Free or Paid? How to Know in Advance if Someone Will Pay — Part 2

0:00Hello again, you're back and it's me Sean. This is the three months vacation and we're in part two on how to know in advance whether a product should be paid or free. In the first episode we looked at two of these elements. The first was that you need to have the Taj Mahal in place. Yes. You need to have the result first before you do anything and that's what causes clients to buy into something, to pay for something instead of wanting it free. You can have the same concept with something free, for instance, a spot guest is free and there is a result. But if you want somebody to pay for something, you have to have the result. It can't be vague like, oh, we're having a cartooning course, we're having a dancing class. Having the result really makes a big difference. The second point that we covered was that of positioning.

1:03That if you're trying to sell somebody a bunch of information, they're not so interested. But if you're selling a system, it then underlines the first point, which is you're helping them get through to a result and helping them avoid all the minefields along the way. Hence positioning it as a system is very crucial if you want somebody to buy a product. That doesn't mean that anybody is going to buy into anything because we still need the third factor and that factor is urgency. We all know the concept of urgency. We've dealt with it hundreds if not thousands of times before. However, let's look at it from this perspective where we're trying to sell something that people think should be free, but are still willing to pay for it. And we'll start with an example.

2:04Let's look at something that's absolutely free. Let's look at AI, shall we? You've probably dipped your tone to AI. You've doubled with chat, GPD and possibly even clod. In a very short while, you realized that you could do a lot of things without paying anything. Which means that you could easily wake up one day and ask AI, can you help me improve my productivity? I'd like to use clod and a program like Obsidian. Try asking the question and you'll almost certainly get an answer. Yes, free. So how come there is a $200 price on this information? How come you have to pay something if you can get it free? If you go to maxsparky.com, you'll find that David Sparks is selling a guide for a whopping $200 or thereabouts. Doesn't make sense, does it? No, it doesn't until you realize that the first two conditions for this product are already

3:05in place. The product does offer a result and secondly, it's well-positioned. But how well-positioned? Here's some text from the sales page. You've probably tried AI, asked chat GPD a few questions, maybe had clod right or draft. It was interesting, but it didn't stick. The next day, it forgot everything, you started all over again and again. The problem isn't the AI, the problem is that a chatbot isn't an assistant. An assistant remembers, an assistant knows your projects, your preferences, your people, an assistant doesn't need to be told the same thing twice. That's what we're building. That was the text on the website and checkbox one into our well-in-place. There was a result and there was positioning, but what about urgency? So let's go back to the website and here's what it says, AI-powered personal assistance that manage your files, your task, your workflows, they're going to be common.

4:07And that's not a prediction, it's a trajectory. The tools are here, the capabilities here. People just haven't figured out how to put the pieces together. The people who build these systems now will have a tremendous advantage. They'll understand how to work with AI in ways that most people won't figure out for years. They'll have systems that are already trained, already refined, already handling real work. While everyone else is still asking chatbots, trivia questions. The robot assistant field guide is for people who want that advantage now. Now, yes, now. This is always a question that the client is asking, why now, why not tomorrow or next year? Without urgency, nothing happens very quickly if at all.

5:08Let's take a real life example for this idea, shall we? Does the client who wrote a book about credit repair? Your credit can take a massive hit and credit repair company's promise to fix things for you at a price. This person wrote a book. The book was just 18 pages long and they intended to price it at $9.99. So far, we are on track because the book is offering a result. It's also well positioned at just 18 pages. However, there's no urgency in places. There's also a slightly different problem slipping in. A product that's so cheap and is solving a high stakes problem feels suspicious. It may not be suspicious. It is not suspicious, but it feels that way. A $75 or $200 system feels more aligned with whatever it is you're selling. And in this case, it is this credit repair system. At the very least, the price needs to align with what the credit repair companies are currently

6:10charging. In this case, at least, the urgency isn't about fixing your credit alone. It is to fix the credit without stepping into the minefield of slightly shady practices. I know. I know. These concepts are getting muddled, aren't they? We seem to be talking about urgency, but somehow the pricing seems to have slipped in. It's because urgency doesn't always come from time pressure. It comes from avoiding loss or reducing risk or preventing mistakes. To highlight the urgency, testimonials also help. On the robot assistant field guide page, the testimonial reads like this. I went from this is neat to this is how I operate now in a span of few days. So that was the testimonial. See how the urgency comes through. The client went from this is neat to how this is how I operate in a span of few days. And if you've given some thought to AI and the thought of sorting out your productivity,

7:13you'd be keen as mustard to do more than just dip your toes into chat GPT or Claude. You'd want to know how to do something even better and even faster. So that was a lot of information to digest, but it reveals something important. We're often hesitant to price our products appropriately. Not because the product is invaluable, but because we haven't fully accounted for all of the three elements that we covered in part one and part two of this podcast. The first thing that we started with was the Taj Mahal. You have to have the result in place. Otherwise, it's much harder to sell. It's not like clients don't buy things without a result. They do, but having a result is to your advantage. The second is that you need to position it, but position it as a system.

8:18Don't just give me information, create a pathway with all the minefields that I need to avoid. So positioning it as a system is very crucial. And finally, it's urgency. Remember that all urgency is in time pressure. Some of it could just be avoiding loss, reducing risk, preventing mistakes. And that brings us to the end of this podcast. Result, positioning as a system, urgency. Put all these three together and the price often takes care of itself. Kool-Aid. What's happening in PsychoTactics land? We have a system. It's called the storytelling course. It's about people who struggle to tell stories, and that's almost all of us. And so we end up doing all this research.

9:22But the reality is that the story hinges on a single line. If you can find those lines, then you can tell hundreds or thousands of stories. Where do you find those lines? That's what we cover in the course. You'll find it at psychotactics.com, slash workshops, slash storytelling. The course starts in June, but the page where you can buy the course. That's on April the 11th. You'll get that notification if you're on the list, or go on the list, psychotactics.com, slash workshops, slash storytelling, I'll say bye for now. If you haven't already read and listened to suddenly talented, then do so today. You might have postponed it. Stop now. Go to the website and download suddenly talented. And you realize how you can get much smarter based on certain concepts. Because there is a struggle with learning. And if you want to get out of that struggle, you have to know these concepts.

10:25Go to psychotactics.com, suddenly talented. And then after that, sign up for the storytelling course. Yeah, I'm being very enthusiastic, I know. But this is the last week, and then I'm headed out to Greece. I hope you'll listen to these two podcasts back to back, and we are releasing them back to back. See you next time for now.