Most people would mistake this for a lesson that originated with Jay Abraham…
After all, of all the modern masters of marketing, he’s the one who teaches this principle most often.
And today, as I understand it, Jay’s methods have helped his clients generate well over $9 billion in additional revenue they wouldn’t have otherwise. (From what I know that’s actually an extremely conservative estimate, as Jay seldom sits down and updates the math, and even that number is a few years old.)
Tony Robbins follows Jay.
FUBU Founder and Shark Tank star Daymond John follows Jay.
Practically the entire direct response publishing business sat at Jay’s feet, for most of its formative years.
Jay Abraham knows marketing.
Here’s one key lesson he keeps coming back to…
Ask Jay what you should put on a landing page offering a free report, book, premium, or other offer…
Ask Jay how you should offer a first phone call free to a new prospective client…
Ask Jay any of a million questions involving giving away something free, on the hope that it will lead the recipient to purchase your product or service down the road…
You’ll get this same positioning.
I’ll show you how he applies it when offering time to a prospective client…
You want to sell a prospective client your services. But you know the best way to get them to invest in those services is to get them on the phone and have a solid conversation.
The only problem is, when you offer free phone calls to everybody, prospective clients seldom value that time. Few convert. And you end up feeling like you’re wasting way too much time for too little return.
And even when you do get a client from these free calls, you can’t get no respect!
Jay’s method flips that on its head.
I’ll channel my inner Jay, and give you an example of how he might position this free phone call…
—
I’d like to buy you an hour of my time. I currently offer consulting at a rate of $### per hour. And when clients get on the phone with me, it’s not uncommon in that hour to find half a dozen ideas worth ten times that, each. Investing in my time consistently gets my clients an incredible ROI.
And yet, I’m interested enough in your business and what we might be able to do together, that I’d like to buy your first hour of my time, as a gift to you. Knowing full well that if we are able to uncover the types of opportunities that I believe exist in your business, that I will have made a smart investment in you.
I do have one caveat. When we invest in something for ourselves, we do tend to value it very highly. And so even though I’ll be buying my time on your behalf, I would like you treat this hour as if you’d invested your own $###, in order for you to get the full value from it. When would you like to schedule the call?
—
Get the point?
What you’re doing is saying that even IF I’m giving you this hour for free, it’s still worth the $100, $250, $500, or $25,000 I might charge someone else for the time. There’s also the implication that the second hour will be at full rate, because someone will have to pay.
You’ll find clients value your time and advice much more, when you approach it this way.
Here’s another way you might apply this…
Let’s say, for example, that you have a free+shipping offer, like I do for my Copywriters Guide to Getting Paid book.
In other words, the customer pays shipping, and gets the product free. This is a common way to bring buyers in the (proverbial) front door of your business, and get them to spend money with you for the first time.
It’s already proven effective to say, “I’ll send you a copy of my book, free. You simply pay shipping.” However, there may be a better way.
I could, for example, say this:
—
I’ve just ordered 100 additional copies of my book, The Copywriter’s Guide to Getting Paid. Because of my author discount, they cost me $2.73 each, delivered.
On Amazon, where there are 17 reviews for an average of 4.3 stars, you can buy it for $6.99 plus shipping.
And yet, if you’ll simply cover my $4.99 cost to ship it to you, one of the 100 copies I’ve just bought can be yours. I’ve already bought the book for you, now I’ll send it to you if you’ll just cover my shipping costs.
—
(This is, incidentally, 100% true — here’s the UPS tracking link for the 25-pound package that arrived at 4:39 PM this Monday — and you can get your copy here. I’ve already paid for it on your behalf!)
Do you see how this creates a greater sense of value than simply saying the book is free? In fact, I may need to update my offer page for that!
The same thing can be done for all sorts of products offered as free samples (or “freemiums”).
Jay even advocates using this when offering a free download. Somehow, some way, figure out the value of what’s being offered for free. For example, you could say,
—
My clients pay me upwards of $1,000 per hour to simply put together my best ideas and strategies for marketing their products and services.
I invested two days — a full 16 hours of my time — into putting together this report for you. And while you may not buy this report for $16,000, understand that my opportunity cost and investment in giving it to you is that much.
And yet I choose to give it to you gratis — as my gift — because I know it will prove to you the value of my advice, and you’ll find yourself naturally motivated to seek me out further. At which time, you’ll be able to find the best way to schedule time on my calendar on the last page of the report.
—
Make sense?
It’s all about conveying the value far beyond free…
Now: here’s the shocking truth of the origin of this strategy!
As brilliant as Jay is at applying this and many other principles, I’m certain he didn’t come up with it.
How can I be certain?
Well, I know that Jay is a serious student of Claude Hopkins.
He says he’s read Scientific Advertising 50 times.
I also know that he used to read the book from stage at his week-long events that cost upwards of $25,000 per person to attend.
That’s how much he values this information.
And as I was preparing for my BTMSinsiders members-only webinar tomorrow on Scientific Advertising in the 21st Century, I was reminded that this exact same strategy is taught in Scientific Advertising!
When Claude Hopkins talks about sampling, he explicitly explains how you do not simply want to offer free samples. Rather, he suggests the best way to do it — based on tested advertising methods — is to offer to buy the sample for the prospect.
It’s a subtle difference, but powerful in practice.
And this lesson — still being taught today by Jay — is now 95-years-old in the book, and probably well over a century old in practice.
That’s one of many breakthroughs we’ll re-discover in tomorrow’s webinar.
Click here to join us for Scientific Advertising in the 21st Century.
Yours for bigger breakthroughs,
Roy Furr
