MBA2717 Q&A Wednesday: How Do I Pre-Sell To Beta Customers?

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0:58Tina Tower:If you want to pre-sell your product before it's built and actually get people to pay you real money for something that doesn't exist yet, you need more than just hype. You need to build trust, you need to provide great value, and you need to create a no-brainer offer that makes it really difficult for them to say no. Today I want to show you exactly how we pre-sold our software Webinar Ninja back in 2014 and made money, had money in the bank before the product even existed. I want to show you how you could do the same for your business, for your product, so you can get your first 20 to 50 beta members.

1:32Tina Tower:For us, it was the first 250 beta members that started the whole journey for us, how we started our business, how we built it, how we scaled it over 10 years, and eventually sold it to ProProfs. So this could be the beginning of something very special for you. So it's really important that you nail it.

1:52Tina Tower:Welcome back to the$100 MBA show. I'm your host, Omar Zinhome, where I deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, to help you start, grow, and scale your business. Before we jump in, can I get 30 seconds of your time? We love guiding you on your business journey, and we want to help even more people build their dream businesses and lives. So if you could hit the follow button on this podcast app, it would be greatly appreciated. It's completely free, and it helps us out more than you know. Thanks. There are four key moves that we did when we pre-sold Webinar Ninja that made it a success.

2:31Tina Tower:I want to share with you those four moves. The first one is we led with value, not features. Beta customers don't care about your roadmap. They care about how you'll actually make their life easier today, not tomorrow, not a month from now, not a year from now. So say, for example, I had a software that helps personal trainers, coaches, PTs get rid of their admin work, get rid of all the stuff of the tracking they have to do, like how many sets, how many reps this person's doing while they're doing the exercises, what weight they're doing. Let's say that kind of all evaporated with my software because it's using AI and all this great technology.

3:07Tina Tower:Then if I present that to my client, that's gold because now they don't have to do that and they can be present with their client and they can actually do more clients. They can serve more clients because they don't have to do the admin work later. So when you're presenting the value to your customer in this example, you want to show them how you are actually right now going to save them time. How are you going to save their mental bandwidth? How are you going to make them look more professional? How they'll be able to handle more clients like I mentioned. How are they going to reduce mistakes?

3:34Tina Tower:How are they going to reduce fatigue? How are they going to reduce forgetfulness? and the whole anchor is if your product saves you money and time, you're already speaking their language. You have to immediately show them as quickly as possible that, hey, when you put your name down, when you pay your deposit, when you buy this product and get it when it's coming out in two months, then you're going to be able to take advantage of X, Y, Z. These are the advantages that you're going to have and how it's going to improve your life, your business, and get you a return on an investment. Everybody sees a purchase as an investment, even vacations, even a pair of shoes.

4:12Tina Tower:They are investing in a pair of shoes so that they can get a return on investment when people like their posts on Instagram with those shoes on. So that's the point here. Think about what the customer wants. They want a return on investment. Show them what that return is. Second move, anchor the full feature price. A beta offer only is attractive if they know they're getting a deal, if they know they're getting a steal. So the good way to do this is to anchor your beta price with the final price or the price that your app is going to be or your product's going to be after you're out of this phase.

4:44Tina Tower:So say, for example, with a software product, you're going to be$1 ,200 a year once you're out of beta. And then when we anchor that $1 ,200 a year to the beta price, which could be$2.99 a year with two free months as a bonus, that looks like a no-brainer deal. That price will never be offered again because you're just coming in early, you're pre-selling the product, so everybody sees that, hey, I better get this in now because otherwise I'm gonna pay$900 more plus I'm not getting those two free months. So as you could see, the value really is being conveyed by the anchoring. They don't know if they're getting a deal if they don't know what to compare it to.

5:21Tina Tower:People only take early action when they feel like they're getting ahead of everybody. Like they know a secret that nobody else knows and they just want to jump on it before everybody finds out. Move number three, we made them VIPs, not beta users. I've been using the term beta users because it's a common term that people know. But we call them founding members because that sounds a lot better because it makes them feel like they're special. And they are special because their feedback is going to be implemented first as these early founding members. We told our customers, you're going to shape how this product evolves.

5:57Tina Tower:You'll help us build a tool that the entire industry ends up using. So they felt like investors in the company. They felt like they're part of something bigger than themselves. This creates emotional buy-in, especially in industries like fitness, personal training, coaching, health and wellness, knowledge, information, business, investing, all that kind of stuff. They love being early adopters. They want to be a part of something that is new. It's exciting. So when we launched Webinar Ninja, we told our founding members, hey, we are going to take your feedback. We're going to implement it first.

6:30Tina Tower:You're going to shape this product with us. You know it best because you're going to be using it the most. And that really resonated with people. And that was reason enough for people to say, hey, take my money. I want to be a part of this journey. Introducing Fidelity Trader Plus, the next generation of advanced trading from Fidelity. Customize your tools and charts and access them seamlessly across desktop, web, and mobile. for faster trades anywhere you go. Try the all new Fidelity Trader Plus. Learn more about our most powerful trading platform yet at fidelity.com slash trader plus. Investing involves risk, including risk of loss.

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7:11Tina Tower:This episode of the$100 MBA show is brought to you by booking.com. If you're looking to grow your vacation rental business, this is the place to be. Booking.com is one of the most downloaded travel apps in the world, and for good reason. Since 2010, they've helped over 1.8 billion vacation rental guests find places to stay. But here's the thing. Most vacation rental hosts don't even realize they can list their properties on Booking.com. And if you're not on the platform, your rental is basically invisible to millions of Booking.com travelers worldwide. After all, they can't book what they can't see, right?

7:50Tina Tower:I book all my travel, personal and business, through Booking.com. And it's for good reason. I love their Genius program. So because I'm loyal and I use Booking.com, I'm a genius level three. Yeah, I say it with pride because it gets me the best prices. I also love the fact that they give you all the details about all the hotels or the apartments that you're booking. So I know exactly what I'm getting before I check in. Does the place have a gym? Does it have a hairdryer? Does it have a fridge? What about a washing machine? I know because the listing is always accurate and their app is easy to use.

8:23Tina Tower:So when I'm dead tired after a long flight and I'm trying to check into my accommodation, it's super simple. Just pull up my booking and show it to the host. So if your vacation rental isn't listed on booking.com, it could be invisible to millions of travelers searching the platform. Don't miss out on consistent bookings and global reach. Head over to booking.com and start your listing today. Get seen, get booked on booking.com. Move number four that we implemented was extreme risk reversal. If you're asking people to pay for something early, you need to remove all risk. Use a guarantee that feels absurd.

9:05Tina Tower:It feels crazy. And that's why we did a 90 day money back guarantee. So what we did is that we said, hey, you get 90 days from the day you receive the product. So they buy before they receive the product because it's a presale. And then once they receive the product, the 90 days starts going, starts counting. And we told them, hey, if you don't love the product for any reason, we'll refund you the money that you put in at the start. So for you, it might be like they paid for an annual subscription at a really good price. And for any reason they don't like it, you can refund them that annual subscription.

9:35Tina Tower:The reason why 90 days work so well, because in our experience, when we were launching Webinar Ninja and we released the product, and some people came to us and said, hey, this is not for me. I don't have time to do this or whatever it might be. We spoke to them and said, hey, listen, you still have 65 days left to use this product and get the most out of it. How about we help you implement it, get you onboarded and see if it works. If it doesn't work, we'll still give you your money back. Don't worry about it. So it gave us 90 days really to sell the product to them, to re-engage them. Now, of course, if they just say flat out, no, I don't want to do that, we give our money back.

10:11Tina Tower:We don't want to put them in a bad situation or make them feel uncomfortable or really put a bad taste in their mouth. We want to make sure that they're happy, but we want to make sure they actually get a win out of this experience. And sometimes that win is actually keeping the product and getting their ROI. And the 90 days really allows them to emotionally invest in the product and not feel rushed. A lot of people, they just ask for a refund because they didn't open the box. Like they didn't actually check it out yet. They just didn't get around to it. right they could have had you know a holiday or a busy time at work or maybe a life crisis and they just had no time to kind of evaluate their product and sometimes when you pre-sell and then you deliver the actual product a lot happens in their life a lot changes between that time you might sell the product and then they get the product like you know three or four months later and then all of a sudden their life is a little bit different a little bit busier and they just forget to kind of take action and then they just get this notification on their maybe in their email or maybe on their calendar and they're like, oh, I should refund this because I haven't used this yet.

11:11Tina Tower:So giving them more time allows them to actually implement, get an ROI and a chance for you to engage with them and be active in that situation. You want to be actively reaching out to these founding members from day one, week one, month one and say, hey, let's get you on board. Let's get you started. And you should see inside the dashboard of your software or in your program or whatever tool you're using to sell your products or services, if they're engaged, if they're actually watching the videos or whatever it might be. And if they're not, you got to go after them and make sure they do so that they don't ask for a refund.

11:44Tina Tower:You be proactive with activating them instead of them being the first person to reach you and say, hey, I want a refund. So bottom line, the longer the guarantee, the more likely they are to stay. So the way we pre-sold Webinar Engine Show was very simple. We literally just had a landing page and a promise. Mockups of what the software is going to look like, how it's going to implement the solution to the problem of overwhelming webinars. At the time, it was very hard to run a webinar as a solopreneur, as an author, as a speaker, as even just a small business owner that has a couple teammates.

12:13Tina Tower:A lot of the enterprise software was not built for those types of teams. So we showed them on the page exactly what the value is. We gave them early access. We gave them that VIP status of being a founding member. We gave them a really great discount that was lifetime and a mission that they believed in. This is very important. Probably the most important thing is like, hey, you got to sell them on what you're trying to build and what you're trying to change in the world. The mission we had with Webinar News is that we want to make it easier for people to monetize their knowledge and become financially free.

12:45Tina Tower:We believe that webinars are a great way for you to convey your value and help other people and change other people's lives through your products and services. And there's nothing like that online. It beat email, it beat text, it beat video, like a static video, because webinars are interactive. You can go back and forth with people, answer questions, answer rebuttals. And so it was a great sales conversion tool as well. And when you share that with people, people love being part of something new, something that has meaning, and it builds trust with your audience. Many founders think credibility comes from the product itself.

13:19Tina Tower:Wrong. Credibility comes from you. And your angle is why you built this. the story behind the product, why the industry needs it, why you should care, why you'll keep improving it over the years. You know, a lot of people buy Patagonia purely on the fact that they are a sustainable company, a company that believes in sustainability in the environment, and they'll fix any garment of clothing that you buy from them instead of you buying a new one. It sounds crazy, but Patagonia absolutely believes this. And yes, their products are a little bit more expensive than their competitors, but because they have a mission, people can get behind that mission.

13:57Tina Tower:It has really very little to do with how the clothing is styled or the cut of their vests or their sweaters. No, it really has to do with what Patagonia stands for. The bottom line is that people aren't buying a product, right? They're buying your commitment to solving their problem through the product. The moment people believe the product will make their life easier, that's the moment that they are sold and that's where you the founder will deliver on that promise so you need to make sure that if they're going to put their money up front and you're going to pre-sell it that you actually deliver on that promise when you deliver the product so remember the beginning of this episode i said you're going to need more than hype actually hype hurts you you want to undersell it and over deliver, right?

14:46Tina Tower:So make sure that you're not over hyping the product when you're pre selling it so that you set up expectations way too high. In fact, you should actually be upfront that it won't be perfect. And they're going to help you make it better and better every day. And that's okay, because early adopters, they don't want perfection. All they want is progress. So now it's time for you to take action. This is what I want you to do. I want you to answer these questions. You want to deliver this exact pitch when you're pre-selling on your landing page. Number one, who is this for? Who's this product for?

15:18Tina Tower:Is it for busy trainers and coaches? Is it for doctors? Is it for lawyers? Is it for young people, old people? The more specific, the better. Number two, the painful problem. What's the problem really that you're solving? In the example I was giving with the fitness app, admin stealing your focus as a coach and costing you clients. Number three, what's the transformation they're going to go through? This app, this product will let them track everything automatically so they can stay fully present with their clients and serve more clients. Number four, what's the anchor price? What's the future price?

15:51Tina Tower:The final price is going to be XYZ, you know, 3X what it is right now. Number five, what's the founding members price, the founding customer price, right? The beta price, so to speak, it's got to be a whole lot less and you can make it whatever you want and then just anchor it to a higher price. So your price might be$50 instead of$300. Number six, VIP advantage. As a founding user, as a founding member, your feedback is going to shape our next vision. You're going to get improvements. You're going to get free updates. You know, one of the reasons why Tesla are so popular is because people feel like they're getting a new car every few months.

16:28Tina Tower:You know, there's like over the air updates to improve the car like every two months. Number seven, risk reversal. Extend that time as much as possible. Try it for 90 days. Try it for 120 days. If you don't love it, we'll refund everything. The longer the better, in my opinion, because it gives them more time to see the value and get a return on investment. If you can cover these seven in your pitch, on your landing page, you're golden. So you're not begging people to take a risk. You're offering them a chance to be first, to be on the cutting edge, to be before everyone else before this thing goes crazy and is super popular.

17:03Tina Tower:If this episode gave you clarity, share it. Share with another founder, another business builder that you know, who's building something new and wants to be able to launch with a big bang and really be able to make some money before they even deliver the product. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. One of the best things I got out of pre-selling Webinar Ninja as a product was clear product validation. We opened up our first founding members and we capped it to 150 spots and we sold that out in 48 hours. We're like, wow, this is incredible. I had a very small email list at the time, less than 3000 people.

17:40Tina Tower:And I thought to myself, wow, this is incredible. There's so many people that are sharing and talking about this. I really struck a nerve here. This is a product people actually want and they're willing to spend money on it before they even receive it. So then we opened up to another 100 beta members and we sold those spots out in another 24 hours. So we had 250 beta members in 72 hours. That was clear product validation that, hey, this product market fit here. People want this product. This is worth investing. This is worth me spending my next 10 years building and growing this product. So that's actually the best thing I got out of that experiment or that experience of pre-selling the product is clear product validation.

18:19Tina Tower:And I'm not wondering if this is something that I should invest my time, money, and energy into for a good portion of my life. So if this gives you anything, that is the one thing I would say is the best thing. Yes, the money up front is great. And yes, having customers and being able to build a great product is fun. But that validation to know that you're working on the right thing is everything in business.

18:44Tina Tower:If you found today's episode helpful and you want more practical business lessons to help you start, grow and scale your business, the best thing you could do is subscribe to this podcast. Hit subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app, the one that you're using right now, whether it's Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. By hitting subscribe, you get our next episode automatically. And it's the best way to support the show. It's absolutely free. And it's a way for you to commit to growing your business. And now that you've subscribed, I'll check you in the next episode.

19:19Tina Tower:Hey, Fidelity. How can I remember to invest every month? With the Fidelity app, you can choose a schedule and set up recurring investments in stocks and ETFs. Oh, that sounds easier than I thought. You got this. Yeah, I do. Now, where did I put my keys? You will find them where you left them. Investing involves risk, including risk of loss. Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC. Member NYSE SIPC.