Yesterday I shared one of the biggest lessons I’ve picked up from Travis: The easiest way to get a partner to say yes is making your proposal feel as close to RISK-FREE as possible . Which is also the foundation of Travis’ 2-Step Coffee Date approach that turns cold outreach into Coffee Dates. If you missed yesterday’s post, you can catch it here. When, this cold outreach email landed in my inbox today I saw it as an opportunity to drive the magic of risk-free proposals home. The email says… “So here is how I work. If we are a fit, I will run a two-week pilot from the content you already have. No new work from you. You just watch your reach grow and the right people start paying attention. If you are not seeing it at the end, we part ways and you owe nothing. The only reason it is not a free-for-all: we actually do the work, by hand, so I take on just a couple at a time and I make sure it is right first. Want to do a quick call to see if it is a fit?” To be fair… It has some elements that are better than most cold outreach emails. However, looking at it through a Risk-Free Proposal lens, I can already see at least 3 enhancements that could turn this from being deleted into a Coffee Date. Now…I could just tell you what those 3 are, but I thought we could have some fun. While also allowing you the opportunity to see it for yourself. This approach makes your cold outreach almost impossible to ignore. That said, here’s the game: Step 1: Re-read the email. Step 2: Before you read anybody else’s comments, see if you can spot the 3 edits. Step 3: Drop your answers in the comments. 👇🏾 BONUS: Rewrite it the email the way YOU think gets more yeses for Coffee Dates. If enough people play along, I’ll share the 3 enhancements, and why they matter. AND…I’ll see if Travis will let me gift something from his Vault O’ Brilliance to the person with the best response. Travis??? 🙏🏾😬

A social media company pitched me and my partners. The CEO and Account Executive showed up right on time looking perky, polished, and professional. They started the presentation saying they'd researched our organization. Then, less than five minutes later, they called our members by the wrong name. Not exactly off to the best start... From there, it got worse. They ran through their entire presentation without once asking: "What's already working?" "What's your biggest bottleneck?" "What would make the biggest difference over the next 30 days?" Nothing. They just kept presenting. Then they walked us through five-year case studies. FIVE years? I'm thinking, "What can you do in 30 days?" Then came the Strategic Roadmap slide where they casually mentioned they expected conversions happening around Day 90. By the time they got to the $5,000 price tag, I was trying to figure out what I was making for dinner. Normally, the Closer side of me would've critiqued their sales process. "They should've asked more questions." "They should've personalized the presentation." "They should've done better research." All true, but this time, thanks to Travis' approach to partner-getting, I saw something much bigger. We weren't evaluating their proposal. We were evaluating the risk of partnering with them. Calling our members by the wrong name... 🚩 RISK Walking us through five-year case studies... 🚩 RISK A 90-day roadmap before we see revenue... 🚩 RISK A $5,000 investment before we'd have any proof it would work for our business... 🚩CRAZY RISK The best partners don't create risk. They remove it. Travis talks a lot about making Risk-Free Proposals inside Royalty Ronin. How to structure proposals in a way partners can’t resist. How to get partners leaning in instead of backing away. How to make deals where your partner has zero risk in saying yes. All of the things that make perky, polished pitches a thing of the past.

My AI offer already worked. Only problem was the sales were coming in a little too slooowww for me. I knew I didn't have a Prahdukt problem. I had a reach problem. The people who needed my tool the most had no idea I existed. And I wanted to get in front of a bigger (warmer) market without bleeding for it. Solar companies. ☀️ A whole market of them. The grind says build a list, run ads, cold-email a hundred doors. Nah. 🙅 I went looking for the one guy who already OWNED the room. So I hopped into a few solar Facebook groups... Same name kept popping up. One "influencer" every solar owner seemed to follow. So I did my homework. 🔍 Turns out he wasn't just an influencer. He ran a data aggregation company. A whole network of lead-gen sites that funneled leads into his software, which then dispersed them to his solar clients. Read that again. ✅ He already had the audience. ✅ He already had the connections. ✅ He already had the exact companies I wanted. And here's the part most people walk right past... His business only made money when those solar companies WON. So I didn't pitch him. I partnered with him. One short coffee date and I showed him the natural fit: His lead-gen pours people in the front door ... my Database Reactivation AI works the back door. Quietly reviving the ones who slipped through. The folks who were interested once, then went cold. His whole funnel. Every leak plugged. 🚰 I proposed a risk-free, performance-based deal, so he and his clients had ZERO downside. Without missing a beat, he introduced me to 3 of his biggest clients (whales in this space). A few weeks later my AI was living in their systems, booking meetings for their reps on auto-pilot. One of those clients did $147,000 in sales in a few weeks... 🔥 from a list their reps had already talked to and given up on. My cut? $15,000. 💰 I never sent a single cold email to a solar company. I found one guy who already had the room... and we built something neither of us had alone.

Plenty of us pour months into a "perfect opportunity"... that dies a slow, quiet little death. And nearly every time? We ran the whole thing BACKWARDS. (Last post I promised: (https://www.skool.com/royaltyrockstars/your-best-work-is-makin-you-exactly-0?p=19f98c6e) how to spot a table actually worth sitting at. Buckle up, 'cause this exact little 2-step has quietly made me a good chunk of my income.) See, most folks start with their THING. "I built this tool... now who on earth can I sell it to??" Backwards. That's how you end up begging strangers to give a hoot. Here's how I run it instead. Stupid simple. First? I go find the chips. That's all I care about. I forget my card even exists for a minute. I hunt for a table where money's ALREADY flying around. Where folks are buying something new every single week. I don't think about what I'm selling yet. At all. I just follow the money that's already moving. THEN... and only then... I peek at who's actually sitting at that hot table. And I'm looking for ONE specific player. The one already holding the A, the K, the Q, the Jack... where the only card they're missing is the exact dinky little 10 burning a hole in my pocket. THAT'S my person. If you're not into Poker… my card doesn't just "kinda help" them. It COMPLETES their royal flush. Guaranteed win! I don't have to sell that person… I don't have to deal with objections… I don't have to hand out discounts like it's candy… It's an instant, slam-dunk, no-brainer YES. Zero convincing. Zero begging. And then? Ohhh, then it gets good. I slide my card in. They send it out to their already-drooling crowd. The crowd buys. And a little slice slides into MY pocket... every single time they do... while I'm standing in the kitchen making coffee. No audience built. No ads run. Didn't even send the dang email. Chips first. Then the player who needs my card. Then I just... collect.

I was a broke, freckle-faced 10-year-old boy... I was the oldest of 4 kids... My mom was single... And broke too. But I didn't let that stop me. I figured out what I now call: "A Gravel to Gold Sitch" Let's come back to that... One of my "income streams" was painting curb numbers for homeowners and renters whose addresses were either faded or completely gone. I knew my "pitch" wasn't a pretty address number. It WAS not getting COLD PIZZA because the pizza guy couldn't find your address. It WAS the ambulance, police, or fire department that found their home when every SECOND COUNTS. I'd charge $5 to $10, depending on whether I painted one or two numbers for them. (some wanted the number on both sides of the entry) Now... My investment for materials... Was about $10 to get fresh stencils, paint brushes and black and white paint. (From memory, this was a few decades ago 😁) I could paint about 10-12 address numbers from my $10 investment. Which meant $50 to $60 + tips for revenue. A $10 investment with a $60 return for an afternoon in 1977 was pretty solid. A lot of men/women were not making that... This is what I call the "Gravel to Gold Sitch"... Paint and the supplies are GRAVEL. I had the PROCESS: Take the paint and turn it into address numbers so the pizza guy and emergency services could find homes fast. Once I turned the paint into an address number on a curb... I turned a little bit of paint (gravel) into (gold)... NOW... If You Think That The money Was The Gold... HUGE MISPERCEPTION Don't get me wrong... It bought Snickers bars, walkie-talkies, and other stuff when I was 10 years old... But that wasn't the GOLD REALLY. (Hang on tight for a sec.) So... Here was my big fat problem. I was a broke kid. My mom was broke. How did I get my "start-up" capital? I PRE-SOLD! I'd knock doors and when I got a "YES."... I just had them PAY ME UPFRONT... Then I'd bike it to the hardware store and buy my supplies! I still PRE-SELL most stuff to THIS DAY as a 58-year-old.