Sales Funnels are DEAD—Do This Instead!

My goal is to build a loyal group of fans who help me find new fans and customers.

Every business guru out there is trying to get you to invest in your funnel. They want you to start with attracting people through social media so that you can get them on your list. Then you share information to that list of your products and services, and if you’re doing it right, giving them a chance to move to a more premium product or service.

However, that’s typically the end of the road for most funnels. Some will continue to push more and more products, but often, fans will grow tired of the pitch and eventually churn out of your system, which means you need to constantly replace them through more social media posts and newsletters that keep promoting.

What if instead, you created a system that not only respects your customers time and attention but also gives them an opportunity to share what they love about you to their friends and family, attracting more like-minded individuals who are more inclined to appreciate you because they trust the person who recommended them. In fact, they appreciate you so much, they do the same.

And round and around the wheels spins, eventually picking up momentum that requires less of your time and energy as your fans and customers will gladly do the work for you.

This isn’t a funnel, but a flywheel.

“An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.” - Sir Isaac Newton

The Creative Flywheel

Inertia is a killer. It keeps us on the couch, kees our projects in stasis, and will hold us back unless we build up enough potential energy to move forward. Cranking a large wheel to turn a machine takes tremendous amounts of energy and force at first, but as the wheel turn, the momentum begins to carry it through.

Though, it may take more work in the beginning to build up that momentum, over time, the turning becomes easier to a point where we hardly have to turn the crank much at all.

This flywheel concept is exactly that, and the momentum is built up through good will and generous people who support what we’re working on, and these are the 6 steps in that process.

1. Make the Work - The thing itself: Art, zines, clothing, writing, tools, templates, books, ideas made tangible. This is the center of gravity.

2. Make It Available - Give it a place to live. It could be a shop, a link, marketplace page, or even a post with a Venmo link. You need to have a place someone can visit, bookmark, come back to when they’re ready. If you make it hard to get, nothing moves forward.

3. Share the Process - Let people in. Show the early sketches, the weird in-between steps, the part where you thought about scrapping the whole thing. Not all the time—but often enough to create a pulse. Be relatable, insightful, conscientious. If you’re funny, that’s even better.

4. Launch with Intent - I cannot stress this one enough, but you MUST be okay with promoting your work! A post, a newsletter, a quiet announcement that says, “It’s ready! Here’s what it means. Here’s where to get it.” Clear, contextual, personal.

5. Resurface the Work - Your past work isn’t expired. Be okay with talking about it often. READ THAT PART AGAIN. Pull it back into rotation because often, your audience didn’t see it the first time, or they did but let it slip and this is their reminder. A “remember this?” post might be the first time someone really sees the thing they were meant to fall in love with.

6. Invite Others In - This is the most critical part of the flywheel. Encourage sharing. Ask your people to share with their friends and reward the referral. Make them feel part of the process, as if you couldn’t do what you do without them. When your audience becomes part of the engine, the flywheel spins faster than you could push it alone.

That’s the loop—all spin, no dizzy.

When you run it with intention, it starts to carry its own weight. Your audience stops forgetting, the past work keeps working, and your launches stop feeling like awkward one-act plays for an audience that wandered in by accident.

That feeling of starting over every time? It gets replaced by momentum.

The prompt below helps you build this. Not theoretically, but specifically for you, your work, and your audience.

It walks you through, one question at a time, about what you make, how you share it, what you sell, where people find you, where they fall off. No jargon, no pitch funnels, and no promo guilt. Just honest input that leads to a system you can actually use.

If you’ve been winging your releases, ghosting your own archive, or wondering why things feel harder than they should… this prompt will show you where the energy’s leaking. Better yet, it will teach you how to plug the holes without turning into someone you don’t recognize.

If you’re a paid subscriber, the full prompt is waiting for you below.

And if you’re not? You’ll be back. Because this isn’t about tactics. It’s about finally seeing the shape of something that’s been hiding in your practice all along. So you might as well become a member today. Hell, test it for free for a week and start spinning your wheels in the best way.

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Prompt: Build Your Creative Flywheel

Copy and paste this prompt into your AI chatbot of choice. Details matter, so make sure you add as much context as possible. See the tips at the bottom to help you during the process.