Pricing

Coaching is dead

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I’m reading a book called Million Dollar Consulting, by Alan Weiss, in which Weiss makes the claim in a subhead that “Selling is dead.”

A few pages later, Weiss tells the story of how he got started as a consultant:

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When I was fired and thrust out on my own with about 250,000 independent consultants around around me in the United States, I asked myself how I could stand out. I decided to write and speak, since those are my strengths and you build on your strengths.

[Weiss decided to write an article with a contrarian take on a then-popular methodology, titled, “Quality Circles Are Dead.”]

The quality movement adherents besieged the magazine. I was so stunned, I called the editor to apologize.

“Kid,” he said, “I want you to write an article like this for us every month, and I’ll pay you $50 for each one.”

“But they hated it,” I pointed out.

“They read it,” he pointed back.

I wrote for 72 months, opposing every flavor of the month and program du jour extant. I became known as “The Contrarian.” And that name has stuck to this very day.

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I’m reading Weiss’s book because the core message of it is to stop selling your time, and to start selling the value of the outcomes you deliver.

It’s a simple enough message, and one that everybody is willing to accept with their prefrontal cortex.

But go beyond that into the other parts of the brain, and the neural activity changes.

I’ve been talking to various business owners and marketers. Almost all of them fail to sell the outcomes they provide, and instead fall into the trap of selling a 16-page PDF, or a welcome sequence, or coaching once a week, every week, for an hour over Zoom.

The trouble is, PDFs are dead. Welcome sequences are dead. And coaching is really, really dead.

Yes, I am playing along with Weiss’s contrarian thing. But I also happen to believe what Weiss says about outcomes, and specifically, that coaching really is dead.

I’ve been working with a number of people this year. Some of the outcomes I’ve promised to deliver and problems I’ve promised to solve for them:

* Build them up into a name on the Internet, and help them make $31k in the process

* Help them define a new offer that sells 3-5 times copies per month for $1k+

* Increase the money they make from their email list to $1 per subscriber per month

In all these cases, what I’m actually delivering is some Zoom calls, some support by email, some copy critiques, and a lot of listening and occasional talking.

All of that could really be bundled up and called “coaching.” But I can tell you it’s been much more enjoyable and easy to sell it not as a bunch of Zoom calls and email support and some copy critiques, but as an exciting and lucrative outcome.

Maybe you offer coaching or some other form of dead deliverable that your audience doesn’t seem to value correctly. Maybe you also have an email list. Maybe you have a problem, or things just aren’t working right, and you suspect that coaching is dead, or deliverables are dead, or email is dead.

If so, reply to this email. I don’t offer coaching, but we can talk, and maybe I have a way to solve your problem, or to help you get to an outcome that you’d be ecstatic over.

It costs you nothing to tell me about your problem. You take not the slightest risk. You cannot possibly lose anything. And you can gain much.

Price increase case study: “fucking swimming in sales over here!!!!”

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Last month, I ran the Price Increase Promo Challenge. One of the people who took me up on it was Chris Howes, who runs Creative Strings Academy, an online music school.

Over the past few days, Chris ran his price increase promo for a course he delivered last year and sold for $30. This morning, Chris wrote me with the results:

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JB- I’m fucking swimming in sales over here!!!!!

63 sales of the $30 product based on PIP (“get it before it goes up to $67”) Remember I originally sold 74 of them at the launch in December. That’s almost as many as I sold the first time. So thats $1900.

Tons of the original 74 buyers bought the new Pentatonic Patterns PDF and Web App. And lots of the new buyers also bought the new thing at checkout as upsell.

We did about $1500 on that product. Which i will split with my developer and he will be super happy, because that is a good payday for the few hrs of work he put in, and now it’s launched evergreen.

And then I had sales of other upsells on the checkout pages as well…. which I didn’t even remember to add until the last minute.

I want to try to sell everyone who bought something on joining the membership tmrw or this week, because every new member gets a free private lesson with me, which what could be a better way to follow through and implement?

So I probably earned about $3,000 – thrilled to tell my wife that – and I want to use the sequence I created as the new opening welcome sequence for people into my list, and/or start running ads and promotions to the funnel somehow. because I think I’m onto something that resonates with my audience.

So, yeah, thanks John. You kicked my ass in a good way.

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So much good stuff in what Chris writes above. Specifically:

1. A higher priced asset he can use to sell his other offers more easily in the future…

2. A proven funnel he can run more traffic to (welcome sequence or maybe even cold traffic)…

3. 67 new buyers who make for new leads for his continuity offer or coaching if he wants to make that available, possibly leading to thousands or tens of thousands of dollars more…

4. Higher overall perceived value of his own expertise and products (yes, people do judge a book by its cover as well as its price)…

5. Something nice to tell his wife…

… plus $3k for himself and about $750k for his developer. That’s not Pablo Escobar cocaine money, but getting paid $3k to also get a bunch of new leads and some new assets in your business sounds like a good deal to me.

All in all, that’s 6 benefits of running a promo, or more specifically, a price increase promo for an offer that sold pretty well once upon a time.

The Price Increase Promo Challenge is over. I have no plans to run it ever again. But if you have a list, and an offer, and if you would like my help making more money from your list and offer, hit reply, and maybe we can work something out.

 

How long will it take me to pay back Nick Bandy?

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Last December, I ran an auction in my Daily Email House community. The offer on auction was my endorsement and promotion, as much of it as needed to pay back the winner the entire winning bid.

The winning bidder in that auction turned out to be Nick Bandy.

The winning bid turned out to be $31k.

I got very lucky with Nick being the winner of the auction:

Nick already has a sizable email list. He’s got an automated way of growing that list with new subscribers every day. He writes great daily emails. He’s got a suite of info products. He’s got personal authority in the form of his day job as a fractional CMO at a reverse mortgage company. Plus he’s kind of a cool guy, who tends to spend much of the day in his bathrobe.

And yet, since December, you haven’t heard me endorsing or promoting Nick all that much.

Since December, what Nick and I have been doing together has all been behind the scenes.

In case you’ve got an email list yourself, what I’m about to say can be valuable to you:

If you wanna make good money from your list, and if that list is not tens of thousands or or hundreds of thousands of subscribers strong, it’s unlikely you will get to where you want to go without higher-priced offers, meaning at least something that sells for $500+, and preferably for $1k or more.

I told Nick that. He agreed. And so we’ve been working on one or more high-ticket offers he can sell, that match his experience, skills, and taste.

Progress has been slowed by the fact that Nick has many other lucrative and attractive things to do.

There’s his steady fractional CMO gig.

There are his personal obligations like his daily emails and Skool community.

And then there are exciting side projects like partnerships he recently finagled with a local roofing business (database of 30,000 customers and 100,000 leads)… a YouTuber with 300k subscribers… a skydiving business with a 30k+ customer list… and more.

I’m telling you all this because Nick is currently in the middle of a price increase promo for one of his offers, Ghostbuster Sequence.

If you do anything online — client work, or you have your own email list, or you have a personal brand — I recommend to you to get Ghostbuster Sequence.

Not because I have to pay Nick back $31k.

Ghostbuster Sequence sells for $54 right now. At that price, it would take a ridiculous number of sales for me to pay Nick back.

Instead, I’m recommending Ghostbuster Sequence because of its fundamental value.

Ghostbuster Sequence gives you a simple, easy, and effective system for doing followup, which is a success-multiplier habit that everybody pays lip service, to but that almost nobody teaches or gives practical recommendations on.

Following up means you can get way more out of way less — whether that’s leads, referrals, potential partnerships, etc.

Following up was instrumental in Nick’s own success, both back when he hunted for clients and today, when he’s interested in partnerships like the ones I listed above.

Nick has written down his followup system inside Ghostbuster Sequence, for you to use as-is.

Like I said, Ghostbuster Sequence currently sells for $54, but, in part due to my instigation, Nick is raising the price to $97 tomorrow, Thursday, at 10pm EST.

If you get it before then, you save yourself some money. You have a chance to put it to work sooner rather than later. Plus, you get a free bonus that sells for $54 on my site right now:

Secret of the Magi, which tells you the biggest lesson I’ve learned about how to open up cold conversations that lead to business partnerships, whether client work, or JV deals, or sponsorships.

For all that, here’s where to go, before the opportunity disappears:

https://bejakovic.com/ghostbuster

Today: PIP Challenge kickoff

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This morning I chuckled as I prepared the SOP for my PIP Challenge kickoff call.

In case that’s too many acronyms for you, “PIP” in this case stands for Price Increase Promo.

Starting later today, and lasting the next 3 weeks, I’ll be running a challenge with a group of list and offer owners.

I’ll personally help them run a promo to increase the price of one of their offers in a way that 1) makes them look good to their audience and 2) maybe even makes them money.

An “SOP” I imagine you know. Just in case, it stands for “standard operating procedure,” a corporate term that basically means, “how to”.

Like I said, I chuckled today while preparing the PIP SOP. That’s because, along with dutiful sections like “Which product,” “Which price,” “Which occasion,” “Which emails to send,” I also included several examples of price increase promos I’ve run, like:

* The time a broke and unmotivated reader asked for a discount, and I used that as the occasion of finally raising the price of an underpriced offer

* The “MVE 2: Judgment Day” promo I used to re-launch (and increase the price of) my Most Valuable Email program

* The time the FTC asked a federal judge to hold “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli in contempt of court, and I did a quick (and extremely lucrative) price increase promo on the back of it

At this point, my PIP SOP is pretty simple. But I still found myself asking questions and articulating answers that I hadn’t thought of before.

I know I’ll be using this SOP myself for future price increase promos I run to my own list. And as I’m going through this Price Increase Challenge, and working directly with people on their live price increase promos, I will be filling it out with more examples, more detailed answers, more templates, etc.

The PIP SOP is only available to the folks who join me for the Price Increase Promo Challenge, a select group I’ve named the Email Promo Pioneers, Class 1.

My Price Increase Challenge kicks off later today, Wednesday, at 8pm CET/3pm EST/12 noon PST. In case you are interested, here are the details:

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Here’s my offer to you today:

* Magically boost the overall value of your business…

* Manifest an asset you can use to make easier future sales of all your offers…

* Raise your status in the eyes of your audience…

* Make yourself more interesting to affiliates…

… and maybe even make some money!

About that make money part, master copywriter Robert Collier once wrote that the most sales-making headline he ever found was:

“Before The Price Goes Up!”

That’s is precisely how I’m offering to help you achieve all the outcomes above.

Specifically, over the next 3 weeks, I’m offering to personally help you plan, run, and profit from a “Before The Price Goes Up!” promo to your email list.

Like Collier says, a price increase is a great way to make some sales.

But it has lots of other knock-on benefits, such as a boost in status… a higher-value asset that you can use to sell other offers more easily (via bonuses, or simple anchoring)… and creating something that affiliates might suddenly become interested in.

If you decide to join me over the next few weeks, I’ll help you overcome such insurmountable hurdles as:

* “But I don’t know which offer I should increase the price of! I don’t want to shoot myself in the foot or worse yet in the knee!”

* “But what will people think! How can I possibly increase the price in a way that doesn’t make me look stupid, greedy, or both? Surely there is no way to increase price in a way that makes me come out looking solid to my audience… right? Right???”

* “But what new price should I choose? It’s impossible to decide. The options are infinite…”

In case you didn’t pick up on it, I’m being a little bit sarcastic.

Yes, there are some questions you should ask yourself before running a price increase promo. But a promo like this is not tremendously complex, and there’s not all that much you need to know in advance.

Yes, I will help you make decisions about the questions above, and give you my advice and input and encouragement along the way. (I’ve run a bunch of price increase promos, some very successful, some less so.)

But that’s the smaller reason why you might want to join me now.

The bigger reason is simply to make sure you actually do this price increase now, instead of putting it off indefinitely… because you’re scared of making a mistake, or in the words of Joe Karbo, because you’re too busy making a living to make any money.

Speaking of money:

I’m calling this the Price Increase Challenge.

And I’m charging a sky-high, one-time fee, with an asterisk, to participate in this Price Increase Challenge:

$250*.

Two hundred and fifty dollars.

That’s a quarter of a thousand dollars.

A lot of money.

Yes, the usual arguments apply. If you have an email list and an underpriced offer, it will very likely be worth it to you to pay $250, and much more, to run a price increase promo now instead of in 6 months from now, or never. I listed all the reason why at the top.

But there’s also the asterisk.

The asterisk is there because I don’t really want your money.

What I really want is for you to run this price increase promo and to reap the benefits of it.

That’s why, if you join me for this challenge, and if you pay me $250 upfront, I will refund you the entire $250 if you actually run your price increase promo within 3 weeks of this Wednesday, when this challenge will kick off.

In other words… get my personal help and advice… get accountability… get the benefits of a price increase, including possibly making some money… and win all your money back. Recoup 100% of your capital, and make some nice interest too.

Oh, and you get the coveted title of Email Promo Pioneer, Class 1.

If you’d like to join me for this Price Increase Challenge, hit reply to this email, tell me you want in, and I’ll get you started.

Announcing: Email Promo Pioneers, Class 1

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Here’s my offer to you today:

* Magically boost the overall value of your business…

* Manifest an asset you can use to make easier future sales of all your offers…

* Raise your status in the eyes of your audience…

* Make yourself more interesting to affiliates…

… and maybe even make some money!

About that make money part, master copywriter Robert Collier once wrote that the most sales-making headline he ever found was:

“Before The Price Goes Up!”

That’s is precisely how I’m offering to help you achieve all the outcomes above.

Specifically, over the next 3 weeks, I’m offering to personally help you plan, run, and profit from a “Before The Price Goes Up!” promo to your email list.

Like Collier says, a price increase is a great way to make some sales.

But it has lots of other knock-on benefits, such as a boost in status… a higher-value asset that you can use to sell other offers more easily (via bonuses, or simple anchoring)… and creating something that affiliates might suddenly become interested in.

If you decide to join me over the next few weeks, I’ll help you overcome such insurmountable hurdles as:

* “But I don’t know which offer I should increase the price of! I don’t want to shoot myself in the foot or worse yet in the knee!”

* “But what will people think! How can I possibly increase the price in a way that doesn’t make me look stupid, greedy, or both? Surely there is no way to increase price in a way that makes me come out looking solid to my audience… right? Right???”

* “But what new price should I choose? It’s impossible to decide. The options are infinite…”

In case you didn’t pick up on it, I’m being a little bit sarcastic.

Yes, there are some questions you should ask yourself before running a price increase promo. But a promo like this is not tremendously complex, and there’s not all that much you need to know in advance.

Yes, I will help you make decisions about the questions above, and give you my advice and input and encouragement along the way. (I’ve run a bunch of price increase promos, some very successful, some less so.)

But that’s the smaller reason why you might want to join me now.

The bigger reason is simply to make sure you actually do this price increase now, instead of putting it off indefinitely… because you’re scared of making a mistake, or in the words of Joe Karbo, because you’re too busy making a living to make any money.

Speaking of money:

I’m calling this the Price Increase Challenge.

And I’m charging a sky-high, one-time fee, with an asterisk, to participate in this Price Increase Challenge:

$250*.

Two hundred and fifty dollars.

That’s a quarter of a thousand dollars.

A lot of money.

Yes, the usual arguments apply. If you have an email list and an underpriced offer, it will very likely be worth it to you to pay $250, and much more, to run a price increase promo now instead of in 6 months from now, or never. I listed all the reason why at the top.

But there’s also the asterisk.

The asterisk is there because I don’t really want your money.

What I really want is for you to run this price increase promo and to reap the benefits of it.

That’s why, if you join me for this challenge, and if you pay me $250 upfront, I will refund you the entire $250 if you actually run your price increase promo within 3 weeks of this Wednesday, when this challenge will kick off.

In other words… get my personal help and advice… get accountability… get the benefits of a price increase, including possibly making some money… and win all your money back. Recoup 100% of your capital, and make some nice interest too.

Oh, and you get the coveted title of Email Promo Pioneer, Class 1.

If you’d like to join me for this Price Increase Challenge, hit reply to this email, and I’ll get you started.

The lifesaving value of charging more

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It’s Saturday today. I’ve forbidden myself from doing any work on the weekends except writing this email.

But what the hell am I gonna do if I don’t work?

I sat on the couch. I looked around. I waited.

Eventually, I picked up a book.

Good thing.

Because I came across the following fun yet instructive story, which goes back to ancient Greece:

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A stranger publicly said that he could teach Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, an infallible way to find out and discover all the conspiracies his subjects could contrive against him, if Dionysius would give him a good sum of money for his pains.

Dionysius hearing of it, caused the man to be brought to him, that he might learn an art so necessary to his preservation.

The man made answer, that all the art he knew was that Dionysius should give him a talent [eg. 25kg of silver], and afterwards boast that he had obtained a singular secret from him.

Dionysius liked the invention, and accordingly caused six hundred crowns to be counted out to the stranger.

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If you so choose, you can extract many lessons from this story. Today, I will extract just one for you. It be this:

A higher price can be better for both you as the seller AND for your audience as the buyers… even if the deliverables stay exactly the same (or if the deliverables are nothing at all, as in the story above).

Paying a high price can literally be lifesaving for the buyer (again, as in the story above).

But even when it’s not a matter of life and death, paying a high price can be a boost to your buyers’ ego, reputation, and peace of mind. And what’s more important than those things?

I’m telling you this because a few days ago, in my Daily Email House community, I asked folks whether they are interested in running a price increase promo.

That was motivated by the fact that, as I’ve found out recently, a bunch of my readers who sell courses and ebooks and templates charge very little for what they sell.

That’s not good for them… and it’s not good for their buyers either, at least if the stuff being sold is lifesaving or at least potentially life-changing.

So I offered to help folks run a price increase promo over the next few weeks, as a challenge, in a group, to avoid feeling alone, or feeling like they’re going to screw things up, or feeling paralyzed from overthinking.

I will have more details on that “Price Increase Challenge” soon — the when, the where, and of course, the how much. And I will apply my own lesson. I’ll make the price VERY high, but in a way that’s good for you, if you choose to join me for this Price Increase Challenge.

17 ideas for charging more

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I wanna write a new book about the art of charging higher prices:

How to overcome your own mental blocks around charging more…

How to make the technical changes that need to be made to your offers and positioning…

How to get people to happily pay you at new and higher prices.

I don’t know yet how I will organize this book. But I do have a bunch of ideas for the content to include.

Since one of my ideas for charging higher prices is to give away stuff for free in certain circumstances, here are 17 ways to charge higher prices, for you to use and profit from today:

#1. Just double your prices right now, without waiting, and then make whatever changes this new price forces you into

Yes, ​it can be done​.

#2. Specialize

People will pay more for an all-black German shepherd than they will for a mottled mixed-breed mutt, even if both ultimately have two ears, four legs, one tail, and the ability to bark.

#3. Sell an outcome, not deliverables

In other words, ​sell the house, not the hammer​.

#4. Deliver a more complete outcome

(I heard this advice from a “sales closer agency” that takes people’s $5k offers and turns them into $50k offers, and makes their clients and themselves tens of millions per year.)

Example: if you sell a live event, then instead of selling just entry to the event and what’s inside, sell a package that includes a hotel room, a flight, transportation from the airport, and maybe dinner at a fancy restaurant with the organizers of the event. And charge a premium on top of each.

#5. Sell a bigger outcome

instead of helping people get a client worth $1k, help them get a client worth $10k. Instead of helping them close one $1k client, help them close three $1k clients.

#6. Guarantee the outcome

My $31k auction went to $31k ​in large part because of the guarantee​.

#7. Sell something scarce vs. something common

You might have something legitimately scarce (“the last five copies ever that will ever be printed”) or you can have something artificially scarce (“only five spots open this entire year”).

#8. Sell yourself vs. selling your solution

If you have an audience and your audience likes you, you can sell yourself first and foremost. This is a special and easy kind of scarcity that nobody can take away from you or challenge you on.

As an example, consider the dozens of “how to write emails” courses that popped up over the past 2-3 years. Many of them sold, and well — to the audiences of the person creating the course, and to nobody else.

#9. Go after the Maverick segment rather than the Goose segment of your market

For more on this distinction, ​check here​. Or ​read this​ to see where I first got the idea.

#10. Go to a richer market

Example: ​people wanting to learn improv comedy vs. trial lawyers​. Who will pay more?

#11. Position yourself as the premier solution

A few examples: ​Rolex, Harvard, Jay Abraham​.

#12. Offer “real-world value” bonuses vs. “valued at” bonuses

The information in this email is “valued at” $10,000, by me personally, based on my extensive research and deep introspection.

Do you think I could use this “valued at $10k” email as a bonus for a legit $10k offer, and make the $10k offer feel effectively free?

No?

You don’t think so?

Well, maybe you will, after I take this information and turn it into a 4-week cohort I start charging $10k for, and start selling over and over to my list.

#13. Ask for future money rather than present money

The most money I ever made while working as a freelance copywriter came to me after I asked a client to let me write emails for them for free, on commission only.

They agreed, and offered me 20% of the profits made.

In this way, it became routine for me to get paid $500 for an email it took me 15 minutes to write, and $1k per email was not unheard of either.

There’s no way the client would have agreed to pay me such rates out of pocket. But out of profit? Different story.

#14. Get your prospects thinking what it costs not to buy rather than what it costs to buy

This is ​a classic lesson from sales trainer David Sandler​.

#15. Reframe or repackage your core offer into something valued more

I once put on an entire $197 training about this… but for just one example, ​take a look here​. (Just don’t write me asking for the offer at that link.)

#16. Charge for things you do for free now.

Research… replying to emails… sales calls…

… who says you have to do them for free?

Charging for such things automatically pushes everything else up also. Your perceived value rises. Plus you now have something you can anchor your other offers to, or offer as a real-world-value bonus.

(On the other hand, it can be better to give things away for free than to discount them. I’ll just leave it at that for now.)

#17. Change format

Books sell for $-$$. A one-evening Zoom training sells for $$-$$$. A course sells for $$$-$$$$. An in-person training sells for $$$$-$$$$$.

Same info, same outcome, but the format affects how people value that info, and what they are willing to pay for it.

… and that makes 17.

Did I miss anything? Do you have extra ideas for how to charge more?

Let me know, and maybe I will include your ideas in my new book, and put your name up in the “acknowledgements” marquee, with lights shining on it, right at the front. Thanks in advance.

How to charge more by selling treats

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Long-time readers know I am a fan of the podcast What It’s Like To Be. I only know about this podcast because it’s hosted by Dan Heath, author of the book Made to Stick, which I believe is one of the best texts about crafting persuasive messages.

In the What It’s Like To Be podcast, Dan Heath interviews people who make their living doing different jobs.

Sometimes it’s inherently interesting — a speech writer, a baseball player.

This week though, it was… a baker. I had to force myself to listen to it. I’m glad I did.

It turned out that this interview about what it’s like to be a baker is very relevant for folks who have or want to have a small online biz, maybe writing or teaching or coaching or having an audience.

There are lots of parallels and business insights from the baker, someone who works in a surprisingly similar to what I do, but in a different sphere.

I’ll include the link to the whole podcast at the end here if you wanna check it out. For now though, lemme share one specific and interesting thing I heard.

Dan Heath asked the baker, how do you price your bread?

This led the baker into a discussion of what would be reasonable in theory:

Figure out her cost of ingredients… put in margin on top of that to cover fixed expenses like rent and employees… and add an extra margin on top of that for profit.

In reality, the baker said, what she does is she looks at what other bakeries are charging, and charges something similar. When margins get too tight, she raises prices.

And then came the really interesting and insightful part wanted to share with you:

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And and then if like our overall margins are starting to feel too tight, then I try to put more of our price increases on our pastry because I feel like pastry is a luxury good, and bread is like a staple food and should be as affordable as possible.

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Dan Heath asked if this a commie-like desire to make sure everyone can afford the staples of life? Well, yes. But it’s also a capitalist calculation about what people are willing to pay. The baker explained:

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It also lines up with how people spend money. Like, people are going to balk at spending $12 or $15 on a loaf of bread in a way that they won’t at spending, like, $7 on a slice of cake or, like, $3 on a cup of coffee. People’s mental calculation is so different for things that feel like treats, whether it’s like sugar or alcohol or snacks than it is for something that feels like grocery, that feels like a staple good.

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My point today is exactly what the baker says in this second block.

There’s one mental calculus for things that feel like necessities and staples. There’s a different mental calculus for things that feel like treats or splurges.

You can apply this insight the way the baker did, by simply offering two lines of products, one staple-y and one treat-y, and using the treats to be able to charge more, and to support the other parts of your business.

You can also benefit from this insight without launching a new line of products, simply by repackaging your dutiful and reasonable products in a new gift box that suggests indulgence, enjoyment, or fun to your prospects.

I’ll have more to say about that “fun” element tomorrow.

For now, if you wanna hear what other business insights the baker had to share, you can find the link below. Highly recommended, even if you have no interest in baking, and only want to run an online four-hour-workweek-style business:

https://www.whatitsliketobe.com/2246914/episodes/18563714-a-baker

Really great price on coaching

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I talked to a dude recently who has made a new coaching offer to his list, with 1-1 access to him, in various formats, for a full year, at a really great price.

Nobody bought.

Now here’s a marketing and psychology truth that took me embarrassingly long to learn:

If you offer people a really great price on something they don’t want to buy, the really great price won’t make them want to buy it either.

That’s why discounting fails to drive sales in so many situations. Discounting only works when people want the thing being sold, and they value it at the full price you claim for it.

But back to coaching.

As I’ve been croaking about for a few weeks now, nobody really wants “coaching.”

Yes, some people manage to sell “coaching” because they have so much status, authority, and relationship with their audience. In those situations, their coaching clients are effectively buying the coach, and the relationship with that coach, rather than the coaching itself.

That’s definitely a nice position to be in.

But what if you don’t have that level of status, authority, and relationship with your audience yet?

The fix is simple, and can be executed quickly. It’s to sell people something they actually want to buy, and which they value at the price you ask for it.

This is how you go from trying and failing to sell “coaching,” which people don’t want even at a really great price… to having a $1k+ offer, which you can make 3-5 sales of each month, and which is both easier to sell and deliver than “coaching.”

Maybe you’re interested in how to implement this fix, which I claim is “simple, and can be executed quickly.”

I’ve prepared a 1-page overview of how to do it, a process I’ve guided a few people through already.

I’m begrudgingly willing to share this 1-page overview with you.

If you like what you read, you’ll have the opportunity to work with me directly in February, to implement this for yourself and your own list.

Or of course, you can just run with it yourself.

In case you’re interested in the 1-page overview, hit reply, tell me you want it, and I’ll get it to you.

If you move your tail for clients, but they don’t appreciate it enough

by

Yesterday, because I am thorough in my research, I was watching old TV commercials from the 1970s, including one for the long-gone Continental Airlines.

It featured a bouncy jingle that’s still playing in my head:

We live to make you happy

We’re out to make you pleased

You’re flying Continental

Your flight will be a breeze

We’ll hop to make you happy

We’ll skip to prove it’s true

On Continental Airlines

We MOVE OUR TAIL FOR YOU…

… and then the refrain comes in, with a cross-section of all Continental employees — pilots, stewardesses, luggage handlers, admin personal, even the chefs who prepare the delectable meals — bleating “WE MOVE OUR TAIL FOR YOUUUU” over and over.

I looked it up, and back in 60s and 70s Continental really moved their tail to make their customers happy —  larger, cushier seats, full meals (the commercial shows a chef preparing a giant salad), and complimentary drinks (alcoholic and soft), as well as additional perks like amenity kits, pillows, and blankets, all for free, all at no extra cost.

Today, of course, that’s unimaginable. So many of the things that airlines offered for free back in the 60s and 70s are now available and then some on a flight – but you gotta pay:

– checked baggage

– meals

– alcoholic drinks

– seat selection

– pillows and blankets

Continental Airlines no longer exists, at least under its own name (it was gradually absorbed into United). I guess Continental’s customers didn’t sufficiently appreciate all the tail moving to make this a viable long-term strategy.

Maybe there’s a lesson there? Maybe? In any case, I will share my idea, and you can decide if it could possibly be useful:

You can charge for what you offer for free now, or for what everybody else offers for free.

This doesn’t mean offering worse customer service, or turning yourself into the RyanAir of your industry.

But the fact is, “FREE” is a norm — whether it’s checked baggage or “free strategy sessions” or simple “let’s talk and see if we can benefit each other calls.”

Maybe that norm is one that’s working out for you. But if not, it’s one you can change, because norms are not rules of nature, but simply habitual ways of doing things.

I’m gonna write a new book one day, expanding on this idea.

For now though, I’ll just point you to my latest book, the “10 Commandments of Con Men, Pickup artists, Magicians, etc.” This book is not free, but I really did move my tail to make it both fun and valuable for you. If you haven’t read it yet:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments