James Kemp.

The Sovereign Consultant

Uncategorized

The Power Ladder

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The Value Ladder is a flawed idea, badly taught.

It’s taught like this because normie brains struggle with non-linear relationships.

It assumes a linear progression of a customer journey and evenly distributed resources among your customers.

Take one look at society and it’s obvious why this is a dumb idea.

It’s usually taught like:

Buy $50 thing then $250 thing then $1000 then $10,000 in diminishing proportions.

Linearity isn’t common in nature.

Power laws dominate.

At large enough scale you can have enough people in each stage to make it look like you have a functioning value ladder.

But when you examine progression data between stages it varies between tiny and non-existant.

Very few customers move linearly through products in a measurable period of time.

The Power Ladder is much more effective.

A product structure that adheres to The Power Ladder, looks extreme on the surface.

But it’s based on the reality that resources are not evenly spread through your potential customers.

Because resources aren’t evenly spread throughout society.

Some customers have multiple times more money, time or other resource to exchange with you.

Simply, 1 in 100 of your customers are willing and able to spend 10000x more than the other 99.

Let’s use a simple example:
1000 people buy your $10 book, 100 of them buy your $1000 course and 10 of them will drop $100,000 to work with you 1:1.

If you didn’t have a $100,000 offer and adhered to a standard Value Ladder you would have a $10,000 offer.

The same 10 people would likely buy it.

You’d likely pat yourself on the back at your clever ‘ascension model’

But you’d be oblivious of the fact you left $900,000 on the table.

Power Laws generate apparently extreme outcomes.

Which is why people mentally struggle to execute on them.

In reality, very few people can (or should) pull a $100,000 offer out of the hat on day one.

This is simple a skill and belief factor.

But that market reality doesn’t invalidate The Power Ladder.

There is extreme disparity inside your customer base in their willingness and ability to pay.

Waiting to nudge people through a linear Value Ladder will be an exercise in frustration.

Having something at the top of the Power Ladder that delivers to those at the top end is an accelerator and also adheres to the Natural Laws.

You can fight against nature or use it to your advantage.

The choice is yours.

How To Attract Leads That Can Afford You

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‘I cant afford it’

‘It’s too expensive’

Phrases you’ll hear regularly when you’re making offers to Brokies.

It can be THE confidence killer for your sales people when they think they’re being fed crappy leads.

Luckily it’s easy to fix.

How do you attract leads with money?

You don’t talk about money..

Marketing that attracts leads with low likelihood to pay almost always makes a promise of something they can attain.

The very nature of the attraction is towards something they don’t currently posses but would like to.

‘How to build a $10,000 Online Store’

Will be attractive to people who don’t have an online store and want $10,000.

Will they be able to invest in building one? Some will. Most wont.

Your advertising is ‘working’ but your funnel is now filled with people who want something they don’t have with variable capacity to turn that into reality.

Switching your messaging from what they ASPIRE to have to what they have previously DONE gives you a vastly different outcome.

‘How to take dead stock sitting in your store room and turn it into $10,000’

Will attract the portion of the audience that has said stock.

They have already DONE something in the past and are seeking a better result.

They have acquired and invested in the past.

Their sunk cost is high so they are more likely to pursue their previous course of action to conclusion than throw it away and start something new.

It could be a strategy, physical asset or a resource like an employee.

“How To Double Your Facebook Ad Returns Without Changing Your Funnel”

“How to Turn Your Useless Team Member Into An A Player”

If your messaging points out LIABILITIES in their life and business and you turn them into ASSETS then they are very likely to work with you.

Will you attract less total leads? Yes

Will those leads be individually more valuable? Yes

Will you spend less time talking to people without the desire or intent to invest? Yes

Humans are pretty consistent.

People with no track record of investing, rarely invest.

People a track record of doing…things, tend to do…things.

Switch your messaging to talk to people who’ve done something and you’ll eventually stop dealing with people who never will.

Right Actions, Wrong Order

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Johnny bit the dog.

The dog bit Johnny.

Same 4 words. Completely different outcome.

Every day I taste the frustration of business owners who are doing the things they should be doing but not getting the results they want.

You feel you are taking the actions but not getting the outcome you desire.

and you are taking many of the right actions.

But you have the order wrong.

The old marketing acronym AIDA codifies the steps a consumer needs to go through before taking action.

Awareness

Interest

Desire

Action

There are deeper layers to each stage but fundamentally this is it.

Layering a simple principle over your marketing can diagnose gaps that you can simply fix and glaring holes you can fill.

The good news is you’re probably taking many of the right actions but the order is wrong. Changing the order can sky-rocket your results.

Line up the code and the padlock unlocks.

If you want the code, we need to speak

http://jameskempco.wpengine.com/schedule/

Pricing Purgatory

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In 2006 New York Times Magazine columnist Rob Walker was mulling the question of what makes one object more valuable than another.

What makes one pair of shoes more valuable than another pair if they both deliver on the functional basics of comfort and durability?

Why does one piece of art cost $8,000,000 and another $80?

What makes one kettle worth $20 and another nearly $400 if they both boil water?

As Walker turned these questions over in his mind he concluded that it is not the objects themselves, but the context, the provenance of the objects, that generates value.

The value isn’t contained in the objects themselves, but in the story or the meaning that the objects represent to the owner.

He decided to test this in a simple way.

He began buying random, low-value objects at charity shops.

The cost of the objects ranged from $1 to $4.

An old wooden mallet. A lost hotel room key. A plastic banana.

These were true pieces of junk.

Next he asked some writers to each write a short story that contained one of the objects. The stories weren’t about the objects but they helped to place them in context and give them new meaning.

When he put the objects along with their accompanying stories up for sale on eBay the results were hilarious.

On average the value of the objects rose 2,700%.

Yeah 2,700%.

A miniature jar of mayonnaise he had purchased for less than a dollar sold for $51.00. A cracked ceramic horse head purchased for $1.29 sold for $46.00.

The value of these objects suddenly skyrocketed when they were accompanied by a story.

Pricing is hard.

You often feel like your either not competitive or leaving money on the table.

The end of the year is the best time to raise your prices and message to customers that now is the right time to buy. They expect it. The story fits.

As Rob Walker proved the story is crucial.

If you’re not telling the story of how your products were made in the foothills of Tibet by monks who only work one day a century then you’re missing an opportunity.

If you’re not putting your prices up for 2017 then you’re missing an opportunity.

If you haven’t booked a strategy session with me in the next 72 hours then you’re missing an opportunity.

http://jameskempco.wpengine.com/schedule/

and yes, the price will be going up in 2017.

Why I Have a Crappy Car

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I have a crappy car.

A 2002 Toyota Camry station wagon.

It’s done 172,000 km.

It has a big dent in the bonnet where a truck reversed into it.

The boot is full of sand and random objects.

and it hasn’t had a wash for over a year.

Every few months I think about buying a nice car – a BMW X5 or a Porsche Macan.

and I could. But I wont.

Because my car is an excellent tool for its environment.

We need a car that can take the kids to school, go to the beach and pick up shopping.

It has 4WD for the terrible roads and steep driveways of Waiheke.

It’s super reliable so there is no down time.

It has a gigantic boot.

and we dont care if it gets the odd scratch and ding as it doesnt make a difference to its performance.

You should approach your business tools in the same way.

I could have the fanciest software that does everything but I choose specific tools for the job.

Focusing on the right tool at the right time allows you to be more agile and execute against the objective.

It removes the constraints of having a monolithic thing that is a jack of all trades and a master of none.

Active Campaign for email and automation.

GoToWebinar for coaching calls.

Paypal and Stripe for billing and Xero for accounting.

For our ecommerce stores we use Shopify or Magento and ‘The List’ of tools and extensions that are all best of breed for their respective goal.

Having the right tool is the first step to getting the results you want. No wasted investment, less frustration and a better outcome.

I know the best tool for each job and I can show you my toolbox http://www.jameskemp.co/schedule/

I Don’t Have Time

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“Being busy is a form of laziness – lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.” – Tim Ferriss

“How are you?”“Busy”That used to be my stock answer.

It made me feel important, needed, productive, valuable.

As Mr Ferriss points out, “It’s very easy to confuse activity with productivity,”

“The default mode of Type-A entrepreneurs is to do more — whatever it happens to be, do more,” Ferriss says. “If I have a problem, do more. If I am feeling stressed out, do more.”

“If you don’t feel like you have time, you don’t have priorities”

and thats the crux of it.

When someone looks at my calendar they see busyness.

I see priorities.

Getting my son ready and taking him to school everyday.

Exercise.

Strategy sessions.

Coaching sessions.

Dinner with the family (we sit at the table every night – me and my old fashioned values..)

and the students in my program find there are transformations in their business and their lives.

They spend more time doing things they know are productive and less time doing the busy work masquerading as productivity.

“I dont have time” is eliminated from your vocabulary.

My calendar is only open for 13 more days. Then it’s closed and my priority is helping my students get momentum to have a record breaking 2017.

Make it your priority to speak to me.

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