If you pitch a premium offer to a group of strangers, your closing rate will be low. Customers who already know, like, and trust you are easier to convince, because they only need to take one step up your Value Ladder.

Have you ever been offered a free sample in a grocery store? Maybe it was a bite of a bagel, or guacamole, or a little sausage on a toothpick. Something small. Something new, and interesting. Something free.

After taking a bite, were you asked to become a shareholder in that company? Were you asked to become a distributor, and turn your garage into a warehouse full of their product? Were you asked to take out your phone and tell your friends and family about it?

Probably not. At most, you were offered the chance to put something new into your shopping cart. This is the power of free samples — they lead to a small purchase, and not a big one.

Free samples can quickly gain you little sales, but they rarely get you big sales. That’s why you need a Value Ladder.

Organize all of your offers into a series of lists:

  • High-priced
  • Mid-priced
  • Low-priced
  • Tripwire
  • Free-Private
  • Free-Public

Instead of selling the top of your Value Ladder to strangers, sell one step above to everyone on each step.

This 5-minute video describes why this works:

You can use my Value Ladder Workbook to list out all the different offers you have, and see how they stack up against each other.