Chris Do: Hey everybody, Chris here. We're trying something a little bit different than what we normally do for the podcast. We're doing solo episodes. These are shorter, more contained, built around certain themes and questions I think are very relevant for us to be talking about. So wherever you're listening to this, however, you're seeing this, let us know in the comments and the feedback, what you think, and we'll make some adjustments.
So you might've heard me talking about creating demand through And we want to shift gears and maybe because you're thinking maybe I have a product or something that doesn't fit the event space, but we can apply the same concepts. So let's say for example, you have an information product, you're trying to teach somebody something and that literally is a product because you can buy and sell that at scale.
What are you going to [00:01:00] do? And how can you use waitlist to help you? Now you're thinking, well, if I have a digital product. The quantity is unlimited. It's infinite. And that's the beauty of digital products, which you can sell to as many people as possible, but then now you undermine the key principle of scarcity because it's still available because anyone can buy it.
You remove some of that demand away from the product. So we had to kind of approach this a little bit differently. And if you haven't done so, I would highly encourage you to listen to the multiple conversations I've had with Daniel Priestly on the podcast. He's the person who wrote the book, Key Person of Influence.
And he also wrote a book called Score App. And the principles I'm sharing with you, he shared with me, and it seems so applicable. The first thing that you need to do is you have to create a hard unit, meaning I'm only going to sell this many courses. And for whatever reason, you can make up any reason you want.
So for example, In our coaching community, the Future Pro Group, I theoretically can scale those to be thousands or tens of [00:02:00] thousands of people and it's not really going to impact me. It might impact the perception of the value and it's being diluted or maybe it's being too noisy for the people who buy the product.
So a while back we talked about this based on Daniel's recommendation to cap enrollment and we do a double cap and I'll tell you what I mean. Number one is we're going to say. In no time will we ever take more than a thousand members into the group. So there's a hard cap on that. But the second cap that we add to that is each quarter, we're going to set aside a finite number.
And I believe it's 60 right now. We only want to enroll 60 people per quarter. And so now that's, that's, introducing increased scarcity or potential limiting the supply of what it is that we're doing. So this means that if you want to get in, you have to enter into that window when we open up enrollment for just the quarter.
And if you're not one of the 60 people, you'll have to wait till next quarter. And for some people, that's going to give them some consternation. Like they can't afford to [00:03:00] wait another quarter to get coaching, to get the resources and tools that we provide. So how do we do this then in practical sense?
Well, if we look at a launch window of 90 days, which is one quarter, we need to let people know well in advance when it's going to open up again. So we're going to apply the same rule, right? What we're going to do is we're going to announce to the market, we're going to tell them like in 90 days or in 80 days, This program is going to open up again, and it's only going to let 60 people in, 100 people, 200, the number is not important.
The commitment to the number is important. That you mean what you say, and you say what you mean. So if you only want to take on 50 students, or 100, or whatever it is, just say that, and don't get greedy. That's the rule that Daniel Priestly says, do not get greedy, do not try to go and oversell it at this point.
Just say, you know what, we're going to add you to the wait list. When it opens up next, if somebody drops out, you'll be the first to know, which is a really cool thing.
The Futur: It's time for a quick break, but we'll be right back.[00:04:00]
Chris Do: When I started my motion design company blind in 95, there was a lot I didn't know. So I tried reaching out to other business owners and professionals for help. What did I find? Many saw me as competition and those who didn't. weren't able to give advice that made sense for my line of work. Thankfully, I was able to find my first and only business coach, Kira McLaren, who mentored me for 13 years.
I also learned that my story isn't unique. Many entrepreneurs feel like they're left to figure everything out on their own. It's why I created the future pro membership, a community I wish I had when I first started. And I'd like to invite you to check out all that we have waiting for you inside at the future.
com slash pro.
The Futur: And we're back. Welcome back to our conversation.
Chris Do: And I'll tell you the beauty of this idea. When you sell a finite capacity, there will be [00:05:00] hopefully a number of people who weren't able to buy, which creates demand for people wanting to get into the program. So in our case, it's the coaching program. So somebody who enrolls in the program, who then says to me later on, you know, Chris, I put out my deposit.
I actually changed my mind. I'm like, great. This is fantastic. I have another person. So wait, what do you mean? You have another person? Well, there's a wait list. So that gives them immediate FOMO, fear of missing out right away. So they have to rethink. If I lose my spot, when can I get in? My answer would be, I don't know.
It depends. It totally depends. You can get in the next cycle or it might be two cycles from now. I don't know, but I'll add you to the bottom of the list. So that's a powerful market driver to say, you know what? If I lose my place in line right now, it's going to be a while. And if you think about this, have you ever experienced this before?
Have you ever waited in line at, oh, I don't know, the movie theater to buy a ticket or for a ride at Disneyland or your place at a restaurant, we're not going to leave that [00:06:00] line because we know as soon as we leave, we look at the back of the line, we're going to go back to square one, number two. And this is a fantastic idea when it is successful.
If you have such strong demand for something that you're selling and they can't get it, it makes them want it even more. Some point, somebody will come up to you and say, Hey, Chris, is there anything we can do to get on, get in the program? We know we're on a wait list. And those are magical words. Those words mean, can we bribe you?
Can we pay more? What can we do to get into the program? And they'll, they'll offer something like, Hey, I'll pay you an extra thousand dollars to get into the program now, because we can't wait. We can't afford to wait. Then you can literally go to the group of 60 people and say, Hey. Does anybody want to sell their spot?
Someone wants to buy it for 1, 000. They only paid 250 for it, or 700. So now they're going to get their money back, and they're going to need an additional 1, 000. You don't even need to keep the profit on this one. And it's a brilliant idea if you think about it. Because now what [00:07:00] happens is that person and everyone in the community realize that the value of what they purchased is worth even more than what they paid for it.
So as a psychological effect, this is powerful stuff here. This is like black magic, voodoo kind of stuff, right? The psychology of buying and sales. So maybe one or two people take you up on the offer and then you sell it off. And then the person who wanted to buy, who's willing to pay a premium, get what they want and you get what you want, which is a full class sold out product.
And you get the psychological effect of everyone believing like I paid 250, but it's worth a thousand dollars. There's something powerful about that, that even though they literally didn't pay more, they feel like they got more now. So whenever possible, you want to employ the wait list, you want to reduce capacity, and you want to let the market know what's happening and be very transparent about it.
And don't get greedy.[00:08:00]
The Futur: Thanks for joining us. If you haven't already, subscribe to our show on your favorite podcasting app and get new insightful episodes from us every week. The Future Podcast is hosted by Chris Do and produced and edited by Rich Cardona Media. Thank you to Adam Sanborn for our intro music. If you enjoyed this episode, then do us a favor by reviewing and rating our show on Apple Podcasts.
It will help us grow the show and make future episodes that much better. If you'd like to support the show and invest in yourself while you're at it, visit thefuture. com and you'll find video courses, digital products, and a bunch of helpful resources about design and the creative business. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time.

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