The Offer is King

        1. **The Offer Is King** - A good enough offer eliminates the need for hard selling or amazing creative
2. **Three Greatest Offers of All Time:**
   - Domino's: "Delivered in 30 minutes or it's free"
   - Columbia House: "10 CDs for a penny"
   - FedEx: "When it absolutely has to get there by tomorrow morning"
3. **Three Components of Irresistible Offers:**
   - Believability (with a reason why)
   - High ROI / perceived value
   - Business model that supports it
4. **Seven Ways to Ethically Use Free:**
   - Free Bribe Offer
   - Limited Free Offer
   - Free Trial + Penalty
   - Free with Deposit
   - Free Forever
   - Free Giveaway
   - Free with Commitment

## The Offer Is King

The offer is king. That's because it actually is.

If you have a good enough offer, you don't have to sell hard. You don't need amazing copy or amazing creative. You just get a lot of people to sign up for your thing.

Most businesses should be founded on a core offer that is exceptional—an irresistible offer. That's what grows the business. I want to walk you through three legendary offers, the three components that make them work, and seven ways to ethically use free.

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## Three of the Greatest Offers of All Time

### 1. Domino's: "Delivered in 30 minutes or it's free"

This is an irresistible offer. They had pizza—but because of that guarantee, people wanted to order. They didn't have to be sold. When someone was hungry, they thought, "In 30 minutes, I can have pizza at my door."

There's almost a gamification element to it. A challenge: "Well, if it's not here in 30 minutes, I get it free."

That one offer was a fundamental key to their growth. Back in the Yellow Pages days, pizza had its own entire section. No other restaurant category got that treatment. Just pizza. That was because of one irresistible offer.

### 2. Columbia House: "10 CDs for a penny"

This came with continuity, so it was essentially the first trial offer. For those old enough to remember it, this is one of the single greatest offers of all time.

### 3. FedEx: "When it absolutely has to get there by tomorrow morning"

Notice that the first two offers have a pricing component. FedEx doesn't—but it has a really high value component. That's what made it work.

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## The Three Components of an Irresistible Offer

### 1. Believability

There's a famous story about a marketer who ran an ad that said, "For every dollar you give me, I'll give you $1,000 back." He got zero responses. That's a crazy offer—but it's so good that it's not believable. Literally no one responded.

What makes offers believable? Having a reason why.

"I'm dropping all my prices by half because my inventory is about to expire." People believe that.

"I'm overstocked and need to make room for new inventory. Everything's half off." People believe that.

Believability is component number one.

### 2. High ROI / Perceived Value

The offer has to be valuable—and communicable in a few words.

"Guaranteed to your door in under 30 minutes." Valuable.

"Delivered wherever it needs to go by tomorrow morning." Valuable.

You can make offers all day, but if people don't find them valuable, it won't matter.

### 3. The Business Model Around It

This is where free offers come in. The penny offer is basically free. The Domino's offer has a free component. Understanding how to use free as a marketer is, in my opinion, the single most valuable thing you can learn.

It's learning how to build a better mousetrap.

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## Why Free Offers Matter

The benefits of free offers:

1. **Highest volume of leads**
2. **Lowest cost to acquire customers**
3. **Key to massive growth**—especially something irresistible that can spread through word of mouth and that other people can easily comprehend

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## Seven Ways to Ethically Use Free

### 1. Free Bribe Offer

You offer something for free as a benefit for signing up.

Frank Kern did this years ago. He had all of his courses—probably $12,000 in value—and said, "I'll give you every course I've ever made absolutely free if you sign up for my $397/month newsletter."

You can use the word "free," which brings attention and huge perceived ROI. But it's free *with purchase*. If you buy this smaller thing, you get this huge value thing for free. It's also a nice price anchor.

Fitness example: "Our six-week challenge is $1,000. Or you can sign up to become a member at $200/month and get the $1,000 challenge for free."

That's a compelling offer. Lots of people say yes, and you get them straight into continuity.

### 2. Limited Free Offer

This is an A/B close.

Someone comes in for a 28-day promotion. The free version is one workout per week, no personalized nutrition, no accountability coach.

During the sales process, they've already told you they're not motivated and need help. So you upsell them to an enhanced version—$199 or $299—that includes unlimited workouts, personalized nutrition, and an accountability coach. If they don't lose 10 pounds in 28 days, they get another 28 days free.

You get all this volume for free, but you can still upsell three out of four people into a paid offer.

### 3. Free Trial + Penalty

This works as a downsell.

If someone doesn't take the upsell, you say: "If you're going to stay on the free trial, you need to put a card down. You're committing to work out X times. If you miss workouts, we charge you for the missed sessions. You also need to attend a feedback session, a transformation photo session, and a nutrition session. If you no-show any of those, it's $50."

Now they have a huge motivator to actually consume your product. The likelihood they convert on the back end goes up significantly. At minimum, your trials become more qualified and more invested.

If you can't close free trials, you have other issues.

### 4. Free with Deposit

This is the classic six-week challenge model—probably the most popular fitness offer of the last decade.

Someone puts money down. If they hit a goal or complete an outcome, they get their money back or get it credited toward their next program.

It's free with a contingency. Free with stipulations.

### 5. Free Forever

This is where you really need to understand how your mousetrap works.

If you have multiple ways to monetize a customer, you can say: "I will train you for free. Your membership is free forever. As long as you do what I tell you—which includes buying supplements from us."

A friend of mine owned a chain of weight loss clinics. They made only 5% of revenue on service and 95% on supplements. People came in, got the service essentially for free, but were required to use the supplements as part of the program.

That's 100% free on the service—but you're bolting on a different revenue stream.

If something is high margin and low perceived value, give it away for free. Then make them buy something with higher perceived value. People tend to appreciate physical products more than they appreciate service.

### 6. Free Giveaway

Classic model. You run a giveaway—meals for a month, whatever.

Tons of people opt in. You pick one winner, but you say to everyone else: "You didn't win, but since you signed up, here's a discount on the program."

The key: people are raising their hand to demonstrate they have a need for the service. If the giveaway is high perceived value and related to your core offer, you get tons of cheap, qualified leads.

A friend of mine just started running a $25,000 transformation challenge. People are buying without phone calls—$300 to sign up online—because they see the huge giveaway and want a chance to win.

(Obviously with giveaways, make sure you're compliant and not crossing into gambling territory.)

### 7. Free with Commitment

Not contingency—commitment.

"Your first month is free, as long as you commit to a 9-month contract."

You can still market "free." The sale becomes easy. It puts more onus on fulfillment, but if you get the commitment, you convert a high percentage on the front end—typically at higher average contract values because they're not confirming price upfront.

One big mistake I see: people sell the trial instead of selling the continuity. Even if someone is on auto-bill, you still need to sell them on staying. Otherwise, 30% will call up saying, "I didn't mean to let that charge go through." Then you've got chargebacks and headaches.

Make sure they know they're going to get billed. If it were me, I'd only bill people who had been sold and at least verbally agreed to continue.

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## The Bottom Line

Learning how to monetize free is one of the biggest tools in your toolbox. If you don't know how to do it, you're at a significant disadvantage—because your competitors will. They'll acquire more customers at a cheaper price than you.

If you know the metrics—what percentage convert, what percentage stay, what the average ticket is—you can market with reckless abandon because you know your LTV. You know you can win based on those numbers.

**The offer is absolutely king.**

If you get it right, someone should be able to explain it to someone else in one or two sentences. If you can't explain it that simply, it's not clear enough to a prospect.

Get the offer right, and it will make you more money than you know what to do with.