How to create offers that SELL

Since 2013 I’ve produced 70+ courses and education products that have sold well over $10 million:

→ First at CreativeLive, a startup that did education for creative people (photographers, designers, etc)

→ And I’m currently a partner at URM Academy, an education app for music producers with hundreds of hours of content (I do our product management)

So why am I not retired on my private island??

Sadly, I produced and marketed all those courses for those companies, not myself 😩

I didn’t get to keep that $10 million, but I did learn a LOT about what sells and what doesn’t (I’ve had plenty of hits, and plenty of flops).

So what’s the secret sauce?

It comes down to one simple concept: Vitamins vs Painkillers.

(it’s an old classic, I can’t take credit for it).

Cool. What do I do with this?

For better or worse, people don’t like to take their vitamins. They kinda know they SHOULD, but they always forget. And when they do take their vitamins they’re usually underwhelmed because nothing “happens.”

But painkillers are different: If you’ve got a splitting headache, you’d happily pay me $20 for a pill that would go away in a minute, right?

Vitamins might be what they need.

But what people want is often very different from what they need. And you gotta sell them what they want.

(I don’t make the rules 🤷)

So if your coaching/education offer isn't moving, it's probably because it feels like a vitamin, not a painkiller.

What makes a vitamin?

Generally speaking, getting traction for anything along the lines of fundamentals, soft skills, strategy, etc is tough.

And also, let’s be real— “vitamin” offers are boring. More like homework than something most people would be excited to learn, let alone pay for.

For example the CreativeLive course above, “Develop Good Communication Skills.”

→ Problem 1: Too vague and abstract.

What does “good communication skills” even mean? Speaking? Writing? Presenting? We don’t know… and if your offer isn’t immediately clear, you’ve already lost 99% of people.

→ Problem 2: No outcome attached.

Why should I develop good communication skills? What will I get if it do?

And the graphic looks like a bunch of college freshmen… it makes me think I’m going to learn how to chit-chat with 19 year olds on campus.

And yes, there are a few people who make courses/offers like this work— but they’re the exception, not the rule.

What makes a painkiller?

The best-selling education/coaching offers are usually about tactical, hard skills attached to a specific outcome (especially one that generates revenue).

What you’re selling isn’t actually knowledge, it’s a transformation: from the world where they currently live (boring, frustrating, broke) to the world they want to live in (fun, fulfilling, making money).

The CreativeLive course above is a solid example of a painkiller: “Marketing Your Photography Business”

→ Specific: “Marketing your business” would be too broad.

Focusing on photography is much better— niched down, but still a big market. It could be even more niched down, eg “Marketing Your Wedding Photography Business.”

→ Solves an acute problem: Marketing is a gigantic pain for almost all creatives— and importantly, they all know that (they don’t have to be convinced that it’s a pain point).

→ Attached to an outcome: Make more money (it doesn’t have to explicitly state that outcome, we all know that’s the point of marketing).

And that’s the blueprint for a painkiller education/coaching offer: Sell them hard skills that help them achieve the specific outcome.

But what if I have a vitamin?

Maybe you’re reading this and thinking “Cool… but I’m sitting on an offer that I now realize is a vitamin, what am I supposed to do? Start over??”

Possibly— but before you do that, try repositioning your vitamin as a painkiller and see if that gets it moving.

Let’s say you have an offer called "Resume writing fundamentals,” and it’s not selling.

By now, you can probably see why that’s a vitamin: It sounds like homework 🥱

You kinda know you should do it, but eh... maybe later. And there’s no outcome attached, so there’s no reason why you should invest your time in it.

→ Let’s see if we can save it:

Take the same offer (course or coaching), make some small changes to it, and you might have a painkiller:

Call it "The 90-day Career Reboot." It's basically the same resume writing course, but now it's way juicier because you attached an outcome. You could also consider focusing on a specific industry, eg "The 90-day UX Career Reboot."

See what a night and day difference that is vs “Resume Writing Fundamentals"??

This won’t always work— sometimes you really do have to start over with a new offer. But don’t do that until you’ve tried repositioning first.

The bottom line:

I could literally write a whole book about this, but hopefully this gets you started.

The offer really is everything. The best marketing tactics in the world won’t save a crappy offer, and a great offer can still sell like crazy even with mediocre marketing.

And if you take anything away, it should just be this: Sell them what they WANT, not what they NEED.

(here comes the transition…)

And SPEAKING OF OFFERS, I have a new one: On-call content consulting.

To make a long story short, for $1k USD per month you get 24/7 access to me via text or email plus a 1-hour Zoom call.

Ask me anything about your content, offers, business… whatever you want (more details here).

Why is this a gamechanger? Because the seemingly small details are actually a big deal: They could be the difference between a post that flops, and one that gets a DM from your dream client!

→ Is it really unlimited? Yes.

→ Can you text me at 6 AM on Christmas morning? Yep!

If you’re interested, reply to this email or just set up a call here!