Get Different Weekly: Profitable Marketing, Shutting Down an Offer, and 1990s High School

Volume 012

May 6

Welcome to the Get Different Weekly. Join the 1,000+ others learning the wisdom of doing different and the folly of following the status quo.

Edition at a Glance

Quote: Vonnegut shines
Tweet: $2998 worth of marketing
Thought: semi-successful offers
Podcast: Peter Z revisits
Surprise: 1990s high school

Different Quote

Kurt Vonnegut’s response to a high school class that sent him “friendly letters”:

Different Tweet

Justin Wise @JustinWise

15 lessons that will make you more money than a $2997 marketing course:

Different Thought

What Happens When Your Offer “Mostly” Works?

That's the question my business partner, Mike, and I faced earlier this year when we almost shut down our core program—the Get Different Accelerator.

The offer was working. But not completely.

We’d been running the coaching program for about a year and a half, and there was so much that we loved about it. The community. The steady revenue. The freedom people felt after their marketing finally got noticed.

Beyond that…this coaching program had been the foundation of our business.

It had given us the ability to build on the concepts in Mike's book, build a fun business, and bring on 3 amazing team members.

It’s been the heart of our business since the beginning!

But some pieces weren't working...

#1 — RESULTS

To be candid, not everyone who joined the Accelerator saw results. And honestly, not everyone deserved results. Here's what I mean...

The program isn't a silver bullet or magic wand: we expected members to show up and do the work. The majority did just that. But there was a small percentage who joined the program and didn't do the work. Didn't show up to calls. Didn't launch experiments. Nada.

(There were even two people who bought the program and never once logged in to their dashboard!)

Frustrating.

But there was also a group of members who saw crazy results. 10x, 20x, 100x-type results. To the point where they had to hire new team members and readjust their goals. Boom!

And so, people came into the membership with a wide range of expectations (and often wanted content & coaching around things other than marketing, and that’s not a direction we want to go in).

#2 — EVERGREEN SCHEDULE

We learned pretty quickly members did best when they had a core group to go through the program with. A cohort, if you will. From start to finish, you'd be with the same people through the whole 8-week experience.

But the program wasn't set up to support a cohort model. It was set up as an evergreen program. Meaning, folks could join the 8-week Accelerator at any point, jump right in, and goooooooo.

This meant members were coming and going at all points during the 18 months. While it didn't seem to affect a member's ability to see results, it did impact the overall member experience. On more than one occasion someone would ask, "where did so-and-so go?"

So we had to either re-engineer the program and re-launch as being cohort-based, or switch to a self-study version. It was a tough choice. But ultimately we chose to make Get Different Accelerator 100% self-study to honor the original intent of the program.

#3 — DO IT FOR ME

Our favorite Accelerator members all had a similar path:

Join the Accelerator
Start doing experiments
Some fail (and that's ok)
1-2 really catch on—marketing starts taking off
Member starts making more money
Member shifts to work ON their business and not IN it (marketing is an "in-the-business" task)
Looks for a content agency that "does different" the same way we teach in the Accelerator and can build on what they've already created
Can't find one because Mike and I created the Get Different method
They asked us (me and Mike) to do their marketing for them using Get Different as a guide
We always said no because an agency wasn't on either of our radars (more on that in a minute)

It was crazy.

Doing "different" worked got them noticed. But they wanted someone to come and do "different" for them. Only problem is—most agencies use the same cookie-cutter marketing methods as everyone else.

But once you taste different...it's hard to go back.

---

So...what do we do?!?

Well, we decided to make some big changes to our business — even though it felt a little bit scary, when so much of our program was working so well.

The Different Company still has marketing courses & programs if you need 'em. That'll never change. But now we're focused on "doing different" for clients as an agency. Meaning, our team will come in and do your marketing for you using the Get Different framework.

Dream up experiments. Create the resources, content, and ads. Launch 'em. The whole bit.

It's what our best members ended up wanting most anyway. So the Get Different Agency is officially open for business!

Different Podcast

Geopolitics, Innovation, and Deglobalization With Peter Zeihan

Been transfixed with macroeconomics + geopolitics lately. Never had an interest in any of this stuff pre-2020. But somewhere in between lockdowns I read The Clipper Ship Strategy and it was game over from there.

Today’s different podcast combines both disciplines with Peter Zehain (Marshalltown, IA native!). I’ve featured Peter here before. But this episode on the Ark Invest podcast takes a different angle that’s worth your time.

Official Description: The world is currently experiencing a multitude of historic events, from a global pandemic to the confounding invasion of Ukraine, to an ever-increasing rise in climate-related disasters. Here to help us unravel the influence of these events, as well as broader geopolitical trends on innovation, is a critically acclaimed author and geopolitical analyst, Peter Zeihan.

🔊 Listen Here

Different Surprise

What high school students looked like in the 90s. Got a little nostalgic watching this one. No social media. No cell phones. Kids looked…healthier? Can’t put a finger on it.

Justin’s Featured Opportunities

When you’re ready, here’s how I can help you:

Get Different