You've probably heard that a "product is not the same as an offer." Ok fine... So what is an offer? How do you define it for yourself?

Today, I sent a handraiser email. I ended the email asking folks to answer yes or no about their interest in a thing I'm hoping to put together next year: a multi-week workshop which should help them be a better writer. And I got some 20+ replies in affirmative. Considering I have a few thousand subscribers, 20 is a relatively small number. However, this is the third day I asked my subscribers to reply with a yes or no about this workshop... and it's only today that I got double-digit responses. On day-one, I got 1 response. Yesterday, I got 3 responses. But it was only today that I got 20+ replies. And I have no freakin' idea why. For example, yesterday's email that got 3 replies had more reasons for people to reply. My angle was that better writing can help people make more money. I even prepared receipts. And considering I'm in the make-money space, I figured it would get the most traction... but naah. Today's email, in comparison, had zero incentives... it was just a silly story. Not even that well executed, if I'm being honest. It was one of those days... I didn't know what to write, so I ended up rushing it, and sent it late.... And yet, somehow this one worked.... So yeah, anyway... clueless as I am, I figure this is reason enough to celebrate. This is the email in question if anyone's curious.

Here's my reality right now. I'm a little sick of selling courses. Maybe it's reading a recent email from Nick Bandy where he went on and on and on about how, in short, courses suck... But I realized that I myself haven't been selling courses much as of late... even though until a couple of years ago, that was my biggest earner. I also realize that I have a hard time working with clients for DFY stuff. So... what's the middle of DFY and a course? I have landed on a multi-week cohort type of thing... but people love novelty and a change of pace... so I'm wondering what else to sell that's neither a course, nor a DFY service... Any ideas? Please share, and maybe this will help you come up with ideas for your own offers, too.

Someone mentioned this in here the other day, and weirdly enough, it came up as an objection on a sales call I had last week. (Which actually led to a pretty big upsell.) See, this is a common problem for anyone selling INFO, coaching, courses or consulting. I call it the 3 levels of trust. 1. They trust YOU. 2. They trust your PROCESS. 3. They trust THEMSELVES to actually do the work and get the result. And here's the problem... Most experts have levels 1 and 2 in spades. You've got testimonials, case studies up the wazoo and a well documented process. But level 3? That's where a lot of sales fall apart. People don't trust themselves to implement what you're selling. And they're probably right to be concerned. Maybe they're already running a busy business, looking after the kids, and finding even 30 minutes a day is a PITA. Maybe there's one part of your process that creates a load of friction. Maybe they've bought 6 courses before and never finished any of them. Or maybe they're scared. Let's be honest, doing something new is uncomfortable. You have to go through that awkward stage where you're rubbish at something before you get any good at it (thanks dunning Kruger) And if your process involves putting yourself out there, talking to strangers or risking rejection? Good luck 😂 So what's a lowly INFO seller to do? Well, instead of trying to convince people they'll be able to implement... Why not make it ridiculously easy for them to actually do it? Here's a real example from one of my offers. I help people sell more stuff through conversations. Now, you'd think the hardest part would be knowing what to say to close a sale. Nope. For most people, it's sending that FIRST message. They're terrified of what people might say back and whether they'll know how to respond. I could give them a script, a few templates and tell them to get cracking. But I know what would happen. Some would do it. Most would procrastinate, overthink every word and eventually do nothing.

I have influence on my mind today. I recently had a business owner say a couple of nice things about me... they didn't write a long email or anything... simply a tiny endorsement inside a community, a repost of one of my posts, a comment on my LinkedIn post... And in each of those scenarios, I got people... strangers... pay me a couple of hundred bucks each right away. Now that's some leverage! Most of us have some level of leverage over our own audience. John's recommendation is HUGE, for example (evidence: $31,000 auction win for John's endorsement) Daniel Throssell famously never lost an affiliate contest (aside from that one time he lost to Ian Stanley, but never since) So, I'm wondering... what are your thoughts on building up such huge influence over an audience? Yes, daily emails help. Your personality is a factor. But what else? As is usually the case, I'm collecting ideas. So if you have any, share with us and maybe we can all build up our influence a bit more.