Hello Reader,
I caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye and I couldn't help myself.
My heart rate sped up.
No, I wasn't in any danger. But whose heart wouldn't beat faster if they'd just spotted a $100 note just sitting beside the path!
As my hand made an almost instantaneous dive for the money, I noticed another note, this one for $50.
I picked both notes up and looked around me. This area is close to an RV park and its guests often walk along this particular path.
Surely someone was missing their cash and would want it back?
Of course, I thought, if they didn't want it back, I'd be happy to keep it.
Slightly amazed at my find, I turned the notes over.
And my heart sank into my stomach.
The other side of these realistic looking $100 and $50 bills didn't look like money at all.
They looked like an empty "to-do" list with the words "Yes, you need God in your life" typed in the middle, lengthwise.
So not only were they fake money, they were also useless for writing out lists of tasks.
Grumbling to myself, I kept walking. And more of those fake bills started turning up everywhere.
On the path. Off the path. Stuck to tree trunks. Everywhere.
The most memorable ones I found were the $10 and $20 notes layered over the top of a pile of dog poo.
"How fitting", I thought. That is exactly how too-good-to-be-true promises or click bait marketing make people feel.
Just like me, they start out thinking they've gotten lucky. Until they see the poo sitting underneath. And then that angry feeling of having been fooled gets transferred to whatever it was that was being advertised or sold.
I can't think of a quicker way to put people off, then to pretend you're giving them something they desire (and value) and then do the old bait and switch on them.
Not cool.
That's exactly what too-good-to-be-true marketing does to people. It gets them excited about something valuable, then sneaks in a nasty “gotcha”-type catch.
An editor catches that sort of thing before a story ever goes out. It's their job to check the promise against what you can actually deliver. Sell something yourself, though, a template, a swipe file, a workshop recording, and there's no one checking on the way out. That job is yours.
So try this. Read back through your own product description. Then ask yourself whether you’d feel ripped off if after you’d it (and were expecting exactly what you read)? If the answer's yes, fix it before you send anyone to the “buy” button.
The pitch isn't the only thing you can sell
Most of us start out selling one thing. It might be a pitch, then a piece, then another pitch. Which does pay, but it only pays once, and it only pays if the editor says yes.
A template pays differently. A pitch tracker, a rate calculator, a swipe file of subject lines that got opened, a recording of a workshop you already ran once. You build it once. It can sell while you're doing something else entirely.
None of that replaces pitching. It just means your income doesn't start from zero every week, and it means you're the one keeping the promise now, since there's no editor left to catch it for you.
Test the promise before you build the thing
Before you spend a weekend building a template or a mini-course, try this. Ask ChatGPT or Claude to draft three FAQ answers for it, written as if a real writer had already bought it and was confused about something.
If the AI struggles to answer those FAQ questions clearly, that's not the AI's problem. It means the offer isn't clear enough yet, and you've found that out in fifteen minutes instead of after you've built the whole thing.
Highlight of the week
There is something impressive in this day and age about creating assets that keep working decades later. So this week, have a listen to Ep. 255: The Videos She Made 15 Years Ago Are Still Making Sales with Mary Ann Bautista. Mary Ann talks about how YouTube videos she made 15 years ago are still bringing in sales today, and how to build something you own once and keep earning from, which is exactly what a template can do for a writer.
And that's it for this week. Hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Trudy (and Treasa)
P.S. If you're building something to sell, you need somewhere to actually sell it. Thrivecart (affiliate link) is what I use for sales pages, checkout and hosting the whole product. I've used it for years and it's still my go-to for selling my own templates and courses.
