discounts should be your LAST resort

I want to buy a pair of Adidas shoes. I’m not going to because I know that Black Friday’s coming up. If I'm a little patient then I can save around 35%. Adidas has conditioned me to expect a sale every few months. On the other hand, I ordered a jacket at full price from a different brand. I’m not waiting until Black Friday because I know that this brand never goes on sale. If you're selling anything online, then you've already started your Black Friday preparations. And chances are you're debating how much of a discount to offer this year. The problem is... Profit margins are tighter. Costs have gone up everywhere. Customers are getting even more entitled. Sorry, but your 20% off doesn't look as appealing when they're being flooded by 60% offers (who jacked up priced weeks before). What should you do instead? You should realize that you have options OTHER than discounting. Discounts are a drug. You'll get a temporary spike in sales but it'll hurt you in the long run. (Remember that public companies think short term. They have to hit certain metrics every quarter due to their investors.) Discounts condition your customers to wait for sales. What if you're trying to establish premium positioning within your niche? Think about this - Louis Vuttion would rather destroy their unsold bags than offer them at a discount. What should you do? Well, let's zoom out. A sale happens when the perceived value is higher than the cost. If you're not going to lower the cost, then you have to increase the value. Then you can add on creative ways to use scarcity, urgency, and the fear of missing out. (Sidenote: I read a study where even having a discount code on your checkout page hurts conversion rates.Your customers feel like they're not getting a good deal if they see the discount code box there, and they don't have a code) I’ve brainstormed a few tactics for you to get your creative juices going. /1 Offer a Bonus The simplest way to increase value is to offer a bonus. - Something Free: Buy 3 water bottles and your 4th one's free. - Free Digital Item: Order a Jiujitsu Gi and we'll send you a free instructional. Digital items are awesome since they don't cost much to produce. - Free Samples: Order our skincare and we'll give you a bunch of free samples. - Free exclusive item: Order $200+ worth of items and you'll get a item. Example: Custom branded moleskin. (Costs you like $15, but it's cheaper than a % discount at a high AOV. Plus brand loyalty) /2 Offer a Limited Edition version of your product Fall's approaching and you can already see the Pumpkin Spice Latte memes. Limit edition products have scarcity and urgency built in. Supreme’s entire business model was based on rare drops and they sold for $2.1 billion. Take some of your best sellers and make a limited edition of it. So instead of offering a big discount off your store like everyone else, offer a limited edited "drop" for sale. If you have a supplement brand, consider a limited edition flavor. The easiest way to make a limited edition product is to offer it in rare colors or do collaborations. Kinda like how Playstations have different designs. Don't underestimate the power of limited edition packaging too. Look at how sick the Kobe"Year of the Dragons" are. /3 Offer a Mystery Bag Woot.com used to be huge. They sold only one item per day. And I remember occasionally they would sell “a bag of crap.” For $10, you’d get a bag of random items like a mystery box. It was sold out every single time. Why are mystery boxes so appealing? It's gambling. Idea: “Buy $100 worth of items, we’ll send you a free mystery grab bag.” Fill it with free samples and old inventory. /4 Community Access I was obsessed with Magic in college - Not Magic the Gathering. I was obsessed with doing magic tricks like David Blaine. There was one website that I bought most of my tricks from. They had a forum. But IF you spent over $500 total, you’d get invited to a special subsection of that forum. It was kinda like the cool kids section where we discussed secrets. Despite being broke, I managed to spend $500 to get into this section. Don’t underestimate the power of tribes - everyone wants to “belong” somewhere online. Could your brand benefit from an exclusive community? Anyone that purchases a certain amount on Black Friday gets access to this club. Anyways, those are some easy ideas for you to run with. Don't limit these to just Black Friday. I think of discounts like Goku from Dragon Ball Z doing a Spirit Bomb. Only use them as a last resort! REVERSE ENGINEERING A DECADE One of my favorite features on Facebook is memories - it shows you older photos and posts from the past. There was one photo that popped up of me from a decade ago. I was 26 years old and I JUST moved to Bangkok. My blog wasn't even around back then. It made me think about what advice would I give to myself ten years ago? (besides investing in Bitcoin) It's not that valuable of an exercise unless you're Marty McFly. So I suggest that you move forward in time. Ten years from now, what do you wish you did more of today? It's a simple exercise, but it made me realize a few things that weren't so obvious. I'll share some things from me. Stretch More: Every older person I know is complaining about back pain. We weren't meant to spend so much time sitting. I asked my physical therapist friend, "What's the best thing I can do to prevent back pain now?" He suggests that I spend a ton of time stretching out my hamstrings and glutes. Most back pain happens because our backs are compensating for our tight hamstrings. So I've created a habit where I stretch for 10 minutes everyday before bed. This hopefully means that I have as much pain when old age his. Start Knocking Off that Bucket List with My Parents: It's easy to assume that our parents will always be around. But they won't, unfortunately. And we don't know what physical condition they'll be in years from now. So whatever you've been putting off doing with them, start planning it now. I'm going to start seeing if we can do that Alaskan cruise! RECOMMENDED 🗒️ [The Everything Bubble](~/AAAHUQA~/RgRjKz_yP0UgMDZkNTY1Mjc3ZDUwNDhlMmIzODcwMDdhYWM3OTdlZjZEMGh0dHBzOi8vYmxvZy5mdHguY29tL2Jsb2cvdGhlLWV2ZXJ5dGhpbmctYnViYmxlL1cFc3BjZXVCCmFC8rpIYRZnSkFSG3RyaXN0cmFtYmFsZHdpbjkyQGdtYWlsLmNvbVgEAAAW3Q~~): Fantastic piece on economics. The government keeps printing money so everyone has to push further out the risk curve to keep up. “QE Infinity turned your savings account into your checking account, the bond market into your savings account, the equity market into the bond market, the venture market into the equity market, while given rise to the crypto market as the new venture market.” Too much Solana shilling at the end, but still a great piece. [🎙️ Maximizing Productivity](~/AAAHUQA~/RgRjKz_yP0UgMThkYjVjZDBiM2Y4NGQ0ODI4M2FlOWY4YTY0YTllZjFEK2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnlvdXR1YmUuY29tL3dhdGNoP3Y9YVh2REVtbzZ1UzRXBXNwY2V1QgphQvK6SGEWZ0pBUht0cmlzdHJhbWJhbGR3aW45MkBnbWFpbC5jb21YBAAAFt0~): I’ve been obsessed with optimizing my health and productivity for the past few decades. I listened to a 2-hour podcast that was full of science-backed tactics. I've gotten rid of my afternoon crash, and I feel so much more energized. 🗒️ [Minimum Viable Tests > Minimum Viable Product](~/AAAHUQA~/RgRjKz_yP0UgNWYyNWQ3MTZiOWEzYWJlYTMxMmVjY2FhNGNmMmE5ZjhEXWh0dHBzOi8vcmV2aWV3LmZpcnN0cm91bmQuY29tL3RoZS1taW5pbXVtLXZpYWJsZS10ZXN0aW5nLXByb2Nlc3MtZm9yLWV2YWx1YXRpbmctc3RhcnR1cC1pZGVhc1cFc3BjZXVCCmFC8rpIYRZnSkFSG3RyaXN0cmFtYmFsZHdpbjkyQGdtYWlsLmNvbVgEAAAW3Q~~): The minimum viable product is a concept from the book, The Lean Startup. You develop a bare minimum version of your product as fast as possible. You then get it to the hands of potential customers to get feedback. MVP’s are flawed. This article stresses there’s a better approach. You should focus on testing your hypothesis and assumptions before even building an MVP. 🗒️ [The 10x Creator](~/AAAHUQA~/RgRjKz_yP0UgNGQ2YjIxNDVmNzVlYTViMzQ2NTc1Y2IxNGY5Y2UwNzVEQ2h0dHBzOi8vbGV0dGVyLnN1YnN0YWNrLmNvbS9wL3RoZS1leHRyZW1lLXNraWxscy1vZi10aGUtMTB4LWNyZWF0b3JXBXNwY2V1QgphQvK6SGEWZ0pBUht0cmlzdHJhbWJhbGR3aW45MkBnbWFpbC5jb21YBAAAFt0~): Have you ever heard of the 10x programmer? It’s a programmer that is 10x better than your average programmer. This is an understatement because there are there are 100x programmers out there - Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum), John Carmack (Doom), and Linus Torvalds (Linux). This article goes into the concept of being a 10x creator. Creating valuable content is hard, but creating the systems and the machine behind it is even harder (and more valuable). It reminds me of running any sort of paid campaigns. Anyone can create a winning creative. The real value is being able to create a pipeline that replicates the results over and over again. Stay Focused, Charles p.s. a new quarter is coming up! Make sure you set a few days aside to review this past quarter, and to plan your new one. Check out my [annual planning guide](~/AAAHUQA~/RgRjKz_yP0UgNmQ1Yjg1ODMyNTQxNWU2MDQwYjRiMTgwMmNhMWM0OWREYGh0dHBzOi8vY2hhcmxlc25nby5jb20vYmxvZy8yMDIwLzEyLzE3L3RoZS1zdGVwLWJ5LXN0ZXAtYW5udWFsLXBsYW5uaW5nLWd1aWRlLWZvci1vdmVyYWNoaWV2ZXJzL1cFc3BjZXVCCmFC8rpIYRZnSkFSG3RyaXN0cmFtYmFsZHdpbjkyQGdtYWlsLmNvbVgEAAAW3Q~~) to get some ideas into how I do mine. Let's finish the year strong! 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