3 Reasons Your Funnel Isn’t Converting

You built the funnel.
You launched your online course.
And now… nothing.

If your evergreen funnel isn’t making money, it’s probably not because of your offer, your tech, or even your copy.

In this episode, I’m breaking down the 3 real reasons online course funnels don’t convert — and what actually separates funnels that generate predictable revenue from the ones that just sit there looking good on paper.

After working behind the scenes of 100+ online course launches (from $5K to $2M+), I’ve seen exactly where funnels break — and how to fix them without burning everything down and starting over.

Inside this episode:

• Why your online course funnel isn’t getting sales
• The “hidden glade” problem (and why no one is seeing your funnel)
• The biggest myth about passive income and evergreen funnels
• Why “set it and forget it” doesn’t work (and what to do instead)
• The truth about demand: why funnels don’t create it
• How to diagnose your funnel using simple conversion data
• The difference between a traffic problem vs. a conversion problem
• How to turn your online course into predictable monthly revenue

If you’ve ever:

• Built a funnel that didn’t convert
• Launched an online course that flopped
• Felt like you were “missing something” with evergreen sales

This episode will show you exactly where to look — and what to fix first.

Because funnels don’t fail randomly.
They fail in predictable ways.

And once you understand the leverage points, you can turn a “dead” funnel into a revenue-generating system.

✨ If you’re ready to build a business that creates predictable, repeatable income (without constant launching), this is where it starts.

Want strategy that respects your nervous system—and business growth that feels like a spell, not a sprint?

Join the Regenerative Business Ecosystem: my entire library of courses, live monthly calls, personalized onboarding, and a whole community of magical misfits building world-changing businesses—without selling their souls to the algorithm.

🎟️ Grab your spot now at https://learn.thedirtyalchemy.com/rbe

Open until July 29 at 11:59pm! The Regenerative Business Ecosystem is my membership for values-led entrepreneurs building businesses that regenerate people, planet, and profit. Learn more & enroll while you can here: https://learn.thedirtyalchemy.com/ecosystem-2026

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Welcome back to the Regenerative Business Podcast. Today we're talking about evergreen funnels and more specifically why so many of them flop. Because usually when someone sets up a funnel and it doesn't work, they assume the problem is the offer or the copy or the tech. But most of the time it's actually one of three much more specific things. So in this episode, I'm walking you through the three reasons evergreen funnels die, how to diagnose where yours is breaking down, and how to start thinking about funnels as part of a bigger regenerative business ecosystem, not just some passive income fantasy. Let's get into it. So you set up the funnel, you announced it, maybe you even popped some champagne, and then nothing. And now your evergreen funnel is just sitting there looking good on paper or on the internet, making you feel like you missed something. Here's what I see happen almost every single time, and it is not what you think. So here's what I see so many times when people launch an evergreen funnel and it flops. And the problem isn't what you think, it's not your offer, it's probably not even your copy, though it might be your copy. There are actually three specific reasons why evergreen funnels die, and most people are actually only looking at one of them. So in this video, I'm gonna walk you through all three, including the one that sounds really unsexy, but is literally the thing that separates funnels that make predictable money, predictable revenue that comes in every month from funnels that look pretty but do nothing for you in your business. So stay with me. So now I run a multiple seven-figure business that sells self-study courses, coaching, there's an online membership, but it wasn't always this way. I actually started as a marketing agency. Well, actually, even before that, I was a marketing freelancer, but I have built so many funnels and done so many launches for spiritual online business owners and online brands in the consciousness space, and I have seen the back end of funnels that feel like you're pretty much printing money, and then ones that just flatline. And what I learned from being inside both examples is the difference almost never comes down to tech or design. It comes down to these three things we're talking about today. So, my goal for all of us by the end of this video is that you know why your funnel isn't working, or that one you tried a few years ago that you haven't even looked at since isn't working. And you're gonna know where to look first. We're also gonna be talking about where an evergreen funnel fits into your regenerative business ecosystem. Because no, funnels aren't just for shitty bro marketers. It can actually be this opportunity for sensitive beings, for women, for people who want to spend lots of time in their hobbies or with their kids or traveling the world or helping their community to have predictable revenue coming into their business so that you have spaciousness and have a certain level of peace that actually allows you to do even more in the world. Okay, so the first reason is the most obvious one, and honestly, the one that people are either looking to first or completely miss. So it has to be said, and this is the hidden glade problem. An evergreen funnel without traffic, so people actually going and seeing at least the entry point of your funnel is just a hidden glade in the middle of a forest. It is beautiful, it is lovely, it is perfectly built, and no one is ever gonna find it. Or like maybe someone will happen to stumble upon it in a forest walk. So, what this looks like in practice is people set up the opt-in page, the email sequence, the offer, and then they announce it once and call it done. There is no ongoing plan for getting eyeballs to the entrance of the funnel, and they're waiting for the funnel to do the visibility work, and that is not what a funnel is or what a funnel does. A funnel is an automated sales system. It is not an automated discovery system. You still have to do the work of being found. And yes, we can automate that. We can look into SEO, we can look into ads, we can look into other people promoting our work. But that is not what a funnel is. It's the automated sales system, it's not the discovery system. And let's look at a little visual by talking about the regenerative business zones. And at the time of recording this, I have not made a YouTube video on the regenerative business zones, which is wild to me because I talk about it so much within my membership. But maybe by the time you are watching this video, I have created this video, and you should definitely go search for that on the channel, or maybe we'll add it as a card onto here. But the regenerative business zones are you thinking about your business as an actual ecosystem. So you can see here we have zone zero at the center, then zone one, zone two, zone three, zone four. And when we're talking about the hidden glade problem when it comes to evergreen funnels, we're talking about everyone out here in the wilderness, out in zone four, actually crossing this threshold into zone three. And zone three is where people who are interested in your work live. They haven't bought from you before, but they have some spark of interest in your work. So with the hidden glade problem, we're out over here. We are out in zone four. We're doing zone four activities of increasing your visibility and helping people find this little entry point into your evergreen funnel. It's this lovely whitewater rafting into this river into your evergreen funnel. And so think of your evergreen funnel as an ecosystem, and there are multiple entrances into that ecosystem. There is organic content, there's ads, there's referrals, there's podcast appearances. Each one is a path that leads people to one of these entrances. And each of these entrances could actually be different evergreen funnels into the center of your business ecosystem or towards your core offer or one of your core offers. If you're not actively working on at least one of those paths consistently, those zone four activities, your funnel will just sit there. So the fix for this is not complex. You need a visibility strategy that runs alongside your funnel. And I like to think of this is as creating a rhythm in your life, in your business, whether that's daily, weekly, monthly, some sort of rhythm, so that you're increasing your visibility towards your funnel. Now, that could be organic content, that could be paid ads, that could be SEO, that could be a podcast, that could be a referral system, but it has to be something. Because the funnel doesn't replace building relationships with other humans. It just systematizes a way for people to find you once they find you. Okay, let's go on to the second potential reason why your funnel isn't bringing in that predictable revenue that you want. So, reason number two is the set it and forget it myth. And when I was actually running my marketing agency, people would hire me to build the infrastructure of a funnel. And this still still goes on today. There are people out there that you can go hire to create the infrastructure of a funnel. The pages, the sequences, the tech. And time and time again, the moment that we handed it over, most of these people thought they were done. But hardly any funnels are set it and forget it. I mean, I have been on the back end of funnel launches where they have the visibility and track whether they're running ads or they're organically promoting the funnel, and it just works right off the bat. Clients significantly upping their revenue and having amazing return on ad spend and highest months ever from the first iteration of a funnel that absolutely can happen. But I always go into funnels and launching a funnel with the this could take three months to get to a profitable point. I mean, I do all of my magical practices around it being an utter success right off the bat, but I'm also going in with the willingness to pay attention to it and work with it so that it can work. So I watch this happen over and over again where we hand them the funnel, the funnel goes live, they don't get the results that they want, they blame the funnel instead of realizing and actually iterating, getting data, making changes based on the data. Because launching a funnel is the starting point. It's not the finish line. That's when you start getting data when you launch the funnel. That's when you start, that's when the real work begins. And this myth is so seductive because there are very specific individuals with very large followings that sell people on the idea that you are one funnel away. The internet sold people on this idea that funnel is freedom from your business. It creates this like passive income fantasy. People are using funnels as a means of escape. Like, if I just set this up, I never have to be in relationship with my people or my marketing ever again. But that is not a funnel strategy. That is just avoidance and maybe uh an invitation to have a deeper reflection on why you hate your business. What are you actually trying to avoid here? How did it get set up in a way that you're either burnt out or you don't like it anymore or you're bored? And so the fix for this is you actually need to launch your funnel and then look at the data, then make changes based on the data. And the cool thing is that this doesn't require you to do a full funnel rebuild every single month. It's just about checking in and again being in relationship with your business. So looking at your number, identifying one leverage point that's underperforming, and making one change. And this is when Evergreen Funnels gets to be so beautiful in the sense that most funnels need a few hours of attention per month. Not consistent tinkering, not constant tinkering, but also not zero. So if you're someone where you set something up six months ago and it's been sitting there doing nothing, please do not feel like a failure. Like this is actually a winning moment where you have a funnel set up and it's out in the world, and at this point you have data, assuming it wasn't just this hidden glade in the forest, and people were actually seeing it. You should have data. Even if the data was there was zero purchases, there are people looking at it and moving through it. You have a starting point, you can absolutely revive this. You have data to work with. So, reason number three that your funnel may not be working is a bit of a hard truth in that if nobody wants your thing, a funnel is not gonna fix that. If you launch something and it flopped, putting it into a funnel isn't going to change the underlying problem. Because funnels amplify demand, they don't create demand. And this is actually why I prefer launching first before setting up a funnel. It's one of the core things I teach within Evergreen Ecosystems, one of my courses, or a key recommendation. It's not required, but if you have an offer, whether it's a digital product or a course or a program, you actually launching it first, doing a live promotion where there is real-time emails going out and deadlines. That live launch gives you proof of concept, it gives you real buyer language. It's like this real-time data of what's working and what's not. You have a pulse on it. You get to put in all of the effort that goes into creating the launch material. And in a very short window of time, you know what's working and what's not. You know what posts convert, what emails do well, how many people will hit your sales page and then purchase. And you can literally transplant that from the live launch into the automated system that is an evergreen funnel. And this means you're not going into your funnel blind. You already know it works. You have proof of concept. There's proof that your offer is actually something that people like, and the way that you talk about the offer is in a way that people are attracted to, and then you just get to automate what is already working. That's like my favorite hack. Like lazy girls' hack to having a successful funnel right out the gate. Just automate what's already working. And now, for this, where funnels amplify demand, they don't create demand. This may or may not be indicating that your offer is bad. This is where you just want to be really honest with yourself. Now, in my experience, as a copywriting devotee, when something isn't selling, it's almost always a messaging and copywriting problem before it's an offer problem. And often you can take an offer and rework different elements of it and rework the messaging around it, and suddenly it's an easy sell. But I had to include this reason because of what we talked about in the last reason of like some people are just like, oh, I'm just one funnel away, and I can just like throw out anything, throw up anything onto a sales page and put it into a funnel and I'll make a million dollars. It's like, well, if your offer isn't any good, or you have zero experience in this space and you don't actually know what people want or not, it might be an offer problem. Okay, so now what do we actually do about this? How do we actually diagnose your funnel? The key point with diagnosing and tinkering with and playing with funnels is something that I call leverage point. A leverage point is anywhere in your funnel where someone makes a decision. The other person on the other end of the screen makes a decision. So if they see an ad, yes or no, will they click on it? If they hit an opt-in page, are they gonna opt in or not? Yes or no. When an email hits their email inbox, will they open it or not? Yes or no. When they open up a sales page, will they click through the checkout page or not? Each one of these, each of these points where there's an opportunity for them to make a decision to keep going or to step away, that's a leverage point. And each one is a place to improve. So if your funnel is underperforming in any way, this is where we start. This is the whole thing. So what I want you to do, there's four steps here, is for step one, I want you to write down every leverage point in your funnel from beginning to end. So you can just get out a physical sheet of paper or get out a Google Doc and think about how do people actually find your funnel? Are you running ads? Are you creating blog posts? Are you making podcast episodes? That's the starting point. And the ending point would be someone actually buying from you. So, what are all of the steps in between, all of the opportunities for them to make a yes or no decision? This could be a few steps if it's a very simple funnel where it's like I'm running ads to a sales page, then there's a checkout page. Like only a few steps in there of yes or no. But if you have a much more complex funnel of like I'm promoting a webinar, so I need to look at my webinar invite emails of yes or no, or they can actually sign up for the webinar. Then do they actually show up? Do they actually watch the replay? Do they open up my sales emails? Do they da-da-da-da-da? And like if you do upsells, downsells, those are other leverage points in there. So after that, onto step two is to pull the conversion rate at each point. This is very easy to calculate. It literally just takes a calculator on your phone or on your computer of figuring out how many people move on to the next step. So let's actually pull up a little calculator right here. So you're gonna go for each of the leverage points, and for example, I know that a hundred people saw my sales page, and 20 people clicked through to my checkout page, and two people bought. So there's two different conversion rates in there. There's the conversion rate of someone going from the sales page to the checkout page, and then there's a conversion rate of someone going from the checkout page to purchasing. So if two people bought, we're and we're just moving backwards, if two people bought and we're just dividing that by that 20 people who hit your checkout page, that would be 0.1, which is 10%. And then you would write that down. That is one conversion rate that you'd write down in your little Google Doc or sheet of paper, and then moving backwards again. There was 20 people who hit your checkout page divided by the 100 people who saw your sales page. That's 0.2, which is 20%. So write that one down, or whatever the number is for you. And if we want to get a little more fancy, we can do it all the way from how many people bought from seeing your sales page. So it would be two people bought divided by the 100 people who saw your sales page. That is 0.02, so 2%. And you're just literally looking at every single leverage point that you identified on your Google Doc and be like, okay, what's the conversion from that point to this point, that point to this point? And very simple little math thing is if you just times whatever number you get here by 100, you can get the actual percentage point. So if I just do times 100, we know that it's 2%. So 0.02 equals 2%. So from there, moving on to our step three. So you're gonna Google or duck duck go search industry average conversion rates for each stage. So just type it into your search bar of what is the click-through rate on an ad if you run ads, or what is the industry average for opt-in rates, or for email open rates, or sales page conversion rates. I usually just keep this on a note on my phone because I always forget them. And there's so many different conversion rate averages. So I just keep it on a note on my phone. But you can get fancy and like make a Google Sheet. So every time you're checking in on your funnel, you can be comparing it to one of your tabs on your Google Sheet can include the industry averages. But I just want to keep it simple. Like, this is all Googleable. Just search for industry average or average conversion rates for whatever the thing is. And finally, step four, compare your numbers to the averages and find the obvious gap. There's almost always one number that is glaringly off. And that is where you start. That is the easiest leverage point. That's the room for the most opportunity. So if your conversion rate from seeing your sales page to hitting your checkout page, if that's the worst compared to average, that's where I would start. I would work on my sales page. Or if your ad click-through rate is really bad and everything else is pretty normal, that's where you would focus your attention. That's the obvious first place to start. And usually there's two possible diagnoses here. Diagnosis A is your conversion rate at a specific stage is bad. So that could be like your messaging copy or page issue. That is very fixable. But for diagnosis B, which points back to reason number one we went through in this video, it's your conversion rates are actually fine, but the volume of people actually seeing the entry point of your funnel is tiny, and that is a visibility issue. So that points you back to traffic, the amount of people seeing the entry point of your funnel. So both of these are solvable, but you can't solve either one. I mean, you you can, but it you're gonna get the most bang for your buck in terms of your time and energy. If you look at the numbers first, if you look at these leverage points first. Now, with all of this, I do want to point to a bit of a mindset reframe of passive income versus predictable revenue. Because a lot of people come into the idea of funnels with this fantasy that we already talked about, this escapism around I'm gonna have passive income in my business so I don't have to do anything ever again. And I don't actually think that is a useful way of being in relationship with your business, and it will create this dynamic where you're doing a lot of stop starting and chasing the next dream instead of being in this long-term relationship with your business. And I know for myself, I have been in business for the last 15 years, and I plan on being in business for the next probably 30 years. That's a really fucking long-term relationship to have with a separate entity, my business. And so if I'm just trying to get as much passive income as possible so that I can take space away from a business, that's not a lovely dynamic to be in. So instead, I think about predictable revenue. How can I create predictable revenue? And when you build an evergreen funnel and you are intimate with these leverage points, these numbers, and you know what is happening, you're checking in with it at least monthly, and you know on average, if this many people see this page, they do this thing, and if this many people see this post, they do this thing, suddenly everything becomes predictable. And that is so much more relaxing for your nervous system than avoidance. Because predictable revenue is actually something you can plan around and you can scale up. So if you have been jumping from funnel to funnel, platform to platform, niche to niche, offer to offer, and you're just bopping all around, and as soon as something doesn't easily come and immediately happen, you just jump on to the next thing. I really want you to hear this. It's not that you're bad at business, it's that you've been sold a version of success that requires you to never actually be in relationship with your work. And it's not your fault, but it is something to be looking at. And maybe you're someone who is amazing at your craft and you have this deep relationship with your craft and your offers, but you're acting in this escapism way when it comes to the marketing side of your business. If that's the case for you, please look at this as well. So to wrap this up, if your Evergreen Funnel isn't making money, I want you to look at these three things first. Is anyone actually finding the entrance to my funnel? Is there a specific leverage point with a glaringly bad conversion rate? And are you expecting the funnel to create demand that isn't there? I want you to remember that a funnel that isn't working yet is not a dead funnel. It's not a flop, it's not a failure, it is actually a starting point. You have data to work with now, and that is more than most people have. So start actually digging into those numbers and looking at those leverage points. If this episode gave you some clarity and you're realizing your funnel might not actually be broken, it might just need traffic data or stronger demand. Start there. And if you want help building the actual funnel itself, I have a workshop called the Funnel Ritual. It's just $27, and I walk you through the exact process I use to design funnels that are simple, strategic, and actually speak to the heart of your dream client. And this is the design type of workshop where we architect the actual perspective shifts that we want to take your people through so that they're deeply transformed just by being a part of your funnel. So if you're not into tech, you're not ready for tech, or you have the tech all in place and it's still not working, like this is such a great place to start. And I'll put a link to that in the show notes. All right, see you in the next episode.