Building your value ladder
Learn how to find your perfect customers, develop a process to help them fall in love with your work, and keep them happy for the long haul.
Hi,
What do we actually sell to people who enter our ecosystem? That’s where a value ladder becomes an essential component of your environment.
The value ladder is a way to structure your business so that people can build a deeper relationship with you and obtain ever more impactful help with their problem for increasingly higher and higher price points.
It’s structured like a ladder, but probably tiers is a better metaphor. You start with free content. Then, customers ascend to more expensive products that bring them in closer proximity to you.
There are four types of offers you need before you can enter the marketplace effectively. These four types of offers have been tested rigorously in all sorts of market conditions and always bear out successfully. I have found them incredibly effective in all types of creative fields, from book sales to prints and even informational products.
Offer #0: Free content
Before we talk about the actual offer, there is a step that comes even before somebody conducts business with you, that of free content. This is content people can consume without ever entering your pipeline. It’s free-to-consume even if you aren’t on your email list.
In general, you will likely choose one of the following as your main medium for delivering this kind of content.
📖 Blog Posts/Articles: These are the original currency of the internet. Personally, it is what I use for my main content delivery.
📹 Videos: The internet seems to have moved to a video-first medium, and with it, left me behind because I do not do well on video. This includes vlogs, educational videos, interviews, or even animated content. Video engages audiences and often receives high interaction rates.
🎙️ Podcasts/Audio Content: My favorite medium (though one I simply don’t have much time or energy for) is podcasting, specifically the interview podcast. I recorded 200 episodes of my previous podcast, and it built so many amazing connections.
That’s not to say you can’t create in all three formats, but one will be the one you build from the most and use as the main driver of your growth. The biggest thing you can get from a main format is consistency. I know I will write articles every week because I have done it since 2008. The other formats have come and gone, but writing has stayed consistent which means I can consistently deliver it.
This content should help your audience but also relate to products that you offer in your business.
The whole point of free content is to make people stop mid-scroll and think, “If this is what they’re giving away for free, their paid stuff must be insane.” That’s the reaction you’re aiming for.
Free content is the gateway drug. It builds trust, demonstrates your expertise, and gives people a reason to stick around long enough to want more.
Eventually, that curiosity nudges them toward your email list. Sometimes you’ll need a little extra incentive, but if your free content hits hard enough and consistently enough, people will sign up simply because they don’t want to miss the next thing you release.
Offer #1: Freebies
Freebies are critically important to getting noticed in the market. Most people think of freebies as business cards and fliers. While those are important, they’re not the freebies I’m talking about. In this scenario, what you want are nicely created, yet simple to make, pieces that can be given away for free in exchange for an email address.
These freebies don’t have to be expensive or labor-intensive to make, but they should be of exceptional quality. Here are some examples.
A starter checklist — something like “10 things to stop doing today” that solves a tiny but annoying problem for your audience.
A quick-start mini-guide — a short PDF walking people through one small win, like “how to price your first product without panicking.”
A simple worksheet — a one-pager that helps people map a plan, answer a question, or make one clear decision.
A swipe file — a set of templates, prompts, or examples your audience can steal and use immediately.
A tiny tutorial — a short video or audio lesson that teaches one actionable technique in under 10 minutes.
A resource list — your curated picks of tools, books, or platforms so people don’t waste three days Googling.
A mini-challenge — a small 3-day or 5-day challenge that walks people through fixing one frustrating part of their creative process.
The key to this is the exchange of free merchandise for an email address. When people give away their email addresses, they are giving away something of value to them, and you should make sure you respect that value by giving them something well-crafted.
Your goal is to provide incredible value for freebies so signing up is a no-brainer. Then, when you deliver incredible quality people will think, “Wow. This is what they offer for free? Their paid content must be incredible!”
Whatever you do, do not give these freebies away without getting that email address. If you give your work away for free, then you are unnecessarily devaluing it. Exchanging your work for an email address, however, psychologically forces the customer to place a value on your work as well, even if that value is only their email.
Offer #2: The Tripwire offer
The Tripwire offer is intended to turn somebody who has been lurking around your store gathering freebies into a paying client. These are low-priced items (under ten dollars) that act as the gateway drug into spending loads more with you in the future.
Here are some examples:
A $5 starter kit — a tiny bundle of templates, prompts, or tools that gets people moving without overwhelm.
A pocket course — a tight, 15–30 minute “just the good stuff” course that delivers one clean win.
A private podcast series — a short, exclusive audio feed with 3–5 episodes that walk people through a focused transformation.
A micro–ebook — a lean, 10–20 page guide that fixes one pain point with zero filler.
A plug-and-play template — a ready-made asset (email script, worksheet, pricing grid, etc.) people can use instantly.
A “starter pack” version of your bigger product — a lite edition that lets them try your system before upgrading.
The point of a tripwire offer is to provide something beautifully made at an incredible value so that people find it a no-brainer to buy your higher-priced items in the future.
The biggest customer transition in your business is convincing somebody to move from a “lurker” to spending even one dollar on your brand. Once they spend that dollar, they are likely to spend much more if you can prove the value of your product.
Offer #3: Your Core Product – Your Core Product is the gravitational center of your entire business. Everything in your value ladder points toward it. Every freebie, every tripwire, every piece of content you make is quietly whispering, “Hey…if you like this, wait until you see the real thing.” Your Core Product is the real thing. It’s the offer that actually delivers the transformation you’re known for.
What counts as a core product?
A flagship course — the full, structured version of the system you teach.
A signature workshop or masterclass — the in-depth experience people rave about.
A coaching or consulting package — your brain, applied directly to their problem.
A full book series — the primary thing fans binge, love, and buy again.
A premium print or merch line — the high-quality, cornerstone items your shop revolves around.
A service package — design, editing, branding, photography, whatever you do best.
A membership or community — the ongoing home where people get support and stick around.
Most creators mess up their Core Product in two predictable ways: they either undervalue it so deeply that they price it like it’s still a tripwire, or they overcomplicate it until nobody knows what the hell it does anymore. A good Core Product is clear enough that your audience instantly recognizes the transformation, valuable enough that it can sustain your business, and structured enough that it naturally leads customers deeper into your world.
Think of your Core Product like a home base. If your freebies are the front porch and your tripwire is the welcome mat, your core offer is the living room—where people get to sink in, relax, and actually experience what it feels like to work with you. They should leave this product saying, “Okay, I get it now. This is their thing.”
Offer #4: Profit Maximizer
If Core Products are the base of your sales, then a Profit Maximizer is the cherry on top. This offer has a slightly misleading name, as it deals more with increasing overall revenue than strictly targeting profits, but every additional dollar spent on your business should increase both revenue and profit margin simultaneously.
The idea of this offer is to increase the total amount customers spend on your products by adding additional products and services to your client’s purchase during the checkout process. While adding potential clients to your sales funnel is crucial to the success or your business, encouraging your existing customers to spend more with each transaction is a fantastic way to immediately improve your bottom line.
These profit maximizers come in for main varieties:
A cross-sell is when you offer a wholly different, but complementary product or format to your audience after a sale. So, for instance, if you are selling a bag of chips, a cross-sell could ask customers to buy a tub of salsa to complete the experience. With books, cross-selling could be offering a different series to “complete their library” or offering audiobooks to your customers purchasing ebooks.
An upsell is selling a more expensive version of the same product. So, if you are selling paperback books, offering people a “hardcover upgrade” would be an upsell. Additionally, offering “special edition ebooks” instead of the standard ebooks would be an upsell. Additionally, you can offer more books in the same series as an upsell, as well.
A downsell is initialed when a cross-sell or upsell doesn’t work. Usually, an upsell or cross-sell should be 3-5x the price of the core product, while the downsell should be closer to 1.5-2x more than the core product, and should only be offered after your customer rejects the initial upsell/cross-sell offer. If you are offering your complete library in hardcover for $500, a downsell might see you offering either a portion of or library or your complete library in ebook for $100-$150.
A bump offer is a small checkbox that appears on the checkout page that allows for a “one-time purchase” with a single button click. They happen before the first purchase, and can either be an upsell or a cross-sell.
The best Profit Maximizers are pure profit. My favorite Profit Maximizer during a crowdfunding campaign is offering a special thanks in the credits of a book. This reward costs fifty dollars instead of twenty for just the book, and it takes almost no additional time, energy, or cost to implement. This additional reward is almost 100 percent profit. Meanwhile, it builds engagement with my audience, because they have become part of the book forever.
The success or failure of a business generally comes down to one statement: Do I spend $1 to make $2, or do I spend $2 to make $1?
It can be as close as “Do I spend $.98 to make $1, or do I spend $1 to make $.98?”
But people discount how important it is to drill into the numbers and know whether you are spending money to make money or making money to spend money.
I admit that I am very good at the business side of things, but my secret weapon is not building a mailing list or courses or funnels. My true gift is knowing how to be on the right side of that equation and not do anything that puts me on the other side, no matter how fun it might be to do it.
These four offers form the basis of any good sales strategy, whether it is in person or online. If you can nail these offers, you’ll bring the most people to the top of your funnel while maximizing your sales when they reach the bottom and become clients.
