Last week, we wrapped up the The Flight Formula LIVE – an intensive, in-person, heart-centered business incubator program.
For 7 days, a small group of motivated entrepreneurs met in the mountains of Asheville to discover their gifts, activate their purpose, and build heart-centered businesses from scratch.
Jason and Asher led the way (with me providing a virtual support role from Peru) providing a truly transformative experience for all attendees.
It’s only been a few days, but the reviews are starting to roll in…
"I spent $380,000+ over 5 years and got 10% of what I needed to build a heart-centered business. I attended The Flight Formula LIVE and got the other 90%.”
- Samuel Nazar Walsh, The Flight Formula LIVE 2014 TRIBE #3
“Words fail - one of the most truly transformative, powerful and meaningful events I've ever been a part of....”
- Bruce Brodeen, The Flight Formula LIVE 2014 TRIBE #3
“There are so many people who I think would benefit from this work...I am totally inspired and grateful for the experience. All my clients and colleagues want to know about it and I tell them it totally exceeded all my expectations - WOW!”
- Ciel Walko, The Flight Formula LIVE 2014 TRIBE #3
“Wow. Just... blown away by the content of this retreat... and by the compassion-filled spirits that are joining me for the experience.”
- Lehua Kauhane, The Flight Formula LIVE 2014 TRIBE #3
These are just a few of many reviews and testimonials that are coming in.
Truly humbling to say the least.
Good question.
In a nutshell, we focus on:
Inside to out; Gift to service.
Not many business incubator programs work this way….actually, none do (that I know of).
All other business incubator programs start with an unmet need in the market.
This is great.
It helps focus our solutions on a real problem (not something we created in our own heads that doesn’t really exist).
But it also misses a fundamental piece of the pie…
Your gift.
What you can give and how you can serve best.
That’s what’s different about The Flight Formula:
We start with the person, his or her gift, and design and implement a way for that gift to serve others in the marketplace.
And today, I want to share with you the 11 step formula we built for The Flight Formula to create transformational change in our students and help them launch heart-centered businesses.
My hope is that these 11 steps will help you create the same transformation in your own life and business.
*note: if you like this post, shoot me a tweet and let me know [click to tweet me!!]
Let’s get to it:
There’s no such thing as a heart-centered business if the founder doesn’t understand his or her gift, purpose, and story.
Every heart-centered business starts with a powerful purpose explained through an equally powerful story. And the founders of heart-centered businesses are people who lean into their gifts.
The discovery of your gift, purpose, and story is something that takes quite a bit of time if you’re doing it on your own.
But if you create a safe container or safe space – a tight-knit group of people with shared core values, in an equally safe environment free of criticism – you can multiply and magnify your results in a fraction of the time.
We built this safe space into The Flight Formula as a core, foundational component of our program.
You can develop the same “safe space” into your group, organization, or program. All it takes is a cooperative group to sit down and set expectations from day one and hold everyone accountable to the same standards (no criticism, no judgement; just pure focus on gift, purpose, and story).
Like clockwork, once someone has discovered his or her unique gift, purpose, and story, a set of mental roadblocks emerge from who-knows-where.
And so on.
These limiting beliefs are deep-rooted and generally only expose themselves when under attack (I’ve written about this a few times before).
This is the enemy, of course, and while we rationally understand why the enemy is wrong…the excuses can seem so real.
Like discovering your gifts, purpose, and story, breaking through limiting beliefs is hard to do by yourself.
It’s much more effective when you have unconditional support from a tight-knit group who share the same values (and are at a similar stage). Coaches and mentors at this stage are invaluable and can speed up the process dramatically.
Once you’ve overcome the mental hurdles of why you can’t succeed (be honest, we all experience this), it’s time to focus on who you’ll serve.
The people you decide to serve are your target market or target audience.
I personally prefer the term “who am I serving” versus target market or target audience simply because it is much more tangible and visceral for me to think of the people and individuals I can directly serve…it’s just much more human for me than target market or target audience.
That said: different strokes for different folks, so think of it whichever way you prefer.
Regardless, the people you serve or your target market are the people that need your gift and who, if presented and approached the right way, will happily pay you for it.
Step 4 is all about clarifying your offer to the people you’re serving.
This is the part people mess up on…a lot.
Just because you have a gift for playing Halo or drinking craft beer or playing dodgeball (guilty on all accounts) doesn’t mean that it’s something that can serve others…
Whatever your gift, you need to set it in the context of a need that must be met.
In other words: what is the transformation your gift is making in another person’s life?
This transformation must be specific, applicable, believable, and something the person wants and would pay money for.
How do we frame the transformation?
It’s all about outcomes.
Here’s a quote from James Gibson of The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception that helped me better understand the transformation process (and how to frame it):
“What we perceive when we look at objects are their affordances, not their qualities. We can discriminate the dimensions of difference if required to do so in an experiment, but what the object affords us is what we normally pay attention to.”
We don’t look at grass and think about color, saturation, length, whatever.
We think: that’s a nice spot to lay (because it looks soft), or: that’s a nice spot to grow something (because it looks fertile)…
Affordances NOT qualities…
Or to translate:
OUTCOMES (benefits) not features…
At this point, you’ve got to bring your gifts in alignment with those you’re serving. The fastest, most effective way is to start with a mini-transformation.
What is a mini-transformation?
It’s a simple solution to a problem that positively changes the person you’re serving (your target audience).
The point of a mini-transformation isn’t to be groundbreaking, but to build trust with the people you intend to serve.
After all, who do we follow / believe in / want to be like?
Those people who demonstrate they are capable of doing (or being) what we want to do (or be).
Can you fix just one small problem your target audience has? Of course you can.
(and if the answer is: I’m not sure what problems they have, engage with them: they’ll be happy to tell you)
This step is all about connecting your gift, the most beautiful part of YOU, to the offer and how you can best serve others.
Simple – not easy.
What do the people you intend to serve want?
What are they willing to pay for?
It’s not good enough to say “I have this problem, so I’m going to build a solution for it.”
I interviewed Andrew Warner of Mixergy for the next issue of Bootstrapped (the magazine formerly known as The Creative Entrepreneur) coming out this July, and one of the most powerful things he said was to NOT try to solve our own problems. Andrew has interviewed over 1,000 entrepreneurs, CEO’s, and business owners from across the world. He’s had access to some of the sharpest minds in the world.
So when he gives business advice, it’s best to listen up.
Don’t try to solve your own problem. Get to know the audience you want to serve, find out THEIR problems, and find out what solutions they would pay for. This is called product/market fit.
Identifying product/market fit isn’t rocket science, but it can be uncomfortable.
*note: if you’re an entrepreneur / artist / writer (or aspiring to be any of those): get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
At this point, you do not want to build anything. You simply want to wireframe a solution to a particular problem that your target audience said they would pay for.
In order to build out the wireframe (and, for the record, that is the ONLY thing you’re building at this stage – just a rough draft / outline / wireframe), we need to take the feedback from our target audience and mold it into the product or service they said they would pay for.
Wireframing your flagship product is not done in isolation.
You must continue to go back to the people you’ve initiated contact with (the people in your target audience who you listened to and engaged with in step 6) to develop the idea into something worthwhile.
Remember: Creation does not exist in a vacuum.
Use your potential and future customers for help in building what will be a solution to their problems (I promise they will help).
Once you’ve gone through a few iterations with your target audience to develop the product or service wireframe, it’s time to sell.
If you’ve been communicating with the people you intend to serve throughout this entire process, getting presales will be easier than you think.
Why?
Because you’ve built trust with them and you’re providing a solution to a problem they said they would pay you for.
Simple, right??
These are the people that will buy your product or service on proof of concept alone (in other words: they are your early adopters).
*p.s. you have to actually sell your product or service at this stage – that means real money in your pocket (doesn’t matter what your mom thinks of your product at this stage unless she’s putting money down for the first version)
This is an ongoing process and if you want to build a business that sticks around, you must continually learn, improve, and evolve.
Remember what I said about antifragile businesses – business success isn’t about the best products or the greatest profit. Success in business = survival.
By continuing to grow from the feedback you receive from your target audience, by continuing to build better versions of what they ask for, and by being able to pivot or change direction if necessary, you increase your chances of survival (and this is all that counts).
By now, you’ve connected with and built trust with your target audience, you’ve built out a wireframe that your audience is willing to pay you for, and you’ve taken additional feedback to develop and improve the initial concept.
Now it’s time to launch.
Launching isn’t the simplest process – there are quite a number of variables to launch a product the right way, especially if you use an upside-down sales funnel like we did with The Flight Formula.
That said, by the time you get to this point, if you’ve done everything else right, you’ll be able to leverage your early adopters (the ones that bought on proof of concept, remember?) to be your most effective promoters and marketers of your product.
While not recommended, if this small group is all you can leverage to expand distribution of your product or service, it will suffice for now.
*note: I’m writing a book on how to validate a business idea, assemble a team, and ship a collaborative project to market (complete with how to nail a big launch for your product or service).
Get Early Access to My New Book: COMMAND
For The Flight Formula, we started with a very expensive, premium product.
While Pay What You Want, the nature of the program being at a particular place and time meant it was inaccessible to some people.
Once we successfully launched the in-person incubator, the next step was to build out another solution that was accessible to a wider audience.
A lot of businesses start with a small sale and upsell from there (like a $39 eBook to a $399 course to a $2000 whatever).
We decided to go the opposite way, starting at the top and working our way down. This gave us more working capital and validated that what we were creating was a true need in the market.
At this point, we’re developing an online incubator program which we’re getting ready to launch in a couple days (a couple spots are available but we close up shop Monday night – if you’re interested, go here).
In the future, we can continue to build out even simpler and less expensive options for those interested in the same transformation but with limited time or funds (for example: a DIY course with all the core elements, but completely self-guided and self-paced).
The key here is to continue to find and fill unserved needs in the marketplace. You can do this by looking at income level (less expensive or more expensive products or services will attract different audiences), time (people with more or less time on their hands want different solutions), or any other number of variables.
So that’s The Flight Formula in summary form.
Of course, there’s a lot more that goes into anything that creates real transformation (like people, mentorship, one-on-one time, space, access to the tools, strategies, techniques of the best in the industry, etc.), but I hope this gives you a new way to approach building a business.
You don’t have to do things the conventional way:
But it all starts with you:
Will you take the plunge to build a heart-centered business?
---
Started, Finished and Shipped in Huaraz, Peru
Writing time: 6:34 hours
I recently launched a new product that generated $41,000 in gross revenue, and in this article, I'm going to break down how we did it.
While the launch was a success, the remarkable part isn’t the amount we brought in (I’ve seen bigger launches).
No, what’s remarkable is the process we used to get it off the ground.
You see, most business product development cycles go through a standard process:
They save the launch (and the profit) for the end.
It can work, but it leaves the entrepreneur exposed to a lot of risk:
Do stuff the old-fashioned way, and you'll feel like this guy when no one shows up to buy:
* * *
The interesting part of all this is that it’s actually possible to mitigate the risk of most big ventures, but you have to flip the process on its head:
This nonstandard process puts all the pressure at the beginning: validating your idea with a product launch. There are certainly drawbacks, which we’ll discuss later, but as a product development process, it mitigates the greatest risk to a new enterprise:
It lets us know right away if we’re building something worthwhile (something people want and will pay money for).
This is exactly what we did for our business incubator program, where we brought in $41k from the sale of an idea and a promise.
By selling the idea before you build anything, you save time and money and mitigate the riskiest parts of a new venture. [share]
And in the following sections, I’m going to show you exactly how we did it so you can do it yourself.
But before we get to the meat of it, we should start by debunking a few misperceptions…
If you read a lot of business books or are in a startup yourself, you might be thinking all we did was apply the Lean Startup to our business.
While that’s partly true, it misses the main point.
Let me explain:
The Lean Startup is a process for efficiently creating a new business (Silicon Valley tech startups in particular) by reducing waste (waste of time, money, etc.) through a focus on validation (real world confirmation that our ideas are correct).
Here’s a really simplified example of how it works:
Step 1 – form hypothesis: if we email our list 10 times a day about product X, we will increase total sales of product X*
*note: the hypothesis is usually based on some sort of fact or experience, not just pulled out of thin air like this one was…
Step 2 – test hypothesis: ACTUALLY send out 10 emails a day; measure sales.
Step 3 – confirm the hypothesis: Did it work? Yes / no. If yes, optimize. If no, test something new.*
*bonus points for identifying side effects (in this case, probably a lot of unsubscribes and hate mail).
Step 4 – iterate: Now continue to use this same structure to test ideas in the marketplace.
It’s a little more methodical / scientific than that (sometimes), but you get the point. Instead of just doing things on a hunch or because something seems like a good idea, lean startups take more time to develop their ideas into testable hypotheses.
The process is really powerful and is the standard for tech startups and SaaS businesses.
But what if you’re not a Silicon Valley startup?
What if you don’t have the benefit of seed funding to test and validate to your heart’s content? What if you have mouths to feed, real expenses to pay, and this ‘idea’ doesn’t have the benefit of yearlong tinkering?
Is there another way?
I’ve been studying lean methodology for the last couple of years.
When I say study, I don’t mean watching TED talks and sharing them on my Facebook feed.
I mean reading, analyzing, and actually applying it in real life scenarios.
When I wrote The Complete Guide to Pay What You Want Pricing, I did something similar. I wasn’t writing just to write (that’s what my blog is for). No, I set out with the intent to create something people wanted and would pay for.
I did this by finding a topic people loved (through progressively validating the idea one blog posts and guest blog post at a time) and lean launched a book back in November.
When I launched Insurgent Publishing, I didn’t have a lot of money or time. I needed to validate from the beginning – otherwise, the idea was as good as dead before I ever started.
I progressively validated the idea by crowdsourcing the solution for our first product (as in: I got people to contribute to the first publication – The Creative Entrepreneur), launched a lean pre-sales campaign, and finally finished and shipped the journal on 1 January.
Now, with our new, in-person business incubator program, we wanted to take the same principles we had been using for the past year, but with one major difference…
We wanted to apply the lean startup process to a premium product – one with more overhead (read: $20,000 minimum).
This meant people would be pre-ordering something for $10,000 not $10…
A big difference.
Question is: would the same techniques that worked to launch a $10 product work for a $10,000 product?
The Lean Launch (a term I think I just made up) takes the Lean Startup methodology and applies it directly to product development.
In the same way that the Lean Startup seeks to launch a business quickly and efficiently, a Lean Launch seeks to launch a single product as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Taken to its edge, the Lean Launch is the process of selling an idea BEFORE you build it. [share]
For my purposes, product here is a broad term. The product we’ll be talking about in this case study is an in-person business incubation program (a product / service hybrid).
It applies equally to:
If you can build it, you can sell it before you build. [share]
The Lean Launch is a practical methodology; a series of steps you can apply to any idea to sell it BEFORE you build it.
It’s not a new concept.
Think of it like presales but on steroids, or running your own personal Kickstarter (but without that silly platform taking 30% of the profit or whatever).
The point is, it is more than possible to get people to buy something that doesn’t exist.
It happens all the time, millions of times a day.
And I’m going to show you how it works.
Most people probably think I’m crazy for what I’m suggesting (I am a little)…
Or they see the benefits to selling before you build - in theory - but the idea of putting it to work escapes them.
If that’s you – you’re probably thinking too much, or you’re thinking too directly about your specific situation.
For just a moment, don’t think about widgets and applications and software. Instead, consider some other area like politics. The majority of people buy into what their representatives / congressmen / presidents say with their vote and / or campaign contributions. But for what?
For the promise that they will get X, Y, or Z (less taxes, more jobs, a cleaner environment, whatever)
Exactly.
When it comes to selling a proposed product or service, same rules apply (although in my case and yours, there are repercussions if we don’t follow through...wink wink).
Another important thing to consider: you’re not selling to everyone.
In fact, you’re purposely NOT selling to everyone.
Instead, you’re selling to a select few (very few) early adopters. Passionate early adopters. The kind of people who are already seeking what you’re building and are will to buy on proof of concept alone.
Last week, I took you through my Profitable Idea Framework:
Step 1: Start with a Problem, not the Solution
Step 2: Kill Bad Ideas…Fast
Step 3: Progressively Validate the Surviving Idea
Once we’ve taken these essential first steps, it’s time to create a sellable idea. For that, I’m going to walk you through section 2: the Minimal Viable Launch Blueprint.
This is the same blueprint I use for every launch, from books to consulting services to conferences, to you name it.
It works.
So take out a pen and paper, bookmark this page, and let’s get to it:
Notice how we don’t create a business model until AFTER we’ve progressively validated the idea (no sense in building a business model for every great idea you have).
Also notice that it should take you no more than 20 minutes to create a working business model.
For The Flight Formula (and every project I’ve ever worked on), I use Ash Maurya’s Lean Canvas as a framework (check it out at www.practicetrumpstheory.com; and if you like this material, buy his book: Running Lean). Ash’s Lean Canvas is excellent in that it’s a one page business model that hits all the essential elements of a new (and existing) business.
And it works even better when you focus on just one product or service (which is what we’re doing for our lean launch).
Your 17 Minute Back-of-Napkin Business Model should cover the following essential areas:
This took us less than 15 minutes to make but gave us enough of an idea to start building-out our minimal viable idea:
Learn how to lean launch a business with the "Business Building Toolkit"
Barring any major issues (reference #6 and #7 above), this one business model gives you EVERYTHING you need to get started. More importantly, it lays out the core of what you’re creating, so if you’re ever stuck and wondering what to do, you can reference this business model to see if it fits.
Once we have the business model, it’s time to sketch out the essential pieces.
Wireframing is both art and science.
When I say build the wireframe, I mean create an outline and a skeleton for the essential pieces of what you’re creating.
At a broad level, this means outlining:
Wireframing also means outlining the product or service itself in great detail.
When it came to The Flight Formula, we created pages of organized outline. We broke things down by day, by event, by goal, etc. Having our event wireframed in detail allowed us to craft a comprehensive sales page quickly and efficiently, and allowed us to sell the idea with confidence (we knew exactly what we intended to build). If you were to look at our wireframe for the event, you’d be able to picture exactly what the incubator will be like from day 1.
A meticulous wireframe is not an option.
You need to wireframe out your product or service in detail so you can create your marketing campaign and sales page (if you’re using one), and ultimately: to sell your idea.
Final warning: do not skip the wireframe.
This part is tricky because once we have a great idea, our natural tendency is to start building everything.
But the reality is, you don’t need to start creating the membership site for the business you plan to launch right away. Nor do you need to record the training videos, outline your intro, or create hi resolution graphics…
The essential pieces of a lean launch are:
For our in-person business incubator program we were lucky in that my collaborators and I had email lists (all you Resistance Members out there - you're number 1!). Between the two of us, that was several thousand people whom we had already built trust with over many months (and years in some cases).
That meant, at a minimum, our sales funnel would look like an email or two to send people to a sales page and / or a live webinar.
We decided to create a full-on sales page because our product was so expensive, but in many cases, creating a whole sales page isn’t essential. You can just as easily create the pitch in a PowerPoint and save it for the end of a live webinar (which is what we did that helped fill all the spots of our program).
Framing your pitch is a matter of preference and intuition…
There’s no best practice for it, only things that work better for some people and for some products.
But here are some statistical truths, in case you’re not sure what your product launch needs (you can use your best judgment to decide):
You can also possibly break all the rules here and have some success. That’s cool – go for it.
If you’d rather be more confident, though, I’d say use the tools and techniques that work (don’t reinvent the wheel – save your creativity for the experience and the product or service you’ll be creating for the customer down the line.
*note: next article, I’m going to walk through, step by step, the process of building out only the essential pieces of our program as well as the tools we used to do it.
I know the hardest thing sometimes as a new entrepreneur is not knowing where to begin or what tools to use, which is why I want to show you exactly how we did it so you can model us (yet have the freedom to change whatever you want for your own purposes).
When you read this step, I want you to picture someone on that ridiculous 80’s game show where they want big money but no whammies.
In this case, you want committed early adopters and pre-orders (and still no whammies).
The only way to get sales is by selling, and when you finally go to launch, you’re the only one who’s going to sell your product. If you’re an introvert like me, this will be painful the first time (or first 100 times).
But there’s no way around it.
Even if you’ve setup an awesome affiliate program or you have a great no-brainer product, it doesn’t matter. You still have to be the one that sells it.
If you want to be an owner, an entrepreneur, a creator who makes an impact (not a hobbyist)…
Then you also need to be a salesman.
No, you don’t have to do anything slick.
And while there might be selling skills you could learn to improve your results, I believe that’s much less important than (1) creating something of value and (2) articulating that value of said creation to people who want to hear from you.
Yes, easier said than done.
No, there are no shortcuts.
So there it is.
If you have an idea you want to bring into the world, this is how you do it (if you want to spend more time creating things people like and less time shooting in the dark).
There are obviously a lot of variables thrown into the mix anytime we begin instigating.
As clear as the path to our in-person incubator program launch is to me now, it wasn’t that way in the beginning.
Sure, I’d launched books and other small projects, but never a massive undertaking like this one…
And using Pay What You Want made launching even more difficult with hundreds of more variables now entering the equation (yes, I was crazy for doing it –no, I wouldn’t take it back)…
But the reality is there was no hand-holding, no clear path, and no guarantees. We had to figure it out as we went along, accepting the bumbs, bruises, setbacks, and failures as part of the journey.
In the end, it was a sometimes difficult experience, but totally worth it.
And we’re just getting started. 🙂
Next week, I’ll share with you:
For bonus material, including how to create a lean sales funnel, how to build Facebook Ads to build an audience from scratch, and more check out the "Business Building Toolkit"
This isn't the first product I've shipped that's done over $10,000 in sales.
In fact, I'm writing a book on the step by step process I use to lean launch an idea from just an idea (with no money and no connections).
If you'd like updates, sign up here.
Started in Buenos Aires, Argentina - finished, and shipped in Santiago, Chile.
Total writing time: 6:50 hrs
For a step-by-step path to creating, marketing, and launching your first five or six figure product, read: Collaborate: The Modern Playbook for Leading a Small Team to Create, Market, and Sell Digital Products Online.
In the fall of 2013, I resigned my commission in the US Army.
It was a pretty great moment, I’m not going to lie.
For the previous 9 years, I had been part of an organization that wouldn’t let me go a day without shaving or tucking my pants into my shoes...
But no more.
I was free.
During the last few months before I officially left, I got a lot of questions, usually on the topic of "what’s next?"
“Not sure, but something big,” I’d say.
(and my battalion commander and peers would roll their eyes…what was bigger than what I was already doing?).
Fast forward 8 months and I’m sipping a doble espresso con crema at a side café in Buenos Aires, Argentina (home of black market currency exchangers on every street corner, Madonna’s musical Evita and Johnny Rico), and I’m writing this essay in gym shorts and a 10 day old beard.
Most Argentinians probably see me and think: beautiful American.
But that superficial analysis doesn’t tell the whole story (except for the living the dream part…check).
Because from that little computer (not a Mac), I was making online alchemy happen.
In fact, just two weeks ago, in a side café much like the one I’m currently in (except from South Africa at the time), I was doing something I was pretty sure was IMPOSSIBLE…
From my location-independent office (coffee shop with wifi), I was launching a brand new company (a remote, business incubator program).
We were just closing up the doors to the program, accepting the last couple entrepreneurs into the program, and the numbers were in…
We cleared $41,000.00.
What our team looked like after the final sales push:
* * *
But Tom, how can you launch a business from a coffee shop!?
Don’t worry, I’ll feed you baby bird…
There are a number of things that are remarkable with this launch.
Beyond the decent dollar amount we brought in (not the biggest online launch I’ve read about, but enough to validate our business model), and the fact that we were able to launch it from anywhere in the world (I was in South Africa, my partners were in the USA, and our customers were from around the world) we also:
And arguably even more impressive, and what I want to teach you today:
Yes, it’s possible.
Yes, we did it.
And yes, you can do it too.
Today, I’m going to share with you the exact strategy and techniques we used.
Today, I want to focus on profitable idea creation theory and practice.
In other words: how do you create an idea that is MARKETABLE (i.e. one that has a good potential of making money)?
In the next article in the series, I'll cover the launch itself (how we got people to find us and buy our idea – the actual practical steps of creating the sales page, the sales funnel, the sales copy, etc.), and the week after that: how we leveraged initial success to build out our program (think: scaling)
If you have any questions, just post a comment below.
Here we go:
I’m not going to spend much time on this one.
It’s fairly self-explanatory - but not common practice.
I get emails all the time from people asking for advice on an idea they have. The problem is, they’re coming to me with a solution. Usually a version 9.0 vision they’ve been pondering for a while.
The reason this is a problem is because they started backwards. When you come up with an idea for a product, service, or fully-fleshed out whatever, you’ve skipped over he most important part: the real problem or pain that needs fixing in the first place.
If you want to build a passion-based business – or any business for that matter – you need to start with a problem.
What’s broken? What needs fixing? What would people PAY to have fixed?
That’s all business is: fixing problems.
It’s not any more complicated than that.
No, it doesn’t matter if you think it’s a good idea (more on this below).
All that matters at the start is that you begin with a REAL problem that needs REAL fixing (and there are already people paying to have this problem fixed…don’t go inventing problems, there are enough in real life already).
Good?
Good.
A lot of people have a lot of good ideas.
A lot of good ideas either:
Now I’m not talking about hobby projects.
If you have a great idea for a hobby or something you’re passionate about, go for it. Doesn’t matter if other people like it. Do it cause you enjoy it, enough said.
But if you want to build a business from your passion (what we’re talking about here today), then it’s important to understand that if people don’t want your idea, they won’t pay for your idea, and your great idea really isn’t a great idea.
So we need to kill bad ideas as soon as possible in the product launch lifecycle, otherwise we risk wasting time and money (the grim reapers of business).
So step 1 is to kill off all your bad ideas – fast.
How?
1 of 2 things will happen:
If they like it, move onto step 3.
Now here’s the important part…
If they like it – do NOT build it.
That’s what amateurs do.
Someone gives them a pat on the back for their idea and they go into full production mode.
Pretty soon, their home is filled with thousands of Kitten Mittens and no one is buying.
Yes, it’s a great idea. But it doesn’t matter unless people buy.
I’ve done this myself before, and I’ll let you in on a secret: it never pans out how you want it.
No, what you need to do after someone tells you your idea is awesome is VALIDATE IT.
In other words: give them the chance to buy it.
Right now.
As in – put money into your hand for your idea BEFORE you create it.
This technique is nothing new. It’s basically a glamorous way of saying: get preorders.
Most ‘lean start’ businesses, especially in the software world, use this idea to validate their ideas before they spend years building something.
But it also works for in person events, physical products, services – you name it, you can probably get a preorder.
I used preorders for my book The Complete Guide to Pay What You Want Pricing, where I offered nothing more than a concept of what I was building and was able to bring in enough money to validate building it.
I've since gone on to do this with a half-dozen businesses, books, products, services, and more.
For the business in question, we did the exact same thing but in a bigger way.
This required a more methodical, scaled approach to validation, which I’ll explain below…
Okay, so sometimes you can’t sell your idea right on the spot.
Sometimes, you have to build at least a portion of it before you can truly judge if people will want it (and before people are willing to pay money for it).
This is where progressive validation comes in.
Just because people won’t put down $10k for your idea right now doesn’t mean you should build it then try to sell it.
This isn’t the 1950’s anymore.
Nor does it mean you should scrap the project.
Instead, you should systematically and methodically validate your idea as you build it.
Progressive validation is all about surgical risk mitigation.
At EVERY stage of the product development lifecycle, there is at least one primary risk (usually is takes the form of a major assumption) that could destroy our chances of a successful launch if we do not mitigate it.
The primary risk at the outset of any business or creative venture is the idea itself.
Notice the major assumption we talked about earlier: the ‘great idea’ assumption.
What is great? How do we define and measure great? Finally, how can we be sure it’s great?
When it came to our new business, we wanted to build a premium, remote, business incubator program (with a specific focus on what we call "heart-centered business").
First, what is the pain or problem we’re fixing?
Can we validate this statement?
Second, heart-centered…do people care about building businesses that they’re passionate about, or do they only care about making money?
Note: we took our time building our individual platforms (this blog, for example), which was validation that these topics are important to people. But you could expedite the process by methodically asking questions and researching competitors in your industry. You could do this in less than a month, easy.
Third, are people willing to pay a PREMIUM for an incubation-style program?
*note: the last step – progressively validate your idea – is something that is ongoing. You should constantly be validating your project as you build it.
For us, once we did our research and realized there was potential for such an incubation program, the next step was forming it into a sellable idea.
This section is quite big, so I’m going to leave this for next week.
Next week, we’ll take a look at:
Sign up for The Resistance Broadcast so you don't miss a beat.
Started, finished, and shipped in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Total writing time: 4:45 hrs
Last week, I released the first-ever publication from my boutique publishing company: Insurgent Publishing.
It’s called The Creative Entrepreneur, and it’s a semi-annual, donation-based business and arts journal.
As you can probably guess from its name, it’s all about helping entrepreneurs (and creatives of all types) start, run, and grow their small businesses using creative and unconventional business practices.
We do this by getting the best entrepreneurs, artists and writers in the world to contribute content – from educational articles to inspirational works of art.
The donation-based portion of the journal refers to our philanthropic initiative: we’re teaming up with Kiva.org to donate a portion of all proceeds (up to 100% - the subscriber decides) to help fund entrepreneurs in developing countries.
To say I’m proud of what we’ve built here is an understatement.
One of the things people notice immediately is the incredible line-up of entrepreneurs, writers and artists we got to write, teach, and otherwise contribute to the journal in some form or fashion.
One of the taglines I use to describe the journal is: learn from the best in the world.
When I say that, I'm not exaggerating.
In our flagship issue of the journal, we received contributions from some of the best entrepreneurs, writers and artists in the world:
Steven Pressfield – bestselling author of Gates of Fire (one of my favorite books of all time - I’ve read it multiple times and every time it’s a punch in the gut), The War of Art (another one of my favorites – it inspired me to start this blog), and most recently The Authentic Swing.
John Lee Dumas – one of the premier business podcasters on the planet (his show Entrepreneur on Fire gets hundreds of thousands of downloads every month).
Pat Flynn – an author, blogger, and hugely successful podcaster (The Smart Passive Income Podcast is usually ranked top 10 in the world under the business category in iTunes, and he’s one of the leading educators in digital commerce and online business).
Chris Guillebeau – bestselling author of The $100 Startup and creator of The World Domination Summit.
Natalie Sisson – author of the Amazon bestseller The Suitcase Entrepreneur (and founder of the company by the same name).
John Corcoran – entrepreneur, attorney and networking expert (he literally networked his way into Silicon Valley, Hollywood and The White House…enough said).
Clay Hebert – founder of Spindows and all around creative instigator.
Dan Adams – visionary entrepreneur, creator of the 2012 ESPY Award winning Mission Kilimanjaro, and all around stud (yes that’s him stopping Pacman Jones at the 1 yard line in Pros vs. Joes).
Faith Watson – copywriter extraordinaire and founder of Pen to Zen.
Danny Iny – the founder of Firepole Marketing.
Nick Loper – founder of Side Hustle Nation (in the journal, you’ll learn how he side-hustled his way to $10 million in sales…very powerful stuff).
Brett Henley – author, branding expert and creator of We Craft Stories.
Stephanie Arsoska – writer, poet and founder of beautifulmisbehaviour.com (she also has a truly captivating Scottish accent – listen to her spoken word performance on Courage that she did for the journal).
Justin Harmon – founder of Unplugged Recreated.
Leah Hynes and Nazrin Murphie – founders of RYPL.net and The Circuit Breaker Conference Series (which, by the way, I’ll be the keynote speaker for this coming February. Check it out and grab your ticket here).
Emily Chase Smith – entrepreneur, small business attorney and money management expert.
Jesicka Labud – founder of Tipabl and Two Non Techies.
Jason Van Orden – one of the world’s most sought after experts in the world of marketing.
MP MacDougall – author, American historian and one of the most impactful writers I’ve ever read.
Tom Owens – author of over 50 published books and is now, officially, a poet.
Zander Galloway – entrepreneur and public speaker (his essay in the journal – Stepping Onto the Stage - will give you some of the best tips I’ve ever read for getting up onto the stage with courage and delivering a great presentation).
Kevin Wood – founder of The Counter Culturalist.
Jeremy M. – founder of Startupright.org.
Adam Baker – founder of ManVsDebt and producer of the indie documentary: I’m Fine, Thanks.
* * *
Beyond the incredible written contributions, I also coordinated with artisanal artists, painters and photographers to create artwork exclusively for the journal:
Lucas Ferreyra – his work is internationally renown and has been featured in numerous publications. He’s responsible for this amazing piece:
Shari Sherman – her works been described as happy art for happy people – and she definitely delivered on that promise with some very happy art for our journal!
Jesicka Labud – beyond writing an article for us, she also contributed some fantastic photography.
Alysa Passage – a branding and design expert – she contributed some really slick photography for the journal.
Mercedes Calcano – an international artist, writer and musician (she contributed several of the awe-inspiring paintings you’ll find in the journal).
Collin McClain – adventurer, photographer and art director.
* * *
The question I usually get asked, after people see the top tier lineup involved in the flagship issue of The Creative Entrepreneur, is: How’d you get these people to contribute to your journal?
And while they might not say it out loud (probably to be polite, which I respect), what they’re really asking is: how did you, a relatively unknown author and a publisher with essentially zero experience in the industry, get guys like Steven Pressfield, John Lee Dumas, Pat Flynn, etc. to contribute to your brand new, unproven journal?
That of course is the real question because, let’s be honest – we don’t ask the publisher of Forbes how he gets people to contribute, do we?
Nor would someone ask me, had I failed to get any of these A-listers to contribute, why I DIDN’T get them onboard (“hey Tom, you’re journal is cool, but why didn’t you get Steven Pressfield involved?”...unlikely).
I say all that to say this: it’s a good question and it deserves an answer that dives deeper than ‘believe in your dream and things work out’ (which might be true, but ignores the sometimes uncomfortable truth of real life).
In the following paragraphs, I’m going to show you exactly what I did to get Steven Pressfield and over a dozen A-listers to help bring my vision to life. For all of you working to bring your great vision to life, consider this your field manual: it will show you the way, but you still have to do the work.
Good luck.
I got the first whisper of an idea for this journal back in September of 2013.
In the beginning, though, it was just that: an idea.
I didn’t know what form it would take, who I’d get to contribute, or whether people would even want to pay for it once I’d created it.
These uncertainties were compounded by my own lack of experience in the field:
With all these things working against me, anyone with a sense of reason would have told me the idea was stupid and to move on.
I started anyway.
Even though I had to deal with dozens of hurdles, obstacles and setbacks, I still managed to bring it altogether in beautiful form by the ship date.
But there’s an even more important benefit to all this: now I’m ready to leverage my newfound knowledge for the next issue of the journal and future books I publish through Insurgent Publishing. Because I started before I was ready, I’m now more ready than I’ve ever been for future projects.
“Turning pro is a mindset. If we are struggling with fear, self-sabotage, procrastination, self-doubt, etc., the problem is, we're thinking like amateurs. Amateurs don't show up. Amateurs crap out. Amateurs let adversity defeat them. The pro thinks differently. He shows up, he does his work, he keeps on truckin', no matter what." – Steven Pressfield
When I started work on The Creative Entrepreneur, my mindset changed.
I saw the journal in the hands of readers.
No, I didn’t know what the cover would look like, or what they’d be reading inside the pages, or even what it would be called (I settled on the name less than 2 months out from launch)…
I just knew that I would finish and ship this thing, or break myself trying.
When Steven talks about mindset, this is what he means.
Of course - and this is an important thing to realize – I didn’t FEEL like a pro at the time. There were dozens of times over the past few months I thought this project would fall apart. I doubted my abilities. I questioned whether I’d actually finish and ship on time (and whether anyone would care if I did or didn’t). I mentally beat myself up every step of the way…
Which is why I didn’t worry about whether I felt like a pro or not – I focused on acting like a pro instead: I showed up daily, I did the work, I kept trucking when things got difficult and uncertain (which happened a lot, by the way).
For a better explanation of what it means to act like a pro, here’s Ben Affleck’s educational speech from The Boiler Room on Acting As If…(warning: foul language ensues):
I acted as if I was a pro. As a result, I got professional results.
With the pro-mindset mentioned above, I set to work building the journal.
This meant doing the uncomfortable work of approaching hundreds of entrepreneurs, writers and artists and asking them to contribute.
When I first approached people, I was nervous: I expected to be ignored and to face a lot of rejection. I wasn’t sure anyone would like the idea. I was scared not enough people would contribute and that I’d have to scrap the project…
Instead, the response was overwhelmingly positive.
Hundreds of people embraced the idea with excitement. I started receiving dozens of essay submissions. Even better: many people who submitted essays shared it with other entrepreneurs, helping me spread the message with little effort on my part (this was clutch - it allowed me to focus my attention on the broader editorial scope of the journal).
In the end, I received more contributions than I could fit in the journal (which created the painful process of cutting submissions, but that’s a topic for another time).
In reality, this isn’t step 4, but step 0 – the thing you have to do before you think you have to do it.
While the message behind the journal was powerful enough to encourage many people to give it a chance, regardless if they knew me, the vast majority of contributors were friends or acquaintances of mine.
If you’re wondering about how I got some of the more well-known names on board, the process was the same as above – I asked – with one caveat: I had established a relationship with many of them months and years prior.
Take Steven Pressfield for example: I met him in person at a book signing at West Point (in 2007 or 2008). A year later, after having been a fan of his from afar for years, I reached out to him to thank him personally for his work. Since then, I’ve emailed him several times and he’s always been generous enough to respond (and he might be one of the busiest people on the planet – no doubt inundated with emails from hundreds of others on a daily basis).
By the time I asked him to contribute, he knew who I was.
The same goes for Pat Flynn (who I met in person in Nashville in 2013), John Lee Dumas (who I had on my podcast and since started collaborating on a new project together aimed at veterans), Clay Hebert (who I also had on the podcast and actually met at the Seth Godin seminar I wrote about in 2 Days With Seth Godin), and many others.
I’ve written about hustle before.
Hustle is the differentiator between the outlier who successfully bring his vision to life and the vast majority who wait and watch.
It would have been much easier to admit my limitations, accept my lack of experience, and not produce this journal in the first place.
Instead:
And I’m still not done.
If you were considering publishing because you thought it might be an easy money-maker, I assure you it’s not.
I definitely didn’t do everything right
I put a ton of work into making this journal happen, but I’d be remiss not to recognize that a certain amount of chance plays a part in everything we do.
I got lucky connecting with certain game-changes when and where I did, I’m lucky I have the freedom and the technology at my fingertips to make this journal possible, and I was lucky that many of these amazing contributors had time on their schedules to devote to this crazy idea of a journal…
If there’s one piece of advice I could give anyone in business (or in life), it would be this:
You might not have the experience you think you need, or the connections you want, or the money/background/circumstances that would making bringing a vision to life easy – but you don’t have to.
All you need is 100% commit to your vision and the persistence to see it through, no matter what, and the rest inevitably takes care of itself:
“Luck, often enough, will save a man…if his courage hold.”
-13th Warrior
If you're interested in the journal, you can find out more about it here.
Would love to hear your thoughts below.
What vision are you bringing to life right now - tell us about it in the comments? Or, if you aren't bring your vision to life right now - what's stopping you?
Share your thoughts below!
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Started, finished and shipped in Serpong, Indonesia
Writing Time: 7.5 hours
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In this report, I share a behind-the-scenes look at how I launched The Complete Guide to Pay What You Want Pricing, which resulted in over $1,000 in "Pay What You Want" sales in the first two weeks of release.
The purpose of this article is to give you a look "behind-the-scenes" of a book launch that used an uncommon pricing strategy (Pay What You Want Pricing).
My hope is that if you’re getting ready for your own launch – whether you're using Pay What You Want or fixed pricing – this report will show you what to do (and exactly what NOT to do) so your launch is a success.
If you have any questions or would like me to clarify any part of this, don’t hesitate to email me: tom at tommorkes.com. I always try to respond as fast (and in as much detail) as possible.
This is Tom Morkes,
If you’re reading this, you ARE The Resistance.
* * *
I started using Pay What You Want pricing (PWYW for short) back in March of 2013 as an experiment with the release of Notes From Seth Godin's Revolution Conference.
The book itself was a compilation of notes (over 60 pages worth) I took while at a 2 day Seth Godin seminar/meetup.
The reason for PWYW pricing was twofold:
First, I didn’t want to restrict access to the notes/book – I wanted it to be freely available to anyone, no matter their financial situation.
Second, it wasn’t really a book – not in the conventional sense. Just compiled notes from a conference, carefully curated and edited. And while I added my insights and ideas to supplement the notes, it wasn't original source material. I received permission from Seth Godin to share the book, but I still didn't know how to make it available (and Kindle forces a minimum $.99 price point on its platform).
From that perspective, it was a difficult book to price.
One thing I did know I wanted, though, was validation – both for the book and all the other work I had done up until this point (100+ blog posts, several guides and ebooks, a podcast, etc – all of which I gave away freely).
The only way to truly "validate" anything, though, is by means of an exchange of money…but how could I do that without creating a barrier to entry for some people who didn’t have the funds to pay for the book?
That’s when I discovered Pay What You Want pricing.
Pay What You Want is a pricing technique that gives the customer the power to set his or her price (rather than the price being set by the seller/producer). A completely unorthodox pricing technique to be sure, but I had nothing to lose.
To be honest, I didn’t think I’d make a dime.
I released the book and let my readers know they could take it for free…but, if they liked the work I had done up to that point, they could contribute a few dollars to support my creative work.
Instead of a bunch of people grabbing my book for free, I made close to $500 in the first month. I was completely shocked – I never expected people to pay money for something they could get for free…but here they were, not only giving money but giving generously (sometimes as much as $50 - $100).
The surprise success of 2 Days led me to test out Pay What You Want with a bunch of other stuff.
Since then, I’ve released several products as PWYW – from guides to workbooks to CDs.
I’ve had a lot of success (and some failures).
Each project has helped me to understand not only my own audience better, but how PWYW actually works.
In August of 2013, I documented the results of my PWYW book Notes From Seth Godin's Revolution Conference on ThinkTraffic.net (now Fizzle.co) and later my blog.
After my guest article on Think Traffic, I received dozens of questions about Pay What You Want:
I was blown away by the incredible amount of interest in the subject. What I had done as a small (but happily successful) experiment was something people wanted to know more about – a LOT more about.
So I got to work.
To answer these questions, I started connecting with entrepreneurs and artists from all around the world who were using PWYW successfully. People like:
+ Anthony Vennare of The Hybrid Athlete (a fitness website that sells PWYW products)
+ Tara Joyce (who’s been using PWYW for 5 years for her consulting business)
+ Joost Van Dongen (who created the PWYW video game PROUN and made $20k on launch)
After I’d collected hundreds of examples of PWYW being used successfully (and, in some cases, unsuccessfully), I began synthesizing this data into a useable framework.
I continued to collect, analyze and synthesize data over the course of 3 months (over 6 if you include my personal tests and tracking I did with Pay What You Want prior to creating the guide).
Figuring out the ins and outs of such a unique pricing model was time-intensive but extremely rewarding work (especially knowing I was answering a question that many people wanted to know the answer to).
When I finally launched, I made over $1,000 in less than two weeks.
In the following pages, I’ll show you exactly how I did it (and how you can apply it to your own product launch).
* * *
Here's how I organized my launch:
When I first came up with the idea to teach Pay What You Want pricing, the first question I needed to answer was:
How do I deliver this content?
There are lots of ways to deliver content online, including: eBooks, eGuides, eCourses, and Membership websites (among others).
From a purely ‘value’ based standpoint, eCourses and membership sites can sell for the greatest amount. But membership sites require a serious commitment to updating content every month, which means income from new members would be much less passive than an eCourse.
With that in mind, I decided to create an eCourse. Out of the various options that were available, I thought an eCourse would be considered the highest value and still deliver the content in the best way possible.
I created 6 modules, scripted out over a dozen videos and started recording the screen captures using a PowerPoint template to highlight specific content as I taught.
While it was looking great, midway through developing the course I decided that this information would be better digested as an in-depth PDF (plus additional bonus materials for those who really want to master Pay What You Want pricing).
Why the change of heart?
Not sure – it just felt right. I figured the product would be better this way, and I believe it is as a result.
But what I failed to consider was the impact that changing the medium in which the information was delivered (eGuide vs. eCourse) would so dramatically impact its perceived value (more on this later on in this report).
I officially announced the guide to my newsletter readers at the beginning of November, 2013.
I figured I was close enough to finishing the project that I wanted to set a hard and fast deadline to ship, otherwise, I’d let it trail into December (or possibly into the new year -- and that was the last thing I wanted to happen).
#ResistanceProTip: Set your ship date EARLY in the product creation lifecycle [click to tweet]
I chose 25 November arbitrarily – I simply wanted to have something ready to go before December. I also figured tying it in with Thanksgiving might encourage people to be more generous, (although I can’t confirm or deny this actually worked).
Prior to the launch, I wrote about 3 in-depth articles on the concept of Pay What You Want – what it is, how it works, and how it can help make you more money than fixed pricing.
Something interesting I noticed was that as I started to write on this topic, I got more subscribers than usual to my newsletter.
#ResistanceProTip: Teaching the material from your product will increase subscribers and sales [click to tweet]
Besides writing for my own blog (where I spend the majority of my time and effort crafting and creating content for my readers), I linked up with a couple podcasters to do interviews. One I reached out to, the other found me through a mutual friend.
Both podcasts aired their episodes on the week of release (coincidence), which let me share the content with my readers at the perfect time.
I also wrote up an article for Medium.com (a publishing platform that lets just about anyone write for it).
To be honest, I didn’t think this would have much effect, but I figured for the couple hours of time I spent on it, it wouldn’t hurt to spread the message further (as you can tell from above, I didn’t do much guest posting or a very good job of spreading the world about my new product beside writing to my own audience.)
#ResistanceProTip: Getting in front of other people’s audiences should be priority #1 for your product launch [click to tweet]
The Medium.com article ended up doing way better than expected. In the first day, the article caught the attention of Medium curators and they tweeted it out to their twitter list.
This brought in thousands of readers to my article in just a few days. I was getting ready to launch the guide the next day, so I immediately released the book and linked to it from the article, to hopefully capitalize on the attention.
I netted 20 sales worth $80 from this. Not a huge amount, but not bad for one article.
*note: the article also helped me get dozens of new twitter followers and subscribers to my list. So while it didn’t have the impact of guest posting on a website with a particular target audience (like my Think Traffic post), I was pretty happy with the results.
When the guide + bonuses were finally ready to ship (literally the day before launch…I didn’t give myself anywhere near enough time to properly prep this launch, if you haven’t noticed), I sent them to a couple dozen friends of mine with audiences online, and I asked them to share it with their audiences if they found the book and content at all helpful.
Some of the people I reached out to included:
They all ended up sharing it on Twitter at least once (and on a couple occasions, multiple times or on Facebook).
The result? 2 sales from Twitter for a total of $39 and 5 sales from Facebook for a total of $85.
*note: this may also have included my OWN shares on both channels, as I didn’t track which shares resulted in the sales (mine or someone else’s)
#ResistanceProTip: Social media is overrated (especially for launching a product) [click to tweet]
That said, it definitely didn’t hurt.
At the end of the day, if you can get tweeted / shared by the same person to the same audience several times – that definitely improves conversion and sales (but it’s also something you can’t demand nor count on unless you’ve made a prior arrangement). But even that isn’t nearly as effective as getting mentioned in someone else’s newsletter.
#ResistanceProTip: The highest ROI marketing tactic you can use for your product launch is leveraging other people’s newsletters [click to tweet]
I didn’t have enough time to properly coordinate this for my product launch, which means I lost out on potentially dozens (or hundreds) of sales. However, I’ve seen the tactic used to great effect for others who released similar style information products. The key is to target audiences that are similar to yours and could benefit from what you’re offering.
*note: you will see this tactic used all the time if you subscribe to any newsletter for a period of time, so subscribe to a few and study them if you’re interested in exactly how to do this.
I mentioned earlier I originally started creating an eCourse around Pay What You Want, but switched it to an eGuide midway through the product’s development.
This shouldn’t have been a big deal, but I made a couple mistakes that cost me a lot of potential revenue.
*for those looking to launch their own PWYW product or service, take notes on this section – it will seriously save you from losing out on hundreds if not thousands of dollars in contributions*
When it comes to selling content online, readers are generally aware of price ranges for certain types of products, and they’re usually savvy to the pricing of comparative, competing products. When you think ‘eBook’, you probably picture an Amazon Kindle book priced from $2.99 to $9.99.
For many of us, this price is anchored in our mind.
Therefore, if I’m writing an eBook, I’m forced to contend with this price anchor. Which means writing an eBook is not a great idea if you want to make decent money from your writing.
Guides and Reports aren’t anchored the same way as eBooks. Guides and Reports can sell from anywhere from $19 - $199+ depending on the material, the industry, etc. I’ve seen (and purchased) such guides and reports for over $200, so I know what is required to price a product at a premium like that. That’s why I put so many bonuses into ‘The Complete Package’ of my product – I wanted something that was easily worth $249.
But…
I failed to convey this value to my readers and customers.
Instead of clearly defining the benefits of what ‘The Complete Package’ will do for the user, I only explained the features (if people contributed over a minimum amount they get 12 bonuses, from cheat sheets, to video tutorials to expert interviews to a half dozen case studies, etc).
#ResistanceProTip: Benefits (not features) give a product value [tweet]
Had I continued with the eCourse version of this product, I have no doubt readers would have valued the product much higher by default. A guide or report could similarly sell for quite a bit, but there’s more work involved in explaining what differentiates a guide or report from an eBook (whereas an eCourse is already price-anchored in many readers minds in the several hundred dollar category).
The day I announced the guide (to a subscriber list of 444 people), I received about 30 preorders worth over $200. Not bad, certainly…but way below what I expected (I’ll explain below).
When it came to perceived value, I made things worse by ‘discounting’ the minimum contribution to receive bonuses for subscribers who preordered the product before it launched on 25 November.
In hindsight, this doesn’t make sense.
Think about it – the product is Pay What You Want…why would I discount it? What effect does that have on the reader or customer? And why would any reader contribute more than that discounted minimum (if the incentive is a lower price, then I’m basically telling them they ought to contribute less)?
I didn’t realize this until after the fact, but by giving a discounted price for early subscribers I was actually DEVALUING what I had spent months creating.
Instead of dealing with the standard eBook price anchor, I made things worse by lowering the minimum contribution to $4+ for all the bonuses.
The biggest problem with this is that it completely defeats the purpose of generosity.
The whole point behind why I use PWYW is to run a generosity-based business (for my writing and content on Tommorkes.com).
By lowering the minimum to get the bonuses, I effectively said to my audience: don’t be generous - contribute less.
Fail.
#ResistanceProTip: To increase pre-orders and sales revenue for a PWYW product launch, include exclusive bonuses for early adopters
Lucky for me, while I botched my PWYW pre-launch with a well-intentioned but misdirected incentive for my readers, many of them were still generous, contributing $20 or more in some cases.
Even after all the mistakes I made, I still consider my launch a success.
The day I announced the guide (to a subscriber list of 444 people), I received about 30 preorders worth over $200. Over the next couple of days, I received about 20 more preorders, worth over $350 cumulatively.
Not bad, but also way below what I could have made if I had (1) demonstrated the value of my product better to the reader, and (2) created a better incentive for contributing early (and generously).
Had I made those corrections I pointed out above, I have no doubts in my mind I would have made over $800 in pre-orders the first day (assuming the same number of readers would still preorder the product at an average contribution of $20).
The Complete Guide to Pay What You Want Pricing (Just the Book and The Complete Package) actually shipped the evening before launch day (25 November).
This meant people who preordered should have gotten their products earlier than the ship date (a good thing if you can swing it).
On the day of the launch, I sent out one email to my newsletter.
The newsletter headline: ‘Share Your Work – Make a Profit (new guide releases today!)
Subscribers: 467
Open Rate: 38.4% (179)
*average for my newsletter: 39%
Click rate: 12% (56)
*average for my newsletter: 9%
Unsubscribes: 2
This brought in about $150 in sales.
Many marketers will tell you to email-blast your newsletter 3 times in the days leading up to launch, and then another couple emails the day of and the day after launch. They also suggest pressuring your audience to buy by setting time limits on discounts, spaces available (if it’s a membership site), etc.
I didn’t do any of this because I don’t like that style. That said, I’m also aware that when it comes to results, the numbers don’t lie: the more you market (emails through your newsletter, shares on social media, or talking directly to people in person), the more you’ll sell.
#ResistanceProTip: The more you market, the more you sell [tweet]
I may have missed out on sales by not sending out several emails on launch day, but my hope was that readers would notice that they weren’t being bombarded and appreciate being on my list even more (there is no way to track this, of course, so it’s all blind faith).
Prior to launch day (25 November), I had accumulated over $500 in pre-orders of my guide.
For reference: it took me over a month to do that with 2 Days With Seth Godin. By that standard, I had far and away exceeded my prior benchmark in much less time.
The week that followed brought in even more contributors, this time with many more contributing at or above $19 (the minimum amount for all the bonuses). Within the first week of launch, I was closing in on $1000.
Here’s a breakdown of the purchases by price over time (*note: all the preorder receipts came due on 25 November, thus the large amount of sales volume on that singular day):
Here’s the results at a glance:
| First Week Sales | Revenue | |
| The Book | 31 | $118 |
| The Complete Package | 61 | $836 |
| Total | 92 | $954 |
I made $954 in sales from The Complete Guide to Pay What You Want Pricing (including both tiers: Just the Book and The Complete Package).
But $954 is not what went into my pocket.
Gumroad.com, the sales platform I used to sell my products, charges 5% + $.25 per download.
Since I sold 92 products, that’s -$23, and 5% of $954 is -$47.70, for a total of $70.70 out of my pocket and into Gumroad’s (of which I’m happy to pay, for the record).
So now I’m down to $883.30.
Because I’m a jack of all trades (I’m not really – mostly just stubborn), I did the cover design, interior design, and just about everything by myself (although I did pay $5 on Fiver.com to turn my 2d book cover into a 3d image), which helped me minimize expenses. I also had some incredible volunteers help me edit the finished product (thanks Tom and Diana Owens!), which gave it a professional spit shine without the steep cost.
So that means $883.30 is all mine, right?
While this would normally all be the case, I decided to enlist the help of my brother, Seph, to help me finish the product and ship on time. Having someone give feedback as I created the material helped me to finish and polish the book and bonus materials to a very high standard (from video tutorials to interviews to cheat sheets to the workbook etc.).
I told Seph that if he can help me create a quality product and ship on time, I’d split launch profit with him 50 / 50.
That’s a pretty big split, but there are two reasons for this:
1. Launching on time with a great product and splitting profit is better than launching late and keeping all the profit to myself.
2. Seph is a college student getting ready to graduate. I figured the best thing he (or anyone else in his shoes) can do is learn to run an online business, not only in the short term to pay down student loan debts, but because commerce is continuing to move online, and if you don’t know how it works, you’re at an incredible disadvantage (no matter what job or business enterprise you’d like to pursue).
I feel the best thing I can do is not only teach this stuff to as many people as possible, but when the time and money allows, help others learn by working directly with me.
So, after paying Seph half of $883.30, I’m down to $441.15 takeaway profit.
I’ve mentioned before in The Art of Instigating that many entrepreneurs, because of the hours they commit to creating something, work for sweat-shop wages.
My case is no different.
I worked on this project for about 1 hour a day in September, for a total of 30 hours that month (this is a conservative estimate).
In October, I spent about 3 hours a day on the project, coming out to about 93 hours that month.
In November, I worked on the project for about 6 hours per day for the first two weeks (84 total hours) and about 10 hours per day for the remaining 10 days (for a total of 100 hours).
All in all, I put about 307 hours into this product (conservatively)
$441.15 from 307 hrs of work = $1.43 / hour
So after at the end of the day, my time was worth about $1.43 (ouch).
Maybe I should have stuck to my day job…
Or maybe not.
I mentioned I made about$1.43 per hour from this product, but that ignores one important aspect of selling digital goods – this product is a new income stream, no matter how small, that supplements my other income.
Here are the results of the first three weeks after launch:
As you can see, after launch week, I’ve made another $100+ from the guide.
$100 a week isn’t enough to live off of in the States in most cases, but in Bali (where I’m currently writing this from) it goes a pretty far way.
What you’ll notice is that while the majority of sales came during the major announcements and hard sells of the product (5 November and 25 November), I’ve managed to maintain decent sales going forward. This is in part due to new people finding me from recent podcasts I’ve been on explaining Pay What You Want and how it works.
#ResistanceProTip: Once you’ve shipped a product, the real work starts – continue teaching, marketing and selling
So was it a success or failure?
In the end (after reflecting on this months later and doing an update to this post), I'd call it a draw.
You’ll see a lot more from me in the coming months as I teach and spread the word of Pay What You Want. Already, readers who bought the guide have told me they’ve seen an increase in sales and revenue.
Think about that for a second...pretty powerful stuff, right?
These are just two small examples, but they show the power of Pay What You Want (and the value of the book by extension).
It also tells me this message is important and more people should hear it (and use it).
With that said, financials aside – it was a success. And I’m looking forward to my next product launch…although this time I’m giving myself a bit more time to complete and ship it.
Interested in Pay What You Want pricing and want to learn more about how to use it?
Go here to pick up your copy of The Complete Guide to Pay What You Want Pricing.
If this article was informative, share it with someone you know.
Every single share allows me to continue producing content for you.
Thank you in advance for your support.
p.s. if you liked this report, subscribe to my newsletter (The Resistance Broadcast) to get stuff like this sent directly to your inbox about once a week.
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Started in Brisbane on the way to Cairns Australia (in a Juicy relocation 'Campa' van). Graphics were created on a terrace off the rainy streets of Ubud, Bali. Finished the article and finalized the PDF in Jakarta, Indonesia (with the help of a quadruple shot Americano).
Current beard length: 3 inches
Total writing time: 20 hrs
In 2006, I had the opportunity to study abroad in Russia.
At one point, toward the end of the semester, my friend and I had a brilliant idea – to visit the Arctic Circle.
In a spur of the moment decision, we hopped on a вокзал (train) to one of the most northern cities in western Russia: Мурманск (Murmansk).
We were on that train for close to 3 days (we made stops in Moscow and St. Petersburg as well). On the last segment (the 1 day and 3 hour trip from St. Petersburg to Murmansk), I decided to pick up a book from the bookstore. I was a little burned out from reading and studying Russian, so I picked up an English language book:
The Catcher in the Rye.
It’s been at least 7 years now since I’ve read the book, but one thing’s stuck with me since I read it...
Toward the end of the book, the protagonist hits his breaking point and makes this statement:
“Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.”
Leading up to this monologue, the protagonist has been through a 3 day spiral of self-destruction: he gets kicked out of school, travels to New York City by himself, gets drunk, laughed at by women, punched in the stomach by a pimp…pretty much anything humiliating you think could happen to a person, it happens to this kid.
But at the end of the story, after all the terrible things he’s been through, the only thing he could see himself doing in life – the only thing he truly feels compelled to do - is to keep others from throwing themselves off a cliff.
Of course, the underlying meaning here isn’t hard to see.
What the protagonist is really saying is he wishes there was somebody that would stop him from going over the edge.
But there’s not…or at least seemingly there’s not.
After everything the protagonist’s been through and moments before he runs away from home (until he goes off the proverbial cliff for good), the protagonist sees his little sister and decides to stay.
Why?
Because he wants to protect her.
The thing that inevitably keeps him from going over the edge isn’t somebody catching him, but making the personal choice to be the catcher - the protector – for someone else.
He’s finally made a deliberate choice to stop focusing on himself and instead recognize how he can truly live for someone else.
Here’s the interesting part: his little sister doesn’t need protecting.
She’s happy and safe; there’s nothing really wrong with her life. She’s not running toward the cliff at all.
In reality, his little sister is the one protecting him.
By inspiring him to stick around town, to double down on his studies at a new school, and get his life straightened up, she’s saved him.
She’s his catcher in the rye.
And sometimes that’s how life works. Those who we least expect to help us will be our motivation, our inspiration and our saviors. Those who we seek to protect are actually our protectors.
Of course, in life we can’t plan for this to happen – it’s called providence. It happens when we least expect it.
But it’s there – all that’s required from us to tap into providence is to keep our focus outward and to keep hope even when things get tough.
So when it comes to writing, business or just life in general, who are you focusing on?
Who are you writing for? Who are you building your product for? Who are you living for?
It’s an easy thing to live for yourself...at least at the start.
The only problem is this inevitably leads to bitterness, loneliness and anger. When we fixate on ourselves, we get caught up in the rye, losing track of where we are in relation to the world. We lose our perspective and running off the cliff can sometimes feel like the only solution.
But there’s another solution available to all of us - if we choose it.
It’s simple: live for others.
So if you're frustrated with your life, if your business is stuck, or if your art is uninspiring, ask yourself:
In your life, business and art, who are you catching?
Photo credit: Robb from morguefile.com
