I’m at the airport as I write this, on my way to Budapest, my former home, for a reunion with friends I had when I lived there a long time ago.
Right now, I’m sitting on a tiny stool at an airport restaurant, about to bite into a refrigerated airport sandwich, crowded on the one side by a pushy French couple and on the other by cleaning woman with a large broom.
That’s the good part of my current trip.
The bad part is that I just spent 25 minutes waiting in line for the privilege of paying 48 euro to get my boarding pass.
I’m flying low-cost, and I didn’t check in online before the three-hours deadline mandated by this low-cost airline. When I tried to check in online a few hours ago, I was told I would have to do it at the airport, and pay.
It’s annoying when this happens on a low-cost flight, and yet it is instructive.
The fact is, all kinds of things can be turned into value that normally aren’t.
It feels petty when low-cost airlines do it, but it can be done in ways that don’t feel petty, but in fact feel the opposite — generous, exciting, convenient.
Imagine you’re buying a house.
Nominally, you’re paying for the keys and the right to move in.
You can buy a “low-cost” house, which gives you the keys and the right to move in, but which doesn’t have lightbulbs, windows, or running water, and you have to pay extra for those.
Conversely, can buy a “premium” house, which gives you not just the bare keys and the right to move in, but which has been furnished by an interior designer, comes with a concierged security service, and has a fridge stocked with food from Whole Foods.
Ultimately, it’s the same business practice, the only difference is the positioning of your business as upmarket or downmarket.
Maybe you’re munching on your own refrigerated sandwich right now and mumbling, “Right right…”
… but maybe you don’t see how this idea from real estate and the airline industry can apply to what you do, specifically to creating offers that you can sell to your audience.
For that, I’d like to invite you to sign up for a trial to my perennial recommendation, the Royalty Ronin community.
Travis Sago, the guy who runs Ronin, is the best person I have ever seen at creating value out of things that others would never think of.
Right now, Travis is preparing to auction off a year of a SaaS, which he is promoting as an affiliate.
In other words, Travis will ask people how much they would pay… to have him pay their bill for a year of this software service.
How do you possibly auction off something not unique, with a known and fixed value? And how do you auction it off for 5x, 10x, 20x of what it is currently selling for on the website of the SaaS company?
For that, I invite you to sign up to Ronin, and to follow along as Travis proceeds to build up his premium offer, out of elements that might seem like air to you right now: