The Hidden Reason Your Offer Isn’t Selling

I was having a business conversation with someone I knew the other day.

This person shared his ideas with me and wanted my opinion.

He wants to sell digital products..."kinda like what you do, Nick".

That's fine.

On paper, the strategy looked solid.

He walked me through the steps.

The plan included the usual stuff.

You know, a product, a funnel, a basic promo plan (ads + content) etc.

He went on for a couple of minutes.

And then I did something unexpected.

I waited for him to pause and said...

Wait, what?!

He was confused.

I mean REALLY confused.

He said something along the lines of:

“Wait, why? That’s literally the same stuff you do, right? What am I missing?”

And this is where the real lesson begins.

I went on and on explaining the differences in the approach, the strategy, etc.

I don't want to bore you with the whole conversation.

So I'll skip to the part that becomes interesting for you.

That was when I hit him with a thought experiment.

I said...

“Imagine you’re standing on a street corner.

I hand you a hot dog.

Fresh from a vendor right next to us.

Looks great, tasty, and attractive.

Perfectly good hot dog.

Now, I tell you to go sell it.”

What happens?

Let's play this scenario.

You can try to sell the hot dog if you wish.

Which means that you can stand in the street with a hot dog in your hand....

Asking people to buy it.

Now, think.

What's going to happen?

No need to be a marketing expert to answer that question.

No one will probably buy.

Most people will avoid you.

Some will think it is a prank or something.

Others wonder if it’s poisoned.

And yet...

You’re holding the SAME product they’d buy from the stand.

Literally the same hot dog you got 30 seconds ago.

But out of your hand?

It’s weird. Suspicious. Off-putting.

So I told him.

“People aren’t just buying the hot dog. If they were, you'd have no problem selling it from your hand. They’re buying the context. The environment. The expectation. The trust baked into the transaction.”

Think about it.

The same hot dog (aka same product / offer).

At the stand?

There’s structure. There’s a line of customers. There’s a sense of normalcy.

With you on the street corner?

It feels out of place. It feels like a scam. It feels like something’s missing.

And that’s exactly what was happening with his strategy.

The way he suggested it, he’s trying to hand out digital products like random hot dogs on the street.

No brand. No positioning.

No frame around the offer that makes people say, “Yeah, this feels right.”

I, on the other hand, built a stand. In fact, I built multiple stands (and constantly building more).

I have the structure that makes the offer feel safe, valuable, and normal.

As a marketer, I am focusing on building systems that make buying feel natural every single day.

That’s why it works for me.

It’s not the steps. It's not the product. It's not even the 'offer' (although that certainly has a place).

It’s the way I’ve built the “scene” around the product that matters.

I told him that we can take this principle even further.

“This goes beyond hot dogs. Even if I handed you a diamond or a Rolex, and you tried to sell it on that street corner, you’d have the same problem.”

Most people would not care at all because they would assume you are a scammer or something similar.

This little thought experiment proves that it is (almost) never about the thing.

It’s about the trust and expectation built into how you present it.

In other words, content and context go hand in hand.

Now let's take this idea and expand it into a marketing principle.

Most people obsess over the thing they’re selling.

By selling, in this case, I mean presenting to people in some way.

They obsess over...

A product. A service. A course. A track.

But they ignore how important the setup is.

The environment. The story people step into. The context that makes buying feel natural.

So here's the point.

Before you get stuck thinking...

“This offer should work. It’s just like what others are doing...”

Remember.

It’s not the hot dog.

It’s the hot dog stand.

If you don’t have the stand, you’re just some stranger waving food around.

And no one buys from that guy.

Lesson: don't be that guy.

Talk soon,

Nick