You already know that the better your funnel converts, the more money you can make. You can spend more on advertising or pay more in affiliate commissions and still make tons of money. The trick, of course, is getting your sales funnel to convert well. And to do that, you need to test… well… everything.

You need to test the sales copy that brings someone to your squeeze page, the copy on the page, the look of the page, the title of the freebie you’re giving away, the cover of that freebie, the offer they see when they subscribe, the upsell offer after that (if there is one) and so forth.

You. Must. Test. Everything.

Which is time consuming and costly. Because it could be days or weeks before you even manage to break even, much less start earning a profit – if you ever do at all.

But there is a massive shortcut that some people are taking, and I would be remiss if I didn’t at least tell you about it.

We could debate the ethics on this but we won’t. I leave that up to you. The fact is, people do this sort of thing in every single industry all the time, so it is nothing new. What is new is that the average Joe or Jane marketer doesn’t think to do this.

And if you haven’t guessed yet, I’m talking about modeling another marketer’s business. That is, replicating someone else’s sales techniques and processes. You’d be surprised how many people already do this in one form or another.

I’ve even seen marketers take pride when their own funnels have been modeled. And no, it’s not copying. At least, not if it’s done correctly.

The idea isn’t to copy the text or even use the same products. Rather, it’s to model in terms of design, options presented, layout, pricing, number of upsells and downsells and so forth.

Your headlines might be the same color, size and font. But it’s YOUR headline. Your video might be in the same location on the page, but it’s YOUR video. You’re selling your own products, not theirs.

Your sales copy will be different. Your bullet points will be different. Your key benefits and so forth will be different. But things like the layout of sales pages, colors, fonts, and so forth aren’t copyrighted.

Does a green ‘buy now’ button work better than a red one?

Does a centered black headline in Verdana that asks a provocative question do better than a red headline on the right in Tacoma that makes a bold statement?

Does having the opt in box above the fold convert better than having a long list of bullets and the opt in box beneath the fold?

There are 1,001 decisions to be made when creating a new sales funnel. But emulating a funnel that is already proven to work can make the process a whole lot easier. And faster, too.

Big time marketers can literally spend tens of thousands of dollars on traffic to test what converts best. But by emulating their funnels (not copying) you can get a leg up on what’s working.

How do you know which funnels are working the best in your niche? If you’re in the IM field, you can check their stats in JVZoo, Warrior Plus and ClickBank. In other niches, ClickBank can be a reliable indicator, as well as paying attention to which products you see promoted via paid ads time and time again. If they weren’t making sales, they wouldn’t be paying to promote these products.

One last thing… this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still test. Since this is your own funnel with your own copy and your own products, testing will give you a ton of info on how to raise your conversions as much as possible. But by emulating a proven funnel as the foundation to your system, you get to take a massive shortcut that will have you in profit that much faster.

Imagine that you’re making a video about how to declutter a closet. In the video you show the closet beforehand, you explain what you’re going to do and how you’ll do it, and then you have a montage of video clips of you working while music plays. Finally, you come back on screen and give a few parting thoughts. Not bad, right?

Except here’s the problem I see happening over and over again…

That video montage is there to show a long process condensed into a short amount of time. You could narrate over that section, but most video makers prefer to use music.

But… because it’s just music, the video makers are worried that it somehow won’t be enough and so they crank up the volume up to twice what it was. Now the viewer is reflexively jumping to turn that volume down – sometimes WAY down. In my case, I’ll usually just mute it.

And when the person comes back on video to talk to the camera and uses a regular speaking voice at regular volume, the viewer can’t hear it unless they turn the volume back up. This means that if the viewer is even still paying attention, they will need to decide if they should turn up the volume or just close the video and go on to something else. Why would anyone put their viewer in that position?

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been distracted when the volume was on mute. I never did see the end of those videos, so if they had a call to action… well, I never heard it. And it’s annoying having to reach for the volume button because music is suddenly blasting forth. It’s like if someone came up from behind you with a bullhorn and you’ve got to find the volume button to make them stop.

I know it might seem ‘artistic’ to blast music like it’s a movie scene, but do you really want to alienate your viewers? Probably not.

This is truly old school and yet most marketers never do this. In fact, it can add several hundred dollars or more to your bottom line each and every month. And all it takes is a line or two of text in your emails.

What is it?

The signature line.

Place a simple signature line with a link to an offer as a footer in every one of your emails you send out to your list. This can be to one of your flagship products, such as your coaching program or a high-end course.

Yes, it sounds almost too simple, doesn’t it?

You probably won’t get a lot of clicks on this link for a couple of reasons: They’ve already clicked on the main link higher up in the email. Or your list goes ‘ad blind’ because they keep seeing this same line over and over again.

This is why you want to promote a flagship product with a fairly high price tag. For example, if you have a $500 coaching program and you only get one sale that month from your signature line, that’s still $500 profit. And it’s even more if it’s monthly billing.

You can change the line from time to time to keep it fresh.

Frankly, you don’t need to spend a lot of time on this. Just write your line, add it to your footer and forget about it for a couple of weeks until you change it.

And then see what happens. It could add thousands to your bottom line each year.