How To Make Your First $100 in Clickfunnels Affiliate Sales
Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash
For all current Clickfunnels affiliates or people who want to become one, there have been some recent changes to the Clickfunnels affiliate program and now every affiliate HAS to have earned at least $100 in commissions by October 31st in order to be grandfathered into what used to be their standard 40% commission payout. They just changed it so that new affiliates will only earn 30% unless they made that $100 sale by October.
I’ve compiled a bunch of ways you can make your first sale. So the way to avoid being locked into the 30% commission rate is to make one sale between now and October 31st, 2019. Becoming a Clickfunnels affiliate is a great side hustle and even if your intention is to only dabble in it, it’s quite easy to sell enough each month to at least cover the cost of your Clickfunnels monthly subscription.
One of the easiest ways to do this would be from selling ONE One Funnel Away challenge since your commission would be exactly $100, but these methods would apply to any Clickfunnels products and would work for many other products as well:
Also, If you want to go hard on being an affiliate marketer for Clickfunnels, take their recently-updated Affiliate Bootcamp — if you’ve taken One Funnel Away in the last 5 months or so, you will automatically get access for free in your Member’s Area…otherwise you have to sign up for OFA through this link and pay $100 so you can get Affiliate Bootcamp for “free.”
Here are the two quickest ways to make your first $100, but I will go over lots of methods and tactics, no matter what the product is:
1. You can sell ONE person the One Funnel Away Challenge.
2. You can get 3 people to sign up for ClickFunnels.
Also, once you DO get 4 people under you as recurring Clickfunnels monthly commissions, you will be bumped up into the 40% commission level, so doing it by October 2019 isn’t your ONLY option to grab that 40% commission rate.
[TLDR? You can also watch me break down all 15 strategies in this video]:
Ways to sell Clickfunnels:
- Post on your personal profile: You’d be surprised how often people in your Friends list are actually looking for a solution like what you’re talking about (OFA or Clickfunnels) and just don’t post about it. I’ve brought more people on to OFA this way (other than in my Facebook group) than using any other method. To avoid the dreaded “link-barfing,” offer some extra bonuses, even if you don’t have a full funnel with a bonus stack already created.
This could be as simple as running a small study group via FB Messenger and doing weekly Zoom calls with everyone to keep everyone accountable. It’s also less time-consuming than starting a Facebook group.
-Challenge a friend to do it with you! Say something like “Who wants to make {X} amount of money with me by the end of 2019?” or “Who wants to launch a new business by the end of 2019?” Make it fun and like a competition with each other, then ask that friend at the end of it to write a testimonial for you to help you get more sales in the next round. - Post about it in your Facebook group: Of course, if you DO have a Facebook group or want to start one, there is no better place to advertise your affiliate links. But if you want people to sign on for a challenge or program with you, it should be much more high touch than just sharing your link in a post. You can do the following:
- Passive link-sharing: Include a little promo about it your affiliate offers in each Welcome post you create after you’ve added in 10–20 new members (there’s a button for doing this on the right side of your screen that says “Write Post” and it auto-populates and tags all the new people in a post for you), AND in your general Welcome/Announcement post you’ll pin to the top of your Group feed where you introduce yourself, say what the group is about, and share resources (Tip: ALL the resources you share can be your affiliate links!). Check my post here as an example: https://www.facebook.com/groups/killercopythatconverts/permalink/2304398409877695/
- When promoting a challenge or course, do several Facebook Lives where you give an overview of the program, show inside the member’s area or dashboard, and talk more in-depth about what people can get out of it. Works best if you make these HIGH VALUE rather than just about the nuts and bolts and practical parts of the program. Focus on WHY you’re doing it, HOW it will change your life, WHAT you’ll get out of it, and HOW it makes you feel to be doing it. Don’t be afraid to get vulnerable and share personal stories — people buy based on emotion much more so than logic.
- Bring in experts in a related niche or field and interview them, then make an offer at the end with something like: “If you too want to grow and monetize a Facebook group like Corey did, you can learn with me in the One Group Away challenge — sign up here and get my bonuses!” This also has the bonus result of introducing their audience to your group (especially if you get them to agree to cross-promote your interview with them in their own group or on their Page), and yours to them. Also, make sure they are TEACHING your group something and sharing golden nuggets and knowledge bombs. This way everyone benefits and it’s a WIN-WIN-WIN!
- Share testimonials (the program will usually have them) as a post or video.
- Share long-form posts where you’re telling a story about your background with the topic and what motivated you to take advantage of the offer.
- Give a great incentive: a contest where you’ll buy ONE the program or software through one person’s link out of everyone who buys, so one person has a chance to get it for free. That’s out of everyone who buys through you — another incentive you can give is that anyone who buys a Clickfunnels product through you where you’re offering your own bonuses can then take your white-labeled bonuses and offer them to their own affiliates. - Don’t neglect the in-person/IRL approach:
If you have business meetings with a client, and it makes sense to work it into the conversation, approach it like “hey, I’m doing this thing you might be interested in, mind if I tell you a little about it?” Always ask permission. Andrew Kroeze calls this “permission marketing” and it feels way less spammy. - Make an offer to local businesses:
Do cold calls or send an email to people in companies or industries that fit your niche or you think would benefit from Clickfunnels products, and offer to do something for them for FREE that is worth $100 (like set up their email autoresponder, etc). Then ask that they buy the One Funnel Away challenge from you in exchange…later you can even upsell them to the Funnel Hacking Secrets + 6 Months of Clickfunnels Platinum offer or at least a Clickfunnels monthly subscription. - Work affiliate link into the backend of your funnels —
This simply means putting in small “ads” for your affiliate offers where it makes sense in your funnel — it must be related to your funnel or target audience though, to make sense. In the backend just means not on the MAIN OFFER page…so people usually will do this on their OTO (one-time-offer) page, or even on the Thank You/Order Confirmation page.
-Kolton Krottinger example: He’s a 2 Comma Club winner who (before he made the 2 CC Club) tried to sell his course “Broke-ass Entrepreneurs” for $997 in a funnel. No one bought it because they were all broke, so he made it free, and then put in affiliate links to Clickfunnels and OFA in the backend of his funnel. Once he did this, he realized his affiliate sales were blowing up, and he quickly became a Dream Car Winner because so many people were coming through his funnel for the free course and then doing the CF trial or buying OFA. He also just won a trip as a Top Affiliate for Clickfunnels for 2019 — so this really works!
-I did this in my own copywriting funnel before I knew it was a legit strategy used successfully by people like Kolton, and mine looks like this:
6. Tell your own story everywhere!
-Talk about how you took the OFA and explain exactly how you applied what you learned to your own business and share the results you got.
-Tell the story about how you were struggling in your business before you ever know what a funnel was, and then discovered Clickfunnels. Describe how it changed everything for you or helped you next-level your business!
-YES, you can weave pieces of your Epiphany Bridge story or Origin Story into this to make it extra-impactful!
7. Lead by example (especially for a challenge):
Take the OFA and then document and share your journey and mentor others through it. Do the homework yourself every single day. Go live daily with your takeaways or a recap. Build a community around this. Help and support others and enroll them in taking the next one with you for additional, ongoing help and support. (Hint: this is what I’ve done in my own Facebook group).
8. Build funnels and give out templates as share funnels:
This builds relationships AND you’re positioning yourself as the go-to person for funnels in your industry. Hit up people on LinkedIn and Instagram and just offer to give them the share funnel for free…the beauty of this method is, you can give it away, but if they load it and they DON’T have a Clickfunnels account, they will be prompted to sign up for one and if they do they’ll be sticky cookie’d to you. It’s a great way to add value, as well as show off your funnel design skills if you are also selling yourself as someone who builds funnels for others. I did a video walkthrough about how to do that, you can watch it here:
-This tactic is really great if you want to serve one niche that might not be super-marketing savvy or don’t want to build their own funnels, like health coaches, dentists, massage therapist, chiropractors, etc.
9. Repurpose any content you create to promote the offer!
-If you do a Live on your page or group, download and save the video using Facebook Private Video Downloader then upload it to your YouTube channel, blog or website.
-Put the video in a blog and then write some content about the offer and publish on Medium. If you’re in their Partner Program, you can also potentially make money off the articles, because anyone who pays $5/mo gets full-access to all stories. If you set your story to “Members Access” you will get paid based on views, reads, and “claps.”
-Take snippets or quotes from your blogs, Lives, or YouTube videos and share this bite-size content in tweets, IG Stories, and even posts on your FB page or in other groups where you want to reach your audience.
-There are many ways to grow your readership quickly on Medium. I have a separate article here with all my tips for how to quickly grow your followers here.
10. Link swap with another affiliate!
This would be the EASIEST, most mutually beneficial way for newbie affiliates to make that first $100 commission. Find someone in your network or in a related Facebook group like mine who will agree to buy OFA (or some other $100 Clickfunnels product) through your link, in exchange for you buying through theirs. That way, you each pay nothing yet still make an affiliate sale. Here is the post in my group where you can go do this RIGHT NOW: https://www.facebook.com/groups/killercopythatconverts/permalink/2341018459549023/
11. Use as a downsell during your client prospecting
Depending on what you do, you might be able to recommend a Clickfunnels account OR the One Funnel Away challenge as a Do-It-Yourself option for anyone who can’t afford your services. This happens to me often with copywriting…people sometimes still have unrealistic expectations that professional sales copy is going to be cheap — it’s not. Neither are things like website/funnel design, funnel strategy, ebook design, graphic design, etc. If you have a service that is related to funnel-building but you find your potential customer can’t afford you, recommend they get a Clickfunnels account or learn to build their own sales funnels instead, and then send them your affiliate link! You may just enable them to find their own solution and they’ll be super-grateful!
12. Promote your affiliate offers to your email list
Naturally, this works best if you are first providing a lot of value on a topic related to your affiliate offer. So you could write a whole email that is a how-to on something related to funnel-building or funnel set-up. Something like “How To Integrate Your Email Auto-Responder with Clickfunnels’”(which is something a lot of people have trouble with), and then at the end you’d include your links, like this:
Don’t have a Clickfunnels account yet? Sign up for my 14-day free trial: bit.ly/Free14HA
Want to learn how to create offers, build your own funnel, and drive traffic to it? Sign up for the next One Funnel Away challenge and get my bonuses: www.30daystofreedom.live
13. Convert email swipes into a Chatbot script:
Many people offer email swipes as a bonus when signing up for Clickfunnels or for the One Funnel Away challenge (I do too!). These are great because it allows people to immediately take their bonuses and use them to start getting their own affiliate sales. You can also take the text and chunk it down into a chatbot script, which you would run from your Facebook business page or Facebook group. This is a great, easy way to more rapidly grow your followers or group members without using paid ads. You can include affiliate links in your chatbot script. ManyChat has a free course on this here: https://manychat.com/course
14. Reach out to your business network:
Whether you do this on LinkedIn or manually find people to email in your Contacts list, it‘s a great idea to send a casual message out and find out where people are at in their business. Just make it a real casual check-in, like “Hey, just checking in to see where you’re at in your business! What are you working on these days?”
People love to talk about themselves and their work, so depending on what they say, if there’s a natural way to introduce what you’re doing with Clickfunnels, or what you just learned in the OFA, you can then share your link. Just make sure you request permission first — it will come off way less spammy if you do this.
15. Podcasting
The tactics here are similar to how you’d be using Facebook Lives for affiliate sales, whether you have your own podcast or are appearing as a guest. As part of an interview, you might be talking to an expert in your audiences’ niche or area of interest, who is sharing knowledge bombs or teaching people how to do something.
TELL STORIES — either share yours or encourage your interviewee to share their own. This creates a great connection with the audience.
At the end of the interview, or in the show notes, you can list resources to things you talked about. This might include your own funnel or one or more of your Clickfunnels affiliate links. Make sure you also share links to any offers the person you interviewed is promoting. This creates a nice reciprocal relationship, and maybe later you can go into their group or be a guest on their podcast and promote your own offer to THEIR audience. Reciprocity FTW