Look, I know you’re tired of hearing about funnels.

I get it. The word itself feels overused and comes with a bit of an idea that you’re trying to trap people or manipulate them into buying something they don’t want. Plus, every time you open Instagram, someone’s selling you a new funnel template or course promising to “10x your revenue.”

But here’s the thing I learned over the last few years: your funnel problems aren’t tech problems, they’re conversation problems.

Let me explain what I mean.

It’s 1898. Philadelphia is thick with industrial soot.

There’s this guy named Elias St. Elmo Lewis teaching advertising—which, by the way, most people at the time thought was basically just legalized lying. But Lewis is thinking differently. He’s breaking down how people actually buy things.

His framework? Attract attention. Maintain interest. Create desire. Get action.

Simple, right? He didn’t even call it a “funnel” yet (that wouldn’t come until 1924), but what he understood was revolutionary: you can’t ask a stranger for their money before you have their attention.

He mapped the buying process not as a transaction, but as a journey.

Fast forward to today, and we’re still using that same framework. Except somewhere along the way, we completely lost the plot.

We stopped thinking about the psychology Lewis was mapping. Instead, we started obsessing over which page builder to use, which email sequence to swipe, which automation to set up.

We turned human psychology into a tech stack.

But strip away all the software and code, and you’ll see what a funnel really is: it’s just the architecture of how someone makes a decision. That’s it.

The potato gun guy who figured it all out

Let me tell you about Russell Brunson before he became the ClickFunnels guy.

It’s the early 2000s. He’s a college wrestler in Boise, Idaho, and he’s building potato guns. You know, those PVC pipe contraptions that launch potatoes across a field using hairspray as fuel.

He films himself shooting these things, burns the footage onto a DVD, and sells it on a simple website for $37. He buys some Google ads for “potato gun plans” and boom—he’s making money.

Until he’s not. Google updates their algorithm. His cost per click skyrockets. Suddenly he’s spending $50 in ads just to sell one $37 DVD. The math is completely broken.

Most people would’ve blamed the tech at this point. “Google screwed me over. The algorithm changed. My website needs to be better.”

But Brunson did something different. He asked himself: what happens AFTER someone buys the DVD?

They get the instructions, sure. But they still need to go to the hardware store, figure out which PVC pipes to buy, find an igniter, get the glue. It’s a whole thing.

So he added one simple step: right after someone bought the DVD—before they even left his website—he offered them a complete potato gun kit with all the materials for $197.

About one in three people said yes.

His average order value jumped from $37 to over $100. Now he could spend $50 on ads and still double his money.

He didn’t change his website. He didn’t hire a fancy designer. He didn’t even change his product.

He just helped people finish what they started.

And that’s the piece most course creators miss. They think a funnel is about trapping people, when really it’s about being helpful.

The person who bought that DVD wanted the PVC pipes. Brunson wasn’t interrupting them—he was saving them a trip to Home Depot.

Okay, we need to time travel again.

Chicago, mid-1960s, movie theater lobby.

David Wallerstein is watching people buy popcorn. And he notices something weird: customers would buy a bag, finish it halfway through the movie, but almost never come back for a second bag.

Why not? They obviously want more popcorn.

Here’s what Wallerstein figured out: buying two bags of popcorn feels embarrassing. It looks gluttonous. Plus, you’d have to get up, wait in line again, pay again. Too much friction, both social and physical.

His solution? Just make the bag bigger.

Larger sizes meant people could buy what they actually wanted without the shame of buying “two.” The cost to the theater was pennies—popcorn is mostly air anyway—but customers loved it.

Later, Wallerstein joins McDonald’s board and pitches the same idea to Ray Kroc. Kroc pushes back: “If people want more fries, they can just buy two orders.”

But Wallerstein knows better. The friction of that second decision is what kills sales. They introduce more sizes. Sales explode.

This is what marketers now call the “upsell” or “order bump.” But it’s not about manipulation. It’s about understanding that once someone’s decided to eat lunch, asking “would you like fries with that?” is actually helpful.

You’re saving them from having to make another decision later when they’re halfway through their burger thinking, “damn, I should’ve gotten fries.”

Now, think about the last time you were checking out at the grocery store.

You’ve just spent 30 minutes making a hundred micro-decisions. Which pasta sauce. Which bread. Organic or regular tomatoes. Your brain is completely fried.

And then you’re standing at the register, and there’s the gum, the magazines, the candy bars.

You toss a pack of gum onto the belt without thinking twice.

Why? Because the hard decision-making work is done. You’re already in “buying mode.” Adding $2 of gum to your $200 grocery bill requires basically zero mental effort.

This is what a well-designed sales funnel does.

When you add a simple order bump—like a $27 template pack alongside your main course—you’re not being sleazy. You’re putting the gum at the checkout counter.

You’re saying, “Hey, since you’re already here solving this problem, would this make it easier?”

I’ve watched this change entire businesses.

One creator I worked with added a “tripwire” offer. Not to get rich off a $97 product, but to change the relationship. Because once someone pays you even a dollar, they’re no longer just an audience member. They’re a customer.

That simple shift is geared towards generating an extra $12,000 a year. On autopilot.

Another creator turned a single sales page into an entry point that’s done over $5 million in four years. Not by launching constantly or reinventing everything every month, just by respecting that different people are ready at different times.

ClickFunnels, Kajabi, Teachable—they’re all just tools. They’re the canvas, not the art.

The art is in the conversation. So if you’re sitting there wondering which software to buy, stop. Ask a different question first:

“What decision is my audience trying to make?”

• Are they aware of their problem but scared of the solution? Maybe they need a webinar to build trust first.
• Ready to buy but overwhelmed by implementation? Maybe they need a “done-for-you” checklist as an order bump.
• Skeptical about their ability to actually finish? Maybe the real upsell is an accountability group.

When you align your offer structure with their actual psychological state, the friction reduces and you stop feeling like you’re pushing a boulder uphill, and you start feeling like you’re just pointing someone in the right direction.

We’ve come a long way from 1898

The lecture hall is now a Zoom room. The potato gun DVD is now a digital course. The movie theater is now a landing page. But you know what hasn’t changed? The human brain.

We still need attention before interest and we still get tired of making decisions.

We still look for the path of least resistance and the best funnels honor that. They communicate with clarity and in a world that’s noisier than those soot-filled streets of 1898 Philadelphia, clarity is the most valuable thing you can offer.

So maybe it’s time to stop obsessing over which pages to build and start asking what your people actually need next.

What decision is your audience trying to make today?