Shrink the Promise or Build the System. Pick One.

A dating coach asked me how he'd apply the "get paid after you deliver" idea to his own coaching business. He said he sells "freedom" and his question is how does he determine what success looks like?

The answer to his question is in the question itself.

You can't quantify "freedom." That's the answer.

Freedom is far too ambiguous to define. It means something different to everyone. Plus, freedom is an OUTCOME, and outcomes need a hundred variables to line up properly. Not to mention, outcomes aren't ours to control.

Now, "freedom" isn't bad or anything, and that could still be a result of what you sell, but it's the wrong KIND of promise to make in your pitch.

It's the same trap as "$100k/month closer." Same trap as "I'll get you X dates." You don't CONTROL the result, so stop SELLING the result. Sell what you CONTROL.

There is no way to control whether he gets the girl or if she even texts him back. You don't control if he even shows up and puts in the work.

BUT… you DO control the coaching, frameworks, strategies and the feedback you can give based on how the student is doing. THAT'S your deliverable. And you can deliver THAT every single time, no exceptions, no "well it depends."

Oh, hey naysayers. Nice of you to join.

"But Zach, if the promise is that small, nobody's gonna buy."

False. You got that from a gooroo. Lemme show you why that's backwards.

I'm a recruiter. Unlike others, I DON'T charge companies based on the performance of a rep once hired. I don't charge companies for them closing deals, or sticking around, or adding a zero to your revenue. I can't control any of that. So I don't promise it, and I don't price for it.

Also, you'll never hear me say "my reps do XYZ$ on my recruiting client accounts." LOL. I don't take responsibility and I don't take the credit either.

The ONLY thing I charge for is the one thing I can actually control… putting qualified people in front of you.

That's it. That's the promise. That's the whole thing I sell.

A small, CLEAN, duplicatable promise that I can keep 100% of the time.

So no, shrinking the promise doesn't kill the sale. It's the thing that lets you actually DELIVER on it.

Keep "freedom" as the vision, sure. It can still be the reason he shows up or their "why." Just don't PRICE it as the promise. Price the work you know for a freaking FACT you can deliver no matter WHAT happens.

Who decides if it was successful? You do.

And here's WHY you can. "Did I deliver the coaching I said I'd deliver?" Because the promise was small and specific, that's a real question with a real answer. Yes or no. Binary and easy to determine. No more guessing. No more ambiguity.

That's the difference between those who adopt this method and the gooroos.

"Did you really do the work?" is a cop out and can't be objectively verified. "Did I deliver the qualified candidates / the coaching / the framework I named?" THAT however, CAN be verified. Because you named something verifiable in the first place.

Shrink the promise and all of a sudden your brand becomes the guy who does what he says he's going to do. Keep trying to sell shit you don't control and keep being THE hot reddit thread of people saying you're "risky."

"Did he find love?" Not your metric and never was.

And side note, because he asked. The "I'm not paying" thing… cost of doing business, bro. For me it happens 0.5% of the time, lifetime. And if you ask me, you're FAR better off eating that half a percent than getting paid for work you didn't do.

Now, zoom out, because this is WAY bigger than one dating coach… the space doesn't have a blow-it-up-and-start-over problem. We don't need to reinvent anything or rip the wheel off.

This space's BIGGEST problem around terrible client success is we just promise too much, and we promise the wrong KIND of thing.

Want proof the promises are out of control? Go count how many offers publish their client success numbers. I recruit for these offers. I see them up close. I can count the ones who actually publish on one hand. If the numbers were good, you'd see them everywhere.

So the EASY fix is to SHRINK the promise down to what you control… or build enough system to actually control the bigger one.

That's it.