The POV Breakthrough, Unmasked

I hate it when I accidentally sound like a hardcore direct response marketer, but, well, here we are. See, the thing that makes a lot of direct response marketing come across like inauthentic kayfabe is that it tries to manufacture or simulate things that are only good when they happen organically.

"I've been overwhelmed with the response to this offer! Here are answers to just a few of the questions you've been asking. <insert 37-item FAQ that was written weeks before the scripted launch email sequence was sent>"

Any of you seen that one before?

I have firsthand knowledge of exactly two times where an "overwhelming response" situation happened organically.

• Situation 1: A colleague of mine started publishing free educational videos about how to use a difficult-to-use project management software platform at precisely the right moment (luck was on their side WRT the timing), their enthusiasm for the software and skill at explaining it really "came through the screen", they put together a paid course, and people started buying it before the course was even announced, they pivoted their business in this direction, and have been phenomenally successful since.

• Situation 2: A past client of mine started doing small-scale research into lead generation for consultants and as part of recruiting for the research got numerous spontaneous requests for the finished research to be shared, with comments like "if you can figure this out you're my new hero".

That's it. Those are the only two "the response has been overwhelming" situations I have direct knowledge of that aren't kayfabe. I know plenty of "with time, experimentation, and work, the response became enough to live very well on" stories. I know plenty of "the response was small but encouraging and was something I could build on" stories. But that breathless "the response has been overwhelming!!!" email that gets sent a day or two after someone announces a new offer? Almost guaranteed kayfabe, people.

The response to my "POV coaching special" email has been totally fine. 1 person has swiped plastic, one is thinking about it, and -- given what I know of how I and others respond to deadlines -- 1 or 2 more of you probably will, and I'm happy with that, and I'm confident whoever buys is going to love the results of working with me.

Part of what I'm doing these days is experimenting with pricing and packaging for my coaching offer. The general template I'm experimenting with is a two-tier package:

• Tier 1: Pay by the coaching session.

• Tier 2: Pay one lump sum for a support retainer that includes a variable number of coaching sessions that's driven by your need, urgency or lack thereof, etc. Tier 2 is not an "all-you-can-eat-buffet", but the limits are pretty generous.

The money math works out very much in your favor if you buy Tier 2 and max out the allowed number of coaching sessions, but both you and I want the result in question and I'm not that fun to hang out with, and so we're both incentivized to use the coaching sessions efficiently and effectively. In the case of the "POV coaching special" I'm running this week, that result is: you feel you have a clear, incisive POV. The quicker I can get you there, the more money per session I make and the faster your new POV starts delivering the second-order financial benefits that you want. But, if the conditions aren't right to get you there extremely quickly (1 to 3 of the 7 allowed sessions), the Tier 2 pricing structure acts as "insurance" in that it reduces the per-session cost for you without overly penalizing me. That's the theory, anyway!

I'm not sure this 2-tier pricing structure is one I'd recommend to others in every situation and I'm not sure it's going to work great for me, but it has some interesting features and I think I'll keep experimenting with it for the services I deliver that look like coaching.

Anyway, in the last email I mentioned helping a coaching client achieve a POV breakthrough. I don't share client specifics without asking permission first and I put the email where I mentioned him together pretty spontaneously, so I kept the discussion of his breakthrough vague. He wrote in response to yesterday's email and just gave me a testimonial anyway, which I am copy/pasting here:

That's from Jason Shen; thank you sir!

I'm trying to publish 3x week for y'all, but if I don't have anything useful to say I skip it (or if my wife and I are busy moving into our new apartment, as we were last week), and I don't have any marketing kayfabe or 37-item FAQs for you either. This "POV coaching special" just kind of emerged in response to needing to hustle up some money right quick, and it's turned into a series for this week.

Here again are details on the "POV coaching special". I'd love a few more of you to give it a try and be delighted at the results:

Send me $1,200 and I'll help you figure out what your clear, incisive POV is. This is how we'll do it:

• You can schedule 60-minute 1:1 working sessions with me using a Savvycal link I'll send to folks who take me up on this offer. Those sessions can be scheduled Mon - Sat, 9am to 6pm Mountain time and will happen via video call or, if you want to meet me in Bozeman, MT, we'll do it here.

• You can schedule up to 7 of these sessions. It's very likely that you'll have a clear, incisive POV by the end of the second or third session, but I want this offer to be a no-brainer for y'all, so I'm going with a generous cap on the total number of sessions so that those who need more support can get it. Once you have a POV you're satisfied with, we're done unless you want to send me more money to become a coaching client or join OpportunityLabs.

• You can ping me anytime via email and I'll help ASAP or suggest a quick call to resolve or, worst case, bounce the issue to our next session if it needs that much bandwidth to deal with.

People, this is a good deal. It expires on Friday, March 31, 2023. Here's how you transfer money to my account if you want to take me up on it: https://buy.stripe.com/dR6cQn6Za02B6A05kr

After you pay, you'll be bounced to the Savvycal scheduling page where you can set up your first session with me and get crankin on defining, clarifying, sharpening, and amplifying your point of view.

*Asking goes both ways. Want this offer but don't have $1,200 lying around? What's stopping you from asking me for a different price, terms, etc? 😎 I remember when I was a kid, I got like a 30% discount on some Nike shoes I COVETED at the Hanes Mall in Winston-Salem just by asking if they could give me a discount. They did, no questions asked. This is how geeky I looked back then, so the store clerk probably gave me the discount because they felt sorry for me: