This post is spot on, IMO. I bought Brennan's book, and chose the middle tier, because I knew that while I could certainly apply the concepts from just the book to my site and write the copy myself, I knew that the likelihood of that happening in the next year would be somewhere around 30%. It's easily worth an extra $80 for me to have pre-written copy I can tweak to my situation. Not just because it will be faster, but because it will get done sooner. There's an opportunity cost to not improving my consulting website for X days, and it's WAY more than $80.
Exactly. There's an opportunity cost with everything we do. Personally, I'm a "grind it out" kind of guy. Yesterday I stayed at the office, late into the night, trying to solve a problem myself. I got home (at like 8pm) and my wife said: "Why didn't you just ask your co-worker for help?" The next morning, I went to the expert (my co-worker) and he solved my problem in 5 minutes.
There are times when paying an expert, or buying the "kit", is just worth it. I could have been home at 5pm, spending time with my wife and kids. Instead, I was at the office, banging my head up against the wall, not really getting anywhere.
Its important to note that just because the middle tier isn't bringing in much revenue does not necessarily mean its useless. For many products, the sole job of the middle tier is to make the top tier look more attractive.
Great point. It's also quite possible that without the middle tier, a lot of those buyers would have just bought the cheapest option, simply because they have an aversion to buying the Most Expensive Thing (for whatever reason). Assuming all the middle-tier buyers would have otherwise bought the cheapest option, that means an extra ~$3,000 in Brennan's case, just since launching.
