This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Welcome to Sidus Hill School. Thanks for tuning in today. I've got an interesting challenge for you in the form of a listener question. It's actually more of an interesting challenge for me and for our listener. Well, it's a challenge for me to provide a good answer, which I have attempted to put some thought into today.
But the specific struggle that they have also poses an interesting challenge because what they wanna do, they'll explain more in their question, but basically they want to offer a stop smoking course, stop smoking in 30 days, something like that, based on techniques that worked for them during their own struggle. So they managed to overcome, you know, this lifelong addiction to smoking, good work caller. They'd like to know how they can, you know, offer this course or the solution to others and how they can sell it more effectively or at least position it better. And the reason why it's an interesting challenge is because this can be a really hard sell. It can be difficult, you know, to persuade people who've been doing something for a long time that you actually have the answer that's gonna help them to stop.
So as I said, I put some thought into my answer, we'll see if I can be helpful. And remember, you can apply these lessons to your own ideas as well. Like your own, you know, thinking about, okay, what is it that I can create and offer and sell? A lot of this advice and this conversation, in fact, it's much more conversational. A lot of it is designed to kind of get you thinking about the best idea you can come up with, how you can market that idea more effectively, how you can reach more people and just, you know, do more of what's important to you, right, that's ultimately what it's all about here on "Side Hustle School." So quick shout out to our sponsor, thanks sponsors.
And then we'll dive into the question and my answer. [Music]
Hey Chris, this is Angela, I really enjoy the show. So here's my "Side Hustle" idea. After quitting smoking from a 10 year habit, I've now spent a lot of time documenting my journey and creating a program that I wanna sell. But I'm a little stuck in the process of actually pitching it.
I feel like it's a conundrum because this is clearly an important topic and it's one that a lot of smokers value. Well, at least the ones who actually wanna quit like I did. I also believe the program is effective. So much so that I'm actually willing to offer 100% effectiveness guarantee. Basically, if you aren't able to quit smoking by following the program, you get your money back.
Still, I feel like it's going to be hard to sell. Committed smokers usually feel really skeptical about these programs because they've tried to quit before and failed. So what would you suggest? Is there any way to make this more compelling? I'd really love any ideas or feedback you have.
[Music]
Angela, thank you so much for the question. Like I said, it got me thinking quite a bit here. So I'm gonna give you a few ideas. I'll just go really quickly. First, I think it's important to emphasize the benefits of quitting, all right?
And you do this throughout your copy, throughout your messaging, emphasize the benefits and make it clear that quitting smoking can just have this big impact on somebody's health and wellbeing and also their finances. Like there's just a lot of benefits to doing it. So try to focus much more on that, the benefits of quitting than the feature of quitting, benefits versus features. Next, highlight the success rates of the program. I know this is a new program, okay?
But if it's helped anyone other than you, Angela, like let's highlight that. Let's highlight that in your marketing efforts. If anybody has been skeptical before, if you helped a friend to quit smoking and they were like, I don't think this is gonna work, but then it actually did. Tell that story, highlight the success rate. You mentioned a money back guarantee.
I think that's great. That can definitely help to build trust. It just shows that you are confident in the effectiveness of the program. You want to, if possible, use testimonials. So to go back to that success rate, social proof is so important.
You wanna share stories from people who have successfully quit. This can be really, really powerful. Like once you build up this program and you have a lot of testimonials, I would make those like front and center on the homepage or however you're marketing this. Like you've got the big headline about quitting smoking. You've got the benefits and you've got the testimonials.
Like that is the most important. And then as part of this process, like you want to then address some common concerns, like anticipate the objections, anticipate and address common concerns that people may have about quitting smoking. They might think, what about withdrawal symptoms? Or just, you know, it's difficult after, as I said, so many years of doing it. So these are all the kinds of things that you do to mitigate the resistance that you experience in offering a course or a program like this.
It is powerful. It has a very powerful benefit, especially if it works well. Like Angela tells us, it works well, but you're going up against the resistance. So these few items that I mentioned, you know, this is kind of your ammunition against the resistance, the benefits, the success rate, that money-back guarantee. Angela already thought about that.
Good work. The testimonials and then responding preemptively to common concerns or objections. Angela, good luck. Let us know what happens. Listeners, sidehustleschool.com/questions.
If you have a question or something you're trying to work through, we'll be featuring them throughout the whole year, along with updates from listeners as they launch and grow their projects. I am cheering you on wherever you are in the world, whatever you're up to. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the "Onward Project."
