Weak engagement isn't always about content or algorithm problems. It's often because the path you've built for your audience is broken or incomplete. In this Indiana style episode, we'll review funnels and how to build trust, guide action, and help people say yes with confidence every step of the way. Stay tuned. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Amplify Your Authority Podcast. I'm your host, Marissa Shadrick, and I am truly honored that you are listening. And I'm gonna work hard to make every second count in this episode. So we're gonna take something that is pretty much a dry topic, funnels, and give it a little twist with a story. So your marketing funnel only works if you have a map with a clear path. In this story, your adventurers are going through unknown terrain and trying to find four magical stones, each one critical to completing their journey safely. Without all four, your adventurers will hesitate, detour, or turn back. Now, of course, we're not actually trekking through the jungle or collecting artifacts. This is a metaphor. In your business, those stones are the steps your audience needs to find you, trust you, and ultimately say yes. But here's the problem. If even one of those steps or stones is missing or unclear, people don't keep going. They stop. So today I'm going to show you how to become the kind of guide your audience wants to follow. Someone who maps out the path and helps people move forward with confidence, not through tricks, but through trust. Opening scene. You are the guide. And right now, your group is waiting, unsure which direction to go next. As we look at this opening scene, I want you to realize you're not just leading a potential customer. You're leading people. You're leading them through unknown terrain. They don't see the whole path, but you do. And unless you help them engage with the right steps on this journey, they'll hesitate, wander, and turn back. So let's go over the four stones that your adventures need to reach in order to complete their adventure. The first one we're going to talk about is the lantern stone, which represents the invitation. The second one is the gate stone, which represents the threshold. The third one is the bridge stone that represents the risky leap. And the fourth one is the landmark stone, which represents the reassurance or the confirmation that they have arrived at the right place. So let's break it down one by one. The lantern stone. The fog is thick, nothing moves unless you raise your lantern. The beam slices through the darkness and someone spots it. They start walking toward you. The lantern is the light that says there's something here for you. The lantern is visibility. It's your podcast guest spot, an interview, your social post, a webinar invitation, a workshop. It's how strangers even know you exist. Without it, they never find the trail. No matter how good your offer is, they don't get close enough to see it. This isn't about viral or famous. It's about showing up where they already are with something worth noticing. Checkpoint for the guide. Are you consistently planning how to get in front of new people every month? Either on live streams, through partnerships, or appearances on platforms your ideal customer already trusts. It could even be a workshop for someone else's community or membership. Okay, let's continue our journey with the Gatestone. You arrive at a narrow gate. There's a small opening, but only those who choose can step through. Some stop, some slip inside. This is your opt-in for free offers. It's the doorway where people go from watching to walking with you. A clear call to action, a strong reason to say yes. If this gate is missing or confusing, they stall. They hover at the edge, unsure what comes next. Checkpoint for the guide. Is your opt-in clear, benefit driven, and emotionally relevant? Can a stranger instantly see themselves in it and feel compelled to say yes? If it's clever but not clear, they'll walk away confused. So let me clarify what I mean about an opt-in page. You might hear landing page, opt-in page, or form. Now, a form is simply that. A form is a little bit of text with a couple of fields to put either maybe name and email. A form is limited, it's not a full website page. And sometimes the form can live inside of a page. So forms are helpful because it's what we use to collect that information. But a landing page or an opt-in page is a live web page with content. It usually has a headline, it could have a video, an image, and it explains all of the wonderful benefits when they download the resource. This is much better than just a form because in a form you're very limited and you can't really express the full transformation of what your free resource is going to provide. Now let's continue on our journey to the bridge stone. You've led them through thick brush, past the gate, deeper into the terrain. Suddenly the trail stops. In front of you is a wide ravine. The fog is coming in, and the path feels uncertain. There's a shortcut on the other side, but it means stepping onto a narrow rope bridge suspended above the unknown. You secure the ropes and test the boards. It's safe. You've walked it many times. You turn back and say, It's safe. I'll guide you across. You don't have to do this alone. Some travelers inch forward, others freeze. A few look for the long way around, even if it delays their journey. Now the bridge is your offer. It's the moment someone moves from interested to invested, from free to paid, and that can feel scary. It's where doubt creeps in. What if this doesn't work? What if I regret it? Your job isn't to push. If you've established trust up to this point, you lead with empathy and remind them there's a reason they started this journey in the first place. Checkpoint for the guide. Does your offer feel like a safe next step? Not a hard sell, but a wise move. Have you earned the right to ask? Now as your travelers continue on this journey, they reach the landmark stone. After crossing the path, visibility returns, and then up ahead a marker glows in the distance, a stone carved with symbols lit by torchlight. It says you made it. You watch your traveler exhale, the shoulders drop. For the first time they believe they're not just wandering, they're going somewhere. And they're not alone. The landmark is the confirmation or the thank you page, the welcome email, the onboarding moment. It's the part most people rush or skip because the sale is done. But for your adventurers, the decision just got real. They need reassurance, orientation, and the next step. Checkpoint for the guide. Does your funnel end with clarity and direction or silence? Is there a beacon that tells them, yes, you're in the right place, and here's what comes next? It helps to reassure them. Now I know this is a silly story, but I wanted you to understand that your audience is going on a journey, and that journey can feel risky and scary, and you want to guide them and provide the right steps for them to come into your world, into your ecosystem. It has to be something safe, it has to be something beneficial, and it has to be something that brings transformation. Now, this is where AI can help you. You can look at your current funnel, your current strategy on how you bring people onto your email list, and you can analyze it with AI. You can see where the breakdown might be, or maybe it's simply the opt-in page. Maybe you need to upgrade the content that's on there. Is it clear? Have you shared it with other people or your peers to see if the messaging is really clear? Oftentimes these landing pages can have either too much or too little. A good way to create a landing page is simply to have a headline, a subhead, some bullets that shows benefits, an image, and if you have it, some credibility below. It doesn't have to be much if it's a free offer. But if it's a sales page, you want to make sure that they can self-identify and see themselves in the copy. So when they're reading it, they're not really reading, they're feeling it. They're emotionally engaged. They're saying, this is what I need. Now you might be saying, yeah, Marissa, I've got all that put together, but I can't get anybody to go to my landing page. Well, that's a lantern issue or a visibility issue. And one of the easiest ways to be able to get visibility is find other businesses or peers that have an audience that's very similar to you, but you don't compete with them. And complement what they do by bringing value to their audience. But the beautiful thing about this is you get the opportunity to serve that host. And when I mean serve, it's not just show up and talk to their audience. You want to help promote whatever it is, whether it's a podcast or a summit or a workshop. You help promote it, you leave reviews on their podcast, you do everything you can to lift them up and give them exposure because they're gracious enough to have you there as a guest. That's the best way to do it, but most people don't. They won't announce that they're appearing on that podcast, they won't leave reviews, they won't promote it after they're on, they're on to the next one. And so we need to realize that when we have these opportunities to speak, to speak either from stage or speak on a summit or speak in a workshop or speak on a podcast, we are building relationships and we are there to not only serve their community, but to serve the host as well. So why does this matter? Well, without a lantern stone, there's no visibility. No gate stone, they don't step into your world. Skip the bridge, they never buy anything from you. And if you forget the landmark, they ghost you, retention drops, customer lifetime value drops, and you miss out on referrals and testimonials. So to bring this story to a close, funnels aren't just a sequence. They are a story, a journey through uncertainty and fear, and we are leading them to hope. Most people don't need more information or more tech or more hacks. They need someone to trust. They need you, the one with the map. So be the guide, someone who will place every stone with intention. Shine a light where it matters, make the next step feel safe, and keep the lantern lit. And lastly, never forget, what feels routine to you may be a lifeline to others. Share your best content and help your adventures reach their destination. If you like this podcast, I would love it if you'd leave a rating and review. If you don't know how, I have a video at the end of the show notes on my website that explains exactly how to do it. So thanks for listening, and until next time, take care.