Jeremy Haynes Call Funnels

What is a call funnel, in one line?

A funnel built to get a qualified lead to book a sales call. Base cold version: ad > page (headline + VSL + application with scheduler built in) > confirmation page > sales call.

What 4 things are on the base call funnel page?

Headline, VSL, application, scheduler (built into the application, same page).

What 2 places can someone go after the application?

Qualified > confirmation page (books a call). Unqualified > a separate drop/downsell page. Setters can still dial both.

What kind of sales call does a paid call funnel create?

An EDUCATION call. Organic and webinar leads show up already educated (layup deals). Paid call funnel leads still need educating, and traditionally that falls on the closer.

Why does a call funnel that works organically often flop when you switch it to paid ads?

It was never the funnel. It was the organic content doing the education. Paid traffic shows up needing education, and layup-only closers can't do it.

What decides which funnel a business should run?

The strengths and weaknesses of its sales team (plus the team's testing bandwidth).

Organic vs paid: when should you run a call funnel?

Organic: always, it's one of the simplest funnels there. Paid: only with a dialed-in sales team that can run education calls, and never without back-end selling systems.

What is 'daily lead flow' and why is it a call funnel advantage?

Qualified calls land every day, so you get daily chances to close and daily feedback. That means faster improvement cycles than lump-sum funnels like webinars or challenges.

How does Jeremy sum up scaling a call funnel?

Fill the closers' calendars, then hire more closers. Repeat. Like pedaling a bike: the faster you go back and forth, the faster you scale.

What is the #1 mindset of whoever builds the funnel?

Make the sales team's job easier. Move as much of the education as possible off the salesperson and onto marketing.

Where does most consumption actually happen in a call funnel: before or after booking?

AFTER booking (the back end). People skim on the front end; they actually consume once they've booked and need to justify showing up.

What's the general relationship between friction and intent?

More friction = higher intent, lower volume, higher cost per result. Less friction = more volume, lower intent. Generally, not always.

Where does a VSL call funnel sit on the friction spectrum?

Low friction. Lower: lead forms (the 'hydra'). Higher: webinars, low-ticket-to-high-ticket, and paid challenges / 3-day events (highest).

Name the 4 levels of interest.

Curious, generally interested, highly interested, convicted. Deals get done at convicted and above.

What interest level do call funnel and lead form leads usually arrive at?

Mostly curious or generally interested. Your job is to move them up before they talk to sales.

What moves a lead up in intent AND interest?

Information: one critical piece or piece by piece. It comes as content, trust assets, sales assets, setter conversations, emails, short and long form.

Jeremy's 'M Health' story: what's the lesson?

He booked a call with zero back-end systems and still showed up ready to buy, because a mentor gave him one critical piece of info. Cold traffic never has that, so YOU have to supply the information.

If high friction brings higher intent, why not just run high-friction funnels?

You can raise intent on the back end instead. Low friction gives you volume plus rich, time-poor buyers. Do both: low-friction front end + back-end systems.

Why do rich buyers tend to come through low-friction funnels?

They have money but not time. They won't buy a ticket and sit through a 3-day event just to hear a pitch.

Is a button that opens the application more or less friction than embedding the app on the page?

More. Another URL / another page load is another step, and steps feel exhausting.

What is 'willful friction'?

Friction added on purpose to slow or filter volume when demand is high, e.g. no scheduler at all, or making people acknowledge the price in the application.

One-call close or two-call close: which does Jeremy prefer and why?

One-call: less friction. A two-call close needs a real justification, and every stat after it should be higher because you added a step.

What's Jeremy's default page structure?

Headline > VSL > application embedded (or a button to it). Start simple; only build out if data says to.

Why keep the page so simple?

To force attention onto the VSL. People conserve energy: give them sections to scroll and they'll skim those instead of watching the video.

How is forcing attention on the VSL also a qualifier?

If someone won't watch the video, they're probably too low-interest to want on your calendar. It's an act of deterrence.

What attracts low-interest bookings?

Low friction + lots of easy-to-access info outside the video.

What happens to your stats when low-interest leads fill the calendar?

Lower show rate, lower close rate, lower AOV, harder job for sales.

When WOULD you add more sections to the page?

When the niche won't watch videos (e.g. blue collar, single-digit play rates) or play rate comes back too low. Option: a DSL, a deck embedded instead of a video.

What goes on the VSL thumbnail?

A 5-10 second clip of the video itself, picked to highlight a key moment (set up in Wistia or Vidalytics).

Where do testimonials go on the main page, if at all?

Below the headline/video/application, and only sometimes.

Selling to skeptics (Robert breakdown): what fixes a low-converting page?

Add a section that names the skepticism ('Look, I get it'), explain the mechanism and the step-by-step process, and show verifiable social proof with full names people can look up.

What mode is someone in on the front end of the funnel?

Scanner mode: energy-conserving, skimming and jumping around, deciding 'is this for me or not?'

What are the 2 VSL stats to watch?

Play rate (% of page visitors who press play) and engagement rate (avg % of the video watched). Aim for 50%+ on both.

How much can play rate vary by niche?

Wildly: from single digits to 90%+.

Engagement rate example: 10-minute VSL at 50% engagement means what?

On average about 5 minutes of it gets watched, and rarely in order.

What does a huge drop in the first ~19 seconds of the retention graph tell you?

Hook problem. The niche isn't tolerating the opening, so rework the beginning (Zach's VSL: 9% engagement).

What does a healthy retention curve look like?

A semi-steep drop at the start, then attention held fairly flat through the end.

Should a VSL have chapters?

Yes. Chapter markers let people jump to what they care about. Daniel Fazio saw a big lift in retention and more qualified leads.

Should you hide the control bar or force a linear watch?

No. Humans skip around no matter what. Let them scrub to what matters to them.

What are 'real reasons' in a VSL?

Real-world facts the market already believes and agrees with, not claims you made up.

What is mechanism marketing and why is it needed now?

Ad algorithms flood people with similar offers, so markets are hyper-sophisticated. Every VSL needs a unique mechanism, with the process put on display.

Spencer / SalesKit example: what fixed his funnel?

He led with 'sales ops', a new category, instead of 'application + scheduler software'. Result: lower cost per call, higher intent, no more pricing objections.

What is a 'minority hook'?

A hook only a small slice of the possible market cares about. Avoid leading with it.

Where do you host the VSL and why?

Wistia or Vidalytics, for the analytics: play rate, engagement rate, retention graph.

Who should decide the application questions?

Sales AND marketing. Keep the questions both agree on; one-sided questions just inflate cost.

What does sales want from application questions vs marketing?

Sales: info they can use to confirm and close calls. Marketing: qualifiers so only qualified people get sent back to the pixel.

What's the sweet spot for number of typed questions?

3 typed questions. More overdoes friction and inflates cost per call.

Typed answers vs multiple choice: what's the trade-off?

Typed = more friction, higher intent, higher cost, and answer length shows intent. All multiple choice = low friction and more people lie.

What should question 1 be?

A layup question: multiple choice, easy to answer, signals 'you're in the right place.' It can use conditional logic or lead scoring.

What should question 2 be?

The financial qualifier, the question that scares people off most if asked badly.

What's the range of ways to ask the financial qualifier?

Extreme: state the price and make them acknowledge it. None: skip it (fine only if the right people are coming through). Sweet spot: a smart question people won't lie on.

How many people admit they'd lie about income on an application?

~70% of rich business owners, 80%+ of regular buyers.

Daniel Fazio's application question: what was it and why did it work?

A simple deal-math question (closed $X, expenses $Y, what did you keep?). Wrong answers barely showed or bought; right answers had the best show and close rates. It let him cut other 'qualifiers' that didn't actually correlate.

What is a time qualifier?

Disclosing commitments in the application (e.g. a 1-year contract) so nobody is shocked on the call.

Where does personal info go, and how?

LAST, because it's the most-abandoned step. Split into separate steps: name, then phone, then email.

Drop-off from qualified applicants to booked calls: separate vs integrated scheduler?

Separate pages/tools: ~50% drop off. Integrated in one flow: ~16% (call it 15-20%).

Why do so many people bail when the scheduler is a separate step?

They figure you'll just call them anyway, plus it's another step of friction.

Which application + scheduler tools does Jeremy use?

Typeform + Calendly (lowest cost per qualified call). Also iClosed, SalesKit. ~40% of his inner circle vibe-coded their own.

What ad style works for call funnels?

Standard direct response, often talking head: hook > body > CTA.

Why avoid income claims and guarantees in ads?

Low-sophistication tactics. They attract skeptics and low-quality leads; rich, sophisticated buyers read them as red flags.

Better way to call out your ideal customer in an ad?

Describe their conditions ('stuck around a couple thousand a day in ad spend, costs climb when you scale…') instead of directly saying 'are you at $X/month?'

What is pixel conditioning?

Only send QUALIFIED people back to the ad platform. The algorithm hunts for more people like whoever you send it.

Which events fire on the qualified confirmation page?

Schedule and/or Complete Registration (both at scale).

What if unqualified people are still hitting the pixel?

Stop firing the standard event. Send qualified leads back through the Conversions API instead, triggered when a rep moves them to a 'qualified' stage in the CRM. Keep the delay short.

How many conversions does the ad algorithm need before it learns who to target?

A couple. Jeremy calls the '50-100 conversions' idea outdated.

What mode is someone in after they book?

Justification mode: they need reasons to justify showing up, to themselves and to others (spouse, partner, decision maker).

What's the biggest mistake businesses make after a booking?

Assuming the person is already sold on showing up. That's why show rates suck.

Name the 5 back-end selling systems.

1) Confirmation page (breakout videos) 2) Value-dense email sequences 3) Hammer Them retargeting 4) Setter best practices 5) AI manipulation (get AI to say good things about you).

Why are there 5 systems and not 1?

People consume differently: some only watch the confirmation page, some only read emails, some only scroll content, some only want to talk to a setter.

Lay out the confirmation page top to bottom.

Confirmation headline > short main video (thumbnail + chapters) > breakout videos > testimonials.

What is the main confirmation video's job?

Give urgency and due-diligence reasons to prioritize the call and defend the decision. Tone: 'By the call, we want you in or out.'

What goes into breakout videos?

Things sales is tired of repeating, key VSL points, common questions, objections, expectations. Usually 4-12+, 30 sec to 5 min. Longer ones: TL;DR answer up front.

Testimonials on the confirmation page: what kind and where?

Believable, average results (not only best case), placed BELOW the breakout videos.

Value-dense emails: how many per day?

Start at 2-3/day. Up to 6/day if they're good (~18 over a 72-hr window). Good ones get 60-70% open rates.

Why send so many emails?

Interest isn't static. It drops as real life pulls them back, and each good email bumps it back up. Reminders get woven into the value emails.

What is the Hammer Them strategy?

Retargeting people who just booked with short and long form content so they hit 15-20+ unique touches before the call. Replicates the organic sales process with paid ads.

Hammer Them: how much content and what minimum audience?

~30-50 short form + 20-30 long form pieces. Audience must be ~150+ people to serve, so widen the window (up to 30 days of bookers) until you have the volume.

What are the 4 quadrants for back-end content?

Questions, second-layer questions, objections, expectations.

Explain 'second-layer question' with the NYC bread example.

Q: Why is NYC bread good? A: The water. 2nd layer: 'What do you mean, the water?' You only care about it after the first question gets answered.

Setter best practice before the call?

A real human texting from an iPhone within the first few hours of booking, ideally with a selfie video. Job: be helpful and educate, not just re-qualify. Can be an AI agent.

What is 'AI manipulation'?

Making sure Google's AI overview, ChatGPT, Claude, etc. say positive things about you, since buyers outsource research to AI.

What are trust assets / sales assets?

Proof made to answer real buyer questions so sales doesn't have to. Airbnb example: a page listing every deal (address, pro forma, video breakdown) gave a 75% show rate and 40% close rate on $22K sales from cold traffic.

Ideal booking window?

About 72 hours: long enough to educate, short enough that interest doesn't die. Jeremy's 9-days-out Dubai call: zero follow-up, he researched it himself and no-showed.

What is 'sales ops'?

The step between marketing and the sales call that tech and AI handle: lead enrichment (Clay, People Data Labs), custom email sequences per lead, calendar routing to the best-fit closer.

What % of calendar capacity should closers run at?

About 80%, so they have room for CRM, admin and follow-up.

When should calls be scheduled?

9-to-5 audiences: before/after work or lunch. B2B: middle of the workday. Weekend calls show and close lower.

What does the 'educator' sales role do?

Takes a lead from low to high interest and turns the education call into a closing call. Can be tagged in live when a closer can't educate.

What does the 'cleaner' role do?

Takes over aging leads closers can't follow up with anymore ('buy or die' culture) and works the longer sales cycles.

What feedback should sales give marketing?

Articulate end-of-day reports: WHY leads were bad, not just 'leads are bad.'

How do you stack the odds when first launching on paid?

Put your best closer on it (maybe you), fill their calendar, and feed their feedback straight back to the ads.

List the rows of the call funnel financial model.

Ad spend > cost per call > show rate > (2nd call booking + 2nd call show if two-call) > close rate > AOV > gross ROAS > fixed costs, team costs, commissions > net profit / net ROAS.

What 3 stats make up cost per call?

CPM, link click-through rate, click-to-qualified-booked-call rate.

Benchmarks: CPM, link CTR, click-to-qualified-call?

CPM $30-80. Link CTR ~2%. Click to qualified booked call 3-5%.

Benchmark cost per call?

$100-300 is a solid conservative range. It can be $500-1,000 if AOV is much bigger, the market is smaller, or sales cycles are longer.

Benchmark show rate (one-call, cold paid)?

60%+ ideal. Model conservatively at 40-50%. Below 30% = tech-issue territory.

Benchmark close rate, one-call close?

~25% ideal (20-25% normal). 10-15% = weak closers. 30%+ = above average.

Benchmarks for a two-call close?

1st show 60%+, 2nd call booking 60%+, 2nd call show 70-75%+, close 35%+.

What is AOV in Jeremy's model?

Cash COLLECTED per sale, not the revenue or sticker price.

Why is AOV the most important stat?

The more cash per sale, the more pain (cost per call, show rate, close rate) you can tolerate. Low AOV means every other stat must be excellent.

Why model conservatively?

To see how bad the numbers can get while still being profitable. Use the worse end of each benchmark.