Your Funnel Isn’t Broken. Your Offer Is.
The conversation you’ve been avoiding for six optimization cycles
I need to tell you something you don’t want to hear.
You’ve redesigned the landing page four times. You’ve A/B tested the headline, the hero image, the button color, the form length, the social proof placement. You’ve hired a CRO agency. You’ve watched the heatmaps. You’ve done everything the conversion optimization playbook says to do.
And it’s still not converting.
So you blame the traffic. “The leads aren’t qualified.” You blame the algorithm. “Facebook doesn’t work like it used to.” You blame the economy. “People aren’t buying right now.”
You blame everything except the thing that’s actually broken.
Your offer is mid.
And no amount of funnel optimization fixes a product people don’t actually want.
The Offer Problem
Your offer isn’t your product. Your offer is the transaction you’re proposing: what they get, what they pay, and why it’s worth it. It’s the deal.
And here’s the brutal truth: most offers are built backward. They start with what you have to sell, then try to figure out how to convince people to buy it. That’s the wrong order.
Strong offers start with what people desperately want, then engineer a way to deliver it. The direction matters.
If your offer isn’t converting, it’s usually one of three problems:
1. The outcome isn’t specific enough. “Transform your business” isn’t an offer. “Add $50K/month in revenue within 90 days” is an offer. People don’t buy transformation—they buy specific results they can picture.
2. The risk/reward ratio is off. They’re being asked to risk too much (money, time, reputation) for an outcome they’re not sure you can deliver. Your offer needs to de-risk the transaction until saying yes feels like the obvious choice.
3. It doesn’t solve a bleeding neck problem. It solves a “nice to have.” It solves something they’ll get around to eventually. But it doesn’t solve something that’s actively costing them sleep, money, or sanity. Nice-to-have offers require education. Bleeding-neck offers require a credit card.
The Case Study That Taught Me This
Years ago, I was working on a launch for a coaching program. High-ticket. Good product. Experienced coach with real results.
We built the funnel by the book. VSL. Webinar. Application call. Email sequences. The whole machine.
It flopped. Not a total disaster—we had some sales. But nowhere near what the ad spend should have produced. The funnel metrics looked fine until the application stage, where everything died.
We optimized. Tested new hooks. Tried different webinar formats. Shortened the VSL. Lengthened the VSL. Nothing moved the needle.
Finally, I did what I should’ve done at the start: I got on the phone with people who watched the webinar but didn’t apply. Not to sell them—to understand.
The pattern was clear within five calls. They liked the coach. They believed in the methodology. They just didn’t see how it was different from three other programs they’d already bought that hadn’t worked.
The offer wasn’t differentiated. It was another coaching program in a sea of coaching programs. We’d optimized the funnel when we needed to rebuild the offer.
We went back to the drawing board. Added a guarantee. Created a specific, measurable promise. Positioned against the alternatives directly. Same product. Different offer.
Conversion rate tripled.
The Offer Audit
Before you touch your funnel again, answer these questions honestly:
What specific, measurable outcome does my offer promise? If your answer is vague (”get more clients,” “grow your business,” “feel better”), that’s your problem. Specificity sells.
Why should they believe I can deliver it? What proof do you have? Case studies? Your own results? A methodology they can evaluate? If you can’t prove it, you need to build proof before you scale.
What’s the risk to them if it doesn’t work? Time? Money? Both? How are you mitigating that risk? Guarantees, payment plans, and trial periods aren’t weakness—they’re offer engineering.
Why would they buy from me instead of [competitor]? Not why you think you’re better. Why would they think you’re better? If you can’t answer this clearly, neither can they.
How urgently do they need this solved? Is this a burning problem or a someday problem? If it’s someday, you need to either find people for whom it’s burning, or reframe the consequence of inaction until waiting feels expensive.
The Fix
Stop optimizing your funnel. Start talking to people who didn’t buy.
Not customers. Not fans. The people who saw your offer and walked away. They have the answers. You just have to be willing to hear things that are uncomfortable.
Ask them:
• What made you decide not to buy?
• What would have needed to be different?
• Did you buy something else instead? Why?
• What’s still unsolved for you?
Their answers will tell you exactly what’s missing from your offer. Then you fix the offer. Then—and only then—you optimize the funnel.
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Your funnel is probably fine. Your offer needs work. Stop avoiding that conversation.