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Everyone says their thing saves you time. Or saves you money. Or cuts your costs in half. And yeah, it sounds good. It feels like a responsible thing to say, especially when you’re just starting out and don’t want to come off as pushy. Thing is, “saves money” is actually one of the weakest ways to describe what you offer. And I don’t mean weak like unclear. I mean weak like it physically limits how much people are willing to pay you. Here’s why. When someone hears “this saves you money,” their brain immediately starts calculating. Okay, how much? And then: how much of that savings should I keep? They start negotiating before you’ve even made your case. You’ve already told them the ceiling. But flip the frame to “this helps you make more money” or “this gets you more customers” and the whole math changes. Growth is open-ended. Saving money has a ceiling. Growing doesn’t. And on top of that, people are just way more excited to spend money on growth than on efficiency. It’s not even close. Take someone offering social media management, for example. They pitch it as “I’ll save you 10 hours a week.” The client does the math, figures their time is worth maybe $20 an hour, and suddenly the service feels like it’s worth $200 a month, no more than that. You’ve already told them the ceiling before they even asked the price. We can pitch it instead as “I’ll grow your Instagram so you start getting more inquiries” and there’s no ceiling. Now the client is thinking about new customers, not hours saved. Same service, same work. Just a different outcome to lead with. Not just for service businesses either, even if you’re selling digital products on Etsy, this same idea applies to how you write your listing title. So yeah, if you’re describing what you sell right now, go back and look at it. Does it say “saves time”? “Cuts costs”? “More efficient”? Maybe try asking instead: what does the person actually get more of when this works? More sales? More customers? More hours to do other things that make them money? Lead with that. You’re not tricking anyone. You’re just speaking to what they actually care about. Talk soon, Minosh One more thing: if you're thinking about building a simple online business from scratch, Systeme.io is worth a look. It handles your sales page, email list, and checkout in one place, and the free plan is actually usable. Affiliate link above. Costs you nothing extra, helps keep this newsletter free. |
Online business and marketing insights from what's working out there, researched and handed to you every Thursday.
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