Selling the guide

Module 6 §3 gave you three requirements: have actually used it, claim only what you can evidence, disclose it. This section takes the first one and makes it concrete. §3 and §4 do the same for the other two.

1"Have actually used it" — what that actually means

It's not a rule anyone can enforce, and it isn't a moral point either. It's the same argument Module 5.5 made about portfolios: a recommendation with nothing behind it is the weakest thing you can send.

Here's the practical version. Someone who is thinking about buying this has exactly one question, and it is not is this a good guide. It is:

Did this work for someone like me?

You can only answer that if you're the someone. Which means the useful floor isn't finished the modules — it's:

• You have a portfolio page you'd show a stranger. (Module 5.5)
• You've sent real pitches and logged them. (Module 0A kit)
• You've filled in at least one BV-01 for a real brand. (Module 3)
• Ideally, you've delivered one job end to end — the thirteen steps in Module 6 §1, once, all the way through.

That last one is not a gate we can check. It is the difference between having something to say and having something to claim, and §3 is about which of those two you're allowed to do.

2Where selling actually happens

Not by broadcasting. The version of this that fails is posting a link with a caption about how you found this amazing guide. Everyone recognises the shape of that post, including the people who'd otherwise have bought.

The version that works is narrower and duller: you answer the question you were already being asked.

If you're doing path 1 properly — making content, showing work, posting the occasional thing about the process — then some number of people will ask you how you're doing it. That's the moment. Not because it's a clever funnel, but because it's the only moment where the recommendation is genuinely responsive rather than promotional.

Three places that question tends to arrive:

• Direct replies and DMs, from people who saw your work.
• A "what I use" section on the portfolio page you already built.
• Process posts — the ones where you show how a thing was made rather than the thing. These generate the question by themselves.

3Sell it the way you'd pitch a brand

You already know how to do this. It's the same shape as the outreach script in Module 0A, with the roles swapped:

The third row is the one people skip, and it's the most persuasive one. Saying "this is for someone starting from zero who wants a portfolio and a way to price work — if you've already got twenty clients you'll find it basic" does more for your credibility than any amount of enthusiasm, and it costs you the sales that were going to end in a refund anyway.

4What not to do, briefly

Don't buy ads on our name or the product name. It's the standard restriction in affiliate agreements and the actual one you sign will say what's permitted; assume bidding on the brand's own terms is out.

Don't build a review site whose review is an advertisement. A "review" of the thing you're paid to sell is only worth writing if it contains at least one thing the product doesn't do well. If you can't name one, you haven't used it enough — back to the top of this section.

Don't post the same recommendation everywhere at once. Beyond the obvious problem that it reads as spam, every platform has its own disclosure and promotion rules, and §4 is about why "I posted it and hoped" is a bad plan.

Don't recruit anyone. Not a style note — a hard structural rule, and §2 is about why.

5The honest ceiling

Module 6 §3 said this is the smallest of the three paths for most people, and nothing here contradicts that.

This works as a by-product of doing path 1 well. It does not work as a substitute for it, and the reader who tries to run it as a standalone business is a reader who has to manufacture the question rather than answer it — which is where every claim in §3's not allowed column starts to look tempting.