Never Do DFY For Someone Starting at Zero

This could be one of the most important lessons you ever learn in business.

Never sell done-for-you services to someone who is starting at zero.

This does not mean you can never help beginners.

Someone starting at zero may be a perfectly good customer for a do-it-yourself product or a done-with-you service.

The problem begins when you agree to do everything for them.

Starting at zero can mean someone who is literally starting their first business. More importantly, it means someone who is starting at zero in the context of the service you provide.

If you have a done-for-you paid ads agency, do not work with someone who has never run paid ads.

If you have a done-for-you YouTube agency, do not work with someone who is just starting a YouTube channel.

If you run sales for clients, do not work with someone who has no leads, no salespeople, and no existing sales process.

They do not need to be extremely successful already.

There just needs to be something that is already working.

They should have a proven offer, previous customers, useful data, an existing process, or at least some basic success that you can build upon.

Your done-for-you service should help someone go from 1 to 10.

It should not require you to figure everything out for them and drag them from 0 to 1.

People starting at zero normally have dozens of blockers.

They may not have a good offer.

They may not know who they are selling to.

They may not have enough money.

They may not have the necessary people, tools, skills, or systems.

They may not even be willing to do the things required from them.

You begin by selling them one service and eventually realize that you need to build their entire business.

Even worse, many of their biggest blockers exist entirely inside their heads.

They are afraid to spend money.

They are afraid to post content.

They are afraid to sell.

They take forever to make decisions.

They constantly change their minds.

They do not believe the process will work because they have never seen it work before.

You end up spending more time convincing them to participate than providing the service they paid you for.

When you work with someone who has already achieved even a basic level of success, everything becomes easier.

You have less to figure out.

You have real data.

You can see what is working, what is broken, and what needs to happen next.

You will normally get paid more because successful people have more money and understand the value of making something that already works even better.

Imagine you have a done-for-you paid ads agency.

With someone starting at zero, you may need to create their offer, figure out their messaging, build their funnel, convince them to spend money, and then hope people actually want what they are selling.

There are five different things that could be completely fucked up before you even begin running ads.

Now compare that with someone already spending $100,000 per month on paid ads.

You can review their existing data, identify the ads and angles that are working, create more versions of them, improve the funnel, and begin testing.

You are not guessing whether paid ads can work for them.

They already work.

Your job is to make them work better.

The same thing applies to a done-for-you YouTube service.

With someone starting at zero, you need to convince them to film, help them buy and set up their equipment, teach them how to speak on camera, determine what they should talk about, and hope they continue long enough to produce useful data.

They may quit after three videos.

With someone who has already published 100 videos, you can look through their data, find the outliers, determine which subjects and formats perform best, develop new ideas based on what has already worked, and send them a clear filming plan.

They already know how to record.

They already know how to publish.

You already know they are willing to do it.

You receive the footage, edit it, post it, measure the results, and repeat.

You can absolutely build an offer for people starting at zero.

It should normally be do-it-yourself or done-with-you.

With a do-it-yourself offer, you give them the information, process, and tools. They are responsible for implementation.

With a done-with-you offer, you guide them, review their work, answer questions, and help them make decisions. They still need to do the work.

Both structures allow you to help beginners without becoming responsible for building their entire business.

If you choose to provide a done-for-you service that takes people from 0 to 1, understand what you are actually selling.

It is a much larger, harder, and riskier service. You need to price and structure it accordingly.

For most done-for-you service businesses, the better position is simple:

Find someone who already has something working and help them make it substantially better.

You will make more money.

You will have an easier time.

Your clients will get better results.

The opposite is normally true when you sell done-for-you services to people starting at zero.

Hope this email was worth your time:
Matthew Larsen

PS. I have seven new YouTube channels (Lessons, Strategy, Case Studies, Audits, Marketing, Q&A, Action Steps) and am posting on average 25 new videos per week across those.

I made a feed that pulls all of them into one page at https://matthewblarsen.com/videos if you want to bookmark it and stay up to date