I’ll pay off the subject line in a second, but first let me give you an example of what I mean by an “unsellable affiliate offer”:
A couple weeks ago, I asked my list for intros to people who have good offers I haven’t heard of, which I could promote as an affiliate.
I offered, along with my lifelong gratitude and knight-like service, to pay out 10% of what I make on my first affiliate promo as a finder’s fee.
I got a response to that from a copywriter I’ve known for a long while. One of his clients is currently selling a mid-ticket membership ($500/quarter), helping people improve their close rates on sales calls. The copywriter wrote me:
“I assume some people on your list are coaches and consultants who take their own sales calls, or freelancers who take their own sales calls. If you’re in that group and you can improve your close rate by even 5%, it can add 20K-60K/year to your income.”
Yes but—
From what I’ve seen, people on my list really don’t want to learn to sell in person. If anything, they want the opposite — how to make selling superfluous, as hopeless as that is.
For another thing, I’ve found it super difficult to promote other people’s subscription offers. I think there’s a transfer of trust there that’s almost impossible to make, at least for me.
I told this to the copywriter. He came back and said:
“Makes sense, thanks for the explanation. If you were in my shoes, trying to figure out how to use affiliate marketing to grow [client’s offer], what would you do?”
At the time, my best suggestion was to make a completely different front-end offer — a $300 or $500 course that has some sexy mechanism that makes me believe I can get good at selling (or get equivalent results) in spite of my own limiting beliefs on the topic.
That’s something I could possibly, maybe, squint-so-hard-tears-come-out imagine promoting as an affiliate.
Another option would be to create a complete book funnel, get that working (meaning, testing and figuring out the right book title, sales page copy, bumps, upsells, etc.), collect proof that it all works, and then approach affiliates with that.
I now have a third suggestion, which I would sooner make than either of the two above, because it’s easier to do and more likely to succeed.
And that is to do what Maliha Mannan is going to be teaching this Monday, just two short days from now, inside her Secret List-Building Technique workshop.
Specifically, I’d make list owners the offer that Maliha will be teaching inside of this workshop.
I know that, if somebody made me this offer, even somebody who is looking to promote something like a paid community about person-to-person sales, I would most likely agree to it, for three reasons:
1. Because it would make me look good to my audience
2. Because I wouldn’t have to do any extra work
3. Because I would have a real chance of getting paid
Like I said, Maliha’s workshop is nigh. There if still some time to sign up for it. For more details:
https://www.skool.com/daily-email-house/secret-list-building-technique-live-workshop