Last weekend I ended up cooking a 3 course evening meal for 26 people!

It was a mammoth challenge – including putting together a complex Beef Wellington.

And it was almost a COMPLETE DISASTER…

I was using someone else’ s fancy Aga-type oven that refused to heat up properly.

The upshot was the Wellingtons didn’t cook and I had to call on one of my chef friends (thankfully he used to work at Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck restaurant!) for emergency advice.

I won’t go into details here, but we managed to avoid complete failure and everyone seemed to enjoy the meal.

The next day I couldn’t be bothered to cook anything, so suggested to the family that we get a takeaway.

YAY!

So I picked up my phone and opened the UberEats app.

Instantly, I could see menus for almost every takeaway and restaurant in the local area.

A couple of taps later, our food was ordered.

Within 30 minutes a delivery driver was on his way, with a map to show me where his car was.

There was no need to enter any payment details, or an address and phone number, as everything was already on the system.

I could even add a tip for the driver on the app without rooting around in a drawer for some cash.

This is what’s known as a ‘frictionless’ buying process.

Anything that could slow me down, add hassle to the process, or stop me ordering, has been removed.

It’s been the Holy Grails of digital selling since the dawn of the internet. The aim has always been to remove as many barriers as possible from the sales process.

This is why an online sales promotion is usually just one long page, rather than a series of pages.

Because the more clicks you ask the viewer to make, the more potential customers you lose along the way.

The page might take too long to load…

They might not realise they needed to click to read more…

The few seconds it takes to make the effort might give them pause for thought, and a chance to change their mind.

So the marketing wisdom goes that…

More friction means fewer sales.

But this isn’t always true.

In fact, a powerful new trend is turning this idea on its head.

Rejecting the One-Click Option

If you recall my email the other week, I wrote about the benefits of ‘Friction Maxxing’ for your productivity and motivation.

This is a technique where you deliberately avoid the instant, convenient ‘one click’ route that’s offered by your smartphone or computer.

Instead, you let yourself go through a meaningful and rewarding process that takes a bit more time and effort.

For example, printing out digital reports… writing down notes… contacting course creators with questions… planning on physical calendars and whiteboards.

Well, for budding home entrepreneurs like yourself, there’s a way to apply this to creating and selling digital products too.

Because there’s a huge benefit to ADDING friction back into the process of buying products and consuming content.

Which sounds a little odd at first…

After all, everything we’ve seen in the past few decades of the internet has tried to do the opposite.

• If you need information, you can click on google, start to type and the search engine will probably complete your request before you’ve even written it!
• If you want some written content, AI can draft it in seconds from a hastily written prompt.
• If you want to set up a publishing business, a platform like System.io can give you a website, email newsletter and content pages without you going anywhere else.

This is why social media companies have been at pains to add clickable links to products inside their networks.

If you see something you like on Instagram or Tiktok, they want you to be able to buy right there and then, without leaving those apps.

However, as with all dominant trends, there is always a counter-trend.

People are beginning to push back against all this endless convenience.

Buying things on impulse, with zero time or effort..

Getting everything done for them in an instant without any sense of a process…

Yes, it can be helpful at times, but we don’t value things that cost us nothing, or which we get at a click of the finger.

Take my New Year’s Day experience, for example…

It might have been more rewarding if Heloise and I had put on our coats and walked through the lamplit streets of London to the local chip shop, Chinese takeaway or Turkish kebab house.

Yes, it would have been more hassle…

But it would have built up a wonderful sense of anticipation and we’d have probably paid more attention to what we were eating – and enjoyed it more.

Or think about buying a new car.

There are now websites where you can shop for, and order, a new car on lease and have it delivered to your house.

That’s great.

But many people still prefer the old fashioned experience.

Seeing the car in a showroom… smelling the brand new interior…. feeling the shape of the unfamiliar steering wheel…. taking it for a test drive… listening to the sales pitch listing all the amazing benefits you can look forward to.

Same goes for book shops….

Amazon makes it so easy to buy books online through their ‘1-click’ system, which allows some customers to order without even going through the checkout.

Yet bookshops continue to thrive, even though it requires us to leave the house to visit them… take time to browse the shelves… then queue at the till….

There’s something special about the process, and the warm, fuzzy feeling about our purchases, that you can’t get from 1-click Amazon ordering.

And this is something you could replicate.

Putting the Time and Effort Back Into Buying

Friction-Maxxing means adding small amounts of time and effort to the process of buying or consuming online content.

This doesn’t mean making the experience awkward, frustrating or confusing.

Just add some meaningful steps where the customers have to DO something in order to access what you’re offering.

This way, you get them involved, give them some agency and a sense of co-ownership.

For example…

Rather than selling a product directly, you might do it in a series of stages that ‘qualifies’ the customer.

They might have to watch your webinar…

Then enter their email address…

Then download a free report…

Then click through that link to access a sales page….

And THEN they can finally make the purchase.

This is known as a ‘sales funnel’ – a classic example of friction maxxing in action.

Or let’s imagine that you’ve created a great sales page for a self-help eBook.

But rather than letting everyone in the world see this promotion, and instantly click to order…

You might ask potential customers to enter their email address first in order to get a private invitation to access it.

This could include making them read a few emails with the background details.

You might even ask them to set a goal, or write a mission statement, so that they’re in the right mindset to get something out of your product.

This is another example of friction maxxing.

Sure, you might lose some buyers along the way, but the customers you DO get will be more committed, less likely to refund, and more likely to use your product (and then buy another one from you!)

Or let’s say that you’re hosting a free webinar.

You might ask people to book their place in advance in order to attend, with a requirement to send you – in advance -one question, or big problem they’re looking to solve.

The same technique could be used for a digital course.

Rather than having all the videos and downloads available instantly on the course website…

Your attendee might have to watch each one in turn and complete a checklist before they get access to the next video.

These tiny steps add friction, but you’re making sure that your customer is committing to the course, thereby increasing its perceived value.

It’s a bit like the ‘IKEA effect’, which I wrote about last summer.

A psychological study showed that people were willing to pay 63% more for IKEA furniture they’d built themselves than for identical pre-built items.

So when you add friction, you can actually charge MORE!

There’s one more important benefit…

No More Tyre Kickers!

Because the internet is flooded with free, instantly available content, lots of people download anything and everything they come across.

They’ll sign up for your newsletter…. download your report… watch your video…. or take up your 30 day risk-free trial.

But they’re just tyre-kicking.

Maybe they’re a little interested… possibly curious… or perhaps they just like free stuff.

It’s so quick and easy for them, it’s no skin off their nose.

They probably won’t even read the stuff you send them.

In many cases, they won’t even remember they signed up, so they’ll angrily complain about your unsolicited email.

Believe me, this happens a LOT.

So in my experience, adding a little friction is a great way to filter out the time-wasters.

Far better to have a small list of eager customers who might buy from you than a big list of people who don’t even recall why they clicked ‘subscribe’ in the first place.