From Zero to Millions: Mastering the Art of Offer Creation

        **Core Topic:** How to create irresistible offers by understanding that perceived value, time, energy (especially fear), and strategic bonuses matter far more than price—and how to use psychological "bugs" and drama to maximize conversions.

**Main Speaking Points:**

1. **Definition of an Offer** — Perceived value exchanged for time, money, and energy. Not a single word of fat on that definition.

2. **Perceived Value vs. Actual Value** — Actual value only matters because it increases perceived value for the next thing you sell. We judge books by covers whether we're supposed to or not.

3. **The Real Priority: Energy > Time > Money** — Fear is the strongest energetic force opposing a purchase. If people knew they couldn't fail, they'd do anything. The real job is addressing energetic resistance, not lowering prices.

4. **The Money Reframe** — "How can I sell at the highest price possible and still have the best deal?" Cut time in half, cut risk in half, and you can double the price while doubling conversion.

5. **Core vs. Bonuses** — The core is what they pay for; bonuses are what they get for free. Bonuses are actually more important because "free" has the highest perceived value. You can't apply math to free—value becomes based on the story you tell.

6. **Brain Bugs:**
   - *Pain/Gain Bug* — We feel losses twice as intensely as gains
   - *Number vs. Percentage Bug* — $200 off feels different at different price points
   - *Something for Nothing Bug* — We want most what we can't have; "can't buy it, can only get it free" is the most powerful positioning

7. **Scarcity Creates Value** — The Billy Ripken baseball card story: a mediocre player's card worth $1,500 while his Hall of Fame brother's is worth a quarter—because of scarcity.

8. **Relative Comparison / Price Anchoring** — The best way for customers to know it's a good deal is to see others pay more. Different market segments have different values (trash or treasure depends on the person).

9. **Drama in Offers** — People love drama. Engineered "oops" moments, dramatic reveals, stacking bonuses then revealing "free"—drama drives action.

10. **Risk Elimination** — The most important thing: if you eliminate the risk someone has to take to do business with you, every customer you'd ever want will be yours.

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I found a video in the archives from when I spoke at an event in Frankfurt to about 3,000 people. Got a standing ovation at the end, so I think I did pretty well.

This is all about offers—making offers so incredible that only dumb people don't buy them. I break down my definition of an offer, then stack technique on top of technique. If you're making any sort of offer, this is gold. This is the stuff people pay me tremendous amounts of money to fly in and speak about. You're getting it for free on YouTube.

Put this to use. I put my heart and soul into everything I do to help as many people be successful as possible. And it starts with the offer. A great offer makes up for everything else. A terrible offer? You have no hope. You could do everything else right and still lose.

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### The Foundation: $9.8 Million in 8 Days

In 2015, we did $9.8 million in 8 days as an affiliate—meaning we weren't even selling our own product. We were selling someone else's. That experience taught me more about marketing than anything before or since. Hundreds of millions of dollars later, I still use these secrets.

Here's a teaser: We sold 1,700 units of a $5,000 product. But 200 people bought the product *again*—even though it was digital. It's not like buying two cars. It's like buying one car twice. How did I do that? You'll discover that.

Other affiliates tried to outsell us. Second place lost by $8 million. We won this contest five times in a row. By the sixth launch, they took us off the leaderboard. Said we were too good. Retired us. Gave us the cash prize and accolades. We promoted it anyway and still made millions.

And if you're thinking "that only works for affiliate offers"—not exactly. Last year we did $57 million in 226 days selling our own product. Zero dollars in advertising. We got affiliates to promote us because I understand both sides of this game.

The same principles work for coaching, services, other people's offers, even stuff you give away for free. Some of the best money I've ever made was on stuff I gave away for free.

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### What Is an Offer?

The most well-known offer teacher is Alex Hormozi. He wrote *$100 Million Offers*. Here's what Alex said about me: "I just stumbled upon your webinar course. It is the single best course I've seen to date on offer creation and persuasion."

When the president says "this guy's my guy," that means something.

Earlier this year, Alex sold 100,000 books in 20 minutes using what was essentially a webinar. What you might not know is that before that launch, he paid me $25,000 to consult with him on it.

This works for coaching. It works for consulting. It works anywhere there's money to be made.

**Offer over everything.** The offer is so important it can't be overstated. Nail the offer, you win. Miss the offer, you lose.

So what is an offer? Most people don't even know, and they're out there trying to make money and save the world.

Here's my definition: **Perceived value exchanged for time, money, and energy.**

There's not an ounce of fat on that sentence. Write it down. If you truly understand it, you will make more money than you deserve.

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### Two Parties, Opposing Forces

Every offer has two parts—a buyer and a seller.

The **seller** wants to offer the most perceived value for the least amount of time, money, and energy. They want to sell something for a million dollars that took them one second and zero dollars to create.

The **buyer** wants the world for a nickel. Most perceived value for the least time, money, and energy.

These are diametrically opposing forces. Our job is to work them through so both parties get what they want.

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### Perceived Value vs. Actual Value

Why "perceived" value and not "actual" value?

Question: Who should you fear more—the mosquito or the shark?

Sharks kill fewer than 10 people a year. (And honestly, those 10 people probably deserved it. How does that happen?) Meanwhile, humans kill over 100 million sharks annually. So who should fear whom?

The second deadliest creature on this planet is the human. The deadliest? The mosquito. Kills more than any other creature.

But that's *actual*. The *perceived* is that there's no Mosquito Week on Discovery Channel—but there is Shark Week.

What should you never judge a book by? Its cover. But what *do* you judge a book by? Its cover.

**Actual value is only known after the purchase.** You buy it, then you say "great, that was awesome" or "I don't know about that." Actual value matters only because it increases perceived value for the next thing you sell. Actual value is good because it enhances perceived value.

Great stuff isn't good enough. The Mona Lisa with duct tape for a frame doesn't hit the same. You need the best stuff *with* the best perception.

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### The Real Priority: Energy > Time > Money

Most people think the order of importance is: Money, then Time, then Energy.

**The actual order is: Energy, then Time, then barely—Money.**

Let me prove it.

Say your friend John is a barista. He can find the solution to his problem without paying anything—spend 10 hours on the internet. His cost is actually $150: $15/hour at Starbucks times 10 hours. Or he can buy your product for $99.

**Free is more expensive than paid in so many scenarios.**

Think of all the stuff right now that you're not selling to your audience. You're forcing them to do it for free. They're getting the worst end of the deal because you're not allowing them to pay you money. That's a tragedy.

Now take John, who wants a whiter, brighter smile to be more attractive. Then there's Jane, who can't sleep at night because the pain of her toothache is so great. Who's more likely to spend money first and spend more of it?

Jane. Pain before gain. Pain is an energetic force.

If you knew you could not fail, and it was worth doing, and you wanted to do it more than anything—how easy would it be to take action? Almost effortless. Because the energetic fear of failure has been removed.

**So why do people have a procrastination problem?** They have a constipation of the mind problem.

Here's why you hesitate: There's a real chance you could lose, and that's scary. Fear is energy. Fear is the strongest energetic force there is.

Even if something was free and didn't take any time, most of the things you should be doing, you will not do. Because you might look stupid. You could be laughed at. You could let loved ones down.

When I'm thinking about an offer, money is way down the list. These energetic forces that oppose the purchase are what's on my mind.

**If it was hard but you knew you could do it—that's easy.**
**If it was easy but you weren't sure you could do it—that's hard.**

Complete reverso Bizarro Twilight Zone. Your job—and you get paid very well if you do this well—is to help people understand what's at stake.

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### The Money Reframe

Here's a thought that will make you rich if you truly embrace it.

As a seller, the number one thought that should occupy your mind daily: **How can I sell at the highest price possible and still have the best deal?**

Everyone's got it twisted. They think "best deal" means lower price.

I was at a speaker dinner and someone asked about Black Friday discounts. I said, "How about this—instead of discounting, what if you added more for free?"

**If I could cut time in half and cut risk in half, I could double the price and double the conversion.**

When you raise a price, one of three things happens: conversion goes down, conversion stays the same, or conversion goes up. Two out of three are in your favor. Even if conversion goes down, you can still make more money. Increase prices by 10%, lose 40% of your customers, and still net the same profit.

How can we sell at the highest price ever in the market and still have the very best deal? Your customers will *thank you* if you do that for them.

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### Core vs. Bonuses

Every offer has two parts: the core and the bonuses.

Some people don't even realize **bonuses are the most important part of the offer.** If you don't have any bonuses, shame on you.

- **Core** = what you pay for
- **Bonuses** = what you get for free

Everyone wastes all their time on the core—"I'm selling this thing, so I've got to focus on this thing." Then they think about bonuses as an afterthought. Sad.

**Free has the most perceived value of all.**

Before Twitter went public, they were pre-revenue. Because they hadn't made a dollar yet, nobody could apply a math formula to value them. They could only value them based on what they *thought* Twitter was worth in a vacuum.

That's what bonuses are. The value is based on the story you can tell and the understanding of what it can do for your audience.

Let me prove it:
- "Normally $2,000, get it today for $1,000." Cool.
- "Normally $2,000, get it today for free." Which wins?

"But Jason, my stuff is $1,000 and if I discount to $500, that's good." Sure. Or $1,000 to free. Free is better.

Trickier: $500 to $200 (more than 50% off) vs. $500 to zero. **Free wins every single time.**

A good deal is great. Something for nothing is greater. Your audience should always feel like "I'm getting something for nothing—I can't believe it."

---

### Brain Bugs

Your brain is full of bugs—not creepy crawlies, but computer-style viruses that don't make sense. If you're aware of them, you can communicate better and make better decisions.

**The Pain/Gain Bug:**
Say you find $10 on the ground. Your happiness goes up 50 points. A few days later, you lose that $10. Your happiness goes down 100 points.

Your net worth is exactly the same—you found money and lost it, wasn't yours to begin with. But you started at zero, went up 50, then dropped to negative 50.

We value what we could lose or have already lost by a significant margin versus what we could gain. Keep that in mind when creating offers.

**The Number vs. Percentage Bug:**
You want new kicks. $210 down the street, but the salesperson says you can get the same pair across town for $10. You rush across town—that's 95% off!

A year later, after applying what I teach, you're buying a Lambo for $1.2 million. Salesperson says you can get it across town for $1 million. You say, "I'm not wasting my time."

Same $200 savings. But 95% off feels worth the trip. 0.01% off doesn't.

**The Something for Nothing Bug:**
Ever have a spouse come home from a sale saying, "Look at this great deal!" And you ask, "Were you going to buy that?" "Well, no, but it was too good to pass up!"

If you weren't going to buy it, it's not worth it at any price. But that bug doesn't care.

When I sell things, I want something I can offer that says: "You can't buy this, but you can get it for free. You can't write me a check for it. I will not take your money for this thing—but I will give it to you for free."

What do we want most? What we can't have.

Your goal: **Offer a temporary opportunity to get bonuses for free that soon they can't get at any price anywhere.**

For your most important offers, create temporary, exclusive bonuses. The most valuable thing you can do to increase value is to make it scarce.

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### The Billy Ripken Story

Two baseball brothers: Cal Ripken Jr. and Billy Ripken.

Cal: 19-time All-Star. Holds the record for most consecutive games played—2,000+ games without missing a day. Hall of Fame, first year of eligibility.

Billy: Spent most of his career injured. Appeared on a magazine cover as a symbol of his team's failure. Wasn't even named after his dad.

But there's this one baseball card I had as a kid that's now worth $1,500. Same year, same set. Cal's worth a quarter. Billy's worth $1,500.

Why? If you look closely at the bottom of his bat, there's something written on it. They didn't catch it until people complained. It rhymes with "duck face."

Can you imagine little Timmy opening the pack? His mom looks at it—"Oh my God"—pulls it off the shelf. And that's why it's worth $1,500 while his Hall of Fame brother's card is worth a quarter.

**Scarcity.**

Bonus scarcity: You can't buy it. You can get it for free—but only through this offer. That's how I got 200 people to rebuy the same digital product just for the free bonuses.

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### Relative Comparison and Price Anchoring

There was a scientific study on attraction. Pretend you're an objective 5 out of 10. You have a friend who kind of looks like you—but uglier. When random people rate you both, your hotness goes up 10%.

You're literally hotter just because someone who looks like you but uglier is standing next to you. These are bugs in our brains.

**The best way for customers to know if it's a good deal is to see other people pay more for it.**

Here's how we did it in our $57 million launch:

I went to my audience and said, "I need players with money to run an experiment. $10,000 up front. One-on-one. I don't know if it'll work."

Immediately, a bunch of people said yes. But I told the rest of the audience: "On the off chance this works, I'll sell it to you in the distant future."

What do people want most? What they can't have. So now they're thinking, "Damn, I want that—but I'm not a player with money."

Now we have a **price anchor**.

We go out, prove it works, optimize the process, document results, share them with the masses—and sell the product for $2,500.

They think: "What a great deal! A quarter of the price for something twice as good."

But here's what's interesting: The people who bought at $10,000 thought it was a great deal. The people who bought at $2,500 thought it was a great deal too.

How is that possible?

**Different market segments have different values.** Trash or treasure depends on who the person is.

To a millionaire, $10,000 is 1% of their net worth. To an average earner, $2,500 is 4% of their net worth.

What's more scarce to a millionaire—time or money? Time. What's more scarce to a thousandaire? Money.

To our players with money, waiting would cost them far more than paying 4x just to get it sooner.

We made everybody happy. They're happy because they got it early for $10K. The others are happy because they got it at a "discount" later. And I'm happy because I made $57 million.

They say money can't buy happiness, but it makes a really good down payment.

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### Drama

True crime is the most popular podcast genre in the US. People love drama.

Taylor Swift is dating a Kansas City Chief, and everybody's talking about it. I don't even want to know about it, but here I am thinking about it. Because drama.

**A great offer has drama.**

Alex Hormozi's book launch earlier this year had drama. Big stack of bonuses—interesting, I wonder who he learned that from—stacked up, stacked up, stacked up... and then the big reveal: FREE.

It short-circuited everybody's mind. Just crushed it.

One of my best accidents happened 13 years ago. I was making an offer on a webinar: "$97 one-pay, or three installments of $97."

Someone points out: "Jason, you set up the payment wrong. You said three-pay but it's only two."

Uh-oh. I really did screw it up.

So I said, "You know what? Until I end this webinar, I will honor that price."

That day was the highest-converting webinar I'd ever done at that time. Because people wanted to take advantage of my mistake.

Drama. "Oh, he screwed up—I better get it now before he comes to his senses."

**Dramatic relative comparison:**

We used to offer software: $47 for one license, $77 for 10 licenses, $97 for 25 licenses.

This is the hot you. This is your uglier friend who looks kind of like you. And this is the wildebeest.

I'd say, "We're running a special promotion—if you get in within 72 hours, I'll double your licenses." Double! Remember percentage vs. numbers.

"And if you buy before the end of this webinar, I'll give you a hundred of them."

The drama: 25, then 50, then 100—for less than a dollar per license. Killer offer.

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### The Final Thought: Risk

I'll end with this.

An offer is perceived value exchanged for time, money, and energy.

It's not good enough to be good enough—have the very best thing possible. It ain't about the money; it's about how the money compares to the value. The time involved. And most importantly, the energetic force that opposes it—fear, "I don't think I'm enough," what happens if I'm successful, not just if I fail.

Of all the things you can do, the most important is this: **RISK.**

**If you can eliminate the risk someone has to take to do business with you, then every single customer you'd ever want to have will be yours.**

When I'm thinking about an offer, I'm thinking: How can I take the risk on for them?

If you do that and you show up, you can sell $9.8 million in 8 days. You can sell $57 million in 226 days. Hell, you can be like Alex and stand on my shoulders and sell more than I've ever sold.

When that happens, come to me one day and tell me: "Jason, it was because of what I heard from you that made it happen."

Then I'll know I've offered the best thing I can offer—which is my heart and soul.

That's what I've offered you today.