When I launched my certification programme in 2021, we did over $100,000 in sales in 72 hours using five emails and a Google Doc.

Today I’m going to teach you how to do it.

If you want to sell expensive things, you need to work in the realm of “beliefs”.

In short, to be ready and willing to buy from you, a prospect needs to believe that your solution is not only the best solution, but the only possible next step for them.

I first encountered this concept back in 2015, from Russell Brunson and his Perfect Webinar formula.

I then dove deeper into beliefs <> sales with marketers like Andre Chaperon and Bastian Ernst in particular.

And the approach I’m going to teach you today is a hybrid of what I learnt from all these guys, and others.

So, what are beliefs and how do they help you sell stuff?

To be ready to buy from you, someone needs to believe your solution is the only possible next step for them.

This means they need to:

• Know they have a problem
• Understand the problem
• Be aware of solutions
• Know which solution is best

As you can tell…

This is quite a complex thing!

And involves getting inside the mind of your customer

(Side note… this is why 99% of garbage training you see on social media fails miserably to produce any results. They teach the tactics but not the underlying principles.)

So…

When you’re trying to sell expensive stuff over email, the foundation of your sequence of emails needs to be a process of:

Guiding the reader towards forming the beliefs they need to hold to be ready to buy your product.

So what are these beliefs?

EXAMPLE: Weight Loss Coaching

Let’s use coaching as a hyper-generic example – a fairly common higher-ticket item.

Specifically, weight-loss coaching.

(The niche doesn’t matter. Follow the thought process.)

We need to take someone from Point A to Point B:

- Point A: I’m not the kind of person to take COACHING - it’s expensive and I can save money by doing it by myself.

- Point B: I believe that COACHING is the easiest, fastest & most reliable way to lose weight, and this COACHING package from XYZ is the single best way to do it.

Got it? :)

Now, how do we take someone on this journey?

What are some of the beliefs that someone would need to have to be ready to sign up to your weight loss coaching?

Take a moment to think about it then I will list a few examples below…

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.

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1. The most successful people in the world have coaches
2. Coaching is exceptional value for money (when the alternative is failure)
3. Coaching works & it has worked for others
4. Coaching will help me lose weight faster than I could alone
5. Coaching brings benefits in other areas of my life

You see how important these beliefs are?

Or to put it another way, can you see how:

It would be impossible for anyone to sign up for your coaching if they DIDN’T believe these things.

(Or else they do buy… and then promptly refund when their unformed beliefs collide head-on with the reality of what you’re teaching.)

Now…

Next step is to put these beliefs in order.

Because in the process of forming beliefs, beliefs normally change in sequence. (Not always)

For example, if I’m selling an expensive certification on AI prompts for career development the very first belief needs to be:

“The world of work is about to change and AI will be at the forefront of all changes.”

This is belief #1.

Without this belief, nothing else matters.

See how that works?

So, let’s put it the earlier beliefs in a logical order:

1. Coaching works & it has worked for others
2. Coaching will help me lose weight faster than I could alone
3. The most successful people in the world have coaches
4. Coaching brings benefits in other areas of my life
5. Coaching is exceptional value for money (when the alternative is failure)

So, what we’ve got now is:

• A complete set of beliefs that someone needs to sign up to your weight loss coaching
• The order in which they need to receive those beliefs in order to be genuine and long lasting

But you may be asking How on earth do we make someone believe something?

You can’t just instil a belief in someone’s brain can you?

Well, my inquisitive friend…

Let me tell you how:

You tell stories.

Belief Change with Stories

Stories are how we form all our beliefs.

And stories are how you can make others believe pretty much anything.

For example, this week alone, we’ve had far-right leaders elected in both Argentina and the Netherlands.

Both very unexpected results.

How have they managed to convince entire populations to vote for them?

By telling stories.

That’s how.

So, you’re going to fashion a set of stories that describe each of the beliefs you have prepared.

Not every belief needs its own email. So we can combine some of the beliefs into a single message.

Here’s how I might do that – including a fuller set of beliefs:

There’s one last step before we are ready to start writing…

And pay close attention, because this is a big one.

Prove it!

There are two core elements to sales:

• Outcome
• Proof

So, in addition to talking about your product in these emails, you also need to pepper them with proof that it actually works.

Proof comes in many different forms:

• testimonials
• social proof
• case studies
• logical proof

The more proof you have, the better.

And if you’re still new to the game, you shouldn’t let this deter you – look for ways you can borrow forms of proof from other places.

Famous quotes, for example.

If you can get someone to agree with a point/philosophy expressed in a quote, you at least have them on-side.

Once you have your various forms of proof, map these onto the stories you’ve prepared in the emails:

What we have at this point is a coherent set of emails that are designed to instil specific beliefs to be ready to buy your product, along with proof that it works.

Not a marketing trick in sight.

This is the true foundation of sales and if you can master this, you can sell anything.

All that’s left to do is to write the emails.

Here’s a bland example of a story that anyone can write, designed to instil the belief that you can achieve more with someone else’s help:

You get the idea.

Really, it’s down to you to write story-based emails that effectively articulate the belief in question.

How to do that is beyond the scope of this email…

But if you pay enough attention to the marketing that’s taking place around you, and practice your writing a bit, you will figure it out!

My buddy Kieran Drew is a great person to watch and observe for the way he tells stories – super raw and endearing.

Conculsions

In today’s newsletter, I’ve shown you how to construct a sequence of emails that can help you sell literally anything.

It comes down to:

• establishing the beliefs your prospect needs to be ready to buy
• sequencing them properly
• adding proof elements for each belief
• writing story-based emails that effectively convey these beliefs

If you’re selling cheaper stuff under $500, you may not need to go to such great lengths.

But if you want to use email to sell expensive products in the $1,000s - certifications, high-ticket programmes etc, this approach will help you do so effectively, knowing that you’re covering the fundamentals.

Now you have no need for that $2,000 sales course you were eyeballing the other day!

You’re welcome.

If you found this useful, please hit forward and send this on to a friend who also sells expensive stuff

This blog grows primarily through word-of-mouth so I’d really appreciate this referral!

Often, new subscribers tell me who referred them, to extra brownie points for you if your name appears in my inbox!

That’s it for today.

Until next week.

Namaste,

Olly