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Hello everyone and welcome back to the Product Growth Lab podcast.

This week we are talking about something that I want to talk about for a long time, and it's the fact that you don't have to do a discount to get more sales.

If you feel like the only thing you can do in your business when you desperately need another sale is to discount.

This episode is specifically aimed at you.

I love this especially because I literally just put My, testing Etsy shop on sale last night,

30%

70% off.

I've considered putting it to 40.

I don't

Yeah.

I don't know how public system is gonna work for Etsy, but yeah.

I'm not saying the econ ever do discount.

oh.

And there is tactical ways to that, especially let's say, I don't, I say that like I know anything about it's algorithm, but I know it seems to give you a boost when you do a sale.

I've noticed that myself.

So we're not saying that you can't ever do a sale and there're not times to make sense.

But if you need, if you feel the need to put your shop on sale, if you're weak, you probably don't need to.

And there's probably plenty of other things you could be doing in your business to keep driving conversions without lowering your prices, without training your customers to think, wow, I'm gonna wait for sale.

'cause I've seen this, I've seen it myself.

I had a, there was a business I used to.

Buy a lot close from and until they got bought over by someone else and the quality went horrible, but they were slightly pricey, but worth it.

But like every, it was like the last week of every month they would do a 25% off sale.

So I only ever bought, I'm like, well, I know that sale's gonna come round again.

And so the other three weeks of the month, I was just like, well, I'm never gonna buy anything from them.

And there's a lot of things where I say, well, people never notice.

This was like I was a big enough fan who wiped stuff often enough that I'm like, I did notice and pay attention.

Uh, so you knows what they could have done to keep me if they hadn't.

Sold to someone else and reduce the quality.

I feel like

I was gonna say, I feel like there's a big distinction in here.

If you are a luxury brand, this is especially good for you because you can't really use sales on the luxury brand without just crediting yourself.

And if you

And if you are a

if your competitive

your competitive advantage is not priced, but more like speed,

then this is

this is also good for you.

But

discounts

discounts too.

I'm sorry that came out better in my head than I did

my

through my voice.

But I think there's something you think about when you're doing discount.

You're like, okay, 20% off, which you're like, okay, I'm still making 80% of the money.

But when you look at your profit margins, often 20% off can be your whole profit margin in some businesses, How much of a, of your own profit you taking away?

I quick.

They realized doing Black Friday sales, but I do 30% off and I even gave my VIPs extra on top of that, that for sign products, that was my, like especially on Etsy with all their fees, I ended up with no product margin.

I was paying, I was just sending stuff out for free.

So that, that's mistake you make, you do tend to realize it very quickly are

if

number one, if you're gonna discount, go your

numbers.

numbers.

Yeah.

But really think about how much of.

If your profitability, are you giving up?

Not how much of the overall price.

Okay.

So we're saying you need more discounts.

What do you need to do?

What can you do?

And I like whenever you do any sort of promotion, 'cause we're still gonna say do some sort of promotion.

There are three different triggers that make up the bus framework, which I saw from someone asked of kind of Ram with.

You can use all of the.

Parts of the bus framework individually, but they work really well when you put together all three.

But you don't have to do that every time.

Something like Black Friday put all three together and you have a really good offer.

But throughout the year feel free to do one and test out different things.

Work.

So what are is the bus framework?

You're probably asking it its answer for bonuses.

Urgency and scarcity.

So how do you use them?

Bonuses.

These are something that adds some sort of value on top, not taking money away.

And for some people that like, especially if you talk about like luxury brands with those.

Adding things on can often be more of a ticket For someone who already has money, who is willing to pay $250 for a t-shirt, they want more.

A lot of the time, like I don't really care that it costs this much.

I make $10,000 an hour.

It's, they want the bonuses so you can add something on that adds to that value.

So adding on like a three A, a free smaller item.

So like, sort like t-shirts.

Can you add on a matching a trying, what would you do for clothes?

Like some sort of matching accessory?

I really can tell I'm not in the fashion world, but like if you make soap, can you do like the little, uh, child sample size soaps?

If you're in the

If you're in the fashion world for women, you would add on usually a pair of earrings or a bracelet or some kind of accessory that goes with the item that they're buying.

Yeah.

And I think you're doing consumable things.

Yeah.

Keep going.

Yeah.

Like the, but um, and sometimes people panic like, oh, this is gonna cost me a lot of money.

And like for something like if you do like the soap example, sometimes your off cut can be your free sample size.

So like what kind of stuff do you have lying around?

But they don't have a musical.

Sometimes you can do a digital download on top.

If um, I sell, I sell personalized stuff.

I've done aprons in the past.

I could have a recipe card that goes along with it that they download.

Mm-hmm.

Like, or even like a little mini recipe book.

I could do a set and like I could in fact make it more money at the same time, I could just set where you get like an adult apron and a kid's apron and the bonus for a limited time only.

Is you get my free book of recipes that are good for like parents and kids to make together and like that is a nice offer and I just ended up selling two aprons instead of one like I was originally going to.

Um, so that kinda like checklist guide, like what kind of digital things can you make?

There's for pretty much any business, there is some sort of digital thing you could add along and, and they feel, is it okay being on video?

amazing

amazing

for

spot for micro horses.

Hmm.

Yeah, totally.

It depends like what you do and like if your product has different uses or like there's a little bit of training required to get the most out of it, how can you put together a guide or a video or something?

It really helps people.

If you are in skincare, hooking up someone, create a whole skincare routine.

If you're in jewelry, can you have people like with the whole styling and does the, does the necklace match the earrings?

Like all that kinda stuff?

Mm-hmm.

Like what kind of.

Necklace goes with what kind of

neckline

It's neckline shirt or dress.

Yes.

Yeah.

How to not look like you're wearing,

in

if you're in trending stuff.

Have you

people

keep people on top of the trend?

What's going right now, so you don't look like last season?

Yeah.

How would you make it, how would you not make it look like you're pairing a clears accessory necklace with a designer dress like.

Paparazzi has

Paparazzi has killed that,

or I say they

or I say they kill at that.

So how can you add something on that increases the value?

So instead, so like when you do a discount, it's like I'm getting $50 worth for four A, how can I, give you $60 worth of stuff for 50, like you're still giving someone $10 off just in a different way.

Um, and you're increasing the value.

People like getting free things, like they like to feel like they're getting something extra, so that's a great trigger.

The next one is urgency.

So getting people to take action now, and there's ways to this without feeling sleazy.

I know a lot of people feel like, Ooh, I'm creating some sort of artificial barrier to stuff.

But there are ethical ways to this and there are ways where it.

And genuinely things do run out.

Like if you're doing a sale for a weekend, you're not being disingenuous by saying the sale ends on Sunday.

You're just letting people know.

But including things like countdown timers when you do stories.

On Instagram, you can put count down timer and your emails, you can click Count down Timer on your website.

You can have account down timer.

Having these things in all those places encourages people to take action and take action now, because I'm just like, oh, Melissa's gonna gimme $10 off this.

But she didn't say when it ends so I'm like, there's no rush.

Yeah.

You wanna remove that idea?

I got time.

Yeah.

It's the, okay, I need to do this.

Now I need to go grab my credit card, get Chance's website, and order.

Now,

My favorite

my favorite example of

that happened

that happened to me, and it's not in e-com and I feel bad for that.

It was, um, a Disney fitness group

and I saw their

and I saw their ads during the week about this big challenge.

They're running with a fantastic prize and everything else

that's

like, that's really cool.

Okay.

Yeah, I went to end page.

She's like, okay, I'll, I'll, I'll think about this and whatnot.

End of the week.

and they're

Sunday and they're like,

It's your last

it's your last chance.

The challenge starts tomorrow.

I'm like, well, shit.

Give my money.

And there's, there's also a lot of things have, you could totally put challenges with your products.

Yeah.

But a lot of dates and things have that scarcity.

Not Urgency built in.

If you're doing some sort of promo, not even promo, just in general, if you are selling products that are good for Mother's Day, father's Day, Christmas, new Year, whatever.

Even if you're, you're not saying the sale end, that is a calendar cutoff.

Yeah.

Even if you're not saying the sale ends on Sunday, if you're saying, if you don't order this by Sunday, it will not arrive in time for Christmas.

That is some real urgency and people are like, okay, I have to buy this.

But it's not gonna come.

And I know none of this stuff ever works.

Number one, the amount of orders I get, the day after that's like, Hey, sorry mom, hope you get this by New Year.

They're like every, yeah, I read your gift notes.

Just if you're one, if those things are private, they're absolutely not.

I read them all and I print them out.

But yeah, putting that urgency in there, whether it's like some sort of sale or discount or like the time the bonus runs out or if it is that kind of natural urgency that's built in doing that and bringing it to the forefront using things like countdown timers, not just the kind of.

Like they need to know, like it's the, like we, like Father's Day has just been recently, it's the, if I don't know when your're shipping deadline is, I might be like, well, I can, like I new starting from Amazon, I can already, right up to the day before Father's Day.

It's probably not true.

If you're shopping with a smaller business, like you need to let people know, oh, actually you need to charge this like a week before, or whatever it is.

If it's customizable, if it's not sitting

if it's not sitting on our shelf ready to go.

Yeah.

So making sure you have those deadlines.

We also don't tend to have chipping teams who are pulling orders as soon as they come in.

Like, if I have to pick the kid up from school, you might have missed today.

Yeah.

So making sure you have deadlines and things in there, and even if you do have that kind of, this is just like a, it's like a smaller trigger, but if you, what?

Trying to say if you'll probably know it's on Amazon.

If you add something to your basket, I'll be like, get it tomorrow if you are within one hour and 15 minutes.

Like I have that, like they're not offering me any money off anything.

I just, I know I want, I know I buy a lot of clothes from, I next have to buy bunch stuff from there.

They have at the top of their website, get it tomorrow order by 11, which I don't know why they say 11 because normally it's like half past 10 and suddenly you try and add something and it won't come to.

Know that's beside the pipe.

Uh, but having things like that, if you warehouse, yeah, if you know that things ship by, like you, if you can get stuff waste time, just having that on your website, like it's not a deal or a thing that will help you in this one off.

Just like a general everyday people are like, oh, I want this quickly.

So.

I know I have to order by three o'clock because that's when Melissa leaves to the post office every day

Yep.

or, and the mailman comes to pick stuff up every day at four.

So as long as she has it by three, she'll have it packed up and ready to go.

So including things like that on your site.

And the final one is scarcity.

So making it where there's a certain amount of something.

The offer won't last, or it won't come back and actually mean it.

If you do, like a bunch of businesses do this in a horrible way where it's like, I'm never gonna do this again, and the next week suddenly they do it, or um, yeah this thing is only this price until midnight and then the morning after, oh wow, blah, blah, blah.

I'm gonna extend it for another week.

But I could just Popular demand.

Yeah.

you didn't

It's like, oh, you didn't.

to do?

You.

Yeah.

Being really firm on this.

And sometimes like sometimes it hurts to be like, oh no, I was getting these sales and I killed it.

But like it helps train people over time if they know, oh, Melissa doesn't fuck around.

Like if she says this is gonna end, it's gonna end for once.

Once it's not me

It's not be cursing

even though it's about

even though it's about me.

But having, you can have a limited edition product like.

The, well, it only sells this necklace one off, or she only sells it in red for Christmas.

So that's Christmas guy.

Yep.

Specialty color.

Yeah.

You can do it in that like in be a product or it can just be a specific variation of the product is a is limited.

Having things like the bonuses are before only the first 10 people get this.

Only the first 20 people get this.

Yep.

Yep.

Those kind of like disappear in bonuses.

You can do them scarcity by like the amount of people, and you can also do it by time kind of linking back to urgency like the.

I know maybe you do two bonuses and it's like one of them goes to everyone.

But yeah, if you want the second bonus, you have to do it within the first 24 hours.

Like the, we'll go back to the example.

The recipe book goes to everyone, but if you also want the, like bake along video collection with Andrew, you have to order within the first 20 foot hours.

And that count is counting down.

So like you can do where it's scarce by people are scarce, it's kind of urgency, it's kind of a little combination, you think things that are like, once they're gone.

Yeah, anything where you can make it, where there's, there is some sort of scarceness.

It's kind of, and this one, this one really works.

It's like you can get a bit icky with it because it kind of, kind of goes into like a.

Primal kind of instinct of the, of like food and stuff being scarcely.

You don't want to go a bit too extreme with it 'cause they start to, to advise your customers.

But like say, okay, only 10 people get this, so only trade will get this.

Like, doing it will really work.

Um, so yeah, it's not just a sales trick, like it's something you can really use.

But the kind of magic of all this is when you combine.

All three.

I do recommend trying them all testing different things, but then going, okay, I know that this thing works and this thing works and this thing works.

Now I'm gonna combine them into one.

So let's say you are selling a candle gift set and you say, okay, the bonus is I'm gonna give you a free.

Wax melt with any set, but it lasts until Sunday and there's only 25 of these wax melts available.

Suddenly you have, okay, I'm giving bonus urgency.

Scarcity.

Yeah.

You got your bonus urgency, you've got your scarcity.

That is like the, the ultimate offer kinda thing.

You're like tapped into all three of those things.

You have people who are really only interested in like the one, you have people who are interested in all three.

And it's like, I have to have, like, it ties into a lot of triggers for people.

And you really can do it with Ethan, so like combining all three.

So it really makes exciting.

And like in that example, there's no discount.

We haven't given anyone any money off in there.

I'm sure you're giving away your wax milk, but I'm sure it like, doesn't have to be full size, be like a sample or something.

Like what?

Like it doesn't have to be this mm-hmm.

Massive thing.

You can, sure, you can get that where it costs pennies, not dark.

Like you can probably make it where it's, make it good enough where it's someone actually wants, wants like sometimes the like a really crappy free gift.

Just like I really don't care.

But you can, yeah.

That is like for a free gift to work.

Some people will be just

Some people will be just be like, I get to think for free, and that's enough for them.

Mm-hmm.

But

like, I

for lot feels like I gotta actually want the thing

that you're giving away

that you're giving away for free.

Yeah.

Where was I?

I was in a close shop.

It was like, you spend over 150, you'll get a free beach ball.

I'm like, what the fuck am I gonna do with a beach ball?

A beach ball

Ulta does it all the

also does it all the time with the free makeup, sample kits and all that.

It's like, but I don't want anything that's in here, kit.

I don't care that it's

I don't care that it's free.

I think that is totally a, depends on the person.

Like if I can like

your

And that's knowing your audience.

Yeah.

I'm not a typical

But I, not a typical old customer.

Yeah.

But there's like, there's waste to that.

And I think the example, like the candle one, the wax melt like your ideal customer like that.

And like it probably doesn't cost you a time to do, you might have a whole batch of stuff that is left over.

Or like there's, I'm gonna say like there's a slight problem with it.

Not so much that it's bad, like you don't have to be giving people stuff that you should throw out, but sometimes it's.

Like you're not entirely impressed.

The smell, like there's something about it, like it was supposed to smell

It

Christmas Eve, it smells great, but the design was bad.

or

Yeah.

Like they, or

what

not just not what you wanted it to be.

Yeah.

Or like you, like they were supposed to be mint scent it and they were supposed to be green, but they, you accidentally put in the pink and you're like, pink isn't immense smell.

Like there's nothing wrong with those.

You can throw those in like you end up with all stars.

Like there's always really clever ways to do this.

Like I think back to her client who had soap that turned out wrong, but she said it kind of looks like brains.

And she turned it into this whole Halloween offer thing.

That was genius.

Oh, it was

Oh, it was fantastic.

Was ombie brain soap.

Yeah.

And that all came out from an example, like it was a, an example from a mistake, like something went wrong.

Like, but turn, like turn to out's like

It is only

being really probably wrong because of how you were preconceived that you wanted it to turn out.

Yeah, just

shift,

shift the, shift, the perception.

I

Yeah.

I can't speak to that.

And, and you still charge real price.

There's a whole, like, there's things I see with small businesses all the time where like, this thing is wrong for this.

And I'm like, I would never.

Have noticed that I never known that.

It's like, you know that that's wrong.

You know that you're like, sometimes people who outsource for the same time, it's like, oh, they haven't done it.

Who, how I would do it.

So I'm discount them all 50% and it's like, okay, there's nothing wrong with that.

So like it's still a good product, it's just not.

What you thought, but as long as your customer would love it and like it's not gonna fall apart when they touch it, I'm like, you totally can and should be charging full price for that.

Like you deserve that money.

Like there's.

I dunno, there's a whole confidence and permission thing and the whole 17 episode arc, we could go into all this stuff about the decisions handmade business I make.

But yeah, getting over kinda on a tangent, but getting over that kind of, it's not right in your brain as Okay, like just getting creative with it and using that to create a bonus or for else.

I am gonna tack

I am gonna tack onto that as well.

of

The amount of times that I have created a jewelry prod where I'm like, this is ugly, this is horrible, but I need to fill in the collection for the night.

So it's going out anyway, and you know which one sells out the ugly one

thought was

I thought was ugly, but my customers fell in love with.

I'm like,

take the

you didn't take breath now what?

But it happens

But afterwards, yeah, all the

time.

time.

Don't make ugly stuff

Don't make up this stuff on purpose, like it won't work that, but no.

Things that might not come out.

How you expected it to does not mean that your customers are not Yeah.

I've had a few times where I've done like slightly more custom, like different colors and things.

They don't normally do a price and people will ask for things and they'll come out and be like.

This is really ugly.

Like it came out really well.

I got embarrassed by it, but 'cause people chose it and they kind of had me well invested and it is what they wanted.

They've always loved it and they're like, this is amazing.

And they shouldn't tell people.

They're like, well that's, and I get more orders from it.

It's like getting over your own, kinda in your brain like, oh, this is like, this is, and you're not

paying yourself for your

for your products.

Yeah.

I'm like, they are paying you.

It's what they want.

But I put the same effort into the product.

The product is good.

Like there's nothing wrong with it.

It still should be that, and even slightly more than I would normally charge.

'cause it's custom.

Like if I told myself, oh well this is ugly, so I'm not gonna charge for, I'm gonna tell the person like, no.

This isn't good, so I'm not gonna let you have it like I would've missed out.

So getting over your own kind of concept, like we're too close to our products.

Especially like, yes, me doing embroidery, the amount of times I'll go into shops and like start looking at the clothes and like turning it inside out.

And I'm sure people are watching like, what is he doing?

Like this is so badly done.

You're gonna wash this and this is all gonna just pull out and stuff.

But.

Someone else will come up and buy it.

Like they don't know that, like, so yeah, you're all, you get too close to your own products.

So, and before we just go off on a half an hour tangent, your challenge, like bonus earns too scarcity.

Your challenge for this week is to run a promotion instead of a discount.

Try one or all three.

Let us know how you get on in the Facebook group.

The link to that will be in the show notes below, and if you need help promoting it, you can use our flash sale in a snap guide.

You might need to change a few things 'cause it is discount centric, but you can always change it.

And if you don't know how to actually, BT is your friend, or Claude or Gemini or whoever else you can.

Rope in.

Um, and you can grab that by going to the pro, the product growth lab.com/slash.

So in summary, you don't need an discount.

You need a good reason to buy.

Uh.

Do that.

Want your email automation?

No, that's not, that's tell me to do that.

This is all it

This is all it comes down to testing.

We are the product growth lab.

We are all about testing.

So

hopefully by this

hopefully by this time if you've been following us, you've run a couple of flash shows so you have an idea of what discounts do for your shop Now, drive bus and see what bonuses.

Urgency, scarcity.

One of them, two of them.

All three of them wrapped in one.

See how they stack up against a discount

and.

Also pay

also pay attention even if you get a few less sales.

What do your profits come out to be on these?

a

Like look a little bit deeper at your numbers.

Maybe you don't

Maybe you don't make as many sales, but you made a whole lot more money doing

style promotion versus a discount.

discount.

And at the same time,

Andrew's gonna hit

Andrew's gonna hit me for this one.

If he could reach me through the camera,

Run both of

run both of them

at

month, however long can you run sales, alternate them, do discounts, do bust, do discounts, do bust, see what works.

Mm-hmm.

test

if you're doing test your audience, what do they respond to?

If you're doing a big, big sale, things like Black Friday.

Do a discount and a bonus and urgency and scarcity.

Mm-hmm.

And you will stand out amongst the millions of other shops.

Everybody is.

yes.

Yes.

And you can do it without, yeah, you can do it without hurting.

Like you need to be clever and you can discuss this if you're a client or in our group.

But there are clever ways to do this where you don't certainly give away $80 worth of stuff when you're only charging 50.

'cause it's very, very easy to get carried away.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

It's

you get this

you get this thing, I, this thing.

I don't think I stick it all 50% off.

Okay.

Next we tune into the prodo Cloud podcast.

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