Hey there,
During this past Wednesday’s offers masterclass, a founder asked about the difference between a lead magnet and a wedge offer. She assumed they’re the same thing - different names for the same bite-sized piece of “free value.”
But they’re not. One’s bait, the other’s a bridge.
By the end of today’s email, you’ll not only understand the difference, you’ll stop making freebies that collect dust and start building offers that change how your clients see you.
The same massive aha moment my client experienced this week…
She and I have spent the last few sessions working on her wedge - a one-hour webinar.
Should be simple, right? The kind of thing she builds on a Friday afternoon and runs next Thursday.
Sure, if our success metric was to have a 30% show-up rate with half being the wrong ICP. Those who do show, feign interest, stop paying attention after 4 minutes, and never convert.
Why bother creating bottom-feeder shit like this?
See, this founder is a legitimate expert at the product consulting work she’s done the past two decades. And she’s one of those people who’s delivered more workshops, webinars, and keynotes than she can count. Her slide decks have slide decks.
And so about halfway through the process, she paused and said, “I’ve created so many of these things over my career that never really worked as I hoped. I had no idea this is what it takes to build it right.”
And she’s right… most people don’t. Because they think what we’re building is a lead magnet.
But it’s not. It’s a wedge offer.
Wedge Offer vs Lead Magnet
A lead magnet is something you throw together in an afternoon or over a long weekend.
It’s your last three blog posts glued together into a gated eBook.
It’s a DIY “template” of an exercise you run with clients.
It’s the classic cheat sheet or checklist or 5-minute guide to [insert thing] that creator culture keeps convincing you to churn out because value = downloads.
The goal of a lead magnet isn’t transformation. It’s transaction.
It’s a social bribe: “Give me your email, I’ll give you this freebie that you’ll never actually use.”
And you can always feel that trade happening. Every pixel of the lead magnet reminds you there’s a missing piece. It’s the business equivalent of a toy steering wheel in a toddler’s car seat - it’s there in spirit, but really just teases you to want the real thing.
Now, a wedge offer is built differently.
A wedge offer doesn’t play to people’s curiosity, it plays to their momentum.
It meets them at a smaller, simpler problem, right before the larger one your signature offer solves. It gives them an early win that builds belief in both you and themselves.
And therein lies the gap between a lead magnet and a wedge. The first is bait, the second is a bridge.
Lead Magnet vs. Wedge Offer: One strips value, the other builds momentum.
And here’s the part where everyone gets stuck…
Wedge offers live at the seemingly impossible intersection of being fast to experience, simple to understand, affordable to consume, and valuable enough to shift perspective.
Pull off all four and you have something that can change a client’s posture toward your work forever.
That’s the work my client and I were doing to build her webinar.
Not a “top-of-funnel tripwire,” a wedge. Something that reframes her audience’s understanding of the problem so that by the time she introduces her main offer, they’ve sold themselves on wanting to continue.
When people experience a real wedge offer, they don’t say, “Thanks”, and then never open it.
They say, “This really shifted how I see things.”
That’s your litmus test.
Your takeaways
Lead magnets exist to attract. Wedge offers exist to activate (and convert).
You can feel the missing value in a lead magnet. You can feel the momentum in a wedge.
Building a wedge offer takes more time than you think (and that’s the point).
If you’re ready to stop pushing ignorables into the market and start building wedges that actually move the needle - for your business and your clients’ - this is the kind of work I do 1:1 with clients every day.
I’ll help you discover the real gold within your work - beyond your first and obvious ideas.
Want that kind of help with your wedge?
Request your free invite to the next offers masterclass 👇
🤘🏼 See ya next Sunday,
Jay Melone
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