How to Build an Automated Sales System with Hailey Dale

Diane: This week's guest has some of my favorite processes. And if you know me, you know, what a big deal it is for me to say that Hailey Dale helps entrepreneurs build their content empire in a way that makes it fun instead of forced. And we are going to dig into one of her signature processes right now. So get ready to take notes. Hey Hailey, welcome to the show. Hailey: uh, thanks for having me, Diane. I'm excited to be here. Diane: Yes. I'm excited to hear all about your incredible process. But before we dive into that, I would love it. If you could tell the listeners a little bit about you and your lifestyle business. Hailey: Yeah. So I run a business called your content empire, which is one part done for you sales funnel agency. And one part teaches you everything I know for my DIY or crowd. I have been in this business for almost six years. I originally started it as a side hustle. And so I was working in government and my corporate job while I was building this on the side. And it was only about three years ago that I went full time and fully jumped into this thing a lot quicker than I anticipated because I'm that person who likes to have all my ducks in a row before I do it. So it felt very spur of the moment for me, but there's been no looking back. There's been no regrets since I did that. and so yeah, here I am today, 2020, the havoc that is. Diane: Yeah, with you and your lifestyle. Cause you didn't start with the full agency and all the DIY stuff. Hailey: Yeah. that's really interesting. And to go back to that time, when I did decide to go full time, it was because I was, working as, as people know who have a side hustle, there is no like your lifestyle is that I am a side hustler. And so you were finding all those found moments of lunch breaks of after work of a weekend of holidays. everything is dedicated to your business because it needs to be right. I think like the business I have now was in a reaction to feeling like all I do is work. and so that was such a need to go full time in my business to create more space and more boundaries. Although I have to say it is an evolution, it's not something that I feel like. You're ever perfect at you never have that perfect balance. There are some seasons where I'm working a lot more and there's other seasons where I work five hours a day, four days a week. so it really is kind of an ebb and flow. Diane: where did you start with the agency or did you start with the DIY crowd and then build the agency? Hailey: I started with the DIY crowd. a lot of people will say that I built my business backwards because instead of starting with one-on-one services, which are a lot easier to sell, or a lot easier to meet your revenue goals, selling one thing versus 500 things. I started with courses and I started with building my email list and I did that because I didn't have time to work with anyone one-on-one. And so people would ask me to. Come in and build their funnels. And I would have to say no. And it was only when I went full time that I was able to, it didn't even start as an agency. It started just as a service with me doing everything. And as I've developed my process and trained my team on it, have we been able to like fully build out the agency and start scaling that side as well? Diane: I like what you said there because I think everybody does get that traditional kind of you'd need to do one to one and then you can develop whatever. But actually, I really liked that you picked what worked for you and your lifestyle at that moment because sometimes it's the lifestyle of the moment, not the dream lifestyle that we're working around and. We're working towards the dream lifestyle, but we have to do the things we have to do. And I think people have this vision of lifestyle businesses where we're all like nomads on a beach Hailey: yeah. And I will say as much as people like there might be people listening here who have their full-time job now and are dreaming about starting that side hustle and want to jump straight into that and they want to leave their job right away. I will say how grateful. I am that I held onto my job, even though it made me miserable in a lot of ways because it allowed me to build that business model. It allowed me to build the business that I wanted instead of being forced into desperation in order to pay the bills. It allowed me to grow a lot faster. It allowed me not to take on things that I didn't want to take on, and it allowed me to be extremely choosy and intentional about and reinvest more heavily into my business than I would have. If I relied on that to pay my bills. Diane: I think that's such a good perspective. I think if I had to do everything all over again, I'm not sure. I think I had to leave my corporate job for reasons other than I was ready to build a business. I just needed to get out of my corporate job and I would never have built a business if I hadn't left. But looking back. If I knew what my path was going to be, I would have stuck it out and let like them pay the bills while they built the business as well. For sure. I have been a long time admirer and user of the many tools, templates, and processes you have around content. I'm very excited to hear that you have an automated sales system. That's going to have clients coming directly to me, which sounds fabulous. How do I get me? Some of that. Hailey: Yeah. I think a lot of people, they combined in their mind, the sales and marketing, right? Like it's the same thing in sales and marketing. It's under the same umbrella, but I think they are actually two very different mindsets, two very different systems. And so, if you were trying to. Spend all this time on marketing and also need to do the sales piece of things. You're going to find yourself pushed and pulled in a lot of directions. And let's not even mention the fact that you need to be actually delivering on those services, creating your systems, doing these other things in your business, like the day-to-day and Oh, having a lifestyle as well. So my approach with an automated sales system is let's get that sales piece. Systemized and automated so that when you're marketing, you have a purpose for content creation. You have a purpose for going on and doing podcast interviews because you know that you have a system operating in the back end that is taking all that traffic, getting them on your email list, and like priming them and preparing them for your offer. And that for me is an automated sales system. and it really works hand in hand with that marketing piece as well. Diane: And so you've done this, you teach this to DIY peeps, but you've also implemented multiple funnels for multiple clients in your agency. So you've seen a lot of different funnels and we've all heard about a lot of different funnels and all the different ones we should try. And I think. People have a little bit overwhelmed when it comes to the idea, even experienced business owners, I think Oh my gosh, I have to build another funnel. so where do we start? Hailey: Yeah. I want to say like funnel is such an intimidating word that people have a lot of like reaction to. I actually really prefer the term sales system because it's not just that traditional funnel. And that is the thing, like when we are, that we've worked with hundreds of people now and consulted on their funnels and built their funnels and I'm rolling up my sleeves and in people's funnels every single day. and I think that's actually what gives me credibility to teach it as well. I might, I add. But I think, automated sales system because it really is tailored to you. It's not that traditional, like freebie lead, like an email sequence tripwire offer. It's very much tailored to your business. So I prefer the term like automated sales system because I think it is so personal and it is so like what works for my audience may not necessarily work for yours. And I think that's where we start with the first step is really understanding what is that intersection between my offer. And my audience, which, you're probably going to roll your eyes. Like it's not another idea, the client avatar exercise, but it is very much like doing some client interviews and understanding like if you're working with busy moms, I don't know if you should create a 60 minute webinar that they need to sit down and watch, it's about understanding your audience and the assets that they have available the time that they can invest in something like this. And just really creating that intersection of what you're offering and making sure it works for who you're offering it to. Diane: So do we start with our offer or do we start with the quote unquote ideal client interviews? Hailey: It depends what stage of business you're in. I think if you are brand new, there's no shortcut for testing out some different offers. I think you can attest to that. Diane, you've tested out so many different offers, and it's really through each test that you're getting closer and closer to what you have now, which is perfect. but there's no shortcut. There's no like I'm going to like. Settle on the perfect thing and be ready to build an automated sales system out of the gate here. So the people who are actually ready to build the automated sales system, hopefully, they have proof of concept. And so their offers pretty much nailed down by the time you're ready to invest the time in creating an automated sales system or sales funnel around it. so I think, you start with your offer and then when you start doing the brainstorming of what is the right lead magnet to attract and validate leads for that offer. Diane: something you have always said to me is it's not about just getting people on your list. it's not about throwing out every opt-in you can think of, but it is actually like, how is this. Opt-in the first step or the first couple of steps towards your big results for your offer so that when someone's on your list, they're the right person on your list. There's no point in having a thousand people who are not going to buy anything. Hailey: One of my favorite ways to do a lead magnet or a freebie is to start with my clients. We start with the kickoff phase where we are like doing some customer research where identifying what the project plan and overarching strategy for the funnel is in the agency. so one of the places that we start is, I love asking them what would make this person, a perfect client for you? if you have a client coming in, what do they already have decided? What do they already know? And can we use a freebie that has a double purpose of both preparing them for your offer as well as getting them interested in it too? Diane: I always like to think about it as one little win, Hailey: yeah. Either a win or like, how can I prep them? So a good example is, one of the clients we're working with right now, she's an interior designer. And there are a few things that are really helpful for her to get them like, to have them already decided by the time they come to that consult call with her is they have to know their budget. They have to know what room they want. To redesign, or they have to know what that like home design style is for them. we can approach the funnel from a few different angles, helping them pre decide these things. And so they're coming as both, it's helping them make a decision. by the fact that they're signing up for it shows that they're interested in the service, but it also, by the time they come to the consult call if they've gone through that funnel, they've used it. They're already a better client than they would be without this. Diane: so if I have a funnel that's working but it's not as automated as I would. I don't just have a line of clients coming up to me. do I have to start from scratch to get the automated sales system? Hailey: I don't think necessarily. one of the resources that I use is like a sales funnel, audit calculator. I think a lot of times people, Oh my gosh. I talked to so many people and they just want to start all over again. let me throw this out completely. And let me start all over again, rather than really taking like an analytical approach to it and taking like a, let me put my, let me put my lab coat on and figure out what's going on. And I think oftentimes we think our entire funnel's not working when it's one specific, tiny little piece. So I think you always start with an audit, and you always start from building upon what you already have unless you're creating an entirely new offer. I think I'm a much bigger fan of taking what you already have and like, how can we get it working? Diane: Okay. So I take my offer and I do the audit and then I do the tweaks. And then how do I know when I have this automated sales machine? Hailey: If you're reaching your goals. Diane: am I automating the marketing part of it as well? Hailey: that's what I was saying. Like I think the sales piece and the marketing piece are two different things when we build funnels, people think, Oh my gosh, I've built it. And they will come. No, you have to continue to drive traffic to it. And so that piece, if you're going to put an automated traffic system, Like leading into your funnel. That's like a separate piece of the puzzle. but you definitely need both parts of it or you need to be showing up and doing marketing, whether that is regular content creation, whether that is social media, whether that is jumping on and doing podcasts unless you want to put something automated in place, but I think you start with the funnel and we want to know you have a high converting funnel before we're like, Hey, we're going to add on Facebook ads or we're going to do a promoted pins campaign that runs evergreen. you have to know you're working with a funnel to actually convert. So I recommend. And going, stage one of business. If you're just starting out, test that offer and find something that has proof of concept. Step two, create an automated sales funnel system around it. Step three, do the audits and do the checkpoints to make sure that it's working and optimize and tweak it and get the conversions, where they need to be. And then fourth is then there is the automated traffic part of it. Diane: Got you. basically, we're setting up the automated sales system so that we can focus on, say, for example, our organic marketing, driving traffic to that, and have people go into that funnel and successfully come out the other side, whether that's a purchase or a consult call On the other end, without us having to think about it. So we're only really focused on marketing and the very tail end of selling, which hopefully is also an easier process because the funnel has educated them to be a better buyer. Hailey: Exactly. Yeah. I’m not selling no magic bean. there is still work involved. It's not like you're going to put it on autopilot and like never have to touch it again. That's not how sales funnels work. Diane: I know everyone is different and everybody has slightly different businesses, but what do you see it really working well for people at the moment in that automated funnel. Hailey: It really depends on, like I said, it depends on whether we're talking B2B, whether we're talking course, whether we're talking consult call. It really depends on what that is. for console calls, I think it's like reverse engineering from the goal and understanding what your close rate is and building a funnel with that end goal in mind, I have a 50% close, right? my goal is to book two new packages per month. So that means that I need to be booking four consult calls a month, which means that, I need to have if it's like a 1%, I need to have 400 people through the funnel. Like doing this, so I think it's reverse engineering. You're nearing your goals and making sure that you have realistic expectations. And also I think a lot of people that I see, come in say, I want to be selling 10 of my courses every month and they're unwilling to let themselves hit the milestones first. Like you're not going to hit 10 core sales per month, right out of the gate. So allowing yourself to establish a baseline of let me start with one, then let me double that and do two. Then let me double that and start for that. I think is what separates the people who are successful with our automated sales funnels from people who are not the people who are willing to go with baseline, who are willing to like. Confront what the realistic expectations and what the math says. And realize that it isn't personal versus the people who are impatient. And they are the people who are like, I've created the sales funnel. It's not working. Let me throw it out and start all over again. They're going to be stuck there for a while. Diane: say it again for the people in the back, because I feel like at the moment we are just bombarded by people being like. My final do exactly what I did. I got 4 billion leads overnight, and I'm now a multi-billionaire in one month. when I say to people about lifestyle businesses, it's the same thing. you might decide that you want to work 10 hours a week and make a million. You're not going to work 10 hours your first week. And make a million, maybe your first week, you're working 10 hours a day and you start to cut it down and you start to put your prices up. And then, so it's interesting to have the funnel connection and I think that's, what's important. It's okay, I got one person. How do I repeat that? Okay. Now I've got to, how do I repeat that? Hailey: I totally agree. And I think there's a big difference between the person saying, I did this once I made it work for me, let me teach you how to make it work for you because it doesn't necessarily work that way. you have to be patient, you have to take, like an attitude and a spirit of experimentation and just embrace. The journey as much. I think if we even think about like the quality of lifestyle, right? who is going to be happier, the person who is like, Hey, I'm not taking this failure personally. It's getting little by little incremental upgrades and improvements or the person who was like white knuckling. I'm such a failure. I'm like, Pushing and pressuring and like putting all this internal expectations and deadlines and pressure on myself. I think even like mindset plays so much into our quality of lifestyle as well. when it comes to entrepreneurship, Diane: you're always very data driven and, when you get, yeah. People coming to you, wanting to figure out what type of opt-in to start with. not maybe necessarily what the results of the opt-in is, but when they come to you and they say, Oh, I've got like a checklist or an ebook or a webinar, or I want to do it a quiz. how do you know where to steer them? Hailey: I always focus on the transformation first or second, right? Like I think before you decide it's going to be a quiz, it's going to be a webinar. I think you get really, really clear on what that transformation is and making that transformation as attractive as possible. And it almost doesn't matter how it's delivered after that. As long as it aligns with the amount of time and how your ideal client likes to consume content. Diane: Yeah. And I think it, fizzles is something to be said for, you mentioned earlier about experimenting, like getting something out there and seeing what happens again, it's going to take you a lot longer to get a complex quiz or webinar out there than it is to get a checklist or an evaluation or an ebook or something like that out there to be testing even the concept of your automated system, is this actually the result people want to get? do you find, there are multiple ways almost to test that kind of initial concept of this is the transformation, this is where I'm trying to get them. Let me see if this idea lands. Hailey: I don't necessarily know that you need to use a freebie for that. you could use a video, you can use a blog post to test a concept first too. I think there's also something to be said, right? Like I think it comes down to stage of business too, right? if you're in year zero to one, do you necessarily know your client well enough to invest 20 hours creating a webinar? And all of the emails that go along with it, or do you want to do something that is like a lower barrier that allows you to test it that way? So I think that's where it would come in. and it really is is the juice worth the squeeze, right? Is the potential ROI worth what I'm going to have to put in? Diane: how would we know we're ready for the automated system? Is that like we've sold this offer Hailey: yeah. Do not pass, go you're too. Like you cannot ride this ride unless you have sold one, at least Diane: okay, I've got this offer. I've gone out, I've done a beta. I've reached out to people who know me. I've sold one. Now I'm ready to try and think about the mess. Automation of like how somebody would discover this product. Hailey: Yeah, I think at that point, people are willing to open up their wallets and actually give you money for it. Diane: And I think that's really important because what I see happening is people doing the marketing piece, talking to a whole bunch of people, without them even having the beginning of the sales piece or an inkling of an offer. Hailey: Yeah. Oh, definitely. Yeah. And I think when you're first starting out like betas will be your best friend. I think trying as many different things as possible until you like settle on what the offer idea is first. I don't think there's any shortcut to it. And people want to think that the problem is marketing and, oftentimes we want to skip past what is this difficult work, of actually just trying things failing at most of them. And then finding that one thing that we want to take and run with. Diane: Yeah. And I think people don't talk about how often their opt-ins fail. people are not going on social media and going Hey, do you want those checklists? Nobody else did. So you don't get that kind of behind the scenes of actually there are so many iterations of every single funnel that you land up in. Every email changes. Every like the product gets tweaked, the offer gets tweaked. I think even when you're established, people are still throwing betas out there. for proof of concept before they develop a product into a new product. Hailey: yeah. Why would you waste your time? Diane: yeah, data the whole way through, but knowing, okay, I've sold this thing now I'm prepared to like, have some people be able to discover it, and then I'm ready to market it. Hailey: yeah. I don't have anything else on that. You said it perfectly Diane: I think that's why people are burnt out on social media because that's where everybody’s focused. They feel like they have to show up so much on social media and they don't know what to say on social media, because they don't actually know where they're driving people to. And then they're not a hundred percent sure if they drive them somewhere that they're going to convert. Hailey: And all the content you like, everything should start with your offer, right? I think you should reverse engineer from your offer. And if people aren't signing up for your freebie or aren't signing up for your checklist, if you've done a good enough job of reverse engineering from your offer, that should give you major clues that the offer isn't going to be of interest either. Diane: that's such a good point, to actually be able to. Step back enough from something that is probably your baby, that is exactly what people need, even if it's not what they want. And to be able to look at data and say, this is not working. If they don't want the freebie, they're not going to pay me Hailey: Or I need to try a different angle from it. Diane: Yeah. I haven't connected the freebie properly. So I think it all comes back to that data, data, data, more data. Hailey: experimentation and commitment to see it through as well. Don't just abandon it when the first iteration does not work. Diane: So I know you, no doubt have an amazing template for the final audit so that people can get started gathering some data on their funnels to start with, to work out if they already if they need some optimization, whether there should be sending traffic there where's the best place for people to find a resource on that? Hailey: Yeah, I have a funnel audit calculator. So if you have a funnel that you think is not working or, can be working even better, or maybe you're like on the edge of I'm going to start all over again, I'm going to throw this out. I'm going to start like throw the baby out with the bath water. So to say, start with this audit first, because it may be a really easy tweak and fix, but until you look at the numbers and until you not just look at the numbers, but know what those numbers represent and what area it's pointing to as the problem for your funnel. I don't think you've done your due diligence to really throw it out. And so I think you need to start there and even if you do end up creating a new funnel, this data can be hugely important in pointing you in the right direction of where to go with the second version, or hopefully, through the tweaking process, you can roll this out and you can come up with a funnel that helps you reach your goals. And then once you get it to that conversion rate, you want, you're going to feel super confident about adding ads. And adding some kind of automated traffic system to go into your funnel as well, which can automate the whole piece. And I can't think of a better way to create a lifestyle business than having both of those two pieces in place. but there's no rushing it. Diane: I'll definitely make sure we put the link to that funnel audit in the show notes, but I just want to assure anyone who's listening. Who's I don't like numbers. I'm scared of spreadsheets. You've said the word data. That's a four letter word to me. Hailey is. Incredibly skilled at taking something that feels very complicated when you start and breaking it down into component pieces so that you can just follow it. Step-by-step you don't have to worry about where you're trying to get to you. Just do it in each individual step that she's told you. She's great at telling you how to find the numbers. I promise this is a super easy process to follow, and I think. Even if you think your funnel is optimized, this is a great way to keep an eye on your funnel month over month, over month to make sure it stays optimized because nothing in business stays static, right? Hailey: yeah, I do this every month. We do this for our ongoing clients who hire us, on a retainer basis to basically drive traffic to their funnel. We are like auditing it every single month and looking at these numbers again and even if these numbers. Don't mean anything. You just need to put them in the calculator and you don't even have to understand what they represent. It'll tell like this calculator tells you what those numbers mean. Diane: definitely the easiest audit you will probably ever do. So Haley my mind is always blown when we chat business. And this has been no exception, to finish up. I have a couple of questions that I like to ask all of my guests first up. What is your number one lifestyle boundary? That thing you are not prepared to sacrifice for your business. Hailey: I think for me, it's Sundays. Like I think taking Sundays off is really important to me. It's a day when I like to have some family time and go out and, hang out with my family, hanging out with my friends, whatever that means, and like quarantine life. but for me, it's that. but there's some seasons where I definitely work Sundays. So I think it's like a matter of not holding a boundary. So from there's some days where I like work, like I said, five hours a day for four days. And then there's like the fall season where I'm working six days a week. I think my boundary is no boundaries. I don't know. I don't know how to explain that. Diane: I like that. I think it's a good thing to be like, Hey, this is my boundary. And so you own that boundary, and I think it's fine for you to cross your boundary for your benefit, but not for somebody else to expect you to cross that boundary. So when you do that Sunday off, are you off social media or you just not answering emails and not at your desk? Hailey: I'm pretty much off completely. going back to, for most of this year, it's been working five hours a day and I work from 5:00 AM to 10:00 AM and then I'm off. The rest of the day. And that means like I'm away from my computer. I'm not doing meetings except for Wednesdays that are my meeting days. and I'm still thinking about my business. that is where I do my best thinking and my best reflecting, but it's I will not be tied to my desk after 10:00 AM. Diane: that's a nice work day for those of us that are early morning people, I'm sure the knocked out. Was it like Oh, gosh, no, please. No horrified, but Haley is on the West coast. So she's probably working with clients who've been up for awhile versus they're up at 5:00 AM with her. so finally, what is the worst piece of cookie cutter advice you ever got as a lifestyle entrepreneur? Hailey: it's not necessarily a specific, but I think any time a coach or guru has said the word should to me, Things have gone horribly wrong or, I'm just a rebel and I kind of like go against that should. So I think, it's a, you might want to consider, or you might want to try, so I can't think of anything specific, but anytime sheds are involved, things usually go South. Diane: I think people are probably hearing that a lot. we're in an era of do what I did style business coaching, which is one of my pet peeves because everybody is unique and different and their business should be as unique and different. And so that's a great one to listen for. Hailey: Yeah. Oh, I hate it. I hate it so much. People like prescribing and yeah, I hate that should word. It should be banned. Diane: we should ban should. Awesome. Hailey, thanks for sharing all those incredible sales automation strategies with us. where is the best place for people to connect with you and continue the conversation? Hailey: Yeah. So you can come find me over@yourcontentempire.com. I have a pretty juicy blog if I do say so myself, we don't hold anything back, there, and then you can also find me over at your content empire on Instagram or Pinterest on Facebook, all the places, your content empire Diane: definitely go and follow along. She does have a magical blog that has incredible resources, pretty much every single week I download whatever she sends up. . Awesome, Hailey. thank you so much.