Write a Winning “Handraiser” to Sell Premium Products via Email

John Meese -

If I wanted to buy your most expensive product, how many barriers are standing in my way?

For many online education businesses, it looks like this:

  1. Receive email about product
  2. Open email and read it
  3. Click link in email
  4. Leave sales page open in new tab to “come back later”
  5. Get busy and forget about the product
  6. Receive promo email and revisit sales page
  7. Watch sales video this time
  8. Have a question but get distracted before asking
  9. Receive promo email, reply with question from before
  10. Get answer to question, decide to probably purchase
  11. Receive promo email, click “Buy now” button
  12. Fill out contact and payment information
  13. Get a phone call before clicking to confirm payment
  14. Get a “last call” reminder email at 9PM
  15. Complete payment at 11:59PM before the deadline

So many steps! So many barriers! So many ways to lose a sale!

We do this to ourselves as an industry because email marketing is optimized for the most successful online business owners, and as Andy Stanley pointed out:

The more successful you are the less accessible you will become.

Most email marketing is designed to create a gap between the sender and subscriber so you can sell products at scale without interacting with each customer 1-on-1.

That makes sense… sometimes.

But what if you’re selling a premium coaching program to a few hundred subscribers?

What if you’re selling a new product that’s untested, so you want all the feedback you can get?

Send a handraiser instead.

What is a handraiser?

A handraiser is an email designed to get replies rather than clicks.

Click magnets make sense when you’re selling a $10 book or $100 course because you can’t afford to spend time selling to each customer to get a profitable return on your time invested.

When you’re selling a premium coaching program you can afford to spend a bit of time on each sale.

In fact, to sell premium coaching programs you need to close the gap between you and your target customer. You need to get close and personal to make a premium sale of $2K or more.

Handraisers are one of my favorite ways to close the gap.

The concept is simple, but I first learned how to write handraisers from ​Sean Anthony​, who uses replies to his emails to sell without sales calls. It’s a pretty sweet gig.

When you send a handraiser, you don’t include any links. Instead, you share stories and invitations for your target customer to reply if they want to learn more.

That gives you a chance to connect with your customer and talk directly to finalize the sale over a Serve Call, email, or even text!

Example Handraiser: Wanna 10X?

I’ve added a suite of sample handraisers to the ​SOLD OUT Coach Club​ swipe file, but the simplest and most effective handraiser I’ve ever used is a one sentence email I call “Wanna 10X?” that looks like this:

Would you be interested in working with me to {10X Promise}?

When I help clients develop a 10X Promise for a premium coaching program, this is the first email we send to see if we’ve hit the desire target right.

I’ve seen clients get dozens of replies from tiny email lists with just a few hundred subscribers, or hundreds of replies from lists of 3K+.

Here are a few real Wanna 10X? examples:

  1. Would you be interested in working with me to create an unforgettable signature talk that earns you instant trust with any audience? — ​Mike Pacchione​
  2. Would you be interested in working with me to grow your top line by turning your front line into trusted leaders who care about the customer as much as you do? — ​Natalie Doyle Oldfield​
  3. Would you be interested in working with me to become known as the top trusted expert in your industry? — ​Marcus Meazzo​
  4. Would you be interested in working with me to use quiz funnels to fill your email list with eager subscribers who are ready to buy? — ​Kathleen Celmins​
  5. Would you be interested in working with me to earn $10K+ per month group coaching 90 minutes per week? — Me 😉

All those examples are real, so feel free to reach out to those people (or comment below) if that’s what you want.

In the past I’ve sent a handraiser or two whenever I want to line up potential customers for a new product or quarterly cohort of my accelerator program.

Now I’m sending handraisers weekly, because I’ve seen how effective they are and I want to systemize and standardize my approach.

Give it a try, and you might be surprised by how well this works.