When did a funnel stop being a kitchen utensil?
Powerlessness versus possibility in times of permacrisis and a rant about Instagram coaches and social media marketing speak
Sliding down the hypnotic funnel of an Instagram coach entrapping you in their “container”
A note on finding meaning in permacrisis
Sometimes it feels trivial sending out letters (or doing much of anything else at all) when the world is rife with non-stop disaster. At the same time, I find myself buoyed by focusing on the very smallest of things, like how a tiny cutting I took from a plant becomes a whole new plant with just a little water, light and time.
On a similar note, reading recently about how one of the Filton 18 protestors - Louise Lancaster - finally released from prison, flagged the challenges of prison for neurodivergent inmates also bolstered me - the interconnection of our shared values and caring.
In the same article, they thanked the thousand Defend Our Juries protestors who sat in the street outside the Royal Courts of Justice at their appeal hearing in January for being, they felt, a large part of why their unprecedentedly lengthy sentence was ultimately cut ensuring their release. I was one of the thousand sat in the street that day.
As a rookie protestor, it was encouraging to see the action I'd attended being directly linked to a meaningful outcome. Another example of this is when - after years of wrangling - I closed my Barclays accounts in the summer of last year and got the satisfaction of seeing in the news that the bank had sold all its shares in Israeli weapons manufacturer, Elbit Systems.
In fact, it was this immediate experience of cause and effect that challenged forever my preconceived notion that I-am-but-one-little-powerless-person-what-difference-can-I-make-in-the-world-of-complex-issues-I know-little-about-at-the-depth-required-to-actually-take-any-action.
Of course, being a part of liberation movements means staying the distance regardless of immediate outcome, like those taking action for Palestinian freedom since October 7th and in the many decades before, those moving for action on climate change, LGBTQ+ rights, disability rights, land rights, etc. etc and the more of us there are willing to do whatever we can, when we can, no matter how small, infrequent, insignificant or futile it may seem, the better.
What is a funnel anyway? Answers on a postcard (not in this IG baited webinar)
A client of mine recently watched a free webinar hosted by what most would consider to be a conventionally successful Instagram coach (by which I mean one who appears to be financially wealthy with just enough humility to seem legit).
The session was about "funnels" and the client shared a screengrab of a slide whilst expressing their amusement at being aware of being in said coach’s "funnel" right now and at still having not gotten any closer to a definition of “funnel”.
Here's one:
“an object that has a wide opening at the top, sloping sides, and a narrow tube at the bottom, used for pouring liquids or powders into containers with narrow necks
Eg. After you grind the coffee, use a funnel to pour it into the jar.”
For me, a more accurate and straight forward term for “funnel” when it comes to digital marketing is "customer journey". And this is relevant to me and my AuDHD/neurobod brethren because when I hear "funnel" I see the plastic funnel my mum used for baking back in the early 90s. Rather than anything to do with how people might find me or engage with my work.
Similar to when I hear a coach or practitioner use the term "container" and whilst a small part of me knows they mean a programme or membership and they are attempting to convey a sense of safety with the word, the bigger part of me just sees a giant piece of Tupperware with people inside it. Trapped under an immense lid with four humungous airtight seals click locked on all sides. No chance for escape.
In the neuronormative world, too many spoons are required to extrapolate meaning. This is why I am often sleepy.
Say what you mean and mean what you say (people are tired)
Back to customer journeys:
How does a customer come into contact with you and your work and what journey do they go on to booking in with or buying something from you?
For said Instagram coach, it’s a complicated digital marketing adventure underpinned by: massive ad spend on Meta, social media content across multiple platforms, historical PR to establish "credibility", freebie webinars, email newsletters and "conversion" to “high ticket” courses, programmes and “masterminds” where participants are encouraged to replicate this “blueprint”. The blueprint being massive money in to an [ethically compromising and democracy threatening] ecosystem equals massive money out. Naturally, without the sheer amount of resource needed to generate this system in the first place being deeply delved into on this information lite, yet highly urgent webinar.
Let's not even go into the fact that a blueprint is for builders building buildings (more spoons spent...) I'm tired just re-reading this list of what the object that has a wide opening at the top entails.
Not all customer journeys mean selling your soul to people-are-dumb-fucks-Zuck
For me, in my small business, the customer journey is ultra simple and not at all urgent (because I am ethically opposed to rushing people): previous client/someone I know makes a referral/someone replies to an email I send/finds me on a directory/by searching online/meeting me in person, sends me an email, has a call and becomes a client.
For my client, her “funnel” was similarly simple, wonderfully organic, and even more refreshingly offline, relationship based and personal, which I highlighted. “The content of this webinar is only of interest if you’d like your customer journey to become more digitally based,” I said, which this client did not.
It's interesting to me, having been off social media for some time now, that despite purporting to be niching down to their ideal client only and "repelling" the rest of the (presumably) unattractive non-ideal clients, these Instagram "coaches" get more and more egregious in their fairytale "blueprints", universal "downloads" and goodness-knows-what-they're-saying-and-what-gobshite-ways-they've-found-of-saying-it-by-now whilst essentially saying - at best - very little (if I'm being generous) and - at worst - absolutely nothing at all (if I'm perimenopausal pre-menstrual and thus, brutally honest and a little bit aggro).
But I guess they're just not for me, eh? Either that or I must be - somewhere, verrrry deep down inside - jealous of their incredibly urgent, performance heavy, algorithimically driven, frenzied, vapid lives. That must be it.
Invitations for consideration...
What’s your customer journey? Which ways might a customer come to work with you?
How is it serving you and how did this journey emerge? Which way is your preferred way?
When have you considered that it might be completely different to how it is? What could that involve?
Where might it take you if you were to consider altering things to incorporate more analogue ways of doing business?
Who might you like to reach that you aren’t currently reaching in your work and how might a different approach encourage this richness?
If you'd like a short, sharp coaching session of just 45 minutes for £45 in August - on one particular issue or matter in your life, your business, your work (or search for it), your creativity, your activism, your relationships or some change you'd like to make - send me an email, as I have some limited space available for these summer sessions next week and from August 18th onwards.
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