I said in my last email there was a place you should be selling, that you’re not.
So, let’s have an uncomfortable conversation about your lead magnet.
Here’s the thing: After years of watching info product businesses either print money or drag their arse along like a dog with worms, I’ve noticed something about gathering leads with lead magnets.
The most successful ones aren’t the ones giving away their entire library for an email address. And they’re definitely not the ones offering useless “5 Tips” PDFs either.
They do something different.
They create lead magnets that make people REALISE they need help, not lead magnets that try to HELP them.
Read that again.
The job of a lead magnet is to expose a problem, not solve it.
The best lead magnets lead their readers to the same revalations as a sales letter, but they poistion and package it differently.
Quick example: One of my rapid learning clients switched from giving away the first chapter of their book (literally useless) to offering a “60-Second Memory Test.”
The result?
Email signups: Up 47%
Sales up 82%
Why?
Because their lead magnet stopped trying to give obvious value and started making readers aware what they needed to focus on. Your score, and the breakdown of that score showed exactly why you needed his product.
Here’s the truth about what your lead magnet SHOULD do, in 3 steps:
- Make them self-diagnose their pain
- Show them what’s possible (but not how to get there)
- Give them a taste of your methodology (without giving away the recipe)
See the difference?
One tries to teach.
The other creates an “oh shit” moment.
It’s like when a doctor slaps an X-ray up on the lightbox and sucks air though his teeth. You know you had a problem, now it’s undeniable, and you know how big it is.
There’s 3 main formats I’ve used that achieve this:
The Diagnostic Tool
Create something that helps people identify EXACTLY where they’re screwing up. Not a vague “assessment,” but a concrete “Here’s exactly how bad you are at this” tool. Let them self-diagnose their pain.
The Framework
Give them your proprietary methodology’s WHAT but not the HOW. Like showing the blueprint of a house without the construction manual. \
“Here are the 5 stages of our sales transformation process” – but the actual transformation? That’s what they pay for.
The Quick-Win
Rolls eyes at typical 80-page ebooks
Give them ONE thing they can implement in 30 minutes that gets actual results. ONE. Not 50 “quick tips.”
Something like “The 10-minute meeting format that saved “our client a man-day every week. Make it so specific it hurts.
- Give away: What needs to be done
- Sell: How to do it properly
- Give away: The framework
- Sell: The implementation
- Give away: The principles
- Sell: The application
That 30 minute limit has a reason, I’ll go more into it next week.
Until then, let me know what lead magnet you’re using right now and I’ll see if I can help make it more powerful.
