& RAISING OUR STANDARDS
EDITOR’S LETTER FROM MIKE WALKER
EDITOR
Mike Waker
“Oooohhhh sh*t…. so this is what high performance means…”.
A direct quote from yours truly on my first trip to the North Shore of Oahu while paddling out at Pipeline, one of Hawaii’s most notorious waves and widely considered one of the most dangerous in the world.
Some context and then an explanation in how this can relate to you and your business;
In the interest of brevity I won’t go deep into my background here, but simply state that I live in Southern California and grew up surfing, traveling the world as a semi-pro surfer in my teens and early twenties, I had the opportunity to spend quite a bit of time in the water.
Two to four hours per day, would have been considered an average week. When the waves were good and/or while on surf trips, spending 8+ hours per day was commonplace. All that to say, I’m comfortable in the ocean and in waves well into the 12-15 foot range (“double overhead” in surf terms)
When at home growing up, my buddies and I would spend a majority of our time at a stretch of beach in La Jolla. Not always the best spot in town, but it was consistent, had plenty of parking, and was known for having a concentration of the best surfers around.
The benefit of this being that the competition for the best waves was pretty stiff and
positioning for the best waves required skill and working oneself up the local hierarchy. If no one knew you, chances of getting any decent waves on the good days were slim at best, and cutting anyone off would be met swiftly with an “up close and personal conversation".
May seem a bit weird, but for how “chill” the art/sport of surfing is - there are many spots around the world where tensions can turn into fights really quickly. It’s a simple result of supply and demand (too many surfers, not enough waves)
To gain respect and stand out in a high performance environment like our home break required skill, commitment, consistency, and the ability to work your way into the scene. In fact, it is this combination of factors that helped me later craft a message I now share with a lot of our clients, that being;
Success is not so much about who you know, it’s about who knows YOU.
Getting waves on the good days was directly correlated to
your standing within this pecking order. This isn’t unique, it’s something you’ll see at a lot of surf spots around the world and I’m sure it’s a similar case in other sports as well to some degree. Your crew, the people in your network matter and will directly influence your ability to succeed.
I’ll close the loop to my opening quote and then proceed to connect the dots on the lesson to be learned here as I know the dynamics of surfing was probably not something you expected to read about in the pages of the Digest. There are applicable insights coming, stay with me…
By the time I was in my late teens I had paid my dues, put in the time and worked my way into the pack that would be considered “the best guys in the water”. Didn’t matter the size of the crowd, I felt confident and in my element. To correlate this to business, the equivalent would be walking out on stage to give a presentation and just feeling totally at ease and that you’d crush it, or jumping on a sales call and knowing to your core that you had total control of the conversation. A place where you’ve put in so many reps, so many hours that you’re just in flow and the thought of risk or failure barely even crosses your mind.
This can feel great right?! I’m sure you can identify instances in your own life where you’ve felt this state of calm confidence even within circumstances where others feel uncomfortable. It’s usually the result of finding that blend between enough practice and natural ability, it's just in your DNA - literally.
This is where I found myself in the waves and amongst the best surfers in town, just comfortable and in my element. I would never claim to be the best, certainly not the case - but I belonged and was confident that I had reached a peak state of performance. Until my first trip to Hawaii…
There’s a 7 mile stretch of reef and sand along the North Shore of Oahu that is perfectly situated in the Pacific Ocean to receive a large volume of the biggest winter swells. From around October to February each year, the place essentially becomes Mecca for the best surfers on the planet, and quickly turns the small island into a literal stadium like environment for some of the biggest waves in the world. Many of which break in only 3-5 feet of water over bone-breaking reefs. Case in point - it’s gnarly.
Despite the years of experience and a lot of preparation for the trip, nothing could have prepared me for the reality of what it was like to paddle out at Pipeline for the first time, a
spot that until then I had only watched in videos and seen in the magazines.
Jumping into the water for that first session was intense. It took only a few seconds to realize that the power of the current and the amount of water moving across the reef was not like any thing I’d experienced at home. The immediate primal focus on survival was tangible and as I made it out to the lineup where everyone was positioning to catch the waves - it became very obvious that what was considered “high performance” back home was barely on the radar here.
ronments is still better than excelling within the doldrums of mediocrity. This exact topic came up today on one of our weekly calls inside LaunchKit, our online ecosystem of calls, community, and curriculum for people launching new businesses around their intellectual property and area of expertise.
Just trying to position for waves amongst all the locals and pros while not getting annihilated by bigger sets that would occasionally break farther out to sea was enough to keep my heart rate ramped up - but to do all that, catch a wave and ride it well? It’s just on another level. I was able to get a couple decent ones, but it was very humbling. That night laying in bed all I could think about was how big of a gap there was between the skills I had and what this new “arena” required.
What we consider difficult, challenging, or even dangerous, is simply relative to our current level of experience and exposure.
Over the years I’ve found many parallels from my time in the water and the process of building and operating businesses. The need for reading the environment (ocean), positioning yourself to benefit from the movements in the market (waves), and the importance of adapting your strategy to accommodate for these variables (surfboard)... it all translates.
Amongst all of the analogous connections, the one that I wanted to share with you the most here is the importance of placing ourselves into high performance environments. Specifically exposing ourselves to situations that require a higher caliber of skill and pace. This is absolutely paramount for growth. So much so that I’d even challenge you by saying;
If you haven't fallen down or felt the disorientation that comes from being outside your comfort zone recently… you’re not trying hard enough.
It is in these awkward and even painful moments that we find new levels of growth, new abilities, and new levels of
On the call, one of the clients was asking about their direct outreach strategy and more specifically about the number of messages and posts they were putting out into the marketplace each day. My answer is always the same - “you need to increase the volume of messages and outreaches you are doing per day by multiple orders of magnitude”. It’s an issue that comes up a lot, and what I’ve found over the years in helping clients is that they’ve simply never experienced a high performance environment like we have inside our consultancy.
What we consider “on pace” in terms of the volume of content, calls, posts, products, emails, DMs that we produce here as a team is quite literally 20-50X (or more) than what most people would consider “high performance”. We do this because we are collectively obsessed with providing value to our market and earning the trust of our ICP (ideal client profile) This doesn't happen with a single ad or even a two week-long email sequence. It takes time and focused energy. Taylor often talks about the importance of not just focusing on getting the market’s attention, but keeping it by providing legitimate and actionable value.
Whether you operate with a multi-person team or as a solopreneur, the concept remains the same. You must systematize, plan, and execute the sharing of your message - at scale, and at a pace that is aligned with your expectations for results.
It doesn’t matter how great our products or services are if no one knows about them, and it’s not our market's responsibility to find out about us.
What used to work - eventually will experience a diminishing
return on effort. Just as the ocean’s conditions are constantly changing, so too is the business landscape. Regularly review your performance metrics, be agile in your strategies, and stay attuned to the shifting needs and preferences of your market.
At the time of me writing this, we are entering into the second half of 2024. We’ve got six more months to knock out those annual goals. In other words - it’s GO TIME. Take a few minutes right now and consider where you might need to increase the standards of what “good” looks like in your own business and marketing strategy.
When I returned after those first two weeks in Hawaii, everyone at my home break noticed my performance level had increased. I didn’t have to say anything, I didn’t even think about it. It was just that what I now considered high performance had changed. The bar had been internally raised simply from having proximity to so many amazing athletes and more demanding conditions.
Do this in your own business - go visit your own version of Pipeline (metaphorically speaking). One of the best - and most fun ways is to join us at one of our in-person events that we host each month. You can get details on those at this link: wealthyconsultant.com/events
The power of proximity and being in the right environment is undeniable. Once you do, people will notice, it will resonate from you with a frequency that is literally attractive and draw your market towards you .
That said, if you have any questions or topics that you’d like to dive into further you can do that by jumping over into our new online Members Community exclusively for Digest subscribers. We also host livestream calls every Monday designed to address the mindset and skills required for optimal performance in life and business. All of it is included for free with your subscription and available here: welch.circle.so/c/members-community
Surf’s up, MW
3 ACTIONABLE QUESTIONS:
Let's actually put this into practice with these 3 simple diagnostic questions Am I consistently placing myself in high-performance environments that challenge my current abilities and push me to grow?
1
Reflect on whether you’re exposing yourself to situations and networks that demand a higher caliber of performance. Consider how you can seek out these environments to elevate your skills and standards.
How can I systematize and increase the volume of my outreach efforts to align with high-performance standards? 2
Evaluate your current marketing and outreach strategies. Identify specific ways to multiply your efforts, whether through content creation, direct messages, or engaging with your audience, to ensure you’re maintaining a pace that matches your business goals.
3
What recent experiences have pushed me outside my comfort zone, and how have they contributed to my growth?
Reflect on the last time you felt disoriented or challenged in your business. Analyze what you learned from those experiences and how you can intentionally create more opportunities for similar growth to continuously raise your performance standards.
BY TAYLOR WELCH Chief Executive Officer The Wealthy Consultant
There is a lot in this one.
But first, I need to hit you with a few announcements that are important:
• In September, we’re hosting an event on branding (you should come, it’ll be in San Diego, CA)
• In December, for our final event of the year, we’ll be in New York City; the topic is speaking & mastering human connection from stage.
Last year I hosted a speaking event and it changed my career. I am bringing in the same trainer who ran the event last year. There were less than 10 people at the event… it was designed to be small and intimate. This one will be a bit larger, but just as powerful.
sulting industry, as you know, is currently at a $2.9 billion dollar market cap with an expected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.8%. It’s expected to reach nearly $4 billion by 2031. As education drifts from traditional education (collegiate institutions) to more accessible means (aka online education, training, consulting) the CAGR will probably get even higher.
College institutions are fracturing due to the student debt crisis (amongs other issues). The prestige of our long standing franchises and institutions is diminishing. More and more, people are turning to more applicable tools — more specific tools — such as online courses and remote training environments.
Whenever more money flows into a sector, more regulation is sure to follow. Learning how to pay attention to incentives can make you rich; the world is incentivizing education regardless of where it’s coming from.
“Power unleashes the potential of the masses by directing them toward the accomplishment of highly complex purposes that require the coordinated effort of many individuals with varying talents and contributions. Those with the most power — whether it be in the form of money, knowledge, or interpersonal resources — will be the most prominent figures in the political, social and economic environment.” -Talzoya
There is a street in London’s financial district called “Lombard” street, named after the famous financier Lombard family. At one point, the British were so archaic with their financial system that they depended on foreign lenders just to get basic costs covered for the country. They learned quickly, though, and by the 19th century London was the world’s financial capital.
America, although foundering at first, took the baton during the industrial revolution. As of today, the USA hasn’t given up the throne. But things are changing. A month or so ago the Saudi Arabian government canceled the agreement to trade in US currency. The petrodollar has been the governing ‘backstop’ of monetary policy for a long time. Superpowers are deviating from the United States. Brics was introduced as a way to get OUT of US sanctions and reinsert their dominance into global financial policy.
What does this have to do with consulting?
Quite a lot, actually. Things are getting interesting. The con-
Regulation became a real thing in 1934. Congress, at the peak of the depression, decided that the collapse could have been avoided. They introduced the Securities Exchange Act and the SEC was created. The FTC actually predates the SEC, founded in 1914 — initially deployed in the “trust bust” era. It was created to deal with the monopolies (thank you John D. Rockefeller).
Since then, regulatory agencies have grown in power. Some would say they’ve grown too much. But that, also, is changing.
About a month ago the Supreme Court reversed the “Chevron deferrment.” I’ll explain what that means later, but the gist is simple: we are in a giant pendulum swing. It’s not just the economy. It runs much deeper than that. We are in an economic climate that has been built up on stilts, and the giant tower seems to be losing its foundation.
This issue will show you how to play it (and what to pay attention to)
Why Centralization Exists
It would be a mistake to read what I’m not saying. I am not saying that regulation is bad. In fact, it’s very useful. For something to get “big,” it has to be regulated to some extent. To quote Thomas Sowell:
“Third-world countries, but also some countries in the former Communist bloc of nations in Eastern Europe, have yet to develop the kinds of sophisticated financial institutions which promote economic
development. They may now have capitalism, but they have not yet developed the financial institutions that would mobilize capital on a scale found in Western European countries and their overseas offshoots, such as the United Sates.
It is not that the wealth is not there in less developed economies. The problem is that their wealth cannot be collected from innumerable small sources, concentrated, and then allocated in large amounts to particular entrepreneurs, without financial institutions equal to the complex task of evaluating risks, markets, and rates of return.”
It is impossible to produce a return on resources if there is no GOVERNANCE regarding how to treat those resources. The problem occurs when things are governed by people who have no idea what they’re doing.
When a professor who’s never owned a business is teaching business & entrepreneurship principles, you have breakage. When a regulator has never invested — or worse, invested on insider information and used their seat to gain unfair advantage — you have breakage. Biases swing both ways, and the USA is in a precarious situation.
The overwhelming culture of the citizenry is motivated to push the pendulum back the other direction. For instance, the widespread response to the Chevron deferrment being overruled was positive. The Chevron deferrment, in a nutshell, said this: “The best people to interpret the law are the regulatory agencies. Therefore a court MUST defer to the bureaus and cannot weigh in on what the law is saying or not saying.”
Well, that doesn’t sound fair, does it?
If a regulatory agency decides they want to go after somebody, they can “interpret” the law however they want and force the court to honor it. The Supreme Court (the highest of 3 courts in the USA) said “Nope. That’s not how it works.” Power is being restructured. A lot of our readership is from other places than America, but here is what you should keep in mind: the central banks and regulator agencies loosely stick together.
If the Federal Reserve changes rates, the European Central Bank typically follows a quarter or two behind (and vice versa, but most of them defer to the Federal Reserve for reasons I discussed earlier)
If you layer on top of this the fact that liquidity is being sucked
out of the market and people are struggling to afford basics and necessities due to inflation, you have a nice picture of what the next six months are going to look like.
Chaos.
Oh, also, we’re in an election year. More chaos.
Attention is a highly-contended commodity and is getting more expensive by the year. NOW, though, it is even more expensive. This is why old ads don’t work and the model of “turn & burn client acquisition” is slowly bankrupting companies in the training sector. The year 2024 has seen more bankruptcies than Covid-19 did. If you sell to enterprise clients, you have to look at their P&Ls and balance sheets. A lot of them are publicly traded so the information is readily available. Here’s what they are saying: customers are not spending money.
So how do you combat this?
In a word, fractionalization. Fractionalization and a bit of an adjustment towards expectations. Let’s work through it.
Thriving Forward
I was on a coaching call last week and we had a problem to solve for someone.
They are operating an “ascension model.” I hate ascension models. An ascension model is where you make money from someone; but them getting their money’s worth sort of requires them to pay you extra to get to the next thing. Guess who else hates ascension models? The FTC.
Anyways…
This client has been with us for about 15 months and they have a wonderful small business doing ~$3 million a year. But the founder got extremely busy. In an attempt to make his business more profitable, he added a “back end” program. This was advised by someone who used to work for me. It’s not always a bad idea. In fact, it’s almost always a great idea if you live in the year 2016. But times are different now. The way I prefer to build business models is eliminating NEED from the business.
If you need more clients right now, you are at risk.
If you need more profit right now, you are at risk.
If you need a position filled, you are at risk.
When we need something ASAP, it tempts us to cut corners. You’ve experienced this: you hire the wrong person because you just needed someone to fill the role. You oversold someone because you just needed to hit your numbers. The business model can protect you from these risks.
This client changed the price of his main product and added an “ascension” product behind it. This was several months ago. He had another mentor who gave him some advice for his sales team. It was great advice if you were building a business in 2018, but it’s not effective anymore.
Ironically enough, both people who gave him the advice were either employees of ours or they were clients. Doesn’t much matter, they learned something when it was brand new and
have built empires on them. But the advice is no longer effective.
So we have a situation that needs to be fixed and quickly:
• Ascension model is causing pressure on “client services” (because they aren’t sales people and it feels weird having to deliver & upgrade / sell at the same time)
• Sales model isn’t effective (comp is wrong, meeting structure is wrong, and systems aren’t scaling)
Easy fixes.
But the harder fix, the much larger fix is this: take advice from the frontrunners not the follow uppers. I deal with this too, occasionally. It’s a nonstop job to “vet” and sift who you are taking important advice from. There’s nothing inherently wrong with any one piece of information (unless it’s illegal). The problem is when you’re taking bits and pieces from outdated models that layer up for cumulative damage.
My businesses operate under a simple premise: the passage of time, all by itself, makes us more money & more happy. This is not the case for most entrepreneurial ventures. I know you’re wanting the ‘secret’ to how to do this, but there are 25 secrets and all of them have years of ‘data’ that make them agile.
I cannot tell you what to do or when or how without data. That is largely why we exist as a company. Besides being a media company, a training company, and a consulting company, we are a trends & data organization. A few months ago I tested a new approach to client retention. Here’s what I found: it didn’t work. No noticeable movement up or down on retention.
You’re paying for that.
The ideas that are passed along are sound because they are tested in the marketplace and we only share what works.
For the record, there are several places you can access bits and pieces of these tools:
• Revolving Price Method (book/pamphlet)
• Offer Design Toolkit (book/pamphlet)
• The Wealthy Consultant book (on Amazon)
• Winning At Sales book (on Amazon)
• A large suite of products and events where we teach this stuff
Stay with me, because this is setting up something very important.
Fractionalization means taking pieces of your expertise and dispensing it to the market for smaller amounts of money. If you sell a $10,000 program, try taking a few sessions (maybe coaching calls), writing up a report on them, and bundling it together for $9, or $19, or $25. There is pricing strategy involved, but nothing that I’m going to teach you here. It’s too in-depth for the pages we have left.
What this fractionalization does is simple: it injects momentum. And you need momentum.
“Taylor, this sounds harder than making a new VSL.”
Fine, go broke then. Whatever floats your boat. You should be working twice as hard right now to KEEP clients than you’ve ever worked to GET them, anyways… (Mike’s book, “The Exceptional Experience” on Amazon is a GREAT tool for that)
My point is, when velocity and liquidity go down, you need to meet the market where they are. This is why we just did the Customer Acquisition workshop. The way we GET customers is important (mostly because it’s compliant and I haven’t seen anybody running compliant advertising lately)
Next: expectations.
Let me share a quote with you that is appropriate for this phase in the game:
"Work at it, if necessary, early and late, in season and out of season, not leaving a stone unturned, and never deferring for a single hour that which can be done just as well now. The old proverb is full of truth and meaning, 'Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well.' Many a man acquires a fortune by doing his business thoroughly, while his neighbor remains poor for life, because he only half does it. Ambition, energy, industry, perseverance, are indispensable requisites for success in business."
P.T. Barnum wrote this.
Why am I sharing it now?
Because I’m noticing a lot of entrepreneurs burning themselves
out right now. They are being transactional. You need to find your purpose. Today, before I sat down to write this, I had a half-day of Power Sessions. Marketing is not my #1 talent — the mind is. I can connect the mind, spirit, and emotions all together and I can do it quickly. Call it a God-given gift.
These Power Sessions are designed to help our members and clients get unstuck quickly (without having to revisit old trauma to do it). I can tell you this: the energy is volatile right now. I’m talking about the globe… everyone.
When you wire something correctly, it works. When there’s broken wiring — even if you’re growing — you feel “off.” These messages come in all the time.
I teach this framework (teaching it in October in detail) that there are three frames you must be able to get in and out of.
• The Monster
• The Magician
• The Hero
They all think differently. If you get stuck in one or the other you will be unable to function appropriately for what your business needs in the moment. If you’re interested, fill out a form and we’ll get back to you with details: WealthyConsultant.com/events
I’m out of room, see you in a few weeks.
- T
FOR HIGH PERFORMERS
I recently read a brilliant article by a guy named Ben Hardy about ‘leveling up.’ We’ve watched thousands of entrepreneurs plug into our process and level up QUICKLY and I found myself nodding my head while reading this article because it’s so true...
KNOWING what’s coming, in some way, helps you navigate correctly. Keep this checklist around so you know when you start “losing your mind,” you’re probably just going to another level ;)
- Taylor Welch
You’ll feel numb to what used to inspire you (human beings must be inspired by what’s out IN FRONT of them — not what they’ve already achieved)
You’ll start going through the motions and continue to succeed — but it won’t be as enjoyable (boredom) 7 You’ll start making uncharacteristic mistakes — and you won’t be bothered (identity has shifted and your eye’s on the prize: what’s next)
Countless opportunities present themselves — distractions (ignore them)
You’ll be faced with a crucial decision (do I jump fully in or not?)
You’ll need to adjust—what got you here won’t get you THERE
You’ll need to recommit
You’ll quickly adapt to your new lessons — growth will come shockingly fast (the “outside” catches up to all the change that’s been happening “inside”)
You’ll learn to enjoy it (true sign of maturity is ENJOYING the process)
BY DANE MOHRMANN
Earlier this month we released Taylor’s brand new book, “Winning At Sales: How to Get So Good People Say ‘Thank You’ for Letting Them Buy.”
If you haven’t picked it up yet, just go to Amazon and get your digital copy for 99¢.
Throughout the book, we dropped QR codes, and those QR codes take you to a page where you can register your purchase and collect over 20 hours of free bonus content in return.
Now, if this is all sounding like one giant pitch so far, don’t worry - I’m actually making a point.
Within 24 hours of the launch, we started seeing messages like this inside of our FB group:
That last one was from a member of our team here at Wealthy Consultant. Even THEY were shocked by what we were giving away.
I call this “Asymmetric Value Exchange” - when there is a recognition on the part of the market that they are getting much more value from you than what they paid you for.
This is one of the single most important things that your marketing must do if you intend to stay competitive over the next 9 months to a year.
You might have heard the assertion that “transactional marketing is dead” and that relationship-based marketing is the new frontier. Never has that been more true than in our current moment of economic turbulence.
When your financial situation is threatened or feels uncertain, you constrict your buying behavior. To put it simply, you become self-centered. I don’t mean this in a negative way - I simply mean that you start making all of your buying decisions through the lens of self preservation (or the preservation of those immediately closest to you).
For the average consumer, this means that they fall back to buying from ONLY a very small group of brands that they know, like, and trust. In other words - brands they have a RELATIONSHIP with.
So, therein lies the challenge of the modern marketer in 2024 (and the foreseeable future) - “How can I get more of my market to engage in a relationship with me if they don’t already have one?”
In my humble opinion, there really is no better way on the face of this planet than to create products that trigger an asymmetric value exchange.
This does four things simultaneously:
• Increases conversion percentage
• Builds trust with your market quickly
• Sets the tone of the relationship - creates an expectation that whenever they pay you (whether in time, attention or money) you will always deliver above the level of their investment
• Helps create repeat customers who buy again and again (raving fans)
Leveraging this properly creates goodwill with your market, and goodwill can be turned into $$ if you’re smart (and a little patient)
A Word on Creating Products
In full transparency, I don’t know where you are in your marketing journey. Maybe you’ve got enough IP that you can begin fractionalizing and creating front end products and generating customers. Maybe you’re still dialing in your offer and aren’t quite ready for something that robust.
If that’s the case, save this article and refer to it later. Because what I’m about to share with you is GOLD if you’re at the right stage to capitalize on it.
Every front end marketing product designed to generate customers for your business has three distinct components.
• A benefit
• A mechanism
• A cost
A benefit is the problem that the offer solves for the marketthe “what.”
The mechanism is the repeatable process by which that benefit is achieved - the “how.”
The cost is the investment required from the market to unlock the benefit and mechanism - the “how much.”
(NOTE: Not all “cost” is monetary. Taylor taught on this in a recent Digest article, but there are actually 3 currenciestime, attention, and money. One of the reasons I believe that front end products and customer generation is the path to
sustainability for your business is because it is one of the only marketing plays that allows you to capture all three at once.)
If you think of asymmetric value as a set of scales (like the ones you use to compare the weights of two things), on the “customer” side of the scales you have the benefit and the mechanism… on the “marketer” side, you have the cost.
When the benefit and mechanism outweigh the cost, you’ve achieved asymmetric value.
Triggering Asymmetric Value Exchange
This is precisely why the “Winning at Sales” book got such a positive response right out of the gate.
The cost to purchase the book at launch was just 99¢. So, right off the bat, it wasn’t too difficult to weight the scales in the favor of the purchaser. It’s such an inoffensive price point.
But we took it several steps further. And that was where the magic happened.
The benefit is “improving your ability to sell your products and services to your ideal clientele” - succinct and simple.
The mechanism in this case is actually two-fold. The book is piece number one - you read the collected frameworks and lessons that Taylor has put together from over a decade of selling high ticket programs and building/managing lethal sales teams.
The bonus library is piece number two - getting to actually see and hear what the principles in the book sound like and look like when they are being executed properly. Hours of advanced call breakdowns, sales clinics, and mindset trainings. It’s one thing
to read about these frameworks. It’s a completely different thing to hear the nuance in it, and to actually see it done.
This is what pushed people over the edge and triggered that asymmetric value exchange.
The trick here is not in simply “giving away the farm” with every product you create. We don’t want to cannibalize your IP. Rather, you want to find the thing that pushes the perceived value of your product over the edge - and then just keep pushing a little further beyond that.
A creative way that you can do this is to intentionally make the bonuses more valuable than the core product you’re selling.
Example: Most people selling a course or mini-course as their low ticket product, will make one of their bonuses something tactile. A calculator, a spreadsheet, a wiki, or dashboard of some sort. Something that pushes the value of the course just a little further.
But, a quick and easy way to trigger asymmetric value exchange might be to test selling the tactile thing as the core product, and making the course the bonus. Arguably, a course showing them what to do and how to do it is more valuable than a calculator or dashboard - so if you get them sold on the idea of getting something like a calculator… and then you deliver a dense, value-heavy course for FREE as a bonus, the perceived value of the entire package shoots through the roof.
Remember, a move like this is designed to do 4 things - increase conversions, generate trust, set the tone of the relationship, and create happy, repeat customers.
But, there’s one additional “net” result that I haven’t discussed yet.
Unharvested Goodwill
In my article from last month’s Digest, I talked about the responsibilities of Marketing. One of those responsibilities is “stewarding and enriching the reputation of the brand.”
The most powerful tool of a truly exceptional brand is not sexy logos and graphics. It’s not clever or compelling copy. It’s not a bad ass funnel. All of those things are great.
The number one tool at the disposal of any good brand is unharvested goodwill.
To put it more plainly, the amount of investment you’ve made in your audience without asking for something in return.
Think of it kind of like a bank account. Every value-driven piece of content, product, training, event, etc - that is weighted heavily in the favor of the MARKET - is a deposit in that account.
The more you can build up that account by pouring into the market consistently (aka showing up daily and giving value), the more unharvested goodwill you have.
Players at the very top understand this better than anyone. Why do you think people still talk about Alex Hormozi’s “100M Leads” launch? He expertly leveraged asymmetric value exchange to create goodwill that he could harvest later. And the market went bananas over it (rightfully so).
Once you’ve poured in so much that the dam is practically about to burst, a well-timed “ask” can open the floodgates.
Hope this helps you.
Dane
725 COOL SPRINGS SUITE 600 FRANKLIN, TN 37064
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