A few weeks into this deal, the guy with the audience messaged me. Not with a pitch. He asked ME to send over the comp plan. He wanted me to name my terms. You asked for Part 3, so let's finish the story. Recap: I found the whale (Part 1). Next, I stayed a peer, not a buyer (Part 2). Then he walked me into his clients. So what did I put in front of them? Here's where the deal sometimes goes south. Folks lead with the price. "It's $5k, plus..." And the partner's brain runs the math. Cost. 📈 Risk. 📈 What if it flops? 😳 If there's any potential they end up with egg on their face? The deal is dead on arrival. So, I did the opposite. I pulled every reason that made him look bad off the table: >> "Since he's one of your [clients], I'll fund 100% of the test myself. >> No retainer. No cash upfront. >> Normally it's a $5k setup, the bot build, the tech, all of it. I'll cover it. >> We test on 1,000 of his dead leads. I only get paid on the backend, a cut of the sales my AI actually brings in. >> Zero downside for him [his client]." Now, "I'll cover the $5k" sounds generous. It isn't. Here's what's actually happening behind the scenes: my machine was already built. The bot, the workflows, the AI logic, all of it sitting on my server, ready. So funding the test costs me almost nothing ( I may be out a few pennies in tokens). Now, I'm not **really** risking $5k. I'm spinning up something that already exists and aiming it at his dead leads. That's LEVERAGE. When the machine is already built, "I'll cover it" isn't a risk...It's the cheapest yes you'll ever buy. What do you think happened? He took it to his clients. They said GIMME GIMME GIMME! Then came the message from the top of this post. >> "Hit me back on your proposed comp plan. How's that look, since you're paid on backend results?"

You asked for Part 2. Here it is. Quick recap: I found the whale. Opened with a genuine question about HIS world. No pitch. And instead of me chasing him... HE came back and asked ME: >> "Are you looking for lead gen at scale? What verticals?" Now here's the fork in the road. Most people fist-pump and go "YES! sign me up." And just like that, they're a customer. A small one. Hat in hand, one-down. I did the opposite. Here's my actual reply (and yeah, I waited a few days first, on purpose): >> "Hey man, sorry for the slow reply. Was at the lake house with the fam, barely any cell service (sometimes that's a good thing lol). >> I'd love to learn more about your program. >> I've got biz partners in a few verticals (like solar) looking for legit lead gen for their in-house teams. >> What verticals do you serve?" Three quiet moves in there: ✅ I wasn't in a rush. Days later, lake house, no big deal. Abundance, not "please pick me." ✅ I didn't take the buyer seat. I mentioned my partners. Now I'm not a guy who wants to buy leads... I'm a guy who could send him clients. ✅ I handed the question back. "What verticals do you serve?" Now I'm sizing HIM up. What came back? He listed every vertical he serves. Solar, roofing, insurance, mortgage, the works. Then offered to send me his calendar. He's now selling ME on his program AND booking the meeting. The buyer became the seller. Because I never sat in the buyer's chair. Real quick, before you run with this: That "I've got partners in a few verticals" line? Not a flex. It was TRUE. I actually had solar partners who needed better lead gen, and I wasn't about to become a lead-gen agency myself. So I'd been out hunting for something genuinely DIFFERENT and UNIQUE, and his wasn't your average lead-gen play. It got real results. A real fit, not a line I fed him. So purrty pls don't make stuff up. If you tell a whale (or anyone) you've got people, HAVE people. An audience, a skill, one intro you can actually make.

My AI offer already worked. Only problem was the sales were coming in a little too slooowww for me. I knew I didn't have a Prahdukt problem. I had a reach problem. The people who needed my tool the most had no idea I existed. And I wanted to get in front of a bigger (warmer) market without bleeding for it. Solar companies. ☀️ A whole market of them. The grind says build a list, run ads, cold-email a hundred doors. Nah. 🙅 I went looking for the one guy who already OWNED the room. So I hopped into a few solar Facebook groups... Same name kept popping up. One "influencer" every solar owner seemed to follow. So I did my homework. 🔍 Turns out he wasn't just an influencer. He ran a data aggregation company. A whole network of lead-gen sites that funneled leads into his software, which then dispersed them to his solar clients. Read that again. ✅ He already had the audience. ✅ He already had the connections. ✅ He already had the exact companies I wanted. And here's the part most people walk right past... His business only made money when those solar companies WON. So I didn't pitch him. I partnered with him. One short coffee date and I showed him the natural fit: His lead-gen pours people in the front door ... my Database Reactivation AI works the back door. Quietly reviving the ones who slipped through. The folks who were interested once, then went cold. His whole funnel. Every leak plugged. 🚰 I proposed a risk-free, performance-based deal, so he and his clients had ZERO downside. Without missing a beat, he introduced me to 3 of his biggest clients (whales in this space). A few weeks later my AI was living in their systems, booking meetings for their reps on auto-pilot. One of those clients did $147,000 in sales in a few weeks... 🔥 from a list their reps had already talked to and given up on. My cut? $15,000. 💰 I never sent a single cold email to a solar company. I found one guy who already had the room... and we built something neither of us had alone.

Whoa. The NEER post lit up. 20-something of you raised your hand for the playbook. That one was all about the WHO. Finding the one person who already owns the room. (Travis calls it NEER.) But finding them? That's the easy part. The real question underneath all those comments... Once you find that person, how do you open the conversation without sounding like every pitch in their DMs? Because this is where it stalls. And it's not a confidence problem. The offer's great. We know it's great. It's the "WHAT do I say" to get a convo rolling... What usually happens is we spot the perfect person to get it in front of... …and then just sit on it. Because nobody wants to be another "hey, wanna collab?" in the DMs. And it's hard to see how to open it like a partnership instead of a pitch. So the message never gets sent. Here's my actual first message to the solar guy. No pitch. No "got 15 min?" No mention of my tool: >> "Hey! Just joined your group and it's 🔥. >> Haven't seen anything quite like your [ping-tree] setup for helping folks run like the big guys. >> You still running your beta program?" Then I STFU! ✅ Genuine. I actually joined, I actually dug in. ✅ Specific. I named his exact strategy. That one detail proved I did my homework, not spray-and-pray. ✅ A question about HIS world. Not mine. His. I made him the star and asked about HIS baby. He lit up like a Christmas tree. Told me all about his program, how it was "crushing." A few days later (after I ghosted him), HE sent this: >> "Are you looking for lead gen at scale? What verticals?" The guy with the audience I wanted... started pitching ME. I never pitched. I just got interesting enough that the big fish swam over. Lead with THEIR world and get specific enough to prove you've done your homework's. Ask about their baby, not the pitch. The 'pitch' takes care of itself.

Your best work already paid off... once?!? You've got a winner in the vault. The course that sold like crazy. The framework people still quote back to you. That one skill folks slide into your DMs about. It crushed. And then... you got bored and wandered off to build the next shiny thing. (At least I'm guilty...) So your proven winner just sits there. Retired. In its little robe and slippers. Sipping tea on the porch... Here's the part that bugs me: Some guy wrote one cheesy Christmas jingle in 1962 and his grandkids are STILL cashing checks off it. Your best work? I bet it's way better than that jingle. And it paid you what, one good quarter... maybe a year or two? Rude. Good news? That same proven thing can pay you more than once. Re-cut it with AI into fresh formats. It sells all over again. That's once. Hand it to a partner who's already got the crowd. Their people buy it too. Twice. Slip it into a bundle that rides other people's audiences. Thrice. Same work. Done once. Three checks. You're not creating. You're re-releasing the greatest hits. And the royalties just... show up. Uninvited. The best kind of guest. :-) So what's the hit gathering dust in your vault? . . . . PS: You might want to talk to a few Ronins.. A room full of folks with connections to audiences, hunting for good stuff to run. First seven days are on Travis, if you ever wanna poke around.