It’s easy to hide behind systems. You start building your business, and everyone tells you to create a funnel. So you do. You sign up for software. You tinker with landing pages.
You write a three-day welcome sequence. You plan an upsell. You make a tripwire. You spend hours arranging a series of boxes and arrows, hoping they’ll do the heavy lifting. And they might.
But too often, the funnel becomes a disguise for fear. A buffer between you and the people you’re trying to reach. A way to feel productive while sidestepping the real discomfort of putting your offer in front of someone and saying, “This can help you. Want it?”
There’s a difference between building a funnel and using it to avoid the very thing that grows a business, sales. Not passive, behind-the-scenes selling. Actual connection. Actual communication.
The kind that requires visibility, conversation, and the risk of being rejected. You think building a funnel means you won’t have to sell. That it’ll just do it for you. But no matter how many pages you stack or automations you line up, someone still has to trust you enough to buy. And if you never show up and build that trust, the funnel won’t save you.
The obsession with funnels usually starts from fear. Fear of rejection. Fear of being salesy. Fear of hearing no. So you think, if I build the perfect system, I won’t have to face that.
People will just flow through and convert without me needing to do anything uncomfortable. But the truth is, nobody’s going to flow into a funnel they don’t know exists. Nobody’s going to convert on a cold landing page with zero trust built. Funnels don’t sell. People do.
Funnels Are Tools, Not Replacements
There’s nothing wrong with a good funnel. They can save time. They can automate follow-ups. They can nurture leads. But they can’t do the hard part for you. They don’t build the connection.
They don’t create the demand. They don’t generate the energy around your brand that makes people curious, engaged, and ready to act. That part still depends on you. Your voice. Your presence. Your confidence in what you sell and your willingness to talk about it, over and over again.
The people crushing it with funnels aren’t relying on them to do all the work. They’re using them to support a front-end marketing machine that actually attracts attention. They’re showing up, creating valuable content, speaking directly to their audience’s problems, and making offers regularly.
The funnel just catches the interest that’s already been created. If you think building a funnel is going to magically solve your sales drought, ask yourself whether you’ve done the work to generate interest first. Because without that, your funnel is just a fancy graveyard for cold leads.
Let’s say you’re in the weight loss space and you create a funnel for your new 21-day clean eating challenge. You’ve got the opt-in page. You’ve written the emails. You’ve created a $17 upsell for a recipe pack. It’s all polished. But nobody’s signing up. So you go back and tweak the colours. You change the button text. You try a different image. Still nothing. What’s the problem?
The problem is nobody knows it exists. You haven’t talked about it. You haven’t created content around it. You haven’t told your story, built interest, or shown people why it matters.
You built a beautiful backend without any front-end. That’s like setting up a lemonade stand in your backyard and wondering why nobody’s buying. Nobody even knows it’s there. And worse, maybe you like it that way. Because if they don’t show up, you don’t have to sell.
This is where creators get stuck. They tell themselves they’re “setting up systems.” They say they’re “building assets.” But really, they’re hiding. They’re trying to skip the part where they put their offer into the world and deal with the silence, the scepticism, or the pushback. They’re trying to avoid that sting by focusing on the tech. But if the tech becomes your excuse for not showing up, you’ve lost the plot. The funnel isn’t your business. You are.
Start with the Offer, Not the Funnel
The funnel obsession usually shows up when you haven’t clarified your offer. You don’t feel fully confident in it yet, so you dress it up in tech. You figure if you build a cool enough system around it, maybe people won’t notice you’re not sure it’s worth buying.
But people can smell hesitation. They can sense when you don’t fully believe in what you’re offering. So the first step isn’t the funnel. It’s conviction. What are you selling? Why does it matter? Who is it for? What does it help them achieve or solve, or become? You can’t build a funnel around fog. It needs clarity.
Once you have that clarity, selling becomes easier. You’re not trying to convince anyone. You’re offering a clear solution to a specific problem. You’re showing up with confidence.
You’re saying, “Here’s what I’ve built. It’s for you. Here’s how to get it.” And when you show up like that, on video, in email, in your content, people notice. They lean in. They ask questions. They buy. The funnel becomes a tool to help those buyers along the path, not a mask to hide behind.
In the survival niche, imagine you’ve created a mini-course on water purification techniques. It’s simple, practical, and beginner-friendly. You could spend weeks building a fancy funnel for it, or you could start by writing five blog posts that target questions people search: how to purify rainwater, best filters for emergencies, and boiling vs. iodine.
At the end of each post, you link to your course. You talk about it in Facebook groups. You post a tip from it on YouTube Shorts. You mention it in your email newsletter. You show up. You sell. Then you use a simple opt-in and follow-up to capture that interest. That’s a funnel that works because it’s grounded in action. It’s built from connection, not fear.
You Don’t Have to Earn the Right to Sell
Another trap people fall into is thinking they have to prove themselves before they can sell. They need more content first. More followers. A more polished brand. So they build the funnel, but don’t promote it.
Or they promote it timidly. A link in their bio. A quick mention at the end of a video. No energy. No confidence. They’re waiting for permission that’s never coming. You don’t need a big audience to make money. You don’t need a full brand suite. You need an offer and a way to talk about it.
You’re not bothering people by selling. You’re helping them solve a problem. If your product is good, if your offer is clear, and if your message is aligned, you’re not selling. You’re showing up with a solution.
And if someone doesn’t want it, that’s fine. But don’t make that rejection mean something about you. Don’t let the fear of hearing “no” push you back into the safe world of funnels and tech tweaks. That’s not safety. That’s stalling.
If you’ve been working on a funnel for months and haven’t sold anything, pause and check your real motive. Are you building something that supports your sales, or avoiding sales by building?
Be honest. Then decide. If you’re ready to sell, close the funnel tab and write a direct post about your offer. Talk about why you created it. Talk about what problem it solves. Talk about who it’s for.
Drop the link. Answer questions. Make it easy for people to say yes. If they don’t, ask why. Learn. Iterate. Improve. That’s real business. That’s what makes you money.
Funnels are fine.
But they’re a support act, not the headliner. They’re on the road, not in the car. They’re the email after the conversation, not a replacement for the conversation. If you’re using them to delay selling, it’s time to face the truth. You don’t need a funnel. You need courage. You need clarity. You need a connection. Selling starts with you, not your software.
If you have a product ready, go promote it today. Talk about it, not just in scheduled emails, but like it matters. Because it does. Let your belief lead. Let your voice carry. And when the funnel is in place, let it follow your lead, not take your place.
Discover more from Dominus Owen Markham
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.