February and March 2025 business review

DEEP DIVE

February and March 2025 business review

Rethinking my funnel for high-ticket offers

If you recall from January’s review, I decided to build out an educational email course (EEC) as a lead magnet. This followed what the Ship 30 for 30 guys did with startwritingonline.com. It’s a five-day EEC followed by ten nurturing emails and ten sales emails.

However, in March, I realized I shouldn't be copying Ship 30 for 30's funnel approach. Their model works for low-ticket items, but Lazy Link Building is a high-ticket service. So I started reverse engineering the Premium Ghostwriting Academy (PGA) funnel instead.

It’s run by the same guys who run Ship 30 for 30, but this for their high-ticket offer (over $3k).

Implementing application forms

The first change to the funnel (and for any high-ticket program) is to push people to an application form instead of sending them directly to a booking page. 

When customers fill out a form, it creates "micro commitments" and feels less intense than sending people straight to a booking page. It also allows me to collect more info on the potential client to see if they are, in-fact, a good fit for the strategy.

Improving call structure

Another key change is how I structure my calls. I now get on a strategy call with potential clients rather than just pushing my coaching program. Since I offer an online course, coaching, and done-for-you services, having a strategy call first helps determine what's best for each person.

If I just “sell” my coaching program in the funnel then it alienates everyone who’s interested in the other two offers.

I've also switched my sales call structure. The first call is now all about figuring out their problems and asking questions to figure out what solution would be right for them. 

Then I book a second call, and it’s during this call I present how the strategy would work for their site along with two to three concrete examples.

This second call is crucial because it's where I provide actual value—they can see the strategy in action.

Example of the strategy doc here.

Moving coaching entirely online

I’m still offering my coaching program at $3k, but one of the biggest changes I’ve made is shifting it to be completely online with no live coaching calls. People's schedules are all over the place, and the live format wasn't fitting well.

What’s interesting is I had zero pushback on coaching async instead of live. In fact, I think people prefer it this way. I signed three new coaching clients in February and March. 

Another reason I believe people don’t mind the async coaching is that people value my feedback and review process more than they enjoy jumping on live calls. I still provide the training and make sure they’re getting it right, which is more important than meeting at the same time each week. 

Another reason I switched to async coaching . . . 

Launching agency services

I launched the "agency" arm of my business during the month of March. This is the “done for you” service where I create data studies for brands, get them to rank, and then watch backlinks flow in passively.

Surprising to me, I’ve had a lot more inquiries about this than I thought would come. I’ve learned a lot of people don’t want to learn but just need it done for them. Or rather, it’d be cool to learn, but they don’t have the time.

The biggest hiccup here has been around pricing. All you SEOs are so damn used to this "pay per link" model, but this absolutely sucks for my cash flow. 

With the Lazy Link Building strategy, links don't come in until 3–6 months down the line, and it crushes my cash flow under heaps of up-front research and content creation.

Note: As I’m writing this (in April) I’ve realized that a flat pricing model works much better than trying to charge per link. Will explain more in my next review.

When I launched the agency arm to my newsletter list (yes you, you beautiful subscriber), I got 61 unique clicks on the landing page but only 11 people completed the application. Of those, about 6 booked a call. 

So, 61 clicks but only 6 booked calls equals a 10% conversion rate. 

Not too bad, but when I manually emailed everyone who didn’t book a call, I realized they needed more info before committing to a chat.

So I’m working on building out a proper website for the agency to showcase testimonials, case studies, pricing, etc.

Diversifying traffic

If you’ve read any of my previous work, you know I recommend never relying on one single source of traffic. Whether that’s Google, Facebook Ads, Linkedin, whatever. You just can’t have all your eggs in one basket. 

And I was reminded of this in March 🙃

I get most of my leads for Lazy Link Building from LinkedIn, and its amazing “spam detection software” blocked my URL . . . so I could no longer share it anywhere on the platform.

Needless to say, I went back and forth with the support team for 26 emails.

They constantly told me there was nothing they could do but finally, out of nowhere, it was unblocked. 

Let this be a lesson . . . never give up on this sort of thing. Someone, somewhere CAN do something about it, you just need to be annoying enough to make it happen.

Growing my email list

Now that I got my URL working again, I've been growing the email list primarily with engagement bait posts on LinkedIn. You know the ones, “want a copy of my lead magnet, comment 'laaaaame' down below and I’ll DM it to you.”

While these are annoying, they WORK. So I keep doing them. But I’ve hit a bit of a fork in the road because they aren’t doing as well anymore. I think it’s largely because my followers know what my lead magnet is. In their heads they’re saying, "Shut up, Alex, we know about your EEC!" 

I need to come up with a new lead magnet soon because lead magnet fatigue is real.

I've also started doing newsletter swaps with others, i.e., “I will give your newsletter a shout-out in mine if you give me one.” The majority of SEO newsletters I’ve emailed are down to do this. It’s a win-win scenario. 

But to make this quid pro quo more powerful, I should start recommending products/newsletter without asking for a swap. 

Then, once I give their product a shoutout, shoot them an email showing it.

The big thing here is focusing on newsletters that serve an audience who will actually buy. 

For instance, I advertised in SEO Freelancer with Nick LeRoy but didn't have great success. That's not knocking him—I just don't think my target audience is there. 

I'm primarily going after established brands OR SEO agencies, not freelancers. (Freelancers might be interested in the online course to level up their skills, but they're rarely in the market for my higher-ticket offerings). 

Optimizing my landing page

On February 17th, I updated the landing page for Lazy Link Building to get more qualified leads. When I first launched, it was great that I got 1,000 people in, but the majority weren't qualified.

The landing page now explicitly states who should sign up and who shouldn't. The conversion rate and raw leads are lower, but the quality is much better.

Planning next steps

The biggest change I’m making in the coming months is taking my own advice and not relying on one traffic source. In my case, LinkedIn.

I'm working with my friend Jason Malone at We Outreach to get some cold outreach going and see if I can’t land some clients. I’m also focusing more on the agency arm than coaching or online courses. 

As I said above, the vast majority of people just want you to do it for them; they don’t want to learn and then implement. They don’t have the time to do so. There’s a lesson in there somewhere, but I’ll let you dig it out.