I Could Feel My Offer Was Wrong Before Anyone Even Saw It (5 Tiny Fixes That Made It Work)
If you're struggling to make money. Read this before quitting
You didn’t start a Substack to become a salesperson.
You started because writing felt like a lifeline. A way out of invisibility. A chance to finally build something that mattered. Something that might change your life. Then you add a product, switch on paid subs, make an “offer”…
…but it just sits there.
A few people buy. Most skim past without slowing down. And suddenly the thought you try not to voice creeps in: What if this is another thing I try… and another thing that goes nowhere? What if I’m just not built for this?
I’ve been there.
When I started building the first version of The Irresistible Substack Agent, I kept circling this low-level dread. That tight, sour twist in your chest that mutters, “Something here isn’t landing.”
I hadn’t even launched it properly. But the friction was already there. And eventually it hit me:
The offer wasn’t broken. The framing was.
I’m going to walk you through the 5 changes that finally made things click. And show you how to build something your readers feel compelled to buy instead of politely ignoring.
If you want your work to finally start paying off, take these 5 fixes and avoid the mistakes that kept me stuck.
Fix 1: Start with the pain they’re desperate to escape, not the feature you’re proud of
The first version of my Agent sounded neat on paper:
“I’ll build you a personalised AI Agent with my best prompts to help you write for Substack.”
Accurate? Yes.
Kinda cool? Also yes.
Does anyone read that and think, “This solves the thing that keeps me awake at 1:17am”?
Not really. No one wakes up thinking:
I must get personalised prompts.
They wake up thinking:
Why do my Notes fall flat?
Why is my newsletter still invisible?
Why am I putting in hours for such tiny growth?
That is the pain they want relief from. So I rewired the offer around that.
“You’re posting every week and still feel invisible. This Agent fixes the 3 biggest problems holding you back”
Now the Agent isn’t a gadget. It’s a way out of a situation they’re tired of tolerating.
Your move:
Write this sentence for your own offer:
“People don’t actually want [FEATURE]. They want relief from [SPECIFIC PAIN].”
Then rebuild the first two lines of your offer page around that pain and relief.
Fix 2: Promise less (so they believe more)
My next mistake?
Trying to promise too much, too vaguely.
“This will transform your writing and explode your audience.”
It sounds impressive… until you realise every internet marketer has said the same thing this week. Readers don’t trust sweeping promises. They trust small, specific wins they can imagine themselves achieving.
So I shifted.
Use your Agent to:
Generate 20 irresistible headlines in 2 minutes (that actually work)
Turn one half-based idea into a full post outline (that resonates with readers)
Draft 5 attention grabbing Notes in the style that’s brought me 5,000+ new subs
Same product. Radically different believability.
Your move:
Answer this:
“What are 3 specific wins my reader can get in the next 7 days if they buy this?”
Make those the headline bullets of your offer.
Fix 3: Make it feel like progress, not volume
For a long time, I thought a paid offer needed one thing:
More.
More posts.
More lessons.
More extras.
I thought piling on more stuff made the offer better. My customer saw it for what it was: more work. They don’t want homework. They want relief. They want the thing that shifts their week, not the thing that swells their to-do list.
So when I rebuilt the Substack Agent, I dropped the idea of “more prompts, more templates, more extras.” And I replaced it with a single promise:
“This helps you take the next step — fast.”
And I stripped it down to the 5 core prompts I use every day to grow on Substack. This makes it easy and simple for people to use. That shift didn’t just make the Agent feel more valuable. It made it feel essential.
Because nobody is overwhelmed by a lack of information. They’re overwhelmed by a lack of direction.
Your move:
Look at your paid offer and ask:
“Am I giving people more content… or am I giving them a clear next step?”
If everything inside your paid offer feels like an extended version of your free content, tighten it. Strip out the volume. Dial up the movement.
People don’t want more from you. They want help getting where they’re trying to go.
Fix 4: Make waiting feel expensive
Even when people are keen to buy, they still think:
“I’ll come back to this later.”
So you’ve got to build urgency that actually bites. Every masterclass I’ve ever run confirms it: the final email — “24 hours left, or you miss it” — is always the one that fills the seats.
The real unlock is asking:
“What does it cost them to wait another 6 months?”
For my Agent, the answer was brutal:
6 more months of posting into silence
6 more months of Notes that disappear
6 more months of watching others pull ahead
So instead of:
“Hey, want some prompts?”
I could say:
“Every month you stay in guess mode, you lose potential superfans who’ll never find you.”
That’s not hype. That’s reality.
Your move:
Answer these three:
How can I inspire people to buy today and not delay?
What bottleneck does my reader escape by acting now?
What happens if they change nothing?
Use this language in your CTA.
Fix 5: Price it like it works
There’s a trend right now that makes my teeth itch:
Creators giving away AI prompts for a dollar. Or charging $9/month for a folder of “500 ChatGPT prompts.” Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Those prompts don’t work. You know it. I know it.
Anyone who has tried writing with generic AI sludge knows it.
I tried them too. They gave me surface-level output that sounded like everyone else. Nothing I’d publish. Nothing with edge, voice, or visibility. And yet… this is what most people are selling.
So when I started building the Substack Agent. I realised I needed to personalise each one, build it around someone’s actual niche, goals, and audience, and bake all my frameworks inside. I had a choice: Price it like the generic stuff. Or price it like something that actually transforms the way someone writes.
One would be “safe.” The other felt like a risk.
Here’s what pushed me over the line: You cannot get results from generic prompts. Not if you care about voice, trust, or growth. Not if you want to stand out instead of sounding like a warmed-over LinkedIn post.
Prompts only work when they are personalised to:
your voice
your reader
the emotional triggers your audience responds to
Anything else is fast food: quick, cheap, unsatisfying.
So I priced the Agent based on what it actually is: Not a list of prompts. Not “extra content.” But a premium, tailored tool designed to help someone break out of invisibility. $49 to set it up personalised for you. Then $39/month for ongoing access.
It’s a genuinely powerful investment. Mostly because of the hours you stop wasting and the wins you start getting.
The moment I did that, something shifted. People took it seriously. They respected it.
Because when you price something like it works, people finally treat it like it does.
Your move:
Ask yourself:
“If I stop competing with cheap, bland, generic versions of my offer… and start pricing for the real transformation… what does my positioning need to sound like?”
Then write from that place. Price isn’t a number. It’s a message. Make sure yours says the right thing.
Most people don’t fail because their ideas are bad. They fail because their offer never makes anyone think, “That’s exactly what I need.”
Get these five pieces right, and that moment finally happens.
If you feel like your posts deserve more attention than they’re getting. And you want a personalised Substack Writing Agent. Find out more here.
Derek
