Brett Fullerton

Brett Fullerton became known for tearing apart the funnels of large coaches and information sellers, tracing every step a stranger passes through. His conclusion from that work is that the mechanical funnel is the least interesting part of it: the steps are broadly the same everywhere, which is why copying them produces a funnel that generates no leads and ads that spend without return.

What he calls the invisible funnel is the persuasion layer running underneath — the beliefs a prospect has to hold before a yes feels obvious to them. He traces it explicitly to Edward Bernays and the idea of engineering consent, where the aim is to shape the beliefs preceding a decision rather than to push for the decision itself.

He works on applying this to client funnels at small account sizes, where the argument is that it removes the need to go viral at all.