Transcription
I'm going to show you the three-step nut and bolt system I use to make 40 million in digital products from home with almost no employees. My name is Dan Henry and since starting my digital business, I've sold everything from $7 PDFs all the way up to $50,000 consulting days. So, if you're interested in or have already been trying to build an online offer, this video is going to save you years of mistakes. So, we'll cover what to sell, how to reverse engineer a premium offer down to an affordable one that attracts the right buyers, and how to build an audience of buyers from day one. Let's get into it.
All right, so every customer journey, I want you to imagine like it's a big engine. This is my really poor attempt at drawing an engine. The engine is the big result. Get clients, build a business, lose 20 lb, get the best shape of your life, save your marriage, whatever. But see, every engine runs on a bunch of small parts, nuts and bolts. So, the engine is made up of all these teeny parts and so is an offer. So is a result for an audience. And so in this engine, you have to identify what are the nuts and bolts of your offer and of your customer's ultimate goal. So, a nut and bolt offer solves one specific problem inside that bigger journey. So, if you are, let's just say a fitness coach, obviously the big engine here is getting the best shape of their life. But one of these nuts or bolts could be bulk meal prep. That's just one little thing they have to do to accomplish the big goal. Another one could be something like creating low-calorie desserts because some people they'll want to eat dessert, but they don't want to get fat, right? Cuz the ultimate goal is to lose weight, but they don't want to give up sweets. So, one nut and bolt to this would be low-calorie dessert or bulk meal prep. Or for instance, let's say you're going after an audience of people who want to gain muscle, you could literally have a whole offer, it could be an ebook, it could be a video course, it could even be something free like a YouTube video on shoulder health. I actually saw this video, maybe you guys have seen it, but it was a video from the top Cbum, Chris Bumstead, who's like the top bodybuilder right now, and he was doing this workout where it was keeping his shoulders healthy. So, he explained that this little routine helped strengthen the tendons in his shoulder so that when he did like heavy lifting, it didn't mess up his rotator cuffs. So again, inside of every offer, of every audience, especially if you're a coach or you sell intellectual property like courses, there's always these little nuts and bolts that when you add them up, that's the big goal, the big result you want to get your client. Just like in the online business space, you know, email marketing, Facebook ads, content, funnels. Again, a bunch of nuts and bolts that add up to the main goal.
Here's the beautiful part most people that all these little nuts and bolts are the easiest offers to sell. They're the easiest to create, to build trust, and the easiest to deliver. Just like my first offer that cost $37, which was a little course showing people how to set up their Facebook pixel and Facebook ad account. Well, when they did that, they were like, "Ah, I'm setting up. I'm inspired now to go run Facebook ads." So, they go and buy my more expensive course on how to do that. So, when you can solve one of these small problems that ultimately does not achieve the big problem, but does help them achieve one of those little parts to the big problem, you have now done two very important things. You have built an audience of buyers and you have gained trust with those buyers. And so by solving those little nut and bolt problems, you lead them to the full customer relationship. So, think of it like an IKEA furniture box. Inside is one little bag of nuts and bolts. Now, nobody buys the bag of nuts and bolts on its own except the person who's already bought the shelf and is missing pieces. You see, your nut and bolt offer finds the people who are already trying to achieve something. So, they're a more qualified audience, they're motivated, they're in motion. They just need that one piece. But when they get that one piece, they realize, "Oh, there's a lot more to this. There's a lot I need to fix it. I want to go with the person that helped me fix this one nut. I want him to help me work on the whole engine." And this is why I fundamentally disagree with people who give this horrible advice that you should build an audience and sell them something. Stupid. Absolutely stupid. Because what if you build an audience of people who don't have any money? An audience of people who aren't really serious about buying. Now, you've spent all this time building this audience and now you're trying to sell these something that they're not even really trying to to solve. They're not even trying to solve that problem. They just want to hear stuff on the internet. And that's most people. Most people just, "Oh, that sounds interesting. I want to hear that. Sounds cool." I literally had a girl who I knew from St. Pete back when I used to live in St. Pete. She's like a bartender. She's still a bartender. She's been a bartender for 15 years. And one day I saw her when I went to visit and she says, "Oh, you know, I watch all your videos." And I'm like, "You watch all my videos?" And in my mind I'm thinking, "Why did she watch all my videos? She doesn't have a business." "Oh, I just think it's really motivating." And look, that's good for her. That's great and hopefully one day she will do something with it. The point here is not that I'm on her for being a bartender and watching my videos. The point is you will have a large amount of people that will watch your content that have no intention of using it. They have no intention of actually buying or putting it to into practice or making anything out of it. When you create content, remember you have to go after the nuts and bolts of the stuff they're already trying to build. And if you want to take it a step further and you really want to attract an audience that will buy, stop trying to attract an audience and sell them something and start building an audience by selling them something.
So, I'll give you an example. Whenever I've run ads, I generally like to build my list and this is what I did in the beginning, build my list from buyers. How do you do that? Well, here's an ad, okay? Now, if you take this ad and you run it to and I'll give you a couple scenarios here, you run it to an actual offer, like a low-ticket offer that solves one of these nut and bolts problems. Well, now here's what's going to happen. They're going to see the ad, they're going to see the page, and then they're either going to buy, in which case now you have someone on your email list that actually bought. So, you have an audience of buyers. But you will find and I've I've we've run so many tests on this that you will actually get leads just as cheap for people who abandon cart as people who are downloading a free lead magnet. Which one's better? The person who gave you your name and email because they wanted to get something for free or the person that gave you the name and email because they were at least thinking of making a purchase, but then got distracted or ultimately changed their mind. Ah, so now we have this email list that we're going to send to our main core offers that cost more, but at least they're people that have already bought, i.e. an audience of buyers, or they're people who at least were seriously considering buying. And so most of these marketing gurus will tell you that if you can make a dollar per email subscriber per month, you're doing something well. So, to make that a little simpler, you should make $12 every year from one email subscriber on average. So, if you're making 12 or more, you're doing good. My email list when I started, $85 average per email subscriber. Now, that wasn't because I was super amazing, it was because I sold Okay? I didn't try to say, "Well, let me build an audience, give all this value." Like guys, if you're watching this right now, you're likely trying to build a business. You're trying to sell stuff. You're coming to me, do you have the expectation that I'm just going to give you everything for free? I'm not going to sell you anything? But you want me to teach you to sell stuff. Isn't that like trying to learn how to lose weight from the fat guy? Why would you have that expectation? There's nothing wrong with you selling stuff to your audience. There's nothing wrong with me selling stuff to you. I make content for people that want to stand in line and wait to achieve their dreams. That's my YouTube content, that's my free stuff. But I also make content for people that want the fast pass. That's my paid content. And that's okay. There's nothing wrong with selling stuff. And if you want to sell stuff, if you want to be a Look, if you want to be a content creator, fine. Adopt this mindset that you should just give everything away for free and you shouldn't sell whatever. But if you're a business owner who's using content to grow your business, you got to stow that I'm a YouTuber, I'm a Instagram influencer. I I need to figure out how to monetize my audience mindset. That's not a business owner mindset. Forget those people. That's not If If you're that person, you're probably on the wrong channel. You should be a business owner who's using social media to get customers, in which that case is you have to sell them stuff. So, in the beginning, build the audience of people by selling them stuff. And when you sell them stuff for a reasonable price and you really solve one of these problems, now they have trust. Now, how do you really do that though? Because a lot of people they'll sell you stuff for cheap and they won't solve the whole problem and they'll be like, "Oh, go buy the expensive thing to solve to solve this problem greater." That's not how you do it. You pick one of these problems, okay? So, for instance, bulk meal prep. Now, bulk meal prep, you can sell them some sort of ebook, course, whatever that will absolutely accomplish this goal. And you can go hard. You can solve this entire thing. You can give them everything they need to know to do bulk meal prep. That does not mean that just because they've mastered this one thing, the whole engine's going to work. Doesn't mean that their workouts are going to be good or their mindset's going to be good or that their hydration's going to be good or that they're they're going to grow muscle. It doesn't mean any of that. It just means that they will have absolutely mastered this. And so, don't hold back what you teach. Pick nuts and bolts, teach fully, and that will build trust, and they'll want to come to you for the whole engine. So, how do you do this in practice? Look at your main offer and ask, "What are the five to 10 specific steps or problem a customer has to solve along the way?" Pick one of those, build a small, very specific offer around it, a guide, a training, a template. Price it low, like $7.97, and the goal is not to make fortune on this thing. The goal is to identify and attract buyers. And even if you didn't want to sell something and you only wanted to sell your one offer and that's it, fine. At least make content around those nut and bolt problems so that you are attracting people who are actively trying to build the engine. And that is how you build an audience of buyers.
So, now that you know what to sell, the next question is, what's your big offer? What's the engine? How do you reverse engineer down to something affordable that pulls people towards it? And so, most people they do this backwards. They they build a cheap offer first and then they hope to upsell. That's the wrong direction. You want to start with your core offer. So, imagine this right here is your core offer. This is your most premium, most valuable thing. You want to work backwards to the nut and bolts offers that lead them to the core offer, not the other way around. So, there are two ways a nut and bolt offer sets up your premium offer. Method one is the go deeper method. This is where you solve a nut and bolt problem that will solve a small piece of the puzzle and the result is they get a win. They build trust with you and they want more. They want to go deeper naturally. So, I mentioned this earlier, I sold a $37 course on how to set up your Facebook ads that naturally made them want to go deeper on the full course of how to run profitable ads. But then there's another method that is actually the exact opposite and it works extremely well. I call this the teach step two method. So, this is where you teach them step two of a process when you know they haven't mastered step one yet. People love to feel smart by consuming advanced content. But at the end of the day, most of the people who consume this content still haven't mastered step one. This is why the number one question I get from people is, "Dan, I'm unsure of my offer. I don't know if my offer is correct." Yet they're buying courses on advanced email marketing and webinars and all this It's like, "Bro, like you haven't even mastered your offer yet." And what's even crazier is people resist investing in designing their offer because they don't have confidence in their offer. So, they're like, "Ooh, I don't want to invest until I figure it out." Yet literally 99% of what makes a business successful in the online offer game is the offer design. That's like saying, "I don't want to invest in an architect to design my house until I've designed my house." Imagine going to the contractor with a scribbled house on a napkin and be like, "I designed this. I didn't pay a proper architect." And the guy's going to be like, "You're a you're a lunatic." But that's what people do, whether it's fitness, whether it's business, whether it's marriage, they always have this idea that it is a good use of their time to watch content that they are not even in a position to use yet. And you can't change that about people. So, fine. Put out some advanced content and let them consume it and then take them back to step one.
So, here's how I did that. One of my ads that I ran for my Facebook ads course, it did over a million dollars. It's one of my only ads that by itself, that one ad did over a million dollars. And it was a teach step two ad. I literally said at the beginning, "Hey, let me show you how to get more results when you have a lot of Facebook ad clients." And then I proceeded to teach them literally how to do that. And then I said, "Hey, are you still trying to find your first client? Go here." And that ad crushed. I'll give you another example. I saw this one offer one time. It was amazing. It was a posing how to pose for bodybuilding. And I remember talking to the guy who sold it. He he did gangbusters with it. He said, "A very large, like over half the people that came in through that product, they were fat. They were out of shape. They had no muscle." And they're buying a a posing offer, right? So, they buy that, they realize that they ain't got nothing to pose for, and then they buy a full full program on how to gain muscle. I mean, think about this, guys. You would be surprised how much of a consumer we are as people. So, take advantage of them, give them value, but know in your back of your mind that most people are beginners at anything. 80 to 90% of any market is beginners. So, teach them something, gain the trust, but then always bring them back to step one. And you'll find how quickly you can build an audience of people who will really trust you and want to learn from you. Cuz if they got value from step two, they come to you to buy step one from you. And by the way, this is exactly what the app Duolingo does. They teach you how to have a conversation in Spanish in the first week, even though you can barely speak a verb. You feel like you're making progress. You're hooked. And you keep coming back for step one fundamentals. The psychology is the same. Get people excited about the destination before they've mapped the route. Write down your highest value offer, your core offer. Then ask yourself, "What's step two? What does someone need to know after they've already succeeded?" Create content or a small offer around that. And then let the natural, "Wait, I need to start at step one" moment funnel them back to you. And that's how you reverse engineer an offer that makes your premium product the obvious next step.
Now, I'm going to get real with you for a second. If you're a beginner and you're watching this, it probably feels overwhelming. Everything I'm saying right now probably feels like, "Oh, I got to build a funnel and low-ticket products and email sequences and I got to do this and I got to do that." I get it. So, if you're not willing to do that, I still would like to see you get started and do something. So, that's why I have the no funnel guide. It's specifically meant for people who don't want to hop right into tech and email sequences and funnels and all that, but still want to land their first several coaching or done-for-you service clients. And this guide will show you how to get your first few clients without having to go so deep into advanced marketing and tech strategies. I'll leave that link in the description or scan the QR code. Now, if you resist selling something to your audience first when you're just starting to build an audience. Now, option A is you do a free lunch. Anyone can come, you eat, and you pitch them on investment properties. Option B, it's a paid dinner. $200 a seat. Join us for access to the hottest off-market deals. Which room has more buyers? Which room do you think are you going to get the more deals out of? It's obvious. The people who paid to be there and came there because they intended on finding deals to invest in, not because they wanted a free lunch. You see, your email list, your audience, your Instagram followers, they're either at a free lunch or the paid dinner. You decide which one you're hosting. Now, you might say, "Well, what about what Gary Vee says? Jab, jab, jab, right hook model." And this is a world-famous framework by Gary Vee and it it does work for massive brands with unlimited content budgets. But for the average person building from scratch, it means years of free content before your first sale. I believe the first interaction you have should be a sale. But here's the beautiful part. You can do both. Because every time you give away something for free, the next page instead of a thank you page, it can have an offer. Let's say you have a freebie. And this freebie is designed to give value to your audience. Give them something for free. Great. And perhaps that you've run some content or some ads and you are pointing this content and these ads towards the freebie. Well, instead of a thank you page, take them to an offer. And yes, you guessed it, it should be a nut and bolt offer. So, now sure, you're building your email list, you're giving away free content, free goodwill, but you're still getting buyers. Even a $7 purchase changes everything. The person has crossed the psychological line from consumer to customer. And that's how you build an audience that actually buys.
Now, look, there's a lot of advice out there on how to sell coaching, digital products, etc. that is bad. Why? Because most people who teach this stuff haven't actually made any real money. They see other people, guys like me, that actually make money with it and they go, "Oh, they're selling how to create digital products. So, if I saw that same offer, even though I don't know sh And then, some people see those people, and they buy from them. And then they get this advice, "Oh, build an audience, sell them something. Don't sell anything at first. Da da da da da da da da." And I know what you're thinking, "Well, what about Alex Hormozi? He says, you know, give give give and all this stuff." Bro, what are you talking about? What made him famous? Like, what really made him What was like the spike? It was his $100 million offer's book, which cost the money. Even it was $0.99, it cost money. Watch what people do, not so much what they say. If you want to put out 300 videos a month and build a big audience and go with this massive content budget, then yes, you probably could make a lot more money really building pressure if you knew exactly what you were doing at a pro level. But for the average person, there is nothing wrong with selling something first to attract actual customers. Solve a problem for them for a decent price, something that's very reasonable. Show them that you can help after a transaction. Because most people, what they do is they give you really good content, and then when you buy something, it ends up being sh So, by selling them something and showing them that it's not you're actually standing out more, giving more value than most of the people out there. And that's why from the moment I started, I sold something. Went from a pizza boy to $40 million in sales, very respected in the industry, multiple best-selling books. It worked for me, so I believe it can work for you, too. I don't want you to waste a lot of time, money, and effort on stuff that doesn't make you money. I believe that if you do it this way, you're going to get a lot more success a lot faster, and you're going to be motivated to keep going. And that's how I made $40 million ignoring popular advice.