So Much for Clickfunnels 2.0, Happily Back to WordPress

After a few weeks on Clickfunnels 2.0, I’m heading back to WordPress.

Initially, I was disappointed that so many features I was really excited about (that had been announced) weren’t available. Still, there were enough things I needed to launch my new company (e-commerce) that I knew I could make it work.

I wanted to use Clickfunnels 2.0 because I didn’t have to “make it work.”

I’ve been on WordPress since 2008, which is what I’m most familiar with, but I’m not a massive fan of Woocommerce.

I was looking forward to having a store similar to Shopify, my site, my funnels, an affiliate program, and courses… ALL in one platform.

I don’t need an affiliate program right out the gate, but I would like to be able to launch that in Q1 of 2023, and who knows when that will be available.

Will I ever go back to Clickfunnels 2.0?

Who knows, but my guess is that by the time they have all the features I want, it will be more of a pain in the arse to move everything than stay where I am.

I also had to remind myself that I don’t have to be the one to manage Woocommerce ?.

But I didn’t choose to go back to WordPress because Clickfunnels 2.0 lacked features.

Truth be told, I love the UI and how it all looks.

I wish more platforms/tools would put more energy into the UI/UX. When things look dated, I’m super turned off (clearly, I’m my own worst enemy).

I chose to go back to WordPress because of how Clickfunnels marketed 2.0 and one specific feature (which I’ll get to in a minute).

Before I share that, though, I want to share something I read about Jasper.ai that sums up where Clickfunnels has gone wrong.

I discovered this one feature that was a turn-off via a FB thread. In that thread, someone shared that Jasper.ai just raised 125M and has a valuation of 1.5B (yep, that’s BILLIONS).

The statement that hit the nail on the head for me was that “Jasper.ai has focused on the product from day 1, whereas Clickfunnels has focused on the marketing.”

Word.

I’m not a Russell hater or anti-CF by any means.

However, I’m at a stage in my life where I just want to “do my thing.”

For example, the thought of going to Funnel Hacking Live with 5000 other people who are so hyped up just to be there, don’t mind the dancing, and MC who wants to “bring the energy up” makes me want to crawl under the covers and hide.

This simply means I’m not their ideal customer.

I think Russell’s books are great, and there’s a lot to learn, but the “cult-ure” of Clickfunnels simply isn’t my jam.

I’m looking forward to heading to events again next year, but they’ll be smaller. I don’t have that mental or emotional energy for big crowds (I don’t think I ever really did, which is why I’m not a big concertgoer).

When I host my own events, they will be small mastermind-style events.

Let’s get back to the thing that made me decide to go back to WordPress.

They’re forcing you to use their own new merchant/payment processor. You can use Stripe, but Clickfunnels 2.0 will charge you an additional 1% on top of Stripe fees.

And even if you do decide to use Stripe, you still have to sign up for their new merchant/payment processor (Payments AI).

At first, I thought it was super smart of them to create their own merchant account/payment processor (clearly, I can’t commit to what to call it), but when I read that they were forcing you to sign up for it?

No thanks.

Not to mention, to get the 30-day trial of Clickfunnels 2.0, you had to sign up for their challenge.

It was only $29.95, but the box of stuff they ship out is stuff I already have. I could have waited, but because of my timeline for the new company, I wanted to jump in asap.

If you’ve been following me for any length of time, you know that I’ve tried a lot of different options for courses or communities.

With the new brand, I’ll have to pick something for courses.

I don’t think I want to use WordPress for courses. Even though there are plenty of options available, and I can also have someone manage all this, I want something easier than WordPress.

Many course plugins for WordPress look great on the front end, but the back end isn’t super intuitive.

I’ve used or tried most 3rd party platforms (Kajabi, Podia, Thinkific, Circle, New Zenler, and a handful of others. My KimDoyal.com products are on Podia). In fact, I had a founders account with Kajabi and sold it (I’ve had a few regrets but nothing that makes me want to go back and use it).

Oddly enough, the one tool I haven’t used is Teachable. ?

I recently signed up for a free challenge, and the host uses Teachable. I loved what she did with it. It looks bright, fun, and unlike most Teachable accounts I’ve seen/logged into.

I’ll cross that bridge when I get there (next month ?), but since I’ll be using Woocommerce, I know that it will integrate with Teachable if that’s the path I choose to go (so I don’t have to worry about any extra fees via Teachable payment processing).

The other bonus is that by using WordPress and Woocommerce, I’ll be in complete control of how everything looks.

Not that I’ll be the one doing it, but I have a designer and developer that I’ve worked with for years (the designer I worked with years and years ago whom I adore is working with me again! I reached out to see if she knew anyone, and she said she’d love to work with me again since her kids were in school until noon every day! Talk about winning the lottery!).

I am a little nervous because there are many moving parts, but I’ve been here before.

I’ll share more about the new company this week (WOOHOO!).

I wanted to give an update since I had done a podcast where I talked about moving everything to Clickfunnels (and was truly hoping it could be the “all in one” solution I wanted).

And for those who are still die-hard Clickfunnels fans?

Hats off to you.

The best tool is the one you will use that works for you.