from tree to tree. And my poor dog forgets everything else but the desire to be able to jump high enough to get them.

Ever been there?

When you are working hard, focused in on your next big business goal, only to have an amazing offer thrown at your that looks SO good and you just MUST obtain it. Then a few days or weeks later you realize you left your much-more-important goal hanging while you ran off down a rabbit hole chasing this new “whatever”. It may or may not have worked out, and it may or may not have made you any money, but it DID pull you away from what WOULD have made you much more money anyway, I’m betting.

What can help with focus is putting your plans into a visual representation that you keep nearby at the ready.

I call this a value ladder.

This is a tool that helps you plot out the various levels of value that you are giving and getting from the offers and products in your business.

At the bottom of your ladder are your free giveaways such as lead magnets, virtual summits, etc. These have a singular purpose of reeling in new leads to your emailing list. These are always free and can be used not only in prominent places on your website but also as a free gift when you are invited to be a guest speaker or participate in someone else’s offer.

The next rung of your ladder would be your lowest priced offer. This could be an offer, often referred to as an SLO or Self-Liquidating Offer, that you charge anywhere from $7 to $47 for. Maybe even a little bit higher. You might run ads to it. It might be an upsell from your lead magnet. You might find other uses for it here and there as well.

After that you have the high priced rungs. These are your primary revenue makers. And you shouldn’t have a wide variety of them. Actually best to focus on just one or two levels. This would be your premium coaching program or service that you offer to your ideal clients.

You can also have a few other rungs here and there with extra things, like a live event or an exclusive Black Friday offer that you only pull out now and then to drive fresh new traffic into your premium offers.

But the point is that you need to set your value ladder, have room for a couple extras, and then leave it alone while focusing on how to achieve each of those levels and keep traffic flowing to them.

When something new comes along, another one of those squirrels that seek to distract you, look at your value ladder and ask yourself where would it fit? Would it add value to your current knowledge of what you can deliver to your clients or would it improve HOW you deliver it? If the answer is no, then keep on walking past that pesky squirrel.

——-

Image by Alexas_Fotos from Pixabay

Fixing OptimizePress After Adding SSL to Your Website

Kim · February 22, 2017 · Leave a Comment

Yesterday I added an SSL certificate to a client’s website. This client has OptimizePress already installed and dozens of opt-in pages and sales pages previously created using the OptimizePress plugin. Adding the SSL certificate, which was done with a SiteGround plugin that automated the entire process, went smoothly, until…

I immediately got an alert that OptimizePress key was not working. So I figured it was because of the switch from http to https. Yep…just needed to re-save the current key and all was well.

But…

After I did that, the green padlock symbol changed to gray with a red slash through it. Sigh.

So obviously that had to do with OptimizePress also. I realized it didn’t update the links and locations that are in those pages. Ugh… I really didn’t want this 5 minute task to turn into a 5 hour chore of digging through ALL of those pages to update each individual image and link.

Realizing that others likely had the same problem, and hoping for an easy solution, I went to the OptimizePress support page and quickly found what was needed.

Here are the steps to resolve SSL security issues with OptimizePress after installing a new certificate on a site with older pages.

First, re-save the general dashboard settings of OptimizePress, which will re-validate your API key.

Now, you will need to download the Helper Tools plugin that OptimizePress has created to update links and images after you migrate a site to a new URL. It will work the same for this SSL purpose. Click here to access those instructions and the plugin.

It will download a .zip file. Save this to your computer, do not unzip it.

Go to the plugins areas of the website you are working on. Install the plugin by uploading it. Activate the plugin.

On the left side dashboard menu, go to Tools and then OP Helper Tools.

Click on Migrations.

In the entry for “Old domain”, type in your domain without the SSL certificate. Example: http://ponytailedprofessional.com.

In the entry for “New domain” type in your domain with the SSL certificate. Example: https://ponytailedprofessional.com.

Click migrate domain.

You will see a notification of the number of links that were updated and the lock symbol next to the URL in your browser should turn green immediately.

That’s it! I hope this worked well for you. I’d love to hear your comments. If you run into problems, feel free to ask.

Tootles!