Part 8: Making Your Money Model | $100M Money Models Audiobook

Section 6: Make Your Money Model. How to take over your entire market. Looking back at the evolution of Gym Launch's $100 million money model today, I accidentally discovered the Gym Launch licensing money model. I went from flying around and filling gyms to licensing the stuff I used when I did it. This way, gym owners could do it themselves. Looking back, it all started with a decoy offer. I attracted new customers with lots of free books, courses, video training, live training, and so on. All the stuff on growing a gym. Each product came with its own free call to help gym owners use it. On the call, I'd offer a decoy offer. Now that you've got the plan, you could do it on your own for free. Or the premium offer. We can help you implement all this stuff for $16,000 over 16 weeks. If they took the premium offer, they'd get a treasure trove of money-making tactics. Tactics that took me years to figure out. People bought left and right. And whoosh, my decoy offer took me to $476,000 per month in 3 months. Not a typo. But I had a problem. Since I only had one thing to sell, I knew my revenue would plateau fast. I needed an upsell to raise profits or Gym Launch would stagnate. So I crafted an upsell offer for the more advanced gym owners. I called it Gym Lords and priced it at $42,000 per year. I used the classic upsell to offer advanced playbooks and services and a community to share best practices as a continuity bonus. I started by offering a hefty $6,000 discount for anyone who prepaid. Many gym owners paid upfront with the money that I had just made them. For the ones who didn't, I offered a payment plan downsell. If they said no, I went with $10,000 down and spread the rest over time. If they said no again, I'd go for $800 a week spread over 52 weeks. If they said no again, I said they could start for free. I'd use a continuity discount to frontload the free time for as long as it took them to finish off the first offer. Then they'd roll right into my continuity for the upsell. This way their payments stayed continuous. And Zoom, the classic upsell plus continuity bonus plus payment plan downsell plus continuity discount took me to $1.5 million a month. I had another thing to sell, woo! And it exploded Jim Launch's money model to the next level. But I still had work to do. Even though the upsell and downsell process worked well, some gym owners kept saying no. So I went back to the drawing board. I came up with a more personalized menu upsell with different levels of service. Offered done-for-you advertising, done-for-you sales training, Offered turnkey campaigns that made quick cash. And finally, I offered a minimum package, continuous access to the original Gym Launch materials with tech support for a discounted monthly rate. If they didn't want the whole package, I used feature down sells to find the best option for them. Almost everyone stayed for something. And wham! Menu upsells plus feature down sells took me to $2.3 million per month, all within 14 months. Then we started Prestige Labs and integrated it with Gym Launch. A totally different business with its own money model. By month 20, we were raking in $4.4 million per month. It was life-changing, and it only took a few darn good products and a $100 million money model to do it. Author note: When I started, I didn't know any of this money model stuff. It only looks clean looking back, but I hope this simplifies things so you take much less time than it took me. Description: A money model is a deliberate sequence of offers. It's what you offer, when you offer, and how you offer it to make as much money as you can, as fast as you can. Ideally, to make enough money from one customer to get in service at least two more customers in less than 30 days. And it rarely looks clean, but I break $100 million money models into three stages. Stage 1: Get cash. Attraction offers get more customers for less. Stage 2: Get more cash. Upsell and downsell offers make more money from them faster. Stage 3: Get the most cash. Continuity offers maximize their total money spent. I break my $100 million money model down to these stages because money model growth happens alongside the growth of a business. In other words, if you try to start a bootstrap business from zero on your own with a finished money model, it will collapse on top of you. In fact, none of my businesses started with a fully forged money model. They all start at stage 1. Even acquisition.com. In my experience, money models evolve like this. First, I get customers reliably. Then I make sure they pay for themselves reliably. Then I make sure they pay for other customers reliably. Then I start maximizing each customer's long-term value. Then I spend as many advertising dollars as I can to print as much money as possible. My money models develop this way because I make sure each stage pays for the next. We keep improving each stage until it gets reliable. Also, this means financial and operational reliability. So fair warning, when your money model starts working, your business starts breaking. Part of the game. So I suggest you find someone who can build and lead the team to make your vision a reality. When I did, I married her. I hope the same luck finds you. Author note: I want to make myself abundantly clear. Lots of $100 million money models exist. Dare I say, $100 million money model exists for every $100 million business. Remember, plenty of businesses make gobs of money in plenty of ways. I just show the ways that I've actually done it. Example money models. Gym Launch money model breakdown. Services. Stage 1 attraction offer, decoy offer, free do-it-yourself versus premium $16K done-with-you licensing. Stage 2 upsell offer, classic upsell. Once you know how to get them, you got to know how to keep them. $42,000 per year, $36K prepaid for advanced business services. Stage 2 continued, downsell offer. Payment plan downsell. Seesaw downsell, start at $10K with the rest spread over 52 weeks. Final payment plan offer: $800 per week for 52 weeks. Stage 3: Continuity offer. Menu close plus feature downsell. Full package: $800 per week. Feature: Done for you advertising: $300 a week. Feature: Gym sales daily training: $200 per week. Feature: Monthly new releases: $500 per week. Feature: Original licensed materials with tech support: $100 per week. Minimum package, $100 per week. Microgyms money model breakdown, local business. Stage 1, attraction offer. Win your money back. Pay to enter fitness challenge, win money back if you meet goals. Stage 1 downsell offer. Payment plan downsell. Split pay, 3-pay, free trial with penalty. Stage 2 upsell offer. Menu upsell. You're not gonna get the best results without the right supplements. Supplement bundles. Big bundle personalized to goal. Stage 2 downsell offer, feature downsell, supplements, big bundle, small bundle, monthly subscription. Stage 3 continuity offer, rollover upsell plus lifetime discount, $50 off per month with a 12-month commitment. Newsletter, digital product, stage 1 attraction offer, free trial, $0, then $3.99 a month after 30 days. Stage 2 and 3 upsell and continuity, pay less now, pay more later plus lifetime discount. Pay $297 now and keep that rate for life. Author note: I love this offer. It's nasty. It combines free trial, pay less now, pay more later, lifetime discount, and is an attraction offer, an upsell offer, and a continuity offer. A six-headed money-making monster. This is just a taste of how creative you can get by combining these. And finally, example 4: dog food, physical product. Stage 1 attraction offer: buy X, get Y free. Buy 4 months of food, get 2 months free. Stage 2: upsell offer. The classic upsell, just like the Ronald Kors story. Do you want monthly? Do you want dog toys? How about dog vitamins? Stage 3: downsell offer. Feature downsell. Just the premium food then? You don't want anything else, do you? Stage 3: continuity offer. Automatic renewal after the first bulk purchase. After 6 months, it continues to month to month. Cancel anytime. Bingo, bango. Make your own money model. Step 1: Start with an attraction offer. The goal is to turn strangers into customers and cover our costs. So figure out what you're going to sell, then figure out the best way to present it. The attraction offer has my top favorites: win your money back, giveaways, decoy offers, buy X, get Y free, pay less now or pay more later. Then advertise it. If you get leads who turn into customers, you're on your way. Figuring out what works best may take up to a year. If you want to learn more about advertising, make sure to check out my second book, $100 Million Leads. Step 2: Pick an upsell offer. The goal is to get 30-day profits well above our cost of getting a customer and delivering what you offer them. Remember, once you solve a problem, another appears. Those problems also need solutions. You solve the problems your attraction offer creates with upsell offers. So pick the upsell offer that best matches the problem you solve and how you solve it. The upsell offer section gives you my 4 favorites: the classic upsell, menu upsell, anchor upsell, rollover upsell. Then, you make your offer at their time of greatest need. And remember, make your offer at their time of greatest need. Step 3: Pick a downsell offer. The goal is to get customers who said no to your last offer to say yes to another offer. This way you sell way more people than you otherwise would, so you make more total cash from the same number of leads. The downsell offer section shows you my 3 favorites. If you want to keep your price the same, change how they pay with payment plan downsells or trials. If you wanna charge less, change what they get with feature down sells. And best of all, you can alternate between them in the same sale. The more flexible you make your offers, the more people will buy them. Step 4: Pick a continuity offer. The goal here is to get one last sale in our 30-day window and stack recurring cash. So I try to include continuity in every business eventually. My 3 favorites are continuity bonuses, continuity discounts, and waive fee offers. Sometimes the best timing for continuity offers happens after the first 30 days, and that's okay. It's better to make the offer at the right time than to try and force it at the wrong time. Author note for bootstrap businesses: you have to get customers at a profit. Unless you get outside investors, start with a fortune, or have an endless source of free customers, achieving a money model is the only way you can profitably scale. Otherwise, you run out of cash and go out of business before you even have a shot. Important notes. Perfect one offer at a time. It's tempting to implement a whole money model at once. Don't. Stick to your stage. Pick one offer, try it, keep doing it until it works reliably. Then after it's reliable, do it so many times it gets automatic. Then go to the next stage. Patience is still the fastest way to get to your goal. So you'll need to measure in quarters, not weeks. You either build it right or you build it again and again and again. Building again, no matter how fast, still takes longer than building it right the first time. I know that one from experience. Raise prices in stages. Make new offers cheap at first. Then, as you get yeses, raise the price. Lots of early yeses get customer feedback and make the product better. Then, as the offer gets reliable, start raising the price. And keep raising the price until the extra cash from the yeses doesn't make up for the nos. Simple scales, fancy fails. Get as much as you can out of what you have. Remember, it's less about having 100 products to offer and more about having 100 ways to offer your product. Think more ways to sell the same thing, not more things to sell. If I offer personal training, I can offer 1, 2, 3, 4 sessions per week. This turns one product into many offers. Important affiliate products can fill money model gaps. An affiliate relationship just means you sell other people's stuff for a commission. If you don't have anything to offer and want to start a business, you can offer somebody else's stuff. If you have a single offer and want to add more offers to your money model, You can also offer somebody else's stuff. If you have a $100 million business and want to make more money without adding operational headache, you can offer somebody else's stuff too. In short, you can always offer somebody else's stuff in your money model. Here's a few examples. Service: a dental agency sends their dentist clients to a braces manufacturer. The manufacturer sends them a commission for each dentist they send. More money, no extra work. Voilà. Local business: massage therapist sells clients somebody else's home massage tools, exercise bands, medicine balls, etc. The customer pays through the therapist and the other company ships it directly to them. A few extra words, a lot extra money, no extra service delivered. Digital product: an educator tells his clients to use a specific customer service software. The software company sends the consultant a commission for every signup. Turn attraction offers into continuity offers with automatic renewal. This makes a 2-for-1. For example, if you do a buy 6 months, get 6 months free offer, They can automatically roll into a month-to-month subscription at the end of 12 months. This gets the benefit of attraction and continuity offers, both. A small tip with big implications. You can mix and match offers however you want. I present offers this way because it's how I use them. But if you recall, I learned many of them from people who use them differently than me. Many of these offers you can use anywhere. You can use upsell tactics in your attraction offer. You can install a downsell process with every offer. You can use a continuity offer to attract new customers. There are no rules. You can do whatever you want. I show you stuff one way, but I fully expect you to use it in another. So start with the way I suggest it, then as you get better, experiment. It's how I learned this stuff. It's how you'll learn it too. Summary: a money model is a deliberate sequence of offers. Money models have 3 stages: get cash, attraction offers; get more cash, upsells and downsells; get the most cash, continuity offers. To make your own money model, start an attraction offer. Once it gets you customers and cash, add an upsell offer. From there, add downsell offers to get even more people to buy. Then finally, add your continuity offer. Do not try and implement a full money model at once. It will break your business. It's less about having 100 products to offer and more about having 100 ways to offer your product. To sell more stuff without starting 100 businesses, offer stuff from other businesses and let them deliver it. Affiliate relationships can fill the gap in your money model without the headache of delivery. Price new offers low enough that you will get lots of yeses. Use customer feedback to improve your product. Then start raising the price until you stop making more money. A $100 million money model eliminates cash as a bottleneck for growth. Mission accomplished. Free gift: Make Your Own Money Model step-by-step training. Woo! There is a lot in this chapter. It's also arguably the most important one in the book. So to make sure you don't get stuck, I made you a video walking through this process step by step. As usual, you can watch it for free, no opt-in needed, at acquisition.com/training/money. Real quick, guys, I have a special, special gift for you for being loyal listeners of the podcast. Layla and I spent probably an entire quarter putting together our scaling roadmap. It's breaking scaling into 10 stages and across all 8 functions of the business. So you've got marketing, you've got sales, you've got product, you got customer success, you've got IT, you've got recruiting, you got HR, you've got finance. We show the problems that emerge at every level of scale and how to graduate to the next level. It's all free and you can get it personalized to you. So it's about 30-ish pages for each of the stages. Once you answer the questions, it will tell you exactly where you're at and what you need to do to grow. It's about 14 hours of stuff, but it's narrowed down so that you only have to watch the part that's relevant to you, which will probably be about 90 minutes. Um, and so if that's at all interesting, you can go to acquisition.com/roadmap, R-O-A-D map roadmap.