1096 – Keep Things Simple: Tom talks Simple Offers

SUMMARY BY CHATGPT

🔑 Core Idea
Simple offers outperform complicated funnels.
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💡 Main Strategy
Tom Antion’s most profitable approach (used for 30+ years):
• Make one main offer
• Follow it with one upsell only
👉 This simple structure consistently beats complex, multi-step funnels.
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📊 Why It Works
• Less confusion = more conversions
• Too many choices → people do nothing
• Simplicity makes it easier to build and more effective
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💰 Upsell Formula (Key Insight)
For best results (often 30–50% upsell conversion rate):
1. Customer is already committed to the first purchase
2. Upsell is:
o Related to the original purchase
o Cheaper than the main product
o A clear deal or discount
Example:
• Buy a suit → offer discounted shirts & ties
✔ High conversion
What doesn’t work well:
• Buying a cheap item → upsell to something expensive
❌ Low conversion
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⚠️ Important Notes
• Multiple upsells or offers can reduce sales due to overwhelm
• High-ticket programs should not use upsells (can feel pushy)
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🧠 Bottom Line
• Keep it simple:
o 1 offer + 1 upsell
• Focus on:
o Relevance
o Value
o Simplicity
👉 This approach is easier to implement and has proven to generate the most revenue over time.

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Episode 1096 – Simple Offers
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.
[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 1096 of Screw the Commute podcast. Today we're going to talk about simple offers and how they normally beat the heck out of fancy, intricate funnels. All right, we'll talk about that today. Hope you didn't miss episode 1095. That was turning questions into content. Man, that's been my whole career has just given people what they what they want to know about. All right. Pick up a copy of our automation book at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. Version 3.0 is the latest. And check out my mentor program at GreatInternetMarketingTraining.com And my school at IMTCVA.org, certified to operate by the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia. But you don't have to be in Virginia because its quality distance learning and probably save you a couple hundred thousand bucks. Sending your kid to a four year indoctrination camp rather than a school, that gives them a real skill that's in demand. All right, let's see what else is going on. Oh, well, this weekend they're going to open up the AI summit again. So you can watch all the sessions. You gotta if you missed it you got to watch my session. It's an hour and 15 minutes.
[00:01:45] That's going to save you hundreds and hundreds of hours into the future. And it's going to help make you money, save you money. You'll be amazed at the kind of things you can create and get over there at a summit. And if you buy their premium pass that gives you total access forever to the sessions. You get an extra $500 masterclass from me. You get a consultation, 30 minute consultation. You get a extra workshop free workshop on how to create baby videos, which are in high demand and high engagement and fun to create, and a bunch of other stuff. So check it out.
[00:02:38] Okay, so let's talk about simple offers. So here's how I made the most money from simple product sales, not speaking engagements or mentor programs or protection dogs or tennis or any of the other stuff I sell. This is from just a simple product sale. It could be just a book or an online course, something like that. No complicated funnels. All right. And I got to tell you, I was down in, uh, I think it was Atlanta and a really big name marketer. You'd probably recognize his name. I happen to be in town, and he knew it, and he begged me to come over to watch one of his seminars. And so I did. And and, you know, I'm not knocking it.
[00:03:29] I guess it might work for him, but he spent three hours with this complicated funnel thing of going every which way on earth and everybody, you know, I'm always an audience watcher. I'm looking at people in, in the in the crowd and they're like, they're looking at each other like, what? What the heck, you know? So not only was it complicated to make and build it, I don't think it worked that well. It was just something where he was showing how smart he was and how to build these things. Right. But so here's my simple method that has worked for me for ever since I, you know, I've been 32 years now, 32.5 years selling online since there, there was the ability to sell online about 1994. And this is the number one way that I've made the most money with selling books and CDs. And back in the old days, tapes and DVDs and courses and stuff like that. All right. You make one offer. Okay. One offer. And if they decide to buy that offer, you give them one upsell. I've experimented with given multiple upsells and I make the most money when I give one offer and one upsell. Okay. I'm not saying the other things don't work. Multiple upsells and multiple offers. I'm just saying that these are the easiest to create and have made me the most money over 30 some years.
[00:05:15] All right, so there we go. So let me tell you about this upselling theory. And I got to tell you, in all the years I've been doing this. When I do this, what I'm going to tell you how to do an upsell. There has never been one time, then less than 30% of the people took the upsell, but the average is between 30 and 50%. Sometimes it's higher, but most of the time it's between 30 and 50% of the people take the upsell. And so I'm going to give you an example of it and then I'll break it down. So let's say you allotted $600 to go into today's man and buy a suit, and you get in there and they're fitting you up for the suit. You've already picked the one you want to buy, and they're Measuring you and all that stuff. And then they say to you, hey, anybody that buys a suit this week gets two for one on shirts and ties. I'm contending that 30 to 50% of the people go for that deal. So let's break it down a little bit. So the first part of this is they must be committed to the first offer. So in this case a suit they committed to buy that suit.
[00:06:45] All right. So they're committed then is when you offer the upsell and the criteria for the upsell to make this work, 30 to 50% of the time is the upsell is cheaper. A cheaper item overall, like a shirt compared to a suit and it's a deal. So in this case, it was two for one for shirts and Also, the shirts are related to the first purchase. If you follow that idea, they committed to the first sale. You give them a related thing to the first sale, and the upsell item is generally a cheaper product. And it's a deal. Beautiful. I can't swear you'll get 30 to 50%. But like I said, for many, many, many years, I've never done less than 30%. And some were usually it's between 30 and 50%. Now, I have attempted to make a higher priced upsell than their first commitment. So let's, let's flip this a little bit. Let's say you're going to a speaking engagement and you got crap on your tie when you were eating, and you go into today's man and just want to buy a tie and they say, oh, anybody that buys a tie today gets a deal, a half price deal on a $2,500 cashmere suit. So. So even though it was cheaper and related, how many people were going to go for that one? From the cost of a tie up to $1,250 for a for the deal on a cashmere suit.
[00:08:34] All right. So I'm not saying it can't work. I'm just saying that if you want for sure to get it to work to a certain degree for your market and your expertise, you do it. Like I just said, they committed to the first sale. The upsell is related, it's cheaper and it's a deal. If you do that on all your regular stuff now, for instance, on my mentor program, a much more high ticket program, I don't do an upsell on that. No, you know, I don't want people thinking after they spent all this money that I'm nickel and dime them to death, right? So I make it all inclusive. I used to do that on my professional speaking systems, like $1,200 or something. So no, I don't do any upsells on that either. You can make a fortune on regular stuff if you do this upselling, one offer and one upsell when as soon as you start giving them a lot of different choices. That's the people vote no, they get confused and they do nothing. So I give them one offer and one upsell. And that's my message for today. And also, hey, I want you to watch that thing of mine tomorrow. Uh, the, uh, it's Saturday morning.
[00:09:49] You'll be able to watch my, it's called 75 AI hacks simplified. So all of them can be done by a mere mortal. No techie stuff involved. It's just nobody's told you this simple stuff you could do with AI, ChatGPT, and and some of the other really great graphics programs. You'll see examples of me turning old pictures into beautiful new pictures and product shots that used to cost me 4 or 500 bucks in a whole day. I get him in 30s for $0.15. Book covers for $0.03. All right. So you'll see all of that stuff animation, headshots, all of that stuff you'll see on my session. So make sure you get signed up right away. And as soon as you sign up, you get a $500 podcasting masterclass on guesting first and then hosting if you want to. But guesting, I'm showing you how to be a great guest. And I've had you see the number here, this almost 1100 episodes that I have run. I know what a good guest looks like, and I know what a guest is that I want to have back all the time. Okay. And so I put that in the, in the course there for you. So anyway, check it out at Tom here. And I will catch you on the next episode. Go out there and upsell. See you later.