Stealing other people’s audiences, to grow yours and why content is king now more than ever.
Welcome to the 1000’s of new Contrarians who have joined us recently! This is our free weekly newsletter, designed to help liberate your mind and build the basic understanding of financial freedom.
Creating a sovereign human. That’s the mission.
I realized something today. Our goal of creating financial freedom in order to create all-encompassing freedom is more important now than ever. It has quickly moved to the very top of my priority list for myself, my family and now for all of you.
IMHO you should have two steadfast missions today:
- Become so good you are unfireable
- Become so sovereign you can say no to anything anytime anywhere
It’s just becoming so much clearer today than ever before. A dear friend now works at a hospital that requires the vaccine. She has a heart defect that her doctor believes means she should not take the prick. Unfortunately, the hospital she has spent years serving said, too bad. Her livelihood now depends on her willingness to subject her body to someone else’s medical imposition. Now I’m pro-vax but I’m more pro-choice so this breaks my heart. Anytime consent isn’t allowed, it breaks my heart. There is a very slippery slope to tyranny.
What’s the difference between the highly skilled/highly financially free and everyone else? Well the FF can say f*ck it, I’m out, and go start their own thing. While all the rest line up and do as they’re told.
I’ve never been that great at doing what I’m told. I did throw my first protest at 15 after all (how bout dem blonde locks eh?):
But as I’ve gotten older I’ve begun to realize it’s also less about protest than progress. Choosing to go work for someone is a gift to the company. Bottom line is if you’re good at what you do, you can largely do what you want. You can be free to be who you are. Because where there is scarcity, price and rules are not as relevant.
What’s the point of all of this? It’s not about pro v or not pro v AT ALL. It is about optionality. Regardless of what you think about mandates (I’m against them – shocker if you follow me), you should want the ability to control your own fate. Always. Not having financial freedom is the 21st-century blackmail governments and companies use to control us.
Our goal here… free you. So you can make choices based on consent, not on someone else’s demands.
So why talk about courses? Well, it’s all about leverage to financial freedom.
If you have capital, start there.
If you have coding ability, start there.
If you don’t have either of those, create content.
You need no one’s permission to make money on the Internet.
Case in point, here’s how we used someone else’s platform to make almost 90k in 4 weeks, why can’t you too?
Today in < 12 minutes → We’re Going to Dive into:
- How we minted $82k+ in 4 weeks on AppSumo.
- What we did wrong
- What we did right
- Lessons from AppSumos’s highest-grossing course creator
How We Did It
You may not believe this but…
I was clueless when I started Contrarian Thinking. How clueless? Like grope-in-the-dark-and-bang-your-shin-against-the-couch clueless. A one woman show who had a full-time job and no idea about internety-things.
So when contrarians began to number in tens of thousands and we began to hit five, six-figure months in revenue, all within a year, it was (I guess) obvious I was doing something right. But we still didn’t feel that way.
Zero dollars in ad spend ever.
Zero paid for shoutouts.
Just hustling and a plethora of embarrassing fails in the world of social media.
And I got a ton of questions on how we have built our ideas into zeros.
So when Appsumo came around asking us to list a course on their new course creators site I was into the idea of not answering the same questions 47934 times and instead directing them to a course. Thus the creation of: How To Build a 7-Figure Newsletter.
But also I was a bit nervous because the course in my mind was worth $1,000+ and they wanted us to discount it.
Now, you’re probably thinking.
‘You slashed your prices to make a sale? Aren’t you the one always telling us to add a zero?’
Yes, and yes. If you’re anything like me, chances are you’re underpricing yourself severely. So you should add a zero. That said, our AppSumo debut was part of a strategic push.
We said ‘hey we’ll list the course on AppSumo in a $139 deal, and we’ll do it to get everyone’s feedback, incorporate it and then launch it for $699 on our site’. But there was a catch, the discount would only last 4 weeks before we took it off the table forever.
WHY USE APPSUMO??
Because Appsumo gets course creators in front of literally a multi-million person email list and hundreds of thousands of eyeballs on the site. Why build your own audience, when you can steal theirs?
Numbers wise, our goal was to make $60k over our launch period.
Fast forward a few weeks, and we had generated $82,700. At 595 sales, How to Build A 7-Figure Newsletter became the highest-grossing course on AppSumo. Woo hoooooo.
We also clawed our way into A-list collections like New & Noteworthy, Customer Favorites, and What’s Hot…all because we kept our sales numbers up.
| Total Revenue Before Special AppSumo Push | $33,632.55 |
| Total Revenue | $82,700.53 |
But you aren’t interested in any of our humblebrags. You want to know how we pulled an almost six-figure launch in a month. Finneee.
So here’s the blueprint we followed—a step-by-step breakdown of everything we did right…and wrong.
FIRST A REMINDER TO YOU:
Everyone has a book inside them, everyone has a course to teach another, everyone has a lesson they’ve learned that another could benefit from. So before you stop yourself thinking that you need to be a guru before you create a course… tell that lil b*tch voice in your head to knock it off. I wish more of my friends did courses:
- My friend Stacey on how to hire great help for her family that stays forever
- My boxing coach on how to do workouts to better my game
- My grandma on how to literally grow anything and keep it alive
- My mom on how she raised us and the lessons she learned good and bad
I have a hard time thinking of someone I know who I want to learn NOTHING from. So there is your permission to go build something. Don’t get me wrong you have to market the sh*t out of it once you create it BUT you DO have something worth teaching. K?
What We Did Right: Lessons Learned
#1 No One Else Sets Your Prices: YOU DO Putting Our Foot Down
Like all consumers, Sumo-lings—that’s what AppSumo users call themselves—are big on products that give a ton of value. SaaS tools, browser extensions, how-to blueprints…you name it. But just like many of us, they tend to raise an eyebrow when the price tag is higher than what they expect.
If you were to snoop around AppSumo’s homepage, you’d notice that the most common prices range between $49 – $69. Anything outside this range, and you should expect vehement pushback.
Boy, were we right.
Easy Merriwriter… turns out, it is what IIIII think my product is worth. Dear Lord, is there anything people won’t try to foist on you today?
We fielded an earful of complaints saying that our course was overpriced. But did we budge?
Take it from someone who used to be a pro in underpricing herself. Driving your prices into the ground doesn’t guarantee more sales. Especially when they are already at a discount.
So what do you do?
It’s quite simple. Hold your ground on what you think your product is worth. We believed the content of How to Build A 7-Figure Newsletter was worth the $139 discount price…hell it’s been proven to be worth 6x that. And while it may have taken some getting used to, we found 590+ Sumo-lings who clearly felt the same way.
But that doesn’t mean bluntly telling off undecided Sumo-lings in the comments.
It means having to justify your rationale. Having to respond in a cool-headed way that gives value while rationally explaining your price point. Also, it pays to be YOU, I have a personality, it sets people off BUT it also finds my humans. That’s the whole goal.
#2 Don’t Offer Refunds
Before you burn me at the stake, hear me out.
We live in an era where people feel entitled, where they want the world for free. Keeping this in mind, we knew there was a high chance that people could buy our course, run through it, and then ask for a refund.
I didn’t want that.
Our team worked hard on the project. From graphics to copy and videography, a lot had gone into creating How to Build A 7-Figure Newsletter. That’s why I wanted to feel like Sumo-lings had skin in the game. Because I did.
As you’d expect, Sumo-lings didn’t like that.
I mean, even AppSumo recommends that its creators don’t offer refunds. Who was I to argue?
That said, we realized there could be legit cases where a refund wouldn’t be out-of-order. We were torn. Between protecting our interests from intellectual thieves and actually protecting those of the misinformed buyer.
Even at that, we still didn’t offer a broad-based refund policy.
Rather than put up a 100% Money-Back Guarantee badge that anyone could exploit, we offered chargebacks individually to Sumo-lings who inquired about refunds.
Did it work?
You tell me. We had a 0.01% refund rate. I think we had 1 person ever ask for it. Instead, most people said something like this:
#3 Cash In on Your Real Estate
One of the nuances of being one of the first self-listing courses on AppSumo was that we were trailblazers. And that might sound cool in retrospect, but actually, it meant that we had no formula to follow.
No templates. No footprints. Nada.
With only SaaS tools all around us, there were no precedents for non-tech launches that we could follow. It was just like when we started the newsletter itself. We were clueless.
This was especially true when it was time to fill out our listing page. We discovered there were several fields that weren’t particularly relevant to an abstract info product like How to Build A 7-Figure Newsletter. So we were tempted to leave them blank.
That was until word came in from our customer service rep at AppSumo. Use everything.
And we did.
At the time, we didn’t have seven delineated features to list under ‘Plans & Features’. I mean, we were selling a course for crying out loud. Not an AI plugin. But we didn’t leave the field blank either. We simply reopened Google Docs and re-wrote our copy until we had meaningful bullet points to list. Here’s what we plugged in:
The same went for our headers. Sub-headers. And every blank space on our listing page. It was digital real estate we knew not to waste.
However, your copy shouldn’t be set in stone. We tweaked our headers and experimented with our subheadings to find what formats worked best. Our ‘0 – 60 Guide To Your Next Million-Dollar Platform’ tagline didn’t come to us on our first try. We did about 5 iterations.
#4 Choosing The Right Featured Image
For the hundreds of tech tools on AppSumo, choosing a featured image is one that requires little thought.
Why?
Because a GIF or fancy video demo can easily do justice to every feature.
When you’re selling an info product though, things aren’t so straightforward.
Due to the abstract nature of our product, we couldn’t take advantage of GIFs and demos. That’s why we improvised. Using pictures of our models, templates, tools, and resources, we were able to make up for those gaps.
But that didn’t hit so hard… soooooooo
One well-known psychological hack in marketing is that people are drawn to people. Why else do you think there are so many products with smiling women on them?
Armed with this fact, we threw in high-contrast images with real-life people. By having a human face on our product, we were able to humanize How to Build A 7-Figure Newsletter. And like I said earlier, people are drawn to people. We spent $10 on Fiverr to get a few versions of this bad boy made.
#5 Posting A Course Curriculum
Remember when I mentioned Sumo-lings expect a ton of value?
In any business, one common fear many of your customers will share is that they won’t be getting their money’s worth. It happens to creators too. People will worry that your course won’t cover enough.
And that’s understandable. If people are going to shell out for a $100+ product, they should at least know what they’ll be getting, right?
But rather than using words to convince, why not offer a glimpse? It’s like Hemingway always says. Show, don’t tell.
Nothing puts Sumo-lings at ease quicker than a snapshot of your course curriculum. By showing how robust your modules are, you’ll be demonstrating firsthand that you aren’t offering a glorified blog post.
Plus, you’ll be saving tens of hours in customer service. Imagine how many questions you’ll be answering preemptively.
#6 Offer Lifetime Access + Future Updates
In our context, the tactics that worked best for building a newsletter in 2010 weren’t the same as those of 2021. Heck, within nine months of starting Contrarian Thinking, we had already switched platforms three times.
All these meant our course had to be updated regularly to reflect these pivots. There were also instances where Sumo-lings felt they weren’t getting enough out of our course and requested specific additions. Like any decent business, we listened and followed through…quickly
With all these updates, it’s no surprise that within a few weeks of launch, we had a product that was markedly different from what we initially released. And this would only be the beginning.
That’s why we offered lifetime access that ensured they’d never have to spend another dime on How to Build A 7-Figurer Newsletter, regardless of how many changes we made to it.
Now for the UGLY: What We Did Wrong
#1 Managing User Expectations.
I’ll be honest. Sumo-lings are an intense audience. Largely in an awesome way but definitely in a no-nonsense way. Kinda like Twitter or Reddit. Suffer no fools.
For one thing, we didn’t anticipate the barrage of questions that flooded our page once we launched. How many? 30+ at the time of writing. We were even less ready to answer them at the drop of a hat.
Eventually, we adjusted and were able to answer all inquiries quickly.
Pro tip: Be ready to respond to questions almost immediately during the process, just keep checking on an hourly basis and have fun engaging with the audience.
#2 Sourcing Reviews
Riddle me this.
What do AppSumo and Yelp have in common? Hint. It starts with an ‘R’.
Unlike most e-commerce marketplaces, AppSumo is heavily dependent on reviews. You could try to smooth-talk Sumo-lings all day long but they won’t budge. Not until they see those reviews. To them, it’s all about social proof.
Knowing this, we tried to game the system.
Keep in mind that we were first-timers on AppSumo. Sumo-lings hadn’t heard of us before. They couldn’t care less who we were. But guess who did?
You guys.
After a handful of you contrarians bought our course, we asked you to leave reviews. You know, to kick things off. And you did.
We were thrilled. We soon realized that every reviewer on AppSumo had a little badge under their name that showed the number of deals they had bought.
Because many of our opening reviews came from loyal contrarians cum first-time Sumo-lings who had 1’s and 2’s under their ‘Deals Bought’, it raised a lot of queries from the OG Sumo-lings. And yes, it took a while for that dust to settle.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s essential to source reviews from every possible source, I’d probably do it the exact same again BUT I’d make sure to give more context that they were long-time Contrarians not fake reviews. Success on AppSumo is both review-based and time-bound. It’s all about getting ‘X’ number of reviews in ‘X’ amount of time to boost your awareness. But this can easily backfire if your reviews only come from first-time buyers. Like it did with ours.
Regardless, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t leverage whatever audience you already have. The best way to avoid coming off as a fraud while racking those reviews is to use a hybrid approach.
On one hand, you should absolutely push to your existing audience—even if they are non-Sumo-lings. Getting into AppSumo’s top quartile within a short time is key to finding success on the platform and that only happens when you stack reviews. Who better to get the ball rolling than people who already know and love you?
On the other hand, you should also sell to existing Sumo-lings. That involves finding them wherever they are across the internet. Facebook groups. Reddit threads. Webinars.
But be careful asking for quick review turnarounds. In our case, while contrarians didn’t think twice before leaving us a review, OG Sumo-lings didn’t like being rushed. They wanted time and space to absorb the course so they could leave an honest review.
Can’t blame a girl for asking right?
#3 Graphics
Getting graphics right on AppSumo can be tricky. Mostly because you don’t get to preview it.
In the weeks leading up to our launch, our visuals looked great during production. But once the course went live on AppSumo, eh…not so much.
We realized that we overlooked minute but critical elements of graphic design. Seemingly insignificant things like aspect ratio and margins had either warped our images or blown them out of proportion.
Looking back, this could have been avoided. If we had studied the top-performing products on AppSumo, we would have noticed a pattern. For example, the best-selling listings on AppSumo don’t rely on bland screenshots. They all have appealing graphics with elements that have been intentionally placed.
TLDR Pro Tips
Ditch the long-form videos
Reading requires more focus than watching. Plus, it’s a lot faster. We wanted our buyers to absorb our content as easily as possible. That way, they could get out there quicker and start building.
So rather than lengthy videos where I ramble for hours on end, we opted for punchy video snippets. And last I checked, Sumo-lings are loving them.
Expect one week of hard crunch
Dedicate the first week of your launch to monitoring your product closely. Earmark the first three days for a hard push across your social platforms. Use this critical period to source reviews, answer questions, and add updates.
Fine-tune your loyalty program
Creating discount codes is by far the most technical aspect of launching this digital product.
To prevent hiccups down the line, work hand-in-hand with your AppSumo account manager to outline your reimbursement steps. Define how people who buy with coupons will redeem their purchases.
And if you’re looking to have an unlimited number of codes to share, make sure you jump through all the extra hoops and gather all the required third-party tools. Because there’ll be a whole lot of those.
In Summary
Create the thing, share the thing, profit from the thing.
You won’t be sorry you did.
If you do it right, neither will your bank account
Question everything and go do the damn thing,
Codie
