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#292 · billionaires only have 3 apps on their phone

youtube ↗Offers

Simon G. Hostrilli asks: I'm planning to sell AI automation for immigration, visa, or documentation services. I'm confused as to what should be my front-end offer and my backend offer. My second niche is accounting and bookkeeping firms. Can you let me know the front-end offer and backend offer for that niche as well? I'm planning to do my outreach with cold email. My main thing is that I'm willing to sell a complete system to those service business types as they have a lot of documents to handle something related to document processing.

Well, you can sell literally whatever you want, but my goal is always to get as close as possible to revenue. What I mean is I can literally guarantee them revenue — I've done that before. I say, 'Hey, I will guarantee you $15,000 a month in recurring revenue in the next 60 days, or you don’t pay a cent.' That sounds pretty sexy. If a business makes $45,000 a month (about $500–600k a year) and someone says, 'Hey, I want to guarantee you another $180–200k a year equivalent, and if I don’t achieve it, I won’t charge you a cent,' wouldn’t you be at least somewhat interested? It almost sounds too good to be true, and that’s the closest revenue‑based front‑end offer you can give. Many people don’t want to offer revenue because they feel they lack the ability to deliver it, which is fine — I felt that way too. So they step back one level and guarantee leads instead. For example, a common front‑end offer is: 'I will book you 20 meetings in the next 60 days for immigration, visa, or documentation services, or you don’t pay.' From the client’s perspective there are three outcomes: zero meetings (no cost, no harm), 1–19 meetings (you get prospects and likely close a few), or over 20 meetings (you make money and pay a small fee). That creates an ‘all roads lead to yes’ scenario. Whatever your front‑end offer is — revenue, leads, or something related — people are far more likely to say yes than if you’re selling something complicated. As for the backend offer, Simon, it will probably be something just related to document processing. I don’t know the niches very well, but I did used to work with an immigration lawyer in Vancouver, so I know it depends on location and where you want to do business. The best way to figure it out is to ask a client who signs up for your front‑end offer: 'Can you give me an example of everything you do to fulfill a customer?' Then you can say, 'Hey, I could probably do that — let me try and create a simple clawed routine or something.' Those are very simple and easy to do.

front-end offerbackend offerlead generationrevenue guarantee

Related answers

youtube ↗Client Acquisition

I've been building AI customer service systems, and most clients came from Upwork and referrals — I've got a case study for a big property management company where a system led to big savings, and I built others for medical practices too. My issue is generating demand myself outside of referrals: is this sellable via cold outreach, and can it be turned into a front-end offer? I've sent thousands of cold emails with only one booked meeting, plus LinkedIn DMs and content, and I don't know if that's the right play or if I should pivot.

Right now you're focused on the savings, and I think that's the main thing you've understood automations to provide, but savings is a small fraction of the total value of an automation. Say you build a system that saves 10 salespeople 1 hour a week each — that's 40 hours a month, and if they're paid $50/hour that looks like a $2,000/month automation. That looks sizable, but it's only a small part of the value you're capable of providing. The big thing isn't the savings, it's the revenue: if you free up an hour of a salesperson's time and they can use it to close deals worth, say, $500 in that hour (amortized across their whole workload), you're not just saving $2,000, you're making them an extra $20,000. That's the difference between a savings mindset and a revenue mindset — it's opportunity cost. When I sell a cold email system, I don't say 'this saves you $50/month on cheaper leads,' I say 'this frees up 10 hours a month of your salespeople's time, worth $500/hour, meaning it makes you $5,000.' Reorient your pitch around revenue, not savings — savings only matters if you're working with a multi-billion dollar enterprise. On your second issue: 3,000 emails to one booked meeting is a 0.03% booked-meeting rate. Two meetings would be 0.06%, three would be 0.1% — that's totally fine, not the best ever (ideally 0.5-1%, a meeting every ~200 emails), but it proves it's possible. You've run the equivalent of a 10-minute mile; now make your copy better and run a 9-minute mile.

cold emailai customer serviceopportunity costreply rate
youtube ↗Offers

I've heard your guarantee offers quite a bit. When you say I guarantee you X days or you don't pay, how does the deal actually go? Do you generate and book a lead yourself by calling without charging anything up front until day X? Or do they get charged per booked appointment? Or do they pay up front and get a full refund if you don't achieve results in however many days?

I use a guarantee very commonly in cold email and other marketing methods — I'll guarantee X result in Y time or you don't pay. It's not exactly true if you take it super literally, since at some point in time they will have paid, but the framing is short and fits nicely above the fold of the copy. When somebody actually gets on the call, I clarify it's a money-back guarantee: if by the time I said I'd achieve the results I haven't, they end up in the same state they started in — the state where they didn't pay. I haven't had many problems with this, but I'm also experienced at explaining the mechanics — I've heard of situations where less experienced people run a similar offer, get on a call, the prospect asks how it works, and they fumble the explanation ('well, you pay me and then later I give you your money back'), which doesn't match what the email implied. So it comes down to skill in framing it live: I'm happy to front-load the opportunity, get people on a call, showcase a ton of value, and let them arrive at trusting me based on my YouTube, Google presence, etc. — results may vary based on how well you can do that yourself. If you don't want to run the exact same offer, you can just change the language at the end from 'or you don't pay' to 'or I'll give you all your money back' — and nowadays I wouldn't even recommend a plain refund, I'd add something extra on top, like 'or I'll give you your money back and get you a night at your favorite steakhouse.' When you do that and actually mean it, it massively increases your top-of-funnel — maybe 300% more people through the door — and the cost is just a 5-10% refund rate plus a small bonus, which is nothing compared to the volume gained.

guaranteemoney-backcold emailobjection-handling
youtube ↗Lead Generation

Do you have any Google Console settings to avoid Google Docs rate limits when running on autopilot? Also, what are your thoughts on asset-based outreach versus a straight book-a-call CTA?

Asset-based outreach requires more time and energy upfront; it yields higher conversion but costs more money and results in fewer leads per day due to bottlenecks. In contrast, a book-a-call CTA converts lower but costs less money because you don’t need to generate assets, and the main bottleneck is scraping Apollo, which costs about 75 cents per 1,000 leads. You can get an Appify subscription and pay per use of your $26 credit (or less with my Nick 30 code). I'm 66 years old, learning this every day, and I'm enthusiastic about it. Regarding guarantees, I offer a Vappy bot that handles calls and orders via a POS system; I guarantee it will save you X, Y, or Z in dollars or hours, or you don't pay. On Maker School: it's purpose-built for people with zero sales experience, those at the start line of their business lacking daily accountability, sales systems, or pitch experience. If you have zero sales experience, this is the system for you. The main expenses are cold email and the Upwork community (the third lead-gen approach I discuss, which is free but time-intensive). Upwork averages $2-$2.50 per application; I recommend sending 10 applications per day ($25/day) for 30 days. In practice most people send only three to five per day, which still yields ROI because you spend the money gradually and can recoup it when a client pays a few hundred dollars. Instantly costs between $40 and $100 depending on the plan. Lead costs are about 75 cents per 1,000 leads, and with my Apify coupon they're even less; you may have some upfront fees, budgeting a few hundred dollars if you're going to be consistent, otherwise it could be around $100. As for Russell's question about free value offers in cold emails: the best offer is to promise to make or save the prospect a specific amount of money, and if you don't deliver, they pay nothing; you'll keep working until you achieve at least the minimum result, then pitch them something else, and even if they don't fall in love with you, you won't charge them. This kind of offer might have a 30-50% refund rate, but it generates strong front-end interest, especially for beginners who gain conversations and skill rapidly. Finally, offering to implement a simple workflow for free can be effective as long as the workflow is personalized and directly tied to a measurable return on investment, balancing risk mitigation with the guarantee.

google consoleasset based outreachbook a callupwork
youtube ↗Sales

I don't have any client case studies yet, even though I know how to build the automations. How do I keep a risk-reversal offer in my cold emails without guaranteeing a dollar-sign revenue outcome I'm not sure I can deliver?

You don't have to guarantee dollar-sign outcomes — I've worked with these kinds of businesses for about a decade so I have a reasonable sense of what value I can drive, but if you're new to this it's completely understandable that you're not comfortable promising a dollar figure. Offer something else instead. A few variants: tell them you won't charge a cent unless they absolutely love it and ask you to keep going. Or say you'll deliver X, Y and Z, or you'll keep working for free until you do (weaker, but I've used it myself — we did this at Pacific Creative Group with my old business partner). You could also put real risk on the table, like offering to buy them an Amazon gift card or refund them if you don't deliver. Instead of ROI, you could frame it around hours saved per week (hard to track in practice, but usable). Or just offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee — tell them your sole goal is their satisfaction, and if they don't see the value, you won't charge them. A guarantee does two things: it makes people much more likely to want to work with you, and it makes you much more likely to actually follow through on what you promised.

risk reversalguaranteescold emailno case studies