Why Freebies Are Failing You—and What to Do Instead

Natalie (2): I have a question why is the online world driven by freebies? How did that happen? Because I personally don't like it.
Paul: Yeah, you do you want my. We're in this bubble. I can give you my. I do real opinion on this.
Natalie (2): Yes, please.
Paul: The making money online space is just a current iteration of making money from home space.
The stuff that you used to see in the back of catalogs, in the back of newspapers and everything or the infomercials in the middle of the night where you can make no money down become a millionaire. Here's the Lamborghini and house type thing type stuff. So a lot of people have bought into this world to begin with because somebody that's a really good salesperson marketer used Aspirational selling.
they didn't tell you how hard it was going to be. They made it look really easy. And they gave you a lot of examples of people of how these people are living the life of their dreams. And most people bought in based on that, okay, so it's aspirational selling, okay? And there's nothing wrong with that, but most of it is based on transformation.
Aspirational selling, that's why most people get into this space. Now the thing, when you buy into that $2,000 course, none of the influencers can, can guarantee anybody's going to get results because most people aren't good salespeople, they're not good marketers. Most people, they might be the expert at the thing that they do, but they're not typically good at marketing and sales. They have no clue. So what is a vanity metric that by time you're done, the six or eight week course that makes you feel good so you don't ask for a refund?
And that's, oh, you got 50 people in your email list. Oh, you got 25 subscribers. You have 25 views on your YouTube video. See that, that's something that is a venue metric that makes you feel like you're on track. And so for them to say, hey, build up your list. But yeah, there's a numbers game. It's called direct response. It's not new. if I mail a neighborhood right now, any type of offer between half to 3% of the people will say yes.
If I cold call a neighborhood for any offer in the world between half percent to 3% of people will say yes. If you notice in this online marketing space, when you do a launch, about 3% of the people will buy. When you generically build your list, it's not new, it's all regurgitated. But I've been doing this for 30 years. So I, I see this where everybody's newer coming into this stuff.
So they don't see, they see a whole bunch of case studies of an influencer and like, oh my gosh, all these people made all this. Yeah, well, if they sell the course to 3,000 people, of course they're going to have 50 case studies. But most of those people came in with, you know, 2 million Instagram followers before they bought the course. Some of these people came in with an email list of already 10,000 people before they bought that course.
Like that's the part that's not ever revealed in some of these case studies that some of us get bought into and they're like, oh, this is gonna be easy now. That's why I'm gonna take you full circle for all of you is that make it less about vanity metrics, make it less about building a huge list and make it more about deeper connection. Go. The opposite of what you've been mainly taught is everybody's focus on I.
It's not worth talking to five people. Like Melissa and I our mastermind. We just traveled up to Hershey, Pennsylvania to, to meet in a room and give value like everything that we had for, for several days for eight people. But if anybody is like, oh, it's not worth talking to five people or eight people, I need to have hundreds of people on my webinar.
I need. Well, if you took those 20 people that came to your webinar and they were physically sitting in a room, you would feel like a rock star. Because 20 people feels like a lot of people. You know, it's not this big thousand people, you know, audience, but it's like it fills a room, you know, pretty quickly, but most of us don't give ourselves permission to actually have real conversations, have real connection because all of us buy products and services in the real world, subservient products and services in the real world because we have a relationship with the person that we're buying from.
And most of us don't want to take, take the time we see a unit and a number come on our email list and then we just want the next unit or number and we won't even have a conversation with that person. Somebody comments on our thread. We don't even go back and comment back to them because we want 20 people to comment. We want to be the celebrity and I'm just letting it like Melissa and I have a nearly seven figure year business and we are focused on how can we help 100 people in the world.
Like our, our two coaching programs. We won't fit more than 100 people. And it's like so we're all focused and it's old school but I build a multi seven figure business in the past with having less than 250 contacts in a Rolodex. You know, it's like I didn't need tens of thousands of people that were following me. I just needed to have the right people that I was talking to.
So for, for each of you, look at how did you find Melissa and I? Most likely it's because we gave thoughtful time. You Know like we took the time to help and explain the things that other people aren't willing to do. People in this online space just, they want vanity metrics, they want to build a list, they want to build a list, come back to like, I want to build a relationship.
Like that's why most people are failing. We behind the scenes, we call it don't scale to fail is a, is a phrase that we say behind the scenes with our coaching clients. Don't scale to fail. Because so many people have you focused on the vanity metrics and all of us could have a lot simpler business if you were just talking to the right fit people from the beginning and not worrying about trying to get everybody and their mother on your email list or listening to you.
We rather have fewer followers, but have the right people, but in the real world, a lead is somebody that normally calls you. Like if you have the business, they normally walk in your door. They, they call you, they text you, they DM you with buyer intent. With buyer intent. Not I just want to listen to or consume free content from you. There's a huge, huge void between both worlds.
But again, all the $2,000 course people, they need you to feel good so you don't have a refund at the end. You might be building a course membership, coaching program or whatever it is, but they can't promise that you're good at marketing and sales. So they can't guarantee or promise that you're going to make a sale. So what makes everybody feel good by the end is that they, they got 10 people on the email list, they got 20 people that watch their YouTube video.
You know, they got subscribers, they got a follower. And that vanity metric makes you feel like you're building into something. And most of us, those people, those initial people are friends and family members and people that totally are not the right fit people for offer. They're like the other 20 people that are going through the program that are supporting each other and they're not your ideal client. But then you, but you still feel good.
that's why in our world program's a little bit more expensive but we're hands on with everybody. Like, we look at the copy, we look at the stats, we look at the ads, you know, we're involved and that's why we don't focus on high. Everyone's
Melissa: goals are different in their business too. Like, you know, everyone's building their business because they have different reasons behind it, different, you know, things that they want to achieve.
And not anyone's gonna be the same too. So that's.
Paul: Sorry, you asked a good question that I have a very strong opinion. Yeah,
Natalie (2): well, it's just really irking me because I know when I go to a store, I don't get, I don't leave with free stuff. I mean, so online I think, why is it expected that I'm gonna spend 90 of my time giving free content when I have a course that I think people will like and I think they'll really get a big benefit from if they would buy it?
I'm really torn about it. So I don't want to take up a lot of time though. But thank you for your response.
Paul: For all of us, when you do market, you have to do is take some time and do market research. The people that have buyer questions are different type of questions and conversations than people that are non buyers. Most of us are spending too much time in free Facebook groups and free communities.
And we're using that as market research. And it's like, no, no, no. Those people did not socially signal that they are a buyer. You need to spend more time around people that are buyers because they have different conversations, they have different intent. Okay, so there's a big void between those two. There's a gap there. People that are just freebie seekers. Now I want you to understand we, we did this in the real world as well.
We were just talking about this in our mastermind last week is that I, I showed slides of my previous. Like when I was doing photography, when I lost everything, when I owned my real estate company and had to reinvent myself as a photographer. I showed slides of that time that I, my company name was sponsoring events that were five hundred and a thousand dollars plate dinners. Because I immediately was like, I got to position myself in a room of people that have money to spend.
I didn't go down to local pub where everybody's trying to get free happy hour, you know, get free chicken wings or in happy hour to get a two dollar Bud Light special. I purposely put myself in real rooms where people were spending 500 or a thousand dollars to be in that room. Now I did that on the opposite end as when I owned my real estate company. I had eight offices.
I was the one paying $10,000 for a table in that room and putting my, my, my office managers and in those seats because we want to also be around those group of influencers. So that's why a lot of you encounter me talking in groups in a very ethical way. Not an unethical way in a very ethical way.
So we, we just take everything we've done in the real world and applied it to the online world. I'd pay to get into a $500,000 a plate dinner room to network with the right people while we do the same thing online where, what rooms do we need to buy in that have our ideal client that we can contribute and network ethically in the room to find the people that would work with us?
Hopefully, hopefully that little nugget helps you think differently about where you're spending your time and energy because most of us spend too much time and energy hanging out with our peers. And we have a saying behind the scenes that peers don't pay because they see you as an equal. So
Melissa: I saw some thumbs up on that. Yeah.
Paul: So hopefully that jolted some of you and you might start thinking differently where you're spending most of your time, because your, your friend, the people that talk exactly the way you do, they see you as an equal.
And you might be spending all your time and energy trying to convert them and they, they, in their mind, they're like, no, we're friends, we're equals. Why would I ever give you money? You know, so you need to go in a place where people see you at a different level.