Before You Start

Before we build anything, let’s make sure you have the pieces in place. Funnels don’t work in isolation — they connect to your course, your copy, and your email strategy.

What You Need

1. A GHL Account With a Course Product

If you haven’t set up your course in GoHighLevel yet, pause here and complete Set Up Your Course in GHL first.

You need at minimum:

• A published or draft course product
• At least one offer with pricing set
• A connected payment processor (Stripe or PayPal)

You’ll connect funnels to this offer, so it needs to exist first.

2. Your Sales Page Copy Written

Funnels are pages connected by automation. Those pages need words on them.

You don’t need a polished final draft, but you should have:

• A headline for your sales page
• Your offer description and pricing
• A guarantee and FAQ section

If you’re still writing your sales page, work through Write Your Sales Page in parallel — you can build the funnel structure now and drop in the copy later.

3. Basic Email Marketing Knowledge

Automation workflows are essentially email sequences with triggers. If terms like “welcome sequence,” “nurture campaign,” and “open rate” are new to you, start with Email Marketing for Course Creators.

You don’t need to be an email expert, but you should understand:

• Why email sequences outperform one-off broadcasts
• How to write subject lines that get opened
• The basic structure of a nurture sequence

4. A Lead Magnet (or an Idea for One)

The most powerful funnel for course creators is the lead magnet funnel — give away something free in exchange for an email address, then nurture that lead toward your paid course.

Your lead magnet can be:

• A free mini-course (1-3 lessons from your full course)
• A downloadable checklist, template, or worksheet
• A free video lesson or recorded webinar
• A short email course delivered over 5 days

If you don’t have one yet, start thinking about what your ideal student would find valuable enough to trade their email for.

Optional but Helpful

• A Facebook/Google Ads account — if you plan to drive paid traffic to your funnel
• Social media profiles — for organic traffic to your opt-in pages
• Testimonials or reviews — for social proof on your funnel pages

What This Course Assumes

This course is hands-on and practical. It assumes you can:

• Navigate the GHL dashboard (you learned this in the setup course)
• Write basic marketing copy (or have copy ready to paste in)
• Understand what an email sequence is at a high level

It does not assume you’re a funnel expert, a designer, or a developer. Everything we build uses GHL’s drag-and-drop tools.

Your Funnel-Building Toolkit

Here’s what you’ll use inside GHL:

Tool	What It Does
Sites > Funnels	Build funnel pages (opt-in, sales, checkout, thank-you)
Sites > Forms	Create email capture forms embedded in funnel pages
Automations > Workflows	Visual builder for automated email, SMS, and task sequences
Sales > Pipelines	Track leads through your sales process visually
Sales > Opportunities	Revenue forecasting and pipeline analytics

Got everything? Let’s start with how a funnel actually works.