Likes Ain't Cash

The Nice Creator vs. The Cash Creator. The industry has made it normal to become a Nice Creator. We define a Nice Creator by the following 15 behaviors: 1. The Nice Creator chases prospects because he doesn't know that they already chose someone else. 2. The Nice Creator adds value constantly because he thinks that people make decisions out of gratitude. Not self interest. 3. The Nice Creator fills his calendar with prospects who he deep down knows only want to pump him for information then ghost. 4. The Nice Creator gives his team all his profits and is lucky to take 30% home. 5. The Nice Creator has an account. Not a brand. 6. The Nice Creator is loved by fish. But avoided by Whales. 7. The Nice Creator has an audience of other Nice Creators. Not of Serious Buyers. 8. The Nice Creator runs a show business. Not a business. 9. The Nice Creator entertains his audience. But doesn't compel them to buy. 10. The Nice Creator is treated as a commodity. Whereas his competition is treated as a luxury good. 11. The Nice Creator has more supply than demand. 12. The Nice Creator has a business that serves his clients. But not one that serves him. 13. The Nice Creator has difficulty setting boundaries and constantly breaches them for the sake of his clients. 14. The Nice Creator gives out free value but rarely gets paid for it. 15. The Nice Creator spends more time talking to other Nice Creators than to Serious Buyers. As for me, I'd rather be a Cash Creator: 1. The Cash Creator doesn't chase prospects. He simply sticks to his deadlines. 2. The Cash Creator adds insight because he knows the best leads don't want the answer. They just want to know you have it. 3. The Cash Creator doesn't fill his calendar. He empties it. 4. The Cash Creator doesn't tolerate maybes. It's either a yes or a no. 5. The Cash Creator keeps 90% or more of profits because he runs a lean operation. 6. The Cash Creator has a brand. Not an account. 7. The Cash Creator is loved by Whales. But avoided by Fish. 8. The Cash Creator doesn't entertain his audience. He is respected by his audience. 9. The Cash Creator is more popular among buyers than other creators. 10. The Cash Creator runs a business. Not a show business. 11. The Cash Creator sells his stuff like the luxury good it is. 12. The Cash Creator has more demand than supply. 13. The Cash Creator has a business that serves his clients. And serves him too. 14. The Cash Creator sets clear boundaries because he built his life around his business and not the other way around. 15. The Cash Creator gives Insight and gets paid for the Value. 16. The Cash Creator spends more time talking to Serious Buyers than to Nice Creators. I’m not interested in showing you how to become a Nice Creator. But if you’d like to become a Cash Creator, the best place to start is in my list. Link is in my bio on social media.

Effective vs. Ineffective Content. (A story of 2 videos): I had 1 video get me 8x the views I usually get. It is the DM Scripts that allowed me to make over a million dollars in 2023. Plus a lot of secrets I only shared with clients at the time. Lots of value. It got me lots of "thank you's" and many likes. Which is nice. But it got me zero clients. A few months later I shared a podcast. Minimal editing. Terrible lighting. But I was deliberate about what I was going to cover. It got me 1/4th of the views. Which is not that good. But I can live with that because in the backend it got me 5 clients. For context: Two videos with 9,000+ views combined got me less clients than 1 video with 1,200 views. The difference? The first two video was based on Value. But the last video was based on Insight. Some useful definitions: Value is showing people what to do. Insight is showing people where to look. Value makes people want to try your stuff because you gave them something to do. Insight makes people want to buy your stuff because you illuminated the gap between them and what they want. Insight is a reason why I'm able to produce 1/4th of the content I used to produce, save $8,500/month in production costs and still get more clients. Insight is a reason why Kat with 300 followers closed 2 clients (and they paid in full). Insight is a reason why Allan had a $29k launch with just 2k followers. And one of the Cash Creator principles: We don’t want to get praise. We want to get paid. And for that, Insight content will do.

New Video: $166,900 month at 98.2% profit margins. https://youtu.be/GNyFjwa6pFU?si=sP00Q373K0UZ8Zqu

"These people are just broke." I used to say that to myself when someone wouldn't buy. I'd judge them and it would feel good because I wouldn't have to face my own incompetence. "You can't convince a broke person to buy. I am right and they are wrong. End of story." But then I saw these "brokies" traveling around the world. And then I saw them buy from my competitors. And realized that I was just calling them broke to cope. To cope with my bad marketing. With my unclear offer that I haven't improved in months. With my poor leadflow that I never bothered to fix. With my broken delivery that I knew needed help. It's easier to call people broke than to call the system broken. There's people in the same market with the same business model making more money. Most people stay coping - but the smart ones get busy fixing.

Red Velvet: How to sell more of your old offer by making it look new. One time I had a chef friend that asked about my favorite cake. "Red velvet." "You know that's just chocolate cake with red coloring, right?" I googled it. It was true. Truly a moment of existential crisis for me. Red velvet IS just chocolate cake with red coloring. Yet it can be sold as more expensive and it has a more "high class" feel to it. I like to think so at least. Red velvet cake inspired how a Cash Creator Principle when it comes to offers: Changing how the offer is perceived, not the offer itself, makes it sell more. This matters because when people know what you're going to say they stop listening. For example, a magician with the same tricks eventually loses the attention of his audience. A coach / consultant that always offers the same thing eventually loses it too. This is when Red-Velveting comes in handy: I've run the same Whale Bait Workshop 4 times under a different name. The "cake" is the same. But it got me 5 new clients and 71 new customers last time I run it because I Red-Velveted it as something new. Red-Velveting requires less effort than selling your current offer. Cash Creators rarely come up with an offer that is new (lots of work). We unbundle what we already deliver to make our current offers look new (minutes of work). Think of it like this: Your current Big Offer is made up of Smaller Offers like guides, templates, sheets, PDF's, etc... Unbundling your BIG offer into SMALL components allows you to sell your current stuff like it's new stuff. New stuff gets people’s attention (and often their money) once again.

The right offer is good enough to attract Whales and bad enough to repel Fish. The perfect offer isn't always ideal. I used to aim for it: Money back. No-risk guarantee. Big promises. The whole package. But I would end up attracting Fish. Sure, I had a high success rate. But also high anxiety, stress and churn. I had to work with vampire clients that needed me for everything. Boundaries wasn’t a word in their vocabulary. I worked 12 hours a day so it wasn’t on mine either. The only way get peace was to either refund them or respond to their every demand as per the offer. Both sucked. Then I switched. But I ended up going too far into the other extreme: The offer had too much Whale Bait. I hit a few home runs. But I was missing out on too many singles, doubles and triples. Thousands of followers. But I just could not get leads. Making your offer with too much Whale Bait can do hidden damage. Especially when you already have a few thousand followers. There’s only a handful of Whales in every audience. But they’re not the only ones willing to pay and respect you. An offer with too much Whale Bait gets you an audience that wants to pay you 10 times as much. But they can’t because you haven’t made it easy to do so. Adding too much Fish Bait gave me problems of abundance. Adding too much Whale Bait gave me problems of scarcity. But finding my offer balance allowed me to add $117,400 in recurring revenue to my business in 9 months.

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Don't assume malice. My clients have stuff going on in their lives. Things break. People come and go. And I know the last thing they're thinking about is me. So when an inconvenience happens I never assume malice. Client payment doesn't go through? Didn't reply? Haven't heard back from them in a while? I don't assume malice. Instead I just assume that they have stuff going on and ask. Often people just forgot or are busy that day. Then we fix the problem and that's the end of it. My clients won't want to talk if I come in guns blazing and remind them about tHeIr cOmmiTmeNt tO tHE prOgRAm. And neither will yours. So don't assume malice. Just have a normal conversation and you'll realize that things are never as complex as you think. There are ways to reduce churn, get clients to pay and have a more enjoyable business. Assuming malice is not one of them.

When I failed on my promises others failed on their promises to me. When I delivered on my promises others delivered on their promises to me. One of the promises I made to myself: I don’t take the money of people who I consider will be a pain. You may find it judgemental (and you would probably be right), But I’ve never had a situation in which someone wanted a refund for their first week leading up to a call… … And not have them be a pain. So I just refunded him. Leaving money on the table never feels good but I’d rather stick to my promises. I don't need the money. But I sure need my peace of mind. So I'm willing to do that trade. 2 hours later I received a text on LinkedIn: "Let me know if you have one spot for Cash Creators. I'm interested." I offered this vacant one. He took it. And he paid for the entire year within the hour. Not saying that you should kick people out or be as ruthless as I am with this. I’m saying that when you stick to your own promises God just finds a way to reward you.

Win Big Games. I believe humans win the game they optimize for. When creators optimize "not losing subscribers" they will not lose any. When they optimize "not upsetting people with offers" they won't upset anyone. Which are not wrong games. They're just small games. I have no idea how many unsubscribers I get per email. Or how many followers I lose per day. I'm sure these metrics matter to someone. But not to me. I optimize for profit because we like to take profit home more than I like not upsetting anyone with my offers. For that, I track two metrics: 1. Offers Made I believe that people like buying more than you like selling. So you might as well make an offer every day. Email. Messages. Socials. Doesn't matter. Every follow is an implicit request for help. By not making an offer every day someone out there is missing the chance to pay for your help. 2. Recurring Revenue I believe service is king. I didn't offer 1-on-1 calls with clients before. But now I do it for all Cash Creators. Sometimes these calls won't go well so I'll offer another one. Sometimes I'll write content for clients because I just think it's faster. And I'm ok with that. Because when you make your service the priority, clients get better results. When clients get better results, they stay. When clients stay, you get paid more. Cash Creators optimize for Offers Made and Recurring Revenue because we can only win so many games. So we might as well win the two that make the most profit.

Prospects are not liars but they are dishonest. Something I learned in my third year in business. I got a client and on our first call I asked him "why did you join"? I wanted to know what made him pull the trigger so I could do more of it. He said: "Because I saw the testimonials and there was so much proof." I have two opinions on that: The first one is the one I had back then: I should post more testimonials. So I created this page with over 600 client wins. There were so many that the page took around 15 seconds to load. And then you had to wait 15 more for the bottom part to load. I promoted it every time I had the chance. I was so proud of it. That pride faded a few months later when my income didn't move one bit. It just swayed a little between $30-50k and didn't move from that. Now I realize that he was being dishonest. Nobody buys with logic. They buy with emotion. But when you ASK them about it they will say that they bought because of logic. It feels bad to admit that you acted on an emotion. So I understood where he was coming from. But I also learned not to trust what prospects say too much. Because even though they are not liars, they can be dishonest. Some prospects will tell you that the timing isn't right. When they don't fully understand the offer and it looks like more work than it is. Others will say that they're almost in and ask you a dozen questions. When in reality they're just waiting for you to lead. And some will say that they bought because of the testimonials. When in reality it was an aspect of your marketing that resonated with them (And it makes more sense to double down on that than on creating a page that takes 30 seconds to load.) I used to do business thinking everyone was innocent until proven guilty. And so leads got the best out of me, both in information and emotions. Now I'd rather believe everyone is guilty until proven innocent. Words don't count. The only truth in my world is transactions. That's why I structure my business in such a way that I don't have to deal with leads. It's better to spend your time finding ways to get them to pay you something to find who's here for the "free value" and who's here because they're genuinely interested. The amount doesn't matter. It's the intention of transacting that matters. A lead who fills up a form, books a call, talks to you and may or may not close... Is still a lead that spent $0. Worth way less than someone who spent $1 with you because the lead that spent $1 with you has proven that he's willing to pay. All the other lead has proven is that he's willing to talk. Talk is cheap. I have 240,000 followers and 700 one-time customers. 80% of my clients come from those 700 one-time customers. That's makes that small segment 1,372 times more efficient than my entire audience. Not 1,372 percent. 1,372 TIMES. Which is possible because these people didn't say they were interested in help. They paid to prove that they were interested in help. And I don't believe in words. I believe in transactions. And I highly recommend you do as well.

Don’t Paint The Future. If you can solve one problem they pay you to solve the next problem. Not a fan of "painting the future" when I work with someone. I understand why it matters. But I also understand that people don't think in terms of future problems. They think in present problems. They don't look towards their 2 year vision. They look at their 2 month old that won't stop crying and won't let them sleep. It's important that you have a future planned for your clients. But it's more important that you fix an immediate problem now so they will BELIEVE in the plan. People are quite consistent. When faced with a problem they will default to tools that proved useful in the past. So if you can become a tool that solved one problem they're much more likely to use you to solve the NEXT problem. Painting a future matters. But you have to be able to solve a problem now so that you will be the default option tomorrow.

10) Give them something to save face with or brag about. People like buying. And more than buying they like bragging about what they bought. The best offers don't just give them an outcome. They give them bragging rights to their friends, peers and family. 11) The offer is just an excuse. By the time someone sees your offer they should already be bought into you. At that point they're so emotionally invested into you, your story and your philosophy, That the offer is not the main reason they buy. The offer is just an excuse to get to the main reason they buy: You. 12) Think in problems, not niches. AKA be Nicheless. There's fat executives, fat investors and fat math teachers. And they could all benefit from someone's fat-loss skills. Thinking in niches will limit you to a segment of people who you can help. But thinking in problems will expand your market to everyone you can help. It doesn't matter if they're executives, investors or math teachers. As long as there's a problem to be solved you can be helpful. Be Nicheless. 13) The value of an offer is mostly reduction. Offers are mostly there to remove things from people's lives. Remove uncertainty of the future. Remove the options that overwhelm them. Remove the hassle of thinking. More than adding things to their lives you're there to remove clutter and the stuff that doesn't matter. Everyone *kind of* knows what to do. Sometimes the best thing you can be for them is those snow removal vehicles that clear the road so they can finally move. 14) If you don't provide a reason to move now people won't. Offers are not complete without a reason to act now. And the best way to make people act now is not giving more value, but providing firmer consequences. 15) You make more money offering the small payment first and the big payment second than the other way around. The market optimized for Paid In Full's early but this goes against common sense: Big payments are more intimidating than small payments. I made 8 times as much profit by offering small payments in the front end, and having an upselling plan in the backend.

15 observations on offers after I sold $4 million of mine: 1) You attract low income people with promises. You attract high income people with philosophy. Low income people are more interested in the goal than the way they get there. They just want the promise now, however possible. High income people also want the goal. But to them it's important to align with the way the goal is achieved. So your philosophy ends up attracting them more than your promise. 2) Clear offers beat irresistible offers. You're at the entrance to a dark forest and two people offer to guide you to the diamond on the other end. Guide A says you should just trust him. Guide B pulls out a flashflight and a map and shows you the way. Most will choose Guide B. Because showing the path through which you get to the promise is as important as the promise itself. 3) Offers should be mundane. It's the content that should be elevated. I've found Content works better when it's elevated and Offers work better when they're Mundane. The content should convince them of the many things you can do, what you believe in and what you stand for. It's filled with emotions with lots of room for interpretation. The offer should be vague, dry and direct. It should be void of emotions with no room for interpretation. 4) Offers that are easy to understand are easy to buy. People suck at abstraction. We must make things tangible for them to see the same thing you see. We do this with The Meaning Test, a one-question test: If you show two people an offer, does it mean the same thing to them? "Transform your physique" and "Maximize sales" doesn't. "See your abs" and "Make $1,000" does. By making things mean the same to everyone you make your offers easier to understand. And offers that are easy to understand are easy to buy. 5) Small promises are easy to keep. I sold more when I promised $20k than when I promised $30k. Every audience has a number that they respond to the most because it's big enough to make them want it but small enough that it's believable. Offers above are not realistic. Offers below are not exciting. 6) If you can solve one problem they pay you to solve the next problem. More than "painting the future", solve one problem and solve it fast. This communicates certainty. Certainty they need to believe in the future you have for them. Make people believe that every dollar spent on you is a dollar spent on certainty and they often spend another one. 7) The presence of an outcome is more important than the outcome itself. I've had clients who make more than my promised outcome. I've also had clients who want less than my promised outcome. The outcome itself doesn't matter as much as the outcome's presence matters: When you meet up with an old friend at a restaurant, you're really going for the friend. Not the restaurant. It's important that the food's there. But it's more important that the friend's there. Same thing with offers: When you buy a coaching offer, you really buy the coach. It's important that an agreed-upon outcome is there. But it's more important that the coach is there to help you with whatever you need help with (often something else). 8) Sometimes you have to make your promise a little worse. In my experience, if the offer is too irresistible you will attract leads that are intolerable. Making your offer a little worse can pay you more. Not just in money but in peace of mind and energy saved. 9) Offers come in 3 main frames. A Coaching Offer helps you find the answer within you. A Consulting Offer gives you the answer. A Mentorship Offer shows you what answer they would give if they were you. For me, choosing the frame of an offer has resulted in results 4 times as large or as small.

Open The Curtain Many things that are obvious to you are fascinating to your clients. A lot of them have no clue of what's going on behind the hood. What your results were last month. What you changed, why you changed it or how did you know option A was superior to option B. These things are all intuitive to you but to them it might just be the thing they want to see. Teaching isn't the only way to teach. Demonstrating is just as, if not, better. Clients are people. And people need to be given reasons to do stuff. If you don't demonstrate competence they will find reasons to follow someone else. More than giving homework, More than recording trainings and "checking in", Show them what a life with your principles looks like. Make it easier to do the work they need to do, yes. But also be that leader that reminds them of what the work gets them. A bonus of this is that this is the easiest "retention tactic" there is. You're gonna do this work anyway. It's on the to-do list anyway. All you have to do is open up the curtain for your clients to see it.

5th $100k month in a row. 5 more weeks of the year to go. The end is near.