Hey {{first_name|there}},

I keep having the same frustrated conversation with business owners who have a real audience: thousands (or tens of thousands) of followers, engaged newsletter subscribers, and legit credibility. They’ll put on a free event, get hundreds of sign-ups, and then never hear from the people who showed up.

A flood of "This was great! Thanks!!" and then silence.

One of them put it this way: "There's a hole in the middle."

Another hosted a webinar that drew in 600+ attendees. She ran a free three-day challenge on the back-end of it - 60% show-up rate. People loved it. Then she offered an eight-week cohort at the end: zero buys.

The content was great. That wasn't the problem.

There’s actually two problems. And you have to get both right.

Problem 1: Leave people wanting more

The session that converts leaves people hungry - they got something real, but they can sense there's more they haven't accessed yet.

Most consultants default to one of two mistakes:

1. They give everything away trying to prove their value

2. They keep it so surface-level that people leave with nothing real to act on

The first satisfies the curiosity that brought people there. The second doesn't earn their trust.

The session that converts opens a door. It gives people something genuinely useful, then makes them aware of exactly how much deeper and further the work can go.

Problem 2: More value > next transaction

This is where most fumble it - even the ones who nailed the session.

They pitch something to buy on the spot, which makes the whole experience feel like a setup.

Or they drop a link to book a discovery call. The call format isn’t the problem - the framing is. It signals: now comes the part where I sell you something.

The consultant who got zero buys didn't have a content problem. She had a gap problem. She jumped from a free three-day challenge that gave away so much, people were overwhelmed. But then she completely lost them when the next step was QR code checkout to an eight-week paid cohort.

They knew she was smart, but would her 8 week program overwhelm them even more? If they could talk with her and understand fit, maybe they’d buy. But she broke both sides of the bridge: too much overwhelm in the free offer, too much of an ask on the next step.

The right next step

The next step that works doesn't feel like a step at all. It feels like the obvious continuation - like the session was chapter one and they'd be leaving the story unfinished if they didn't keep going.

When both of these align, the right people move forward on their own. The wedge offer does what it's supposed to do.

Most consultants I talk to have one working. A great session with a clunky next step. Or a smooth pitch attached to a session that left people too satisfied to want more.

Getting both right at the same time - that's the work.

⚡️ If you've tried building a wedge offer (webinar, masterclass, audit, assessment) and it didn't convert the way you expected, join my upcoming live session: Wedge Offers That Converted $370K in Premium Sales.

I'll show you exactly why conversions aren’t coming, and two real examples of what it looks like when they do.

[Grab a spot →]

🤘

Jay Melone

Hey {{first_name|there}},

The clients who can't afford you will cost you everything.

I built a group version of my work earlier this year. Sold the first cohort at a steep discount while still testing the material and format.

Even as a prototype, the people who experienced it, loved it. Genuine results. Raving testimonials I didn't even ask for.

An obvious success story? Maybe.

So I ran it back for a second cohort. I adjusted pricing from beta to market-ready. Still more affordable than what I charge my one-on-one / done-with-you clients. Naturally.

Then I looked at the sales data. Er, lack of sales data...

The people who had been telling me for months that they wanted to work with me but couldn't afford the 1:1 - ones who specifically asked for something more accessible - didn't buy.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum, the clients who prefer working with me 1:1 at 5-10x the price of the group? They buy without blinking.

I sat with that for a long time.

Mostly, because it was revealing a problem I genuinely didn't want to face… I had been building for the wrong person.

Before we move on, please hear me when I say this. This segment of clientele - the entrepreneurs without the cash to invest in growing their own businesses - I have the utmost respect for them. I have been them for the majority of my entrepreneurial journey.

Hard working. Brimming with grit, passion, and expertise. Phenomenal humans.
Just wrong for my business.

But let’s back up a sec to understand how we got here…

Since COVID, there's been a tsunami of people leaving corporate to start their own consulting practices. The appeal made sense - more autonomy, more ownership, work you care deeply about.

What a lot of them ran into instead was the brutal reality of building a business from scratch. Clients don't just appear because you’re selling the same services that used to be your job.

And the six-figure income + benefits don’t automatically transfer over either. If only!

That group is now a significant portion of your LinkedIn notifications, your webinar registrations, your email list.

They’re the people voraciously consuming your content, because they're trying to learn their way out of the problems you’re an expert at solving.

They engage because they're building their own presence. They comment. They share. They show up everywhere.

But they're operating on tight budgets; i.e. blips of revenue and personal savings. Which means the little they do spend is increasingly going toward AI tools that replace the work they'd otherwise pay you to do.

The danger isn't that these folks exist. It’s that you mistake their engagement for real buying intent.

You announce your work to a fanfare of fire emojis and "Can’t wait to check it out!!!!" replies. It feels good. And so you start optimizing for more of that:

• More content that resonates with them

• More offers designed around what they might be able to afford

• More energy for a segment that will never generate the revenue your business needs to survive

If you sell premium services to sophisticated buyers, you cannot build a business on the back of an audience that isn't that.

You can try. You can rationalize it as "building a community" or "serving the people who really need my help." You can claim that going upstream is saturated.

But the economics don't lie.

And if you believe them when they tell you you're too expensive… If you let that become the signal that drives your next offer and price point… You're not just losing a sale. You're letting the wrong person shape your business.

That's how me, you, and every other quality consultant with real expertise slowly hollow ourselves out, chasing a market that was never going to pay us what we’re worth.

And then there's the comparison trap. This one almost broke me. Guessing you’ve felt it, too…

A name kept coming up in my world last year. A consultant. Well-regarded, and clearly building something valuable.

My clients mentioned her. My partners mentioned her. Once, I heard her name five times in a single week.

I looked at what she was selling. A low-ticket offer on the front-end. Couple hundred bucks. Followed by a very affordable year-long program.

As a guy building a company called Profit Ladder, I applauded what I saw. And apparently, many others liked it, too.

But then curiosity quickly turned to panic…

Why does she have this much traction? Why are prospects, clients, and partners talking about her and not me? She has “lots” of people buying, and I'm only closing 2-3 a month. I'm supposed to be an offer guy. Did I get it all wrong? Should I copy what she’s doing?!

For a stretch, I genuinely questioned whether I had built the wrong business. Whether the right move was to go back and create lower-priced, higher-volume offers that could capture more of this market.

Then reality smacked me upside the head…

Her business was built for a completely different crowd. The DIY’er. The scrappy, resourceful solo or freelancer. The amazing entrepreneur who needs and deserves all the help in the world.

Just not my person.

This consultant wasn’t winning in a market that I'm losing. She’s playing a completely different sport, in a different stadium, in front of a different crowd.

The fact that my prospects, clients, and partners kept bringing her up told me something useful I didn’t want to face: These people are not my buyers.

They were drawn to what she had built because it was priced and structured for exactly where they are. That's not a threat to my business. It's pure validation of my own audience problem. My own distracted focus.

I’m being vulnerable with this story because I know you’ve faced it, too. Maybe even twice this week alone.

Snap out of it.

The comparison trap is insidious because it feels like competitive intelligence. It feels like you're paying attention. Like you’re acutely reading the market.

What you're actually doing is using someone else's metrics to evaluate your own business - metrics built for a different buyer, a different model, and a different price point entirely.

And if you let that run long enough:

• You'll discount

• You'll add a cheaper tier

• You'll build an offer format for people who don’t show up

You'll make misinformed decisions that wreck your confidence and run your business into the ground.

Don’t do that.

Because the clients that actually need your help - and will pay you for it - need you to stick around.

To state the obvious: I'm not running the group program back.

The testimonials are real and I'm proud of the work.

I genuinely adore these people. I’m committed to helping them thrive. And the signals look like they’re on their way. Honestly, they deserve nothing less. But then, I’ll re-center, because the data is clear.

I've spent enough time as a business owner to understand the allure of creating services for everyone, for the underserved… and the crippling reality of chasing, overdelivering, and too little margin left over at the end of the month to justify it all.

The business I'm back to building has fewer people in it. The buyers are further along. And they’re only harder to initially find because they’re not in the channels we default to. Channels we all spend way too much time in.

They're not posting 3x per week on noisy social platforms, surrounded by pitch slappers. They’re in curated rooms, surrounded by peers.

They’re not DIY’ing every business problem they face. They’re relying on their network to procure go-to experts who deliver real results.

They're not safeguarding their cashflow. They’re figuring out how to double their revenue and margin to build a business they can step away from.

And if you build for them, too… If your offers target an urgent, expensive problem for the people who actually buy… You’ll trade “Let me think about it” for “When can we start?”

I turn 50 in a few months. At this stage of my life and career, and with the environment around us, my interests are as simple as they are extreme.

I want to do the best work of my life with people who energize me. And I want to make enough money that I’m comfortable for the second half of my life.

I wish nothing less for you and your family.

Finally, if you read this and felt seen, forward it to someone who needs to hear it. The ones who recognize themselves in this story are exactly who I'm building for.

🤘

PS. If you're building for the right audience but scale feels impossible because every sale is a bespoke deal you need to personally close - come see how other consultants are using a simple, repeatable entry offer to close $15K-$50K engagements, faster, without a custom pitch every time.

You'll leave knowing exactly why your past attempts haven't worked, and what it looks like when it does. [Grab a spot →]

Jay Melone

Hey {{first_name|there}},

For years, I thought doing research on my offer meant needing a PhD. So I skipped it.

Instead, I'd send my landing pages and pitch decks to friends, asking what they thought.

But because none of them had ever experienced the problems I solved, I'd get surface-level suggestions about copy and colors, but most were completely contradictory.

I’d implement what I could because it was free, fast, and felt productive. But in reality, it was the most expensive "free" advice, and 100% counter-productive.

Today I’m covering what I do now instead, and a simple framework you can use to get buyer insights that convert.

You're tuning to the wrong frequency

If my opening story hit for you, the problem is that we too often listen to peers, friends, and online communities instead of the people who actually have the problem and the budget to solve it.

And it makes sense why. Getting feedback from peers is easy. It feels like progress.

You post in a Slack community or mastermind group, and within hours you've got 12 people telling you what they'd change.

But almost none of them is your ICP.

They don't have the problem you solve. They haven't felt the pain that drives someone to pay $15K or $50K for help. They're doing their best conversion copywriter impression - riffing on headlines and word choices - when the real issue is whether your offer speaks to a problem someone is desperate to fix.

I watched this happen to a brand strategist I work with.

She dropped her offer into one of her marketing communities and asked for feedback. She got back 10 competing ideas that pulled her way off-center.

She ran with a few of them, and lost every resulting sales call for the next 3 weeks.

She'd rebuilt her offer around what impressed other marketers instead of what resonated with actual buyers.

That's the trap. Peer feedback gives you false positives of progress. ICP feedback give you offers that sell.

Ask buyers, not bystanders

Instead of asking "What do you think of my offer?" to anyone who will listen, start having real conversations with people who've lived the problem you solve.

Forget surveys and polls. Go with actual conversations.

I know what you're thinking. "I don't have time for that" or "I wouldn't know what to ask."

Spending two hours to save yourself months or years is no-brainer time ROI.

And here's exactly what to ask…

The 20-minute research framework

I use this with every client I work with. A single conversation built around five areas that surface what your offer actually needs to be built on: real problems, real language, real buying behavior.

• Start with a recent story. Ask them about the last time they tried to solve the problem you help with. What triggered it? Why did it become a priority?

• Understand the real impact. How does this problem affect the business? How does it affect them day to day? If nothing changes in 90 days, what does that cost them? When someone quantifies the cost of inaction, you're hearing the language your offer should use.

• Map their current workaround. What are they doing today to deal with it? What else have they tried - tools, courses, agencies, hires? What worked and what didn't? This tells you what you're actually competing against. Hint: it's their status quo.

• Learn how they buy. What's the last thing they paid for to solve this kind of problem? What did they spend? Who else is involved in the decision? Most consultants guess at this. The answers will surprise you.

• Surface their dealbreakers. What would make them say no, even if it sounded good? What worries them about paying someone to help? What would make it feel safe? This is where you learn what objections to handle before they ever come up.

That's it. Five areas. 3-5 conversations (30 mins each) with people who look like your best clients.

When you're done, you'll have something no amount of peer feedback can give you: the actual words your buyers use to describe their problem, what they've tried, what they're afraid of, and what would make them say yes.

That's what your offer should be built on.

A note on #feedback channels

If you're in any online community with a #feedback channel, be cautious.

"Would love some feedback from the community!" followed by an onslaught of unqualified opinions is how strong, sellable offers get diluted.

You walk away with tweaks that make your offer read better to other consultants while making it less compelling to the people who'd actually buy it.

Offers that convert

If this sounds like where you are right now - an offer that looks right on paper but isn't converting the way it should - the issue probably isn't your website copy. It's that you designed offers without demand… offers that are hard to buy.

This is exactly what founders fix inside the Offer Accelerator.

The brand strategist I mentioned earlier? Within one session, we ran a lightning round of research, reworked her offer around based upon buyer insights, and she closed her very next 5-figure deal.

If you’re tired of hearing “Let me think about it”, 👇

🤘

Jay Melone

P.S. Gut check: Think about the last 3 changes you made to your offer based upon feedback. Did it come from your buyer or someone else?

Hit reply and talk to me about it. I read and reply to every email.

Hey {{first_name|there}},

Most entry-point “wedge” offers don’t fail because you chose the wrong format. They fail because you didn’t give your buyer a quick, meaningful win that shows them what “good” looks like.

And it’s the same conversation every time a B2B service founder tells me their wedge didn’t work...

They start by blaming the format. At the top of the list: audits.
And a close second: online assessments (that bomb even harder than audits).

I ask how they set it up, and within 18 seconds I hear all of the usual disqualifiers:

• Priced wrong (including misuse of free)

• Barriers to entry; e.g. multiple people need to say 'yes'

• Designed for the wrong person; e.g. a junior who’s 4 promotions away from hiring you

• Stripped down value - like most of the shit lead magnets you’ve downloaded and trashed a few days later

The result: low-quality leads, limited conversions, and growing guilt from all the time you wasted.

And so they blame the idea, “My clients don’t buy wedge offers.”
Or they blame the format, “My clients don’t want audits.”

I get the temptation to shirk responsibility. But neither is true.

A client will always opt for an easier first step. Just the same, they’ll happily say ‘yes’ to an audit, assessment, masterclass, sprint… so long as it delivers notable value.

Instead, your audit pointed out every gap. It listed every fix in gory detail. Maybe both.

Your prospect came to you for relief and left with a document that spells out all of their f-ups, and a long to-do list to fix them all.

And this is what most founders confuse about the real job of a wedge. It’s not to prove you’re smart. It’s to quickly solve one urgent problem in a uniquely valuable way, then stop.

You’ve showed them what good looks like and delighted them with value to the point that they now trust ONLY you to do it right.

Above themselves. Above their team. Above your competitors.

That’s how you stretch the gap.

Their old way of solving that problem is now unbearable. The stakes have been raised. A new bar has been set that they can’t unsee.

They trust you now because the results were real and experience was premium. Not because you crammed in 14 lessons and flashed a QR code with a discount that disappears in 4 minutes.

And this works whether your wedge is for your buyer, or your buyer’s influencer.

If the influencer is who you have in your network, your wedge has to be so helpful and compelling that they sell you upstream. They don’t forward a 32-page audit. They forward a win that makes them look smart for bringing you in.

Here’s what separates wedges that fill pipelines, from wedges that go unnoticed:

• One urgent problem

• One fast outcome

• One premium experience

• One clear next step

• Intentional friction (especially if it’s free)

• A buyer or influencer who will champion your premium sale

If you want to build a wedge that attracts the right people and pre-sells your signature offer, that’s what you’ll build in the Wedge Offer Masterclass.

March 18 (1 spot left)
April 15 (14 spots left)

Resources worth considering

🪜 Cathy is an absolute boss who’s coached countless businesses on effective growth strategies. She’s offering a free session for founders who want her take on predictable sales.

🪜 My friend Dana is running a free 1h workshop to help you fix the biggest gaps preventing you from a reliable business development system.

Jay Melone

Hey {{first_name|there}},

If you’re here, there’s a good chance you do knowledge work. And unless you already moved to Mars (see you soon), you know about the offensive AI has launched on our work.

No worries. I’m not going to terrorize you with more news of AI coming for your lunch.

Today, I bring you the other side of AI. Away from what clickbait-thirsty media pubs and influencers thrive on, and toward the massive potential that still sits at your fingertips.

Quick update from my side:

The first cohort of the Offer Accelerator Group Intensive kicks off Tuesday. We’re locked and loaded, with six kickass business owners set to develop their most sellable, profitable offers ever. Which they’ll sell by the end of the program. So exciting!

If you’ve been DIY’ing it and…

• not enough people are paying attention

• not enough people are booking calls

• not enough people are buying

I’d love to help you finally fix this, and make 2026 the year you get to say “Booked out till 2027!”

Let’s do this.

9 spots left. Closes in 4 weeks (prices go up).

On Wednesday night, I sat on my couch and read, Something Big is Happening by Matt Shumer.

Matt is a technical entrepreneur working deeply in AI.

Here’s the gist of his 5,000-word essay:

Not gonna lie, a cocktail of anxiety and uncertainty poured over me while reading it. But here’s the thing… I’m a fucking entrepreneur, and so are you.

We’re foremost experts at regularly dealing with HOLYSHIT!#@$!%WTF^&*$%BBQ?!

And so sure, I was a shook. But I was also motivated.

Because, as much as your work is changing and will likely disappear in its current form, the opportunity to do something about it is substantial. But you need to do something about it. Today.

Here’s what I did about it

I’ve had this itch to AI-iffy at least one part of my work for months now.

So I spent 3 hours doing just that. Vibe coding, as the kids say.

Dude, let me tell you - with every bit of progress I made, I was equally delighted, terrified, and astonished. And it’s been compounding. Quickly.

For context, I was a software engineer for the first 7 years of my career, and worked in tech for the next 13.

What I spent 3 hours designing and building Wednesday night… 10 years ago, it would have taken 6 months of work from 1 Product Manager, 4 Engineers, 2 UX Designers, and 1 QA Analyst.

Zero exaggeration.

Start with one, important problem

I took one task I do with clients and replaced myself with an AI-built tool. A complicated, hand-wringing, this hurts my brain task.

A task where my client and I build their financial model of projected revenue, costs, and margins for their new offers.

Not only is this a time intensive lift for me, but an important moment for clients. They see their numbers for the first time and say: “WHOA… This is gonna work!”

But before I’d built this tool, for the past 4 months I’ve been using a Google Sheet to do this work manually.

I was lucky enough to have the help of a strategic partner, Peter Giordano. He and I (mostly him) built that spreadsheet over many rounds of feedback and iteration.

I spent months using it on my own business and across client businesses. I knew it upside down and backwards. I needed to, because it’s an important problem to get right for my clients. If the math doesn’t math, your offer is dead in the water.

I didn’t just choose to wield AI on some random problem. I was intentional about which one I targeted. My deep expertise from solving this problem manually, enabled me to use AI in a smart, effective way. Otherwise, I’d have been feeding garbage in and getting garbage out.

I’m double-clicking into this because it’s important. Before you run off and build your own AI app to tell you what it means when your dog secretly moves your shoes. Stop and ask yourself:

• Am I building something that will take me in a completely different direction?

• Or am I building something that will make my current work (and my clients’ results) significantly better?

There’s no right or wrong choice right now. This is a moment you can make a big shift, because the tools are that good. You can re-invent fields and leapfrog pre-existing, market-entrenched solutions.

But if you’re committed to your work and want to use AI to insulate yourself, choose a problem your clients already need help with.

Choose a problem you already solve today. And use AI to solve it better and faster than anyone else.

The Offer Optimizer

It’s not ready ready yet, but let me be a proud papa for a second and show you what I built. It’s called, Offer Optimizer.

It allows you to take the offers you design in my Offer Accelerator and build financial models around them.

You plug your numbers into your wedge and signature offer(s).

Then you compare scenarios to see which combo and format of offers will generate the most revenue, most margin, or least amount of delivery hours. You get to pick what you prioritize.

Then the app helps you run 18-month projections with various flows, conversions, and workload while calculating your month-by-month revenue and capacity.

I can’t quite explain the zen you feel as you see your numbers, clear as day, in front of you. It’s a catalyzing moment, to say the least.

The app isn’t yet production-ready, but I’ll get it there in the next few weeks. Just in time for my three current 1:1 clients and the folks in my Offer Accelerator cohort to benefit from it. (wink, wink)

I used Lovable to build the app. I have friends using Claude Code, which is a bit more in the weeds, but more flexible/powerful. I’ll check that out next.

If you build something, will you tell me about it?

Resources worth considering

🪜 Once you've nailed your offer and sales are rolling in, it’s time to blow the doors open with website and messaging where your clients see your offer and think, “I get it. I need this.”

My friend Caitlin Lang does these 90-minute branding roadmaps, where she helps you communicate the real impact of what you do. It’s $975 (and well worth it) but if you tell her I sentcha, she’ll knock off $100.

Jay Melone

Hey {{first_name|there}},

Fair warning: For the first time in 110 newsletter issues, today’s is a completely personal topic that may cause some stress to read. Read till the end, where I make it up to you with a story that will warm your heart.

For my entire adult life I’ve shut out politics. I’ve shut out the news. As in, I can’t hold a conversation about either topic. As in, third graders know about elected leaders, world events, and (especially) tragedies days before I find out.

It’s a decision I made in my late teens. That, I didn’t need to participate in what I find to be overlaid with the ugliest parts of humanity. Power, greed, violence, separatism.

And in large part, it served me well. The doom and gloom many others carried, never landed in my lap.

For 30+ years, I’ve focused on family, friendships, nature, sports, and business. I prided myself on being someone who didn’t open the conversation about the car crash on the parkway, the baby who was abducted, taxes, or the 8th public figure of the week involved in another “scandal.”

How exhausting.

As corny as it may sound, I subscribe to the belief that your energy really does flow where your attention goes. So I steered clear of anything that pulled it down.

But over the past 12 months - and certainly this past week - this world we’ve created has become impossible to tune out. And it’s not like I’m sitting here watching CNN. Hardly.

It’s that the environment I built around me - carefully tuned to only let in the right information - is breaking down.

My safe spaces are crumbling…

My work.
TV shows.
Football games.
Technology outlets.
Business-first channels.
Questions my sons are asking me.
Conversations around the dinner table.

All overrun with a general sense of unease. Of panic.

And a way of living, which I fought my entire life to resist, is becoming harder to avoid: us vs them.

I hate that notion. It is the literal opposite of how I aim to exist in this world.

In my heart of hearts, I believe we’re all one. But there’s a growing population of people with wealth, power, or fame who don’t see it that way.

They don’t celebrate diversity. They don’t play well with others who don’t look, speak, act, vote, or live how they do. They don’t share my longstanding belief that everyone is doing the best they can.

Everything is a fight with them. Absolute power or bust, as they singe the world around them.

And while I’ve never been a guy that’s tried to change their minds, let alone save them… I don’t know if I can ignore them anymore. But I can do something.

I can remain true to my beliefs and values. I can surround myself with people who put love above hate. Who would sooner create a world that’s filled with peace and equal abundance, than one to be controlled and won (as if that’s a thing).

I’m sorry if this email upset you.

I’m sorry if this newsletter was one of your safe spaces, where you came to tune out the world. Next week, I’ll go back to talking about offers and business growth so we can all make enough money to buy a big island away from egomaniacs and AI.

But today, I chose to use this little platform of mine to share some hard truths I’ve been battling with.

And now, to make up for any anxiety I may have caused you, let me share a very personal experience that brought me so much joy this week.

I bought this card game to spark more deep, meaningful conversations with my family.

The very first question: What motivates you in life?

Without hesitation, my 15-year-old Brody said, “Jason.” (his 17-year-old brother)

With tears in my eyes, I asked him, “Why Jason?”

He said, “Because he’s a good person.”

This meant the world to me, on a couple levels.

Brody has been struggling since COVID. He never rebounded from the happy boy he was. He went from the kid that lifted up friends, classmates, and teammates, to continually disappointed with the world. And subsequently, he’s closed lots of doors around him.

But his bond with his brother has only gotten stronger. Especially in the last year, where Jason - entirely on his own - has built a relationship with God. And as his light has continued to shine brighter, it’s helped cast away some of Brody’s shadows.

It gets better. Dozens of Jason’s friends are following suit.

They’re not drinking and doing drugs. Not mistreating one another. Not doomscrolling TikTok drama.

They’re waking up at 7 AM and going to church.
They’re going to youth group to pray and volunteer.
They’re sitting at the library to talk about the bible.

All on their own. Without needing to change anyone, but quietly inspiring others in their wake.

What Jason is doing for his brother, his Dad, family, and community is all that any of us can do.

To be ourselves. To be a light. To model love and kindness. And hope that the world reflects it back to you.

P.S. Instagram is still a source of positivity for me. Here are several accounts I follow that lift me up.

Good News Movement

Humans Choose Kindness

The Daily Show - slightly more political, but with tons of comic relief

Unforgettable Bloopers - pure, light-hearted comedy

Ocie Elliot - love their music, but also how they post songs singing to each other

Love Animalsgram

If you follow more accounts like these and few negative, drama, within a few short weeks your feed will become a refuge, too.

🤘 See ya next week,

Jay Melone

Hey {{first_name|there}},

There’s one gap in my sales process that’s cost me more business over the past 15 years than anything else.

It’s one of those mistakes that’s simple to spot after the fact. And as obvious as it is to fix, I keep avoiding it. And every time I do, I lose the deal.

I’m spelling it out today to hold my own feet to the flame. And if it hits home, use my story and what I’m doing differently to your advantage.

The first cohort of the Offer Accelerator closes tomorrow: Monday, Feb 9.

I’m thrilled to share that more folks have signed up than I planned on! And so I’ve decided to make room for 2 more.

If you want to claim one, apply today:

On Tuesday, the price goes up.

More details here.

(or hit reply if you have questions)

I had a discovery call with a prospective client this past week that followed a frustrating pattern I’ve allowed to fester for way too long.

This person has been circling their offer for months. They’ve rewritten their website copy a couple dozen times. Tried new pricing. Repacked it. Posted about it on LinkedIn. And built a few new shiny lead magnets.

Some weeks they felt close, then the next they’re spiraling when no one buys.

I have 4-5 of these conversations every week. I hear the same stories, hopes, challenges, and failed attempts.

This is a good thing. Because I know I can help these smart, creative consultants solve an urgent, expensive business problem in the most effective, efficient way.

I know the questions to ask surface their problems, diagnose the related impact, and connect it to what I do. It all checks out.

And when I stick to the plan, they say ‘yes’, we work together, and their business turns a big corner. Everyone wins.

The problem is, I break the plan more times than not.

They share their own vague interpretation of the problem. Or they minimize it.

But instead of really hearing them, I think, “Yep, I know where this is going. I can help.” And right then, I start speeding through my process, taking shortcuts.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Check, check, check.

I don’t dig. I don’t slow down. I don’t back up. And I certainly don’t make them sit with what they just said.

I keep things pleasant, and then jump to the work I do to fix their “obvious problem.” Where I assume they’ll be eating out of my hands and sending a deposit before I even tell them what they’ll leave with.

Instead, I lose the sale. Every time.

It plays out the same exact way…

“Thanks, Jay. I’m gonna spend a bit more time experimenting. I think I’m close. I’ll circle back.”

Or, “This sounds great, Jay. I need to get some more cash in before I can justify spending money on your services. Let’s talk in a few months.”

That’s not on them. Not even a little. It’s entirely on me.

Not to be dramatic… It’s not like the work I do saves lives. But by letting them DIY it for another 3 or 6 months, I’m letting their problems worsen.

And the reason I back off… the reason I don’t dig? It’s simple.

I don’t want to come across as being manipulative. Like I’m using their stories and pains against them to win their business. I’d rather keep rapport. Remain chummy. Make them feel lighter, I suppose.

But that’s me choosing my own comfort over being useful.

I think: “If they like me, they’ll come back when they’re ready.” Nope.

Deep down, they knew they needed help. But when I prioritized being friendly over helpful, they lost trust in me. And that’s hard to win back.

If you went to a mechanic and said, “My tire is flat.” But the mechanic told you your car looked great, wished you luck patching it yourself, and sent you on your way, you wouldn’t praise them for being polite. You’d chalk them up to being useless, and go to the next shop.

So here are a few simple (not easy) habits I’m forcing myself to hone, until they’re second nature:

When they hide behind vague language
Make them translate it into reality. Ask for the last three examples, or the last 30 days, or the numbers. “When you say inconsistent pipeline, what happened last month?”

When they minimize the pain
Reflect what they already told you and hold the mirror up. “You said you’ve been circling this for months and deals keep stalling. How is that not a big deal?”

When they describe the problem
Don’t switch topics. Stay there long enough to find the cost. “What’s that costing you in time, money, or energy right now?”

When they say they’re “close,”
Have them define what close means. Did someone convert? What happens if you’re still circling close 18 months from now?

That’s the difference between a friendly conversation and a discovery call that actually helps someone see the unobvious gaps. And then make the right decisions that get them the results they need.

Resources worth considering

🪜 Get an honest assessment of your revenue operations within your B2B SaaS company from a long-time PE-backed operator.

🪜 

🤘 See ya next week,

Jay Melone

Hey {{first_name|there}},

Ever had a prospect demand a detailed proposal on a 48-hour deadline, then send a 4-word rejection after you delivered the whole thing?

That’s what we’re digging into in this week’s issue. First, a quick update from my side.

Behind the scenes, I’ve been working hard to expand my premium, 1-on-1 Offer Accelerator into a group format.

It’s ready, and I’m so excited to tell you about!

Same results my VIP clients received over the past 18 months:

You leave with everything needed to confidently sell premium clients your most compelling, profitable offers ever, without chasing or custom proposals.

And you’ll be in an intimate, curated room of other growth-minded business owners.

After 6 structured weeks, you’ll walk away with:

• Entry-point Wedge Offer that attracts and pre-sells premium clients

• Signature Offer premium clients buy without custom proposals

• Projected revenue, costs, margins that prove your new offer stack

• Sales-ready one-pagers that help you win premium clients immediately

There are 3 spots left in the founding cohort. Closes Feb 9.

Investment: $2,500

(after Feb 9: $5,000)

For more details and to grab one of the remaining spots, apply here:

Now, let’s talk about why sending custom proposals with a hyper-personalized playbook will put you out of business.

A consultant (let’s call her Rachel) in a community I’m part of shared an experience that triggered me and everyone else inside.

A prospect reached out for fractional marketing services to stand up a new ABM (account based marketing) function. After a few frenetic emails back and forth, the prospect asked for a proposal in 48 hours because she “needed to decide yesterday.”

Then came the kicker…

She wanted it detailed enough that a junior marketer on her team - with zero ABM context - could follow. In other words, she asked Rachel to do free work in the form of a mini ABM playbook.

Rachel did what most well-intentioned operators do. She leaned in, believing that what separates her from others is how personalized and bespoke she treats each client engagement.

Six hours of work later, Rachel produced a lengthy, detailed account of everything she would do… along with pricing, terms, etc.

Two days later, the prospect replied with a curt “Thanks, going with someone else.”

This is the part that gets under your skin as much as it does mine. Because it feels so casually unacceptable. Someone asks for the world, you over-deliver, and they treat it like they were buying apples… Meh. Not this one, but that one.

But as hard as this is to internalize, it wasn’t the prospect’s fault. It was Rachel’s.

Here’s the advice I offered her, which I wish someone offered me 12 years ago.

A bespoke approach can be what clients love once they’re working with you. But while they’re buying, bespoke + process overload creates friction.

The buyer isn’t asking you to prove you’re smart. They’re asking you to help them feel confident.

Confident that you’ve done this before.
Confident with what they get by the end.
Confident (and clear) what their investment is - time and money.

The prospect asked Rachel for a playbook because she wasn’t confident in Rachel or clear that her goals would be met.

Within that initial email exchange (which should have been a call), Rachel failed to surface the prospect’s pain and the impact it caused. She failed to summarize, simply, how her services work to solve those exact problems.

Something that sounds like:

So the way it works is simple. I do this thing so that you can have these results within this much time. The investment is $X, and if you’re interested in starting, the next step is Y.

That’s it.

Address questions from there. Fill in details as needed. Handle objections.

And most important, get the ‘yes’ on the call - or schedule the next call to give them time to think about it.

If you can’t get them to express serious interest on the call, that means your offer needs work. And not only will your proposal not fix it - making it detailed and bespoke only makes it worse.

🔥 Did Rachel’s experience trigger you, too?

Resources worth considering

🪜 My friend Jac invited me inside her Honeybees Group to talk about Offers that Close Faster. If you’d like to join the (free) session, check out Honeybees. I’ve heard great things from several friends inside.

🪜 My friend Catherine is hosting her annual GROW conference. It’s one of my favorite events to attend, and this year it’s hosted at a warm, sunny resort in Galveston, Texas. See you there?

🤘 See ya next week,

Jay Melone

Hey {{first_name|there}},

It’s Saturday night.

I’m writing this issue later than I want to be… scrambling not to miss tomorrow’s deadline. And I already missed last week’s newsletter for the first time since I started publishing in October 2023.

The missed issue bothered me more than it should have.

It wasn’t because I think I owe the internet more f*n content. It was because these small habits are part of my discipline, and how I built what I’m grateful to have. Posting on LinkedIn, writing these issues, and showing up consistently enough that trust compounds.

So when I miss, my brain does what it always does when something matters. It catastrophizes…

All the trust I’ve worked for is going to evaporate overnight.
Everyone will move on while I’m busy building.

I know it’s ridiculous. And still, those stories sound pretty damn believable in my head.

The big bet

Here’s where I’m going with this.

I’m in the middle of a big build. The next chapter of Profit Ladder.

For the last 18 months, my 1:1 done-with-you Offer Accelerator has produced the exciting results it has for one main reason: I facilitate and think with each client one-on-one. I can hear the nuance, challenge the assumption, and get the offer to click with them in real time.

I’m transitioning that into a group intensive.

A group naturally means less one-on-one time with me, which means the “offer brain” that lives in my head has to be accessible to the room at all times. The curriculum has to carry the thinking. The structure has to create momentum. The systems have to make the experience feel structured, practical, and useful.

So that’s what I’ve been doing…

• Rebuilding the curriculum without dragging out timelines

• Adding activities, examples, and deliverables without slowing ROI

• Creating a format for the group and smaller pods so people stay engaged

• Rebuilding the onboarding so the gang feels excited from minute one

I ultimately want to stick to the promise my 1:1 format has always delivered: optimized offers they can sell immediately.

This is the kind of work that requires long, uninterrupted stretches. Which is impossible when I keep stopping to feed my LinkedIn addiction remain consistent on LinkedIn.

I worked on the group intensive all weekend. The whole time, there was a voice in my head saying I needed to stop what I was doing and write the newsletter before it was too late.

That’s pure fear pulling me off-center.

And so at around the 250-word mark of this newsletter, I wrote this down because I needed it in plain language.

And that last part is the punchline: Anything important that’s worth doing requires sacrifice.

It’s the part that’s easy to say and harder to live, especially when the sacrifice feels like abandonment.

These small habits do real work for me. They keep me connected, keep my name familiar, and keep trust warm in a way I can see day to day.

So when I’m making a big bet, it messes with me, because the work needs quiet focus and quiet is what my fear signals as danger.

I have to keep reminding myself that this group intensive will have more impact on me and the clients I work with than a few missed LinkedIn posts and a month or two of infrequent newsletters. If I do this well, it changes everything:

1. The expanded impact I’m able to make for more business owners

2. My revenue, margins, and capacity - as well as my expertise and energy

And that’s the entire reason I created Profit Ladder. Because I believe our offers should do some of the heavy lifting to market and sell our work. So we’re not the only engine keeping the whole thing afloat.

Building this next generation of my offers is me modeling what I coach… even when my nervous system tells me to go feed the algorithm monster.

Alright then, back to work.

See ya next Sunday 👋

P.S. If you’ve been stuck in the small stuff because the big bet feels risky, have you found any good strategies or tools to help rewire your brain?

Jay Melone

Hey {{first_name|there}},

Over the course of 2025, I had the chance to work with hundreds of consultants, coaches, fractionals, and agency owners. Smart, passionate people doing legitimately good work.

Almost all of them were stuck on the same thing: Turning their skills and services into a clear, compelling offer that actually sells.

It’s, quite literally, the only thing you need to sell your services and make money. Your offer. Not your website or an optimized LinkedIn profile. Your offer.

But creating a good offer, let alone an irresistible one, is not a skill most people develop. They whip something together, then pour their energy into “more marketing” and hope the best.

So over 2025, I saw, worked on, and overhauled hundreds of offers. And three mistakes showed up more than any others. That’s what I’ll cover today.

Enjoy. And always reply back with ideas or questions.

Offers that sell for you

If I handed you 10 perfect-fit leads, could you confidently tell me what you’d sell them, how it works, and the profit you’d pocket by the end?

I’m opening spots for my first Offer Accelerator group intensive, where founding members will develop clear, compelling, profitable offers to take to market.

You’ll calculate the numbers to prove your revenue and margins, and customer research to back them up. Plus, offer one-pagers so you can start bringing sales in immediately.

Founding members get a significant discount.

📌 Reply FOUNDING for details.

And now onto today’s issue…

The three offer mistakes that kept repeating

1. Not knowing when enough is enough

Many business owners try to sell the full transformation as the first engagement.

They bundle in more services, more outcomes, more teams, and more best practices, all in an attempt to prove value and justify a premium price.

What it actually does is overwhelm the buyer.

Your prospect came to you with a specific problem they want solved now. They did not ask you to fix their entire organization, rewire every process, and future-proof the business in one very long and very expensive engagement.

When an offer tries to do everything, it feels over-promised and under-believable.

The strongest offers focus on getting one meaningful win quickly and cleanly.

Leave the bells & whistles along with every best practice to the side, and instead focus on delivering results that feel obvious and worth paying for.

Once that first win lands, selling the next step becomes easy. Where momentum replaces your need to persuade.

2. Selling the service instead of the offer

This one is subtle, but fatal.

Most founders sell the plumbing. The process. The phases. The access. The frameworks. And… ugh… the jargon.

But, that’s the service. The offer is something else entirely. It’s the packaging. It’s the outcome. It’s what the client gets for their investment.

When buyers hear a service-heavy pitch, they’re forced to do too much mental work. They have to translate activities into value and imagine what success might look like.

And believe me, more case studies is not the answer. Because that was still a different company, with different people. They care about themselves and their results.

Instead, strong offers remove that burden by clearly stating five things:

• The promise it delivers on

• The specific results or deliverables included

• The type of return they can expect and by when

• How long the engagement takes

• How much it costs

When these five things are clear, the offer becomes something a buyer can evaluate and say yes to with confidence.

Which brings us to the third mistake.

3. Making “it depends” the answer to everything

“It depends” sounds thoughtful and honest.

In practice, it usually signals that the offer hasn’t been fully baked.

When pricing depends. Timeline depends. Scope depends. Outcomes depend. The buyer is left holding all that uncertainty.

They can’t picture the finish line. They can’t explain the investment internally. And they certainly can’t feel confident committing.

They’ll likely (justifiably) start to wonder how much of an expert you are if ever detail, question, or objection they raise is met with a long song and dance by you.

The best offers absorb uncertainty so the buyer doesn’t have to.

That doesn’t mean your delivery never adapts. It means your offer has a clear starting point, a clear endpoint, and a clear investment.

Specificity builds trust. It signals experience. It tells the buyer you’ve done this before and know what it takes to get them a win.

Customization can still happen. It just stops happening before the deal is closed.

Your takeaways

Clear offers outperform clever marketing every time.

Your job is not to sell everything you can do. It is to sell the next obvious win.

Action to take this week: Write your offer on a single page using the five elements in mistake #2 above. If any part still “depends,” that’s your next iteration to sharpen.

See ya next Sunday 👋

Jay Melone

P.S.

Meg is a stand-out authority on helping business owners get recommended by AI. Join her free, live workshop to make sure ChatGPT, Gemini, etc is endorsing your business.

Hey {{first_name|there}},

Have you ever gone to do a thing, only to find that your past self already took care of it? And done exactly as you planned to do it this next time?

Well… it’s currently Friday, Dec 19 when I’m writing this. I’m sitting in my basement - not my typical home office location. And I had the idea to make today’s issue a wrap-up about 3 big lessons I thought you’d appreciate hearing. And a glimpse into 2026.

Wouldn’t you know?… Almost to the day last year, I sat in this same exact spot writing the same kind of email. 🙃

📌 Highly recommend you read to the end today.

3 biggest growth lessons of 2025

Lesson 1: Persistence pays

In last year’s wrap-up email, I unveiled a new offer I’d be rolling out in January. At the time, it was a little idea I’d put a lot of time into building. But I didn’t know if it’d work. That idea was my Wedge Offer Masterclass.

I ran the first in January, and 10 more since. And it’s completely changed by business - mostly because of three guiding principles:

1. Creating a valuable offer to a painful problem. The most successful offers are often painkillers, not vitamins. Your clients will always prioritize eliminating problems vs making good better. Choose important, urgent problems… and then build a uniquely valuable solution that deserves to exist in the world.
   

2. Offering so much value it feels uncomfortable. The best no-brainer offers will always feel like you’re giving away too much. And if that weren’t enough, you’ll need to invest an unreasonable amount of time - way beyond what your well-intentioned friends advise you to do. That’s the cost of admission.
   

3. Sticking with it. I could have easily chased 10 new ideas this year. But because I applied #1 and #2, and was getting positive feedback, I kept at it. But realistically, it took 5-6 months until ROI came through and began compounding. What if I had given up after a few tries?

And it all paid off. My masterclass drove 100% of my 2025 revenue, along with many irreplaceable clients, friends, partners, and advocates of the work I’m doing. Which brings me to my next lesson…

Lesson 2: Community > lone wolf

Throughout most of my early career, I prided myself on being self-sufficient. Not only that I could figure stuff out on my own, but that it’d be better if I forced myself to learn and struggle through it, so I became a master of it. It’s not a wrong mindset, but it’s also not the most efficient or productive.

Well, I’d love to say that I grew out of that in my 30s and 40s but honestly, not until 49 years old did I actually start to action on the uncapped upside of surrounding yourself with kind, creative, smart, passionate people.

To keep this newsletter from turning into a lengthy love fest, I’m just going to list the friends that have made my 2025 success possible. To honor them, but also to encourage you to connect and figure out a way to collaborate with them in 2026.

These two have fundamentally elevated Profit Ladder: Madi, Peter.

Along with: Molly, Caitlin, Stacy, Brian, Kristen, Renee, Jac, Silvi, Faith, Dustin, Tyler, Talica, Finn, Katie, Catherine, John.

Much love and mad respect for each of these amazing people.

Lesson 3: Numbers highlight your best bets

My goal for 2026 is to hit $500,000 in revenue with 80%+ margins. But with my current offer stack, I’m already beginning to face a supply problem.

As someone that experienced demand problems for years, I know that supply problems may seem like a humblebrag. But it actually represents a required evolution of your business - where your current model must adapt to meet your growing market’s needs. Otherwise, you’ll turn prospects off or burn yourself out saying yes.

And since I have no intention of hiring a huge team, I need to shift my offers to expand my revenue, margins, and capacity in parallel.

Luckily, I met the brilliant Peter Giordano this year (also mentioned in the list above).

Along with the constant support of Madi, he and I (mostly him) have been developing a financial modeling tool that I’m using to evaluate new offers, configurations, and formats based on simple numbers: revenue, costs, margins, capacity.

Plus, I’m also now using these same tools to help my clients map out their models so they have numbers to prove the new offer stack we’ve developed together.

If you’re like me, you’ve always said, “I’m just not great with numbers.” Bullshit. You just haven’t taken the time to write them down.

If you’re interested in seeing how this model works, keep reading.

Something big in 2026

In Q1, I’ll take all of the systems, expertise, and results from my 1:1 client work, and launch a powerful group program.

I’m still building, but you can anticipate a 4-6 week intensive (that fits in your busy schedule), where you’ll develop an offer stack that’s profitable, repeatable, and engineered for true scale. A step change for your business. Beyond what you’d thought was possible.

I’ll still build in 1:1 time for us, but you’ll also network and work alongside the highest-caliber business owners.

Following the intensive, you’ll have the option to continue within a new kind of community offering. Think of it as a highly curated space to build, launch, and sell your offers - with accountability & feedback from myself and fellow entrepreneurs at every step.

We’re going to do great things together.

If you want more info once available, choose ✅ YEP below.

Thank you

And that’s it for 2025. Thank you for being here and following along.

I hope the ideas and stories I’ve shared have helped you in some way.

Happy holidays to you and your family. And wishing you nothing but the best in 2026. ❤️

Ollie kept tilting his head from the sound of the camera 😂

See ya again on January 11 👋

Jay Melone

Hey {{first_name|there}},

In this issue you get a peek behind the scenes of this Wednesday’s Wedge Offer Masterclass.

You’ll see three very real world questions from fellow B2B business owners who are actively trying to use entry-point wedge offers to attract and convert more premium clients… And how I answered, so you can apply the same thinking in your business.

Think of it as an insider replay of the practical intel that only approved masterclass attendees get access to.

Question 1

What if a client wants to skip your wedge and go straight to your signature offer?

One of the first questions that surfaced was about buyers who want to skip your entry-point offer and go straight to your signature offer. AKA, serious buyers with premium problems who felt ready for the full thing.

If your wedge is attracting premium clients who need your deeper work, congrats! Your wedge is working even better than intended. Because remember, the core job of the wedge is to bring the right people and problems forward.

In those situations you sell them the solution to the bigger problem that they’re already aware of and need help with.

I do this with the offers masterclass. Some describe challenges during the application process that the masterclass won’t fully solve. Or they’ll express the pain of trying to scale on their own, but feel stuck. Or they’re too busy to DIY it.

And so I use their expressed challenges and interest in the masterclass to invite them to an exploratory call to see if the masterclass is actually the best fit.

On that call I listen and summarize back their goals, constraints, and unmet needs. And when it fits, I walk them through my premium service - if I believe it will serve them better than my wedge.

Remember: Your wedge offer is meant to be an easier first step than your signature offer - not a mandatory step.

Question 2

Should my wedge be free or paid?

The next theme was about charging for the wedge. Some want to protect revenue, others wanted to protect energy and boundaries. The answer depends heavily on your stage and goals.

Free wedges work best when the format is reusable and leveraged. Group experiences, digital assets, and things you can run multiple times without rebuilding from scratch. Custom 1 to 1 work like audits, workshops, and sprints usually belong in the paid category.

From there the decision becomes strategic. If cashflow stabilization and revenue growth is your loudest priority, lean into a paid wedge. If authority & visibility, client quality, and boundaries sit higher, a free wedge is a good idea.

When things are clicking, some of my clients will layer in a free wedge for their paid wedge, for example a high-value webinar that fills a paid audit or sprint.

Here is the simple lens I encouraged people to use.

• Look at current capacity

• Look at current margins

• Look at near term revenue goals

• Decide how many free doors you will (can) support

• Decide where paid wedges make the most sense

Question 3

If my wedge is paid, how much should I charge?

Building on question 2, question 3 centered on pricing gap between wedge and signature offers.

People were nervous about pricing their wedge too low and quietly undermining their status, or otherwise pricing too high and killing conversions.

There is no rigid formula, but a helpful rule-of-thumb is to keep your wedge at roughly 10-20% of your signature offer pricing. And if you sell to larger companies, it helps to land your wedge under ~$10,000 to skirt below procurement friction.

You want a sensible step up, not a jarring leap. A $100 wedge that tries to ladder into an $80,000 premium engagement can feel like two different universes. The buyer feels like they are moving from toy to enterprise platform.

I shared a couple client examples:

• Digital Agency

  • Signature offer: $30,000 3-month paid ads program

  • Wedge: $2,500 half-day ad strategy workshop

• Product Consultant

  • Signature: $25,000 6-month product strategy engagement

  • Wedge: $1,500 product roadmapping training

FYI: Be careful with low-ticket (e.g. 3-figure toolkits). In many cases a thoughtfully designed, highly curated free experience signals more confidence and quality than a scattered set of $150 credit card payments.

Build your wedge offer

If you want to develop your own wedge offer, and get actionable answers to specific questions about your business…

Apply to the next live Wedge Offer Masterclass.

A peek inside the Wedge Offer Masterclass workspace

You’ll leave with:

1. A prioritized signature offer that you’ll build an engine for

2. A map of your ideal client’s buying journey - and the exact moment they’ll need your wedge offer

3. A set of potential wedge offers you’ll be genuinely excited to implement

Note: It’s free, but not everyone is approved to join.

See ya next Sunday 🤘🏼

Jay Melone

Hey {{first_name|there}},

You know that browser tab you’ve had open for 17 months? The one you look at it once a month, consider closing it, but leave it… one day you’ll get to it.

That’s how I’ve treated my age old curiosity to develop a group offer… one day I’ll be ready.

Whether a group program, community, mastermind, or some combo of all…

I’ve always liked the idea of putting smart, high-energy people in a room together. I liked the possibility of helping more business owners without jamming my calendar with back-to-back calls.

And I liked the leverage a group offer would bring to my own business.

But what I did not like?.. My countless poor experiences as an attendee.

I’ve joined dozens of group offers that over-promised and under-delivered.

They felt soft on practical outcomes, and heavy on vague theory.

Light on curation (so important!) and, as a result, heavy on fellow attendees I had nothing in common with. Or, worse, randos pitching irrelevant crap in the DMs.

Sloppy logistics, too. From absent onboarding, to fumbling through one-way educational formats that were impossible to implement.

But the cardinal sin… hosts treating the whole thing like a funnel into a higher ticket offer. Which I might have been up for had their group offer not been a train wreck.

I know, I know. My bar is high, and I’m hard to please. And because of that, even though I’ve really wanted to build a group offer, my own experience led me to keep punting the idea.

And underneath it all was a quieter but even heavier belief - that no group offer would match the quality of the 1:1 work I do with clients. That, if someone trusted me with their business, anything less than full personal attention would be a downgrade. 

But earlier this year, a few things began shifting…

In January, I launched my offers masterclass. On the surface, it was a simple group offer to help me get in front of more of my best-fit clients. A short, intense, highly-structured experience where consultants & coaches come to develop entry-point offers that attract premium clients, expand revenue, and grow margins. 

But behind the scenes, it was a test.

Could I design a group experience that helped a roomful of business owners move through one of the fundamental components of my offer system?

Could I create something that didn’t feel like a downgrade from my 1:1 work, but a different kind of upgrade?

Humbly speaking, the raving reviews from 134 business owners told me everything I needed. The right structure, the right people, and the right constraints created momentum for more founders than what’s possible in my 1:1 work.

Then, more traction earlier this week… I joined a session by Dustin Riechmann. In the opening minutes, he tackled my objection about 1:1 > group. He enabled everyone to reframe how group work can be more valuable than 1:1, because the room becomes part of the offer.

And that deeply aligned with belief that a carefully selected group of peers will learn from and inspire one another way more than from the sage on the stage.

And so with that objection hushed, and with more recent help and encouragement from friends and partners, my group offer is officially picking up steam.

I’ll still continue my 1:1 client work. But in early 2026, I’ll additionally launch a new group offer.

Same core people I already serve - B2B consultants who want clear offers that sell, healthier margins, and fewer bespoke cartwheels. Just a new format.

No slapped together Slack community and half-hearted monthly office hours.

It will be a deliberately designed experience from first touch to last. Curation with people who make the room better. And systems, structure, and resources that actually up-level your business.

I’ll take full advantage of my 20-year background in design thinking, workshop facilitation, group dynamics, and instructional learning.

Here’s what I am designing toward:

• Growth in the areas we all want: impact, revenue, and margin

• Practical instruction and resources crafted for your business

• A balanced blend of support: group, independent, 1:1 with me

• Defined start and finish so you can plan accordingly

• Tight screening so you’re with peers who inspire & make your results better

👋 And if you want to join the first cohort, I’ll layer in a few extras:

• Significant founding member savings

• Additional 1:1 access to me

• Free lifetime community access

• Input into shaping the curriculum and formats

Plus, behind-the-scenes breakdowns of how an offer guy builds, monetizes, and scales his own offer.

See ya next Sunday 🤘🏼

Jay Melone

P.S.

• This Thurs (Dec 11), GrowthTribe invited me to lead a light interactive talk, Eliminate Custom Proposals and Fragile Founder-Led Sales (Join FREE)

• Erica is offering to help diagnose your missed deals & recover lost revenue.

Hey {{first_name|there}},

I onboarded a new client this week. The very real, very overwhelming problems she shared in the opening minutes came through loud and clear.

She talked me through her current sales and delivery mess…

Every new client meant a new proposal, a fresh set of promises, and a slightly different scope than the last one. Revenue looked good on paper, but she was buried in delivery, with no clean way to step away or hand off.

And if she took her foot off the pedal with the networking, marketing, sales she also “squeezes in,” her pipeline would dry up.

I acknowledged all of it.

Not only had I been there myself, but so had every other business owner I’ve worked with.

Here’s what I told her (verbatim):

“That’s why I’m such an advocate for productizing. It’s going to allow you to scale your front-end sales as well as delivery. And that’s going to be a huge unlock because then, you’ll be able to starting peeling yourself out of the weeds and into the next stages of your business. That’s when business is going to start to feel like a game you love playing.”

She got it. Table stakes for why she hired me.

But many others haven’t yet made this shift because they misunderstand what productizing actually means. (and some folks on the interwebs are only making it worse)

They hear “productize” and picture turning their work into some rigid, one size fits all widget that strips away all of the beauty and creativity of their work. That they’ve turned their consulting business into an assembly line.

First off, gross.

Second, that’s not productizing.

Productizing your offer is different from turning your services into cloned, lifeless to-dos and copy-paste outputs.

Here’s the really important part I want you to internalize:

You standardize your services so they’re easier to plan, fulfill, and delegate.

You productize your offers so they’re easier for you to sell, and easier for clients to buy.

My productized offers and standardized services

Let me show you what this looks like inside my own business (I practice what I preach).

I have one signature offer for one ICP. The scope, timeline, and price are always the same. That means my margins are optimized and predictable.

The outcomes are always the same too:

• A focused, productized, sellable signature offer

• A wedge that attracts best-fit clients and pre-sells the signature offer

• A mountain of clarity and confidence in a clean offer stack

The system behind it stays the same - the steps, the rhythm, the way we move from a messy service list for anyone, to a clean and compelling offer set.

The deliverables? Also the same:

• Succinct, comprehensive Signature Offer one-pager

• The same for your Wedge Offer

• A financial model that proves the numbers behind the new stack: revenue, costs, and margins - all benchmarked against your existing business model

What lives inside those deliverables is where the personalization happens - fully individualized to each client.

Stuck on the fence

At this point, maybe you’re leaning toward productizing.

Here are the most common objections (myths) I hear that keep founders stuck:

• My work is too custom

• Productizing will make me a commodity

• Clients only value bespoke

• Systems will box in my creativity

I hear you. I do. I was there for a very, very long time. And it made my business complicated to run, and hard to scale.

Now, on the other side, I can call out the truth that sat underneath those fears…

Your clients don’t actually care how custom you’ve made your process and frameworks for them. They care that you show up with a clear promise, a clear path, and a clear price.

In fact, if I was thinking about hiring you and you told me you need 1 or 2 days to draft a bespoke proposal, I’d start to question how many times you’ve delivered this work.

See, they only really care that you lead them through a system that works. A system that’s so baked, so proven, it always delivers - and you have countless examples to back it up.

When you productize your offer, you create a repeatable sales and delivery engine. Sales calls get shorter and sharper - they end with the person say ‘yes’ instead of, “OK send over a proposal so I can [pretend to] review it with my team.”

Your custom proposals get replaced with “Let’s do this.”

And now delivery is easier to delegate, too. Because you’re not reinventing the game every time.

You’re not selling a blackhole of time and a shape-shifting tasks. You’re selling guaranteed outcomes inside a defined container you know inside and out.

That’s how you deliver results and protect your margins without feeling like a commodity.

The sameness lives in the structure. The uniqueness lives in your expert problem solving.

And so if you want help building your first productized entry-point offer that your best-fit clients say yes to (easily) join the Wedge Offer Masterclass. It’s free.

See ya next Sunday 🤘🏼

Jay Melone

P.S.

• Dustin helps you generate 6 figures (or more) by tapping into other people’s audiences

• Adriana Tica documented how 153 founders made money in 2025 - offers, channels, newsletters, AI - and what they’re doubling down on in 2026.

• Erica McGruder offers HR support to Texas-based businesses. Connect with her here.

Hey {{first_name|there}},

A few nights ago I got an email from someone who’d been following my work for a while.

Her business had taken a real fall over 2025. Her leads had disappeared, along with her revenue. Something had to change.

She had found my work a few months earlier, came to one of my masterclasses, and saw why her fractional services weren’t landing as sharply as they could. The gaps felt obvious now.

She left energized, clearer than she’d been in months, and ready to rebuild. And as much as she wanted to work with me directly, her financial situation didn’t give her that option.

So she did what any of us would’ve done in that moment. She spent the next couple of months working on her own business, trying to move things forward with the tools she had. I remember (many) seasons like that in my own journey. They take every ounce of effort you’ve got.

When she reached out again earlier this week, she was in an even tougher spot.

Revenue still hadn’t recovered. But now, the stress had compounded. Her offers still felt loose - the sales calls and conversions just hadn’t come.

Out of respect for my work, she asked if I could deliver a smaller, lower-cost version of the work I do. Her request came from a place of sincerity and humility, and I treated it that way.

I let her message sit overnight.

I’ve been in her same place - knowing exactly what was broken and what I could invest in to fix it, but not having enough left in the tank to pay for it.

By morning, the path was clear…

Compressing a system that works doesn’t serve anyone. You lose the structure that makes the outcomes possible. And your client loses the confidence that comes with being fully supported. Both sides start improvising, and the emotional weight builds fast.

Your client feels pressure to stretch their investment - which was still significant in their eyes. And you feel pressure to deliver the full experience on a fraction of the resources. The work grows heavy in ways you never intended.

So I chose something much cleaner. I told her that we’d throw out all of my systems, and just dive right in together.

I told her it would be messy. That we’d work in fits and spurts. And I told her that it would be 100% free.

This is the part about pricing services that doesn’t get talked about enough.

Full price honors the system you’ve built and refined over countless hours. While free honors the person in front of you - especially when they’re doing everything they can to stay afloat. Everything in between is where regret and resentment fester.

• Discounting blurs expectations

• Discounting adds pressure

• Discounting weakens your best work

Not to mention, discounting is relative. What feels generous to you feels shruggable to a client on tough times.

Full price brings the entire system. Free keeps the relationship grounded.

Clean pricing is less about rigidity and more about stewardship. It strengthens your work, protects your energy, and respects the realities your clients are navigating.

When someone is ready for the full experience, full price delivers it. When someone is in a low season and still fighting, generosity - without expectations - becomes the bridge that puts them back in the game.

Your takeaways

Full price or free keeps your work strong and your relationships healthy. Don’t get lost in the middle.

Think back to the last time you discounted your services and identify the moment the engagement began to feel misaligned. That moment is your signal for how to handle it next time.

See ya next Sunday 🤘🏼

Jay Melone

P.S. My friend, Caro, put together a guide to help you stop losing prospects right before they’re about to convert. It’s for B2B SaaS, but has crossover to B2B Services.

P.P.S. Here’s the masterclass that the business owner in today’s story joined.

Hey {{first_name|there}},

A few months ago, I kicked off some offer offer work with a new client and asked, “What’s the biggest bottleneck you want your redesigned offers to solve?”

“Can I share my screen?” she asked.

And there it was, a calendar that had lunch and bathroom breaks built in. Otherwise, she might as well move in with each client.

Her revenue was good. Great, even - for a one-person business. But it was pinned at $650K. She had already sold every last hour of her available time.

Worse, because she consistently sold through via highly customized proposals, and equally bespoke delivery - hiring help was easier said than done.

Worst of all, some clients were profitable. Probably. But the rest were high maintenance - always demanding more and chipping away at her margins. It wasn’t atypical for them to ask for help with unrelated problems, “Ugh, can’t you just do it, Meliss? I trust you more than <insert team member name>.”

Her marketing was fine. The bottleneck was baked into her offers. Retainers with fancy names where she traded time for money.

When you sell time, you cap your ceiling and shrink your floor. You cannot stretch the gap between price and effort because the effort is glued to you. Worse, clients subconsciously learn to hire your presence instead of your systems.

Couple that with a high degree of customization in your marketing and sales, and you realize you’ve built a boutique that can’t scale without cloning yourself.

Dream businesses replaced by nightmares of hamster wheels.

Here's the shift most consultants miss:

You think clients want you.

They actually want the outcome you consistently deliver.

The custom proposals, bespoke delivery, and "I'll figure it out as we go" flexibility isn’t the differentiator you think it is. More like quicksand.

Because every time you say "yes" to customization, you're teaching clients they can't succeed without your personal involvement. You're building dependency instead of systems.

And here's what really stings...

The more successful you become at this model, the less valuable, scalable, and sellable your business becomes.

So we changed her offer stack. We codified the outcomes, named the constraints, and taught her tiny team of contractors to execute without her shadow over every deliverable.

We kept her visible on a new wedge offer that drew in her best-fit clients. And we kept her fingerprints on the strategy, but removed them from the (now) systematized onboarding and weekly status calls.

The promise got clearer. The delivery got smaller. The margins got bigger.

That's the game.

Here's exactly how we rebuilt it:

• Defined the outcome clients buy

• Fixed scope so work stops creeping

• Codified a repeatable set of services

• Packaged assets and templates

• Assigned delivery to a capable team

• Set rules for her involvement

• Priced on known, predictable value (not hours)

• Built a high-margin wedge offer that:

  • Funneled in ideal clients

  • Drove a new revenue stream

  • Converted signature sales

And now that that’s in place, we’re moving to stage two: Digitizing parts of delivery that she and her team have perfected, manually.

The goal for this time next year? 30% of her revenue coming from digital, on-demand revenue streams - giving her even more leverage in the 1:1 work she says ‘yes’ to.

📌 Note the common trap we avoided of digitizing too soon.

Your takeaways

If you're stuck at your revenue ceiling, it's not because you need better marketing or more leads.

It's because you've accidentally designed a business that requires you to stay stuck.

The solution isn't working harder. It's redesigning what you sell & how you deliver it.

Start with one offer. Make it repeatable. Remove yourself from 80% of the delivery.

Then watch what happens when clients buy your system instead of your time.

👉 So ask yourself: What's the first thing you'd systematize?

See ya next Sunday 🤘🏼

Jay Melone

P.S. If your pipeline feels like a place where your leads go to die, my friend Brian created a tool to help you surface real clients opportunities and get them un-stuck.

P.P.S. Want to build a productized wedge offer that pre-sells your premium work, diversifies revenue, and frees up your time? Request your free invite.

Hey {{first_name|there}},

A few times a week, I’m on Offer Review calls with people who’ve just finished my masterclass.

It’s a chance for them to show their work. They share the wedge offer they developed, and get feedback from me.

On nearly every call, we’re making good progress… more dots are being connected and lightbulb moments going off in their heads. They’re even more lit up than at the end of the masterclass.

Then, inevitably, there’s this quiet pause that follows with, “So… is this a good wedge, Jay?”

Completely fair question. I’d ask it, too. They invested the time, stretched their brain, built something new, and want to make sure they did it right.

And, sure… the ideas they leave the masterclass with are better and way more scalable than the ones they entered with. They know where there gaps are, what to avoid, and what to build upon.

They’ve eliminated months (years) of wild guesses and bad ideas.

But the truth is, after a few hours in my masterclass, you’ve got work to do.

I mean… of course you do, right?

And we should celebrate that work. Because if it were that easy to create something so simple and so valuable that strangers talk about it, each of our businesses would be disrupted on a daily basis.

I feel it, too.

I’m the guy that teaches you how to create irresistible offers. And the truth is, I’ve spent most of 2025 iterating my own wedge offer - my masterclass.

• Had the idea one year ago

• Built version one in November and December

• Ran it in January

• Rebuilt it for February

• Ran it again in March, April, May, June - dozens of updates

• Rebuilt again in July, August, September

• Ran it again in October

• More (big) changes the last three weeks

• Running it again this Wed

My best guess? 350 hours invested.

It’s been a lot. High highs and low lows.

Moments where I’m blown away by the reception it’s gotten and revenue it’s generated. Alongside moments I wanted to move on to the next thing. To chase more obvious and easier wins that don’t require rebuilding the plane while flying it.

But every time, I’d circle back to the same truth I tell all of my clients and masterclass grads: This is the work.

And it’s f*ing hard. It takes way longer than you want it to…

The timeline of doing hard things

Shitty webinars and cheap checklists you built with AI in 14 minutes? Easy.
Offers that are simple AND valuable? Hard.

Spending just enough time? Easy.
Devoting an unreasonable amount of time? Hard.

Moving needles? Easy.
Moving mountains? Hard.

I don’t know about you… but rather than waiting for the easy bus to come around, I believe that doing hard things is the cost of admission to work that matters.

Or as Kara Lawson put it:

Your takeaways

• The right wedge offer (or any offer) isn’t one-size-fits-all

• Creating offers that are simple and valuable puts you in a category of one

• Mastery requires unreasonable effort on very few things (read: one)

So here’s my parting question for you… What’s the “hard” in your business that you’ve been waiting for it to get easier?

Maybe that’s exactly where you need to stay longer.

See ya next Sunday 🤘🏼

Jay Melone

P.S. A simple, valuable wedge offer pre-sells your premium work, diversifies revenue, and frees up your time. Come work on yours, with my guidance. It’s free.

Hey {{first_name|there}},

Last week, I shared how changing my message attracted my best clients - seasoned B2B business owners with good revenue, booked calendars, and a growing sense of regret that their clients were swallowing them up.

Attracting premium clients is the first step. Then next is what we’ll talk about today - developing offers that match the needs of your new upstream clientele.

The obvious knobs to turn are not only the ones everyone tugs at - they’ll put you out of business if you’re not careful.

Because once more experienced buyers from larger companies start showing up, the reflex is almost always the same: expand the offer.

Make it more robust.
Stretch the timeline.
Add more support.
Become “full service.”

You tell yourself it’s more “comprehensive” so you can justify your pricing.

And then you start to wonder why the work feels heavier than it used to.

Longer sales cycles. Slower closes. And a delivery model that eats the margin it was supposed to generate.

You went from selling 2-week sprints for $2,500 with 70% margin to smaller clients. To 8-week programs for $25,000 with 30% margin to… nobody.

You created a premium-priced offer that takes 4x the time, drains twice the energy, and requires three times the buy-in just to sell it.

And now you’re underwater again, just with a higher price point.

The trap

Most founders assume that moving upstream means making their offer bigger.

Because bigger clients must want more, right?

But what they actually want is the same as everyone else - the best results possible in least amount of time.

They want to tee up their problem and know it’s being handled, without getting dragged into a two-quarter delivery plan that requires 2x per week strategy calls and four stakeholders to sign off at every turn.

They want clarity. Ownership. Boundaries. And most of all, ROI.

Same as you, no?

And it was that same realization that shifted things for me…

The shift

When I was working with early-stage clients, I helped them position their offers, attract better-fit buyers, and stabilize revenue.

It worked. But the payoff took time. The ROI was real, but slower - more linear. And for businesses still trying to find their footing, even smart investments feel risky.

Later-stage clients don’t have a revenue problem. They have a leverage problem.

They’re booked. Their services sell. But they can’t step out of delivery without everything stalling.

Margins are tight. Scope creep is constant. The calendar’s stacked, but so much so that it’s bleeding into their nights and weekends.

They don’t need more people doing more delivery. They need better, cleaner offers.

Less custom work. Fewer handoffs. Clearer scope. Higher returns.

Same types of problems - still rooted in revenue - but with bigger implications.

Because when we fix them, profits expand and time frees up. Which means more capacity. More opportunity. And fewer limits on what’s next.

The offer didn’t need to get bigger. The opportunity did.

And that’s the part most people miss when they try to “go premium.”

They keep solving the same problem for the same type of client, just with more layers.

They confuse “more value” with “longer delivery.”

They build heavier offers when what they really need… is a sharper one.

Your takeaways

If you want to charge more without working more, the answer isn’t inside the offer.

It’s in the client you choose to solve for, and the weight that problem carries in their business.

That’s where the leverage is. That’s where the profits are.

That’s when your offer goes from a vitamin (nice-to-have) to a pain killer (must-have).

…

And if it feels like I wrote this about you, I did.

🧑‍💻 Hit reply with an idea it sparked. I love hearing from you.

🤝 P.S. If you found this 2-part series, share it with a friend.

See ya next Sunday 🤘🏼

Jay Melone

Hey {{first_name|there}},

Here’s something you probably know, instinctually: The message you lead with, and the offers you go to market with, shape the clients you attract.

But then you look through your LinkedIn followers and CRM contacts and think, “Why do I keep attracting the wrong people?”

I’ve been working on this same challenge since launching in 2023.

After lots of experiments, I’ve finally landed on the right offers, the right message, and the right clients - the ones I do my best work with, and are happy to pay me to do it.

If you want need to attract more of your best clients, who pay you what your worth, this is for you.

The wrong clients

When I first launched Profit Ladder, I talked a lot about freedom.

Freedom like…

I could step away from the business for a week and not have everything collapse.

Clients get results without feeling like an ER doctor, on call 24/7/365.

Some of our revenue comes from active client delivery work, and some is more passive and re-occurring.

That kind of freedom.

I talked about digital offers, like online courses and toolkits.

I talked about replacing custom proposals and one-off projects with repeatable, productized services that protect your boundaries (and are way more profitable).

It generated attention, quickly… but from the wrong crowd. Get-rich-quick creators and side-hustlers. The kind that want to sell $47 Notion templates from a beach.

I had alienated the people I meant to serve - business owners.

Real B2B service providers, with clients paying them five or six figures for real results. And a reputation they weren’t willing to trash for an online course empire.

So I pivoted - even changed the name of the business from Passive Profits to Profit Ladder.

I changed my narrative, too. Less about freedom and more about business basics: attracting more clients and stabilizing cashflow.

I shifted from courses and lead magnets to productized services and wedge offers.

The creators vanished. The business owners started showing up.

The almost right clients

Things felt better. These were my people.

I had been in their shoes before. I knew their pain points, intimately. And they loved my offers… especially the free ones.

I was attracting and converting, but fewer than I’d hoped.

These were amazing business owners, but still early-stage. Too early.

They hadn’t spent enough time doing the work - they lacked service-market fit.

They were also up against real revenue woes. And it’s hard to spend money when there’s none coming in. I’ve been there… I get it and completely empathize.

But I’m also running a business. And so as valuable as my offers are, too few of the right people were finding and buying them.

I felt stuck. I had the right people at the wrong stage.

But then I had a conversation that shifted things again…

My best clients

A strategic partner and I were catching up on her business. Someone I respect, deeply. Smart, grounded, and allergic to hype. The kind of operator who has no patience for people selling dreams on TikTok.

She said something that created a pattern interrupt:

See, there’s so much snake oil about passive income, digital offers, and 4-hour work weeks that we’re all on high alert. We denounce it publicly.

But behind closed doors, the truth comes out - most of the seasoned business owners I work with do want freedom. They just don’t want to trade their business model and reputation for a YouTube channel.

They don’t want to teach strangers online how to do what they do.

They want to keep serving smart, high-caliber clients - without chewing through their time, energy, or margins.

That conversation got me thinking: Maybe, a while back, I’d softened the wrong thing.

Maybe the goal isn’t to distance myself from freedom, but to reframe it.

So I did, quietly. No big announcement. I just evolved my offers and messaging again…

Less about cashflow and more about leverage.

Less about fixing an empty pipeline and more about expanding profits.

And sure enough, things shifted once again.

Instead of (only) early-stage solopreneurs trying to stabilize revenue, I started hearing from more established founders.

People with booked-out calendars, full pipelines, and legit revenue. People who should feel successful, but instead feel buried.

Founders who didn’t have a demand problem, but a supply problem.

They weren’t looking for marketing help. They were looking for increased margins.

For the ability to serve clients in a way that protected their time, and eliminated custom proposals.

For a way to leverage digital offers and productized services - so they could take on fewer clients, at higher profit.

Not a work week that’s 4 hours, but 4 days. Where their evenings and weekends are for family - not digging out.

Where their best clients keep showing up, without the sales hamster wheel.

The magic middle

By trying to dissuade the creators, I swung too far in the other direction.

I stripped away all the dream language that still lives inside every serious entrepreneur. I played it safe.

What’s working now isn’t a hard pivot back to get-rich-quick freedom. It’s talking about it in a way that doesn’t sound like a sales funnel from 2013. And building offers that serve the right people who want in.

And that’s where we’ll pick up next Sunday… designing premium offers for larger, later-stage clients.

Feels scary… especially if you think the answer is adding more “comprehensive services” with longer delivery cycles to prove your value.

Next Sunday, I’ll show you how to move upstream without overbuilding, overpromising, or overextending.

P.S. If you want to see exactly how I built a wedge offer that attracts my best clients, join this Wednesday’s Wedge Offer Walkthrough.

🤘🏼

Jay Melone

P.P.S. My friend, Renee, is running a workshop to teach short-form storytelling.

Hey {{first_name|there}},

During this past Wednesday’s offers masterclass, a founder asked about the difference between a lead magnet and a wedge offer. She assumed they’re the same thing - different names for the same bite-sized piece of “free value.”

But they’re not. One’s bait, the other’s a bridge.

By the end of today’s email, you’ll not only understand the difference, you’ll stop making freebies that collect dust and start building offers that change how your clients see you.

The same massive aha moment my client experienced this week…

She and I have spent the last few sessions working on her wedge - a one-hour webinar.

Should be simple, right? The kind of thing she builds on a Friday afternoon and runs next Thursday.

Sure, if our success metric was to have a 30% show-up rate with half being the wrong ICP. Those who do show, feign interest, stop paying attention after 4 minutes, and never convert.

Why bother creating bottom-feeder shit like this?

See, this founder is a legitimate expert at the product consulting work she’s done the past two decades. And she’s one of those people who’s delivered more workshops, webinars, and keynotes than she can count. Her slide decks have slide decks.

And so about halfway through the process, she paused and said, “I’ve created so many of these things over my career that never really worked as I hoped. I had no idea this is what it takes to build it right.”

And she’s right… most people don’t. Because they think what we’re building is a lead magnet.

But it’s not. It’s a wedge offer.

Wedge Offer vs Lead Magnet

A lead magnet is something you throw together in an afternoon or over a long weekend.

It’s your last three blog posts glued together into a gated eBook.

It’s a DIY “template” of an exercise you run with clients.

It’s the classic cheat sheet or checklist or 5-minute guide to [insert thing] that creator culture keeps convincing you to churn out because value = downloads.

The goal of a lead magnet isn’t transformation. It’s transaction.

It’s a social bribe: “Give me your email, I’ll give you this freebie that you’ll never actually use.”

And you can always feel that trade happening. Every pixel of the lead magnet reminds you there’s a missing piece. It’s the business equivalent of a toy steering wheel in a toddler’s car seat - it’s there in spirit, but really just teases you to want the real thing.

Now, a wedge offer is built differently.

A wedge offer doesn’t play to people’s curiosity, it plays to their momentum.

It meets them at a smaller, simpler problem, right before the larger one your signature offer solves. It gives them an early win that builds belief in both you and themselves.

And therein lies the gap between a lead magnet and a wedge. The first is bait, the second is a bridge.

Lead Magnet vs. Wedge Offer: One strips value, the other builds momentum.

And here’s the part where everyone gets stuck…

Wedge offers live at the seemingly impossible intersection of being fast to experience, simple to understand, affordable to consume, and valuable enough to shift perspective.

Pull off all four and you have something that can change a client’s posture toward your work forever.

That’s the work my client and I were doing to build her webinar.

Not a “top-of-funnel tripwire,” a wedge. Something that reframes her audience’s understanding of the problem so that by the time she introduces her main offer, they’ve sold themselves on wanting to continue.

When people experience a real wedge offer, they don’t say, “Thanks”, and then never open it.

They say, “This really shifted how I see things.”

That’s your litmus test.

Your takeaways

• Lead magnets exist to attract. Wedge offers exist to activate (and convert).

• You can feel the missing value in a lead magnet. You can feel the momentum in a wedge.

• Building a wedge offer takes more time than you think (and that’s the point).

If you’re ready to stop pushing ignorables into the market and start building wedges that actually move the needle - for your business and your clients’ - this is the kind of work I do 1:1 with clients every day.

I’ll help you discover the real gold within your work - beyond your first and obvious ideas.

Want that kind of help with your wedge?

Request your free invite to the next offers masterclass 👇

🤘🏼 See ya next Sunday,

Jay Melone