EP263 Minnows Lead To Whales | Ken Courtright’s Today’s Growth | Growing Business Today

 

 

Most business owners confuse selling their products to gain more subscribers on their podcast. They sometimes interchange the goals. Some are so focused on selling things when their end goal is to gain more subscribers. There is actually a technique that can realign your goals using your digital products for sale to lead you to a subscriber base. In the middle of the process is your target: the minnows. These minnows are new business owners who are very interested but can’t afford to go all out on a product. What you do instead is offer them something cheap but equally valuable. Eventually, you’ll find them leading you to the big whales.

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Minnows Lead To Whales

This is a principle that is not only good to know now, but it will be great to know forever and teach your teams, managers, and people. This one is called Minnows Lead You to Whales. I was sitting at a table and somebody had a decent podcast and they were trying to figure out, “How do I sell more items to the people on my podcast?” I said, “What is your goal of the podcast?” “My goal, truth be told, is to get more $9 a month subscriptions.” I said, “Why are you trying to sell things if you’re trying to build a subscriber base?” He says, “I’ve heard a lot of other podcasts and read a lot of other blogs that you want to get people in a monthly subscription after they buy stuff.” I said, “Let’s slow down. They’re totally different premises, but there is a technique out there to use digital products for sale to lead you to a subscriber base.”

 

Come up with a digital product that you know in your heart. Click To Tweet

 

I covered with them the concept of $500-$109. The first thing you want to do is come up with a digital product that you know in your heart, if somebody paid you $100 for it, they would be stealing from you. It’s worth $400 or $500, but you’d be comfortable if you could just get $100. If you want to move that product for $100, you first price it out on your website at $500. You don’t care if you ever sell one. This is a psychological play. It’s done all the time in big business. What you do is you place that item on your website and you do point to it. You can even do some marketing for it and you will sell a couple items at $500.

 

The reality is the audience that you’re shooting for $100 product doesn’t have $500 sitting in their wallet at all times, so you might tell a couple. Once you’ve placed that item on your website for say six, eight weeks, you then can send an email to everybody on your list. You can do a podcast and create a YouTube video to your followers and say, “I’m going to make this product through the end of the year only $100. The reason I’m doing this as I want to move this product as a baseline because I’m coming out with this exact same product version 2.0 next year.” You give a logical, valuable, and legitimate reason of why you’re discounting the product to $100.

 

Then what you do is you keep that up there for a couple months, but the whole time you’re starting to create content that you can distribute on a monthly basis. You would want to exchange this incredibly good content that you’re going to put out monthly for the fee of $9 a month. After a couple months of selling probably many of those items at $100, you’re still going to have a lot of people out there that are kicking tires and poking around. They do like your information, they just don’t want to commit necessarily to a $100, let alone $500.

 

 

 

Then what you do is you surprise everybody and say, “Remember that product that’s $500 and I temporarily discounted it for $100? I came out with a monthly program where I’m creating incredibly new content every month. It might be a live webinar. It might be a value-add newsletter. It might be me interviewing some of the greatest business people in the world.” The point is you come out with something that’s valuable. You say, “I was going to probably price this around $25 a month, but I’m going to kickstart this monthly program at $9 a month. As an incentive, if you haven’t already bought my $500 or when I discounted it down to $100, for those of you that register in the next seven days at $9 a month, number one, there’s going to be no contract. You can cancel $9 a month at any time, but I’m going to give you the $100 item for free. No strings attached.”

 

Here’s the psychology behind it. You come out with a product and you sell a couple at $500. Then you discount it with a time constraint down to $100 and then you give the thing away for free for $9 a month. What you’re looking for are the minnows, the newer business owner that can’t quite afford your bigger stuff, but they’re very interested. They’re charging the hill. They’re doing everything they can. They have a day job. They’re trying to start their own business. They mean they just don’t have the funding to buy these bigger items. You want to serve these minnows, these people that can afford your $9 a month, and you want to overserve them. You want to give them more than they’d ever expected to receive for $9. You serve them without asking nothing in return just to stay loyal and keep paying you $9 a month.

 

The minnows are going to lead you to the whales. Click To Tweet

 

If you serve and overserve them, you’re going to have so many of these minnows that know other big business owners are going to refer people to your website or your podcast. If you go to events, they are going to meet you at an event. They’re going to introduce you to so many more people that are further along in business than themselves. The minnows are going to lead you to the whales that can afford your $100 to $500 item. I call it the 1 to 30 Principle. For every 30 minnows that you serve, they’re going to lead you to one incredibly gigantic whale who you can end up doing partnerships with and move your business because of their influence.

 

I have a significant amount of influence. I have a lot of followers on the podcast. We do our big annual events twice a year that are endorsed by Inc. and Forbes and I’ve authored many books. To a guy like Jeff Hoffman, the Co-Founder of Priceline.com, who does continuous work every year for the president of United States, no matter who’s in office, a Democrat or Republican. The White House is always calling Jeff to see what his take on growing business in America is.

 

Jeff Hoffman told Kerri and I when we were getting counsel from him in Ohio, he said, “What’s awesome about what you guys do?” I said, “What’s that?” He goes, “Some of my best relationships have come from me speaking at your event.” I said to myself, “Wow.” I didn’t tell Jeff this. I probably should, but Jeff’s a whale and I’m the minnow. I have to remember that minnows lead whales to other whales. I’m the minnow, but I’ve introduced Jeff to some of the greatest people that have shared my stage. Jeff has formed relationships with them and become friends with them. For Episode 263, please understand that minnows lead to whales and that will always be the case. I hope this helps. Take care.

 

Important Links:

• Priceline.com