Rachael Howourth: From AutoTrader Sales Director to Million-Pound Funnel Business with Zenler

Kevin Arrow Author

Mar 23, 2026 |

See how Rachael Howourth used Zenler to build high-converting sales pages and grow her coaching funnels to almost a million pounds in revenue.

Rachael Howourth did not want to be an online coach. She thought the online coaching world was, in her own words, disgusting. She had watched people bragging about their earnings on Instagram and decided it was the last place she wanted to be. But when the pandemic closed her in-person training business and put a member of staff's livelihood at risk, she had no choice but to adapt.

What happened next surprised even her.

Today, Rachael is in her tenth year of business. Her funnels have generated almost a million pounds. She has never had a refund request. And she is known among her clients for being genuinely different to every other online coach they have encountered.

Her story is not just about Zenler. It is about what happens when someone with deep expertise, strong ethics, and a refusal to be beaten brings all of that into the online space.

From AutoTrader to Entrepreneur: A Career Built on Sales

Rachael spent 27 years in the sales world before going out on her own. She studied sales psychology for years. She became sales director at AutoTrader, one of the UK's best-known brands, where she ran a team of 57, managed 13,500 customers, and oversaw a budget of 100 million pounds.

Then AutoTrader went public.

Rachael led the sales team through the float — a high-pressure period of hitting specific numbers to ensure the company launched well on the stock market. It tested her strategically, as a leader, and as a coach. But it also cost her something.

"I realised my life wasn't for sale anymore. I had the salary, the company car, the big expense account, but I'd had my little boy and I wasn't being the mum I wanted to be."

She left. She was quickly headhunted by another business nearby, expecting the same role in a better environment. She was in and out in eight weeks. Their values did not match hers.

So she asked herself the obvious question: why make money for other people when she could make it for herself?

The Training Business That COVID Killed — and What Came Next

Rachael set up an in-person training company that grew quickly. She started working with law firms, marketing agencies, accountancy practices — teaching sales to people who ran significant businesses but had never been properly taught how to sell.

"It was a mic drop moment every day, because they didn't know what I knew. But I just thought it was normal."

The business was doing well. But then the pandemic arrived and closed everything down overnight.

At the time, Rachael had a full-time member of staff who was on maternity leave. The thought of having to tell her there was no longer a job — no longer a business — brought Rachael to tears. That was the moment she committed to building something online, as fast as she possibly could.

She did not want to do it. She thought the online coaching world was full of people who did not care about their clients and only wanted to broadcast their earnings. She was determined to do it differently.

"I didn't actually want to be an online coach, but then when I was forced into it, it became the best gift ever."

Finding Zenler: From MemberVault to All-in-One

Rachael's first platform was MemberVault. It was free to start, which suited her at the time. But it did not handle email, so she was also running MailerLite alongside it. Two tools, two sets of data, and a growing unease about how vulnerable her business was.

She had already ruled out other options. Using Facebook groups as a course delivery mechanism felt risky — Facebook makes decisions at the drop of a hat and she did not want her business in their hands. Using Google Drive to share course content rang alarm bells around IP protection — she did not want students sharing her material with dozens of friends for free.

What she wanted was everything in one place. Secure, simple, and scalable.

"I just bit the bullet and said, girls, we need an all-in-one platform. I don't want data pinging around all over the place. Let's migrate."

They pulled everything out of MemberVault and moved it into Zenler. And the rest, as Rachael puts it, is history.

The First Things She Built

When Rachael arrived in Zenler, the first thing she had to get clear on was the difference between a course and a funnel. Once that distinction made sense, she knew exactly how to build.

She started with lead magnets built as funnels, and courses that she could price or temporarily make free depending on her marketing strategy. A course might carry a price tag for most of the year, but for a seven-day window she would open it up for free to grow her list — then close it again.

But the thing Rachael loves most in Zenler is building sales pages.

"I absolutely love the psychology of a sales page. It lights me up. I love nothing more than to sit and build a sales page."

She hired team to handle the migration work but insisted on fine-tuning every sales page herself. Sales, for Rachael, is about people and psychology — not systems. She wanted to see every page through her customers' eyes, preview the curriculum as a student, and make sure every step of the journey felt intentional.

The website she built in Zenler is not a standard brochure site. It is a front end built to navigate visitors directly to individual sales pages — one for each offer — each built to convert with no distractions, no social media links, and no navigation at the top pulling people away.

CPD Accreditation and Client Feedback

Rachael's Zenler build is not just polished — it is professionally accredited. She built a certification course inside Zenler and had it accredited by CPD. A CPD assessor was given access to the course to review both the content and the system.

Their feedback was unequivocal: easy to use, good navigation, excellent use of assessments.

Her students agreed. They loved the simplicity of the navigation pane, the ability to see how far through a course they were, and the fact that no additional downloads or apps were required. Rachael actively encourages every student to save the My Courses page to their mobile home screen for instant access.

She has also turned the My Courses page itself into a conversion tool — featuring offers that are not available anywhere else and consistently generating sales from people who are already inside her ecosystem.

"I make sales from the My Courses page, because I've got things there that aren't anywhere else."

How She Uses Zenler Across the Business

Rachael is using almost every feature Zenler offers. Email — she hit her email credits last month, which she takes as a good sign. Funnels. Sales pages. Courses. Affiliates, including a dedicated course on how to enroll as an affiliate. Webinars. A full website.

The one feature she is not using is communities — her clients communicate through dedicated Slack channels instead, with separate spaces for her mastermind and membership groups.

The feature she has firmly in her sights next is branching funnels. She has already mapped out how it would work for her diagnostic tool, Magnet for Millions — a framework that helps students identify why their lead magnet is not generating sales. The branching funnel would let her ask a series of questions and route people to the right offer based on their answers, or downsell them to something more appropriate if they are not yet ready.

"I've got my eye on that piece of functionality next, because we haven't got one of those and I really would like one."

What She Would Do Differently

When asked what she would do differently if she could go back to day one in Zenler, Rachael's answer is almost entirely positive.

She would move faster — now she knows what she knows. But she would not change the approach. The way she built things out has worked. Every decision was made with the information available at the time, and those decisions have led to funnels generating almost a million pounds.

"My funnels have generated almost a million, so it's definitely served me as I've grown."

What Is Next: The Academy Bundle

Rachael's next big project is simplifying her business model. She has a large catalogue of courses — around 22 — and she wants to bring them together into a single bundle that she is calling an academy.

In Zenler terms, it is a bundle. In her language, it is a comprehensive learning environment that gives students access to 22 courses, plus quarterly live Q&A sessions with Rachael to help them make sense of what they have learned and decide what to do next.

Individual courses will only be available to buy separately if someone is inside a funnel and being served them through an email sequence. At the front end, what people will see is a clean offer suite: two signature programmes and the academy bundle.

The goal is clarity. Fewer entry points. More depth per offer. And a clear path from the lower-ticket entry-level courses all the way through to her premium mastermind.

"I'm very happy to be your vision board coach. Come and buy a £33 course, learn to love my way of teaching, and put me on your vision board for when you're ready to invest at a higher level."

Her Advice for Anyone Starting Out

Rachael's advice for new course creators is direct, practical, and completely at odds with what most people tell you to do.

Do not start with your niche. Do not start with your ideal client. Do not start building.

Start with the problem.

Find a problem that is genuinely painful — painful to someone's wealth, their relationships, their time, their health, or how they operate their business. Those are the five areas, what Rachael calls the WORTH model, where people feel most motivated to invest in a solution.

Once you know the problem, marry it with your personal expertise. Do not teach from a textbook. Teach from lived experience.

Then — and this is the step most people skip — go and test it with at least twenty people before you build anything.

"You've got to do the market research. That's the bit most people don't do. They just sit and build. They say, I'm going to build loads of stuff and people will come. They won't come."

Only once you have validated the idea with real people — people who confirm they have the problem, that it feels painful, and that they would pay to solve it — should you decide what format to build it in. If they want self-study, build a course. If they need mentorship, build a mastermind or group coaching programme.

And if you want to get paid even faster, sell it before you build it. Run a beta. Get paid to create.

"You only need three things. A problem, something you can promise them instead, and a price. That's it."

What Business Owners Can Learn from Rachael Howourth

Rachael Howourth's journey offers some of the most grounded and practical advice in this entire series of success stories.

Ethics matter more than tactics. Rachael built her entire reputation on doing things differently — never pushing, never dragging, never convincing. Her goal with every client is that they three times their investment. If she cannot see that happening, she will tell them not to buy.

The online space is not the enemy. Rachael hated what she saw of online coaching before she joined it. Her instinct was to do it differently, and that instinct was right. There is enormous room in any industry for someone who leads with integrity.

Platform matters. Moving from scattered tools to Zenler gave Rachael the infrastructure to scale. Sales pages, funnels, email, accredited courses, affiliates — all in one place, all working together.

Build for conversion from the start. Rachael did not just upload content. She thought carefully about every page her students would see, previewed every course as a student would, and built her My Courses page as a sales tool. That thinking is directly connected to her results.

Sell before you build. Test ideas with real people. Let the market tell you what to create.

"The money is a byproduct of the education."

Connect with Rachael Howourth

🌐 Website: https://www.rachaelhowourth.com

📚 Coaching and programme details: https://www.rachaelhowourth.com

🎙️ Podcast: Becoming an Online Sales Queen — available on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/...

📸 tips on sales and high ticket strategies —https://www.instagram.com/rach... 

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ra...

📘 Facebook: live training and updates 
https://www.facebook.com/rachh...

FAQ

Who is Rachael Howourth? Rachael Howourth is a sales strategist, online business coach, and course creator with 27 years of experience in sales. She is the former sales director of AutoTrader and now helps coaches, educators, therapists, and agency builders monetize their expertise and sell it online.

What does Rachael Howourth teach? She teaches coaches and online business owners how to build funnels, courses, digital products, masterminds, and memberships — and how to sell them on autopilot. She specialises in sales psychology, lead generation, and evergreen business models.

Who does Rachael Howourth help? She helps coaches, educators, therapists, and agency builders who want to build and scale an online business. She offers entry-level courses, a membership, and a high-end mastermind to serve people at different stages of their journey.

Why is Rachael Howourth's success story important? Her story shows what is possible when someone with real-world expertise at the highest level brings that expertise online with integrity. Her funnels have generated almost a million pounds, and she has done it without ever having a refund request.

Why did Rachael Howourth choose Zenler? She moved to Zenler from MemberVault because she wanted an all-in-one platform that kept all her data secure and in one place. She did not want to manage multiple tools or leave her business vulnerable to third-party platform decisions.

What Zenler features have made the biggest difference for Rachael Howourth? Sales pages and funnels are the two features Rachael highlights most. The sales page builder gives her the flexibility to build psychologically optimised pages that convert. The funnel functionality has been the engine behind almost a million pounds in revenue.

What is Rachael Howourth building next on Zenler? She is building an academy bundle — 22 courses packaged together with quarterly live Q&A sessions. She is also planning to implement branching funnels to help prospects self-select into the right offer.

What is Rachael Howourth's advice for new course creators? Start with the problem, not the niche. Validate the idea with at least twenty people before building anything. Teach from personal expertise, not a textbook. And consider selling before you build — run a beta and get paid to create.

What can other business owners learn from Rachael Howourth's journey? Lead with ethics, build for conversion from day one, use an all-in-one platform to keep things simple, and never push someone into a programme they are not ready for. The best clients are the ones who choose you when they are ready.

Categories: : Entrepeneur Success Stories