SUMMARY BY CHATGPT

Tom Antion argues that simple products sell better than complicated ones. If customers immediately understand what they're buying, they're much more likely to purchase.
Key Points
• Keep products simple.
o If your grandmother can't understand what you're selling, it's probably too complicated.
o Clear offers consistently outperform confusing ones.
• Titles do most of the selling.
o Use a short, memorable title (often three words or fewer).
o Add a descriptive subtitle that clearly explains the benefit.
o In many cases, the title and subtitle alone are enough to generate sales.
• Examples of simple products.
o Crowdfunding: How to Get the Money to Fund Your Dreams—and You Don't Have to Pay It Back
o Ultimate Guide to List Building
o 50 Emails That Made Money
o Ultimate Guide to Professional Speaking
• Simplicity beats complex pricing.
o Antion describes watching speakers confuse audiences with multiple "Silver, Gold, Platinum" packages.
o His single, straightforward mentoring offer consistently outsold competitors, generating six-figure back-of-room sales.
• Cheap products aren't always the goal.
o Low-cost products can introduce customers to your business, but whether this strategy works depends on your market.
o Test different approaches rather than assuming one pricing model fits everyone.
• Trust wins long term.
o Avoid hype and unrealistic marketing claims.
o Build a reputation for clear communication and genuine value so customers return year after year.
Key Takeaway
People buy what they instantly understand. The simpler and clearer your product, title, and offer are, the easier they are to sell. Confusing customers with unnecessary complexity usually costs sales.

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Episode 1151 – Simple Products
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.
[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 1151 of Screw the Commute podcast. Today I'm going to talk about stupid, simple products. And I don't mean that the products are stupid. I mean, it's stupid. Simple is what sells. So that's what we're going to talk about today. Hope you didn't miss episode 1150 was Photo Management for beginners. Don't you get just sick of searching for pictures you know you have. Well, this episode fixes that. So anytime you want to get to a back episode, you go to screwthecommute.com/the episode number. That was 1150 and boy, you will be glad. Just a few tips on that will save you tons and tons of searching for stuff that you know you have. All right, pick up a copy of our automation book. Version 3.0 is still up there, but 4.0 is in the final proofreading stages, so it's coming out very, very soon. But 3.0 if you don't have it, 4.0 builds on it. So go ahead and grab 3.0 at screwthecommute.com/automatefree and check out my mentor program, greatinternetmarketingtraining.com and my school at IMTCVA.org, certified to operate by SCHEV. Okay. And I also have a new podcast masterclass out there, totally free on YouTube. You can go to screwthecommute.com/pod. And I'll tell you, podcast guesting is the first half of this masterclass. And I will tell you, you could be in front of tens of thousands of people for free with a warm introduction. If just by getting good at podcast hosting. And I tell you every trick in the book to make you a highly sought after guest. So that's screwthecommute.com/pod.
[00:02:20] All right, let's get into stupid simple products. And basically I'm talking about simple products and not necessarily cheap products, although a lot of cheap products. Uh, it's easier to be simple on. However, I'll show you where I made big, big money in the speaking arena with simple products. Okay, now here's the, here's the overriding principle I want you to keep in mind, all right? If your grandma can't understand what you're selling, it's too complicated. I'm going to give you a I've got, I think, 25 ebooks to my credit or printed books and ebooks, And I'm just going to give you a sampling of them. And I got to tell you, even some of them don't even have sales letters because the title and subtitle tell you what it is. And I've sold some of them just through emails without a complete sales letter you just bought right from the email. And I sold tens of thousands of dollars worth of these things. So I'm going to run through some examples here. And then we'll finish up talking about some of the bigger stuff. So I have an ebook called crowdfunding How to get the Money to fund Your Dreams. And you don't have to pay it back. All right. Right there. The whole title and subtitle tells you what it is.
[00:03:47] All right. I think, like I said, I can't even remember if I have sales letters on some of these things because people buy them just from the titles. See, I got I get a little lazy after 32 years online and selling millions and millions of bucks worth of stuff. Sometimes I just. Okay, let me just throw an email out and see what happens. And then a whole bunch of sales come in, say so. So there's one example. Here's another one. Kickstart viral three ways Non-celebrities can guarantee to go viral. All right. So again you hear going viral all the time. But a lot of people attribute that to celebrities or gorgeous, uh, women or, or, you know, gorgeous guys to model type guys can go viral, but there's way more women doing it. So, but this is how a non-celebrity and I might say non-model can do it. Another one I have extremely clear and simple ultimate guide to list building. So I mean, you have to know what list building is or it wouldn't make any difference. This book wouldn't even make any difference for you or make any sense for you. But if you're in the internet and digital marketing field, you know you have to build a list. And so it's the ultimate guide to list building. That's right. They're as simple as you can get. And then to go along with that, I had 50 emails that made money along with explanations.
[00:05:21] So I broke down 50 emails in the psychology of the subject lines and the body and all that stuff. And, and like I said, I don't even know if I don't even think I have a sales letter for that. That was it. Another ultimate guide. Now, when you do an ultimate guide, it better be ultimate. It better be really, really, really full of good stuff. So I have the ultimate guide to professional speaking. So if you're, you know, what a professional speaker is, if you're thinking about getting paid to speak. And so this is the ultimate guide, you know, 27 bucks or 47, I don't remember how much it is, but there you go. And it does have a sales letter, but a lot of people just buy it right from the title. Wake them up business presentations. The subtitle is How to use Humor and other Professional Techniques to Create Alarmingly Good Business Presentations. And actually, if you do see the book cover it's got, I designed this many years ago where it's a little clock guy on stage speaking, but everybody in the audience is in cots, but then they're all awake listening. So that's been a classic for many years. So as simple, especially in the titles and subtitles now, the the titles can be of your products can be a little bit crazy. Yeah. And one of the ways we talk about titles and titling things, and I learned this from some article somewhere, but, but, and then I went and double checked what I just read.
[00:06:57] And it turned out that, like the article said, 70 to 80% of New York Times best sellers have a three word or less title. Simple, right? But then a descriptive subtitle. And so I went and checked the current New York Times best seller list and damned if it did. Most of them had three words or less. Some of them had one word. There was a guy, I think he used to run Southwest Airlines that. And they were known for giving out peanuts. All right. So the title was nuts. And then some subtitle like how a small startup airline turned into big shit. You know, something like that. They didn't say that exactly. Okay, so think about that. When you're titling, you can have a cool title for the first three words, but then you got to have a descriptive subtitle if you want it to sell, it's got to be simple and your grandma has to understand what it's about, right? Okay. Now in general, anything that's easier to understand is easier to sell. So this would be should be one of your impetuses for doing this is that if you want to sell more, make it easy for people to understand. If they have to think 1020 minutes to figure out what the heck you're doing, then the chances of selling are not as good. And I made a fortune with this idea in the speaking business when I was doing public speaking, or even when I was doing, you know, corporate and, you know, small business speaking, I was still doing the same thing, keeping things simple, but especially in the public seminars where there's maybe 15 or 20 speakers all trying to sell stuff, and I would sit in the back of the room and watch them all, and I would.
[00:08:51] And I was also watching the audience, and I would see these speakers doing the, the silver, gold, platinum, diamond, super titanium packages. And, and I'd see the audience members, of course, I'm behind them, but I'm seeing them looking at their neighbors so I can see the side of their head and they're like, what? What, what was that? This what? What did he say? What did she say? What was in that pack? You know, and they're all and I'm sitting back there laughing because I know I'm going to take home all the money, which I did. And I don't think I've ever been beaten in the past 25 years at back of the room sales, because mine was simple. All right, here's the deal. My mentor program includes a trip to the retreat center in a year long program where I'm going to help you. That was it. All right. And so I came home with all the money, never less than 100,000 and sometimes as much as 275,000. This is only anywhere from 2 to 300 people.
[00:09:53] And the crowds on these things say so. So simple. Just beat the pants off of all these divas that thought they had the coolest stuff, and they had the the method of giving them the cheap one and the expensive one, knowing they'll buy the middle one. All of that horse crap pucky that that they try to do with sales techniques that I come in and wipe them all out with one simple offer, say, okay, so it's more complicated than that of what I did during the speech and all that, but still, it was one offer at the end that was clear and simple, even though it was not cheap. Say, uh, let's see. Now. A lot of times people will do use these simple and inexpensive products as gateways to larger to get people to, to make a finally pull their wallet out to get them in your ecosystem. So you can, you know, they're, they're more qualified person because they actually spent money doesn't mean they're going to spend the big money with you. And some schools of thought, say, don't sell cheap products because you're just, you're just attracting cheapos. So you have to test this with your market, see what works best. I can't tell you which way is better. I can just tell you that if it's simple and has great sounds, like it has great value, you will sell way more than making it complicated and people not recognizing what the heck they're getting.
[00:11:26] In fact, you tell them too much. Sometimes there's too many questions that come up and make them wonder too much and think about things they shouldn't be thinking about, other than pulling their wallet out and giving you money. Say so. But these are things that take experience. I can't tell you as a newbie what's best for you until I get to know you. And you're in my mentor program for a while. And I see, and we test with your markets and, you know, see what works best. I'll certainly make it a hell of a lot faster for you to be successful, that's for sure. But nobody that claims they're going to tell you the way to do it. In fact, all these darn headlines I'm thinking about writing down all these headlines. I go through Instagram and 90% of the. The poster ads for stuff. No experience. You'll make $2,500 a minute. You know, this is that. And look at me sitting at the beach and you know all these things where I guarantee you half of those people at least have are having trouble making their car payments, okay. And they're just, you know, making themselves look great and complicated and trying to hoodwink you into giving them money. Say. So that's not what we're about here. I want a long term business for you where people trust you. For years, I have people buying from me that have been around more than 20 years.
[00:12:49] All right, some more than that. I just I don't even know when they started. So anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Keep your things simple. Learn how to title them so that they're extremely clear of what the person is getting and you'll sell a lot more, I'm telling you. And if you want help with it, get in my mentor program. Greatinternetmarketingtraining.com. It's the longest running, most successful, most unique ever in the field of internet and digital marketing. Nobody at my level will even talk to you. Okay. Where everything we do is one on one and with me, my staff, and most of it's with me. So. So that's the way we roll around here. And if you're in my mentor program, you get a scholarship to my school that you can gift to somebody, and you'll probably save a couple hundred thousand bucks sending them to a four year indoctrination camp. All right. So, so don't do that. Get in my ecosystem. And there's I can't think of anybody that would say, oh, we regret the time we spent with Tom because, uh, I don't give you any fluff or BS. I help you and it's all customized to you. You're not lumped in with everybody else. All right, so check it all out and I will catch you on the next episode. See you later.