Idea
Run a channel a business ignores, take a rev-share cut
Find businesses succeeding on one ad channel that ignore another (e.g. Google advertisers not on Facebook/TikTok). Offer to build the funnel and run the ads at zero cost for a percentage of sales, since they lack the team and expertise to expand on their own.
“And you just say, look, I'm going to do everything for you. Don't pay me a cent. I'm going to build the funnel. I'm going to run the ads. I'm going to show you that this works. And I just want a percentage of the sales, right, from this traffic channel. There's no, there's no risk and it's only going to result in something if it's actually proven.”
Steal thisPitch a working advertiser the channel they're skipping, build it free, and charge only a 10% override on the new revenue.
Framework
The Godfather Offer: make a pitch they can't refuse
Sabri Suby names his core sales concept the Godfather Offer: structure a deal so compelling and risk-free that the prospect would be a fool to say no. Every company he worked at that was crushing it had one extremely strong offer as the throughline.
“Yeah, I call it the Godfather Offer. Offer, right? So it's like making, making like, you know, your prospects an offer that they simply can't refuse. And when I think back now to like all of the roles that I had that, you know, the companies were crushing it, they were growing very, very quickly, they were all had a very, very strong offer. Like that was the one thing that was the throughput to all of that.”
Steal thisEngineer one risk-free, no-brainer offer that carries the whole business instead of relying on a convincing argument.
Idea
Give away a free funnel, monetize via SaaS affiliate links
Build a converting funnel for one niche (e.g. chiropractors), then hand it free to businesses on the condition they sign up for the underlying SaaS through your affiliate link. HubSpot pays 30% recurring; tools like Hiros pay $1,000 to $15,000 per customer.
“All that I ask is that you sign up through this commission, through this affiliate link in order to sign up and get this funnel through HubSpot for free, right? Of course I have to pay there and then I get my kickback”
Steal thisBuild a turnkey funnel for one niche, give it away, and collect the SaaS affiliate commission on every signup.
Idea
Sell after-hours live chat as a commission-only service
Most of the 400M small businesses with Google Business listings don't offer live chat and lose after-hours inquiries. Offer to field and nurture those leads for free, taking a 20% commission, starting solo then outsourcing to the Philippines.
“I would offer live chat as a service. Um, and if it was just me and I was trying to start a side hustle, you know what I mean? I could do it after hours, whereas where a lot of people don't have the manpower to offer support after hours or to be able to field inquiries. And again, it would be free.”
Steal thisOffer free after-hours live chat to local businesses with traffic, take 20% of the sales you close.
Framework
Pick skills by their half-life so they compound
Suby evaluates a side hustle not just by income but by the half-life of the skills it builds. A pure Facebook-ads skill may decay in 36 months, while copywriting, consumer psychology and storytelling compound and transfer to any future business.
“what are the skills that I'm going to need to possess in order to make this business get to $10,000 per month? And what are the half-life of those skills, right? Am I going to be learning just Facebook ads that what I know right now with Facebook ads is going to be infinitely different in the next 3 years. And so the half-life of those skills is probably 36 months, and then I've lost those skills, and then they don't compound for me.”
Steal thisChoose hustles that pay you to acquire timeless, compounding skills, not ones that decay in a few years.
Idea
Faceless TikTok Shop affiliate videos with AI voice
Find best-selling TikTok Shop products on Kalodata or FastMOSS, reverse-engineer the top-performing scripts, then produce faceless videos with an ElevenLabs voiceover, Midjourney images, and CapCut. Suby cites kids who left Chipotle now making $50K/month posting one video a day.
“There are kids out there that used to work in Chipotle that are earning $50,000 a month doing this. And it's not by doing 1,000 of them. Right. It's about doing one a day.”
Steal thisReverse-engineer a top TikTok Shop script, voice it with ElevenLabs, and ship one faceless affiliate video a day.
Number
Shilajit brand did ~$9M in 90 days on TikTok Shop
Sabri tracked a brand called Better Alt Himalayan Shilajit Resin on Kalodata selling roughly 1,000 units a day, totaling 91,000 units and just under $9 million in 90 days through TikTok Shop alone.
$9M
TikTok Shop revenue over 90 days · USD/90 days
“I saw that they were selling 91,000 units, right, over like a 90-day period. It was like 1,000 units a day of this shilajit resin. And I was like, that is insane. And then I went further down the rabbit hole and these guys had done just shy of $9 million in shilajit resin in 90 days. In 90 days through TikTok Shop.”
Take
Kill the little bitch and tax it with more reps
Suby personifies the inner voice that talks you out of hard things as 'the little bitch,' the best salesperson alive because it knows all your weaknesses. He doesn't just ignore it; he penalizes it, finishing a workout he wanted to skip with 15 minutes of hill sprints so it learns not to speak up.
“And I have like an interesting relationship with that little voice that lives in my head, because if it rears its ugly head and tries to say that stuff to me, then I just put it through pain. So it's like, you need to skip the gym, like you got a little bit of a tweak in your muscle, like don't go. It's like, just for recommending that, like, we're gonna finish the workout with 15 minutes of hill sprints.”
Tactic
Never make a promise to yourself you won't keep
Suby refuses to tell himself he'll do something he knows he won't, because breaking promises to yourself teaches you that your word is worthless. If he knows he won't make the gym, he says so upfront rather than lying and then failing.
“Like for me, it's just like binary. It's like either I know that I'm not going to do something, then I'm just not going to say to myself that I'm going to do it because I don't want to teach myself that I make promises to myself that I don't keep. Like, that's a really bad thing.”
Steal thisOnly commit to yourself to things you'll actually do, so you never train yourself to break your own word.
Story
The funniest ad he ever made tripled sales
Instead of optimizing purely for conversion, Suby once built an ad around the question 'what would be the funniest ad?' It featured him dressed as a priest holding a funeral for the money murdered in people's ad campaigns, with Lord Zucks and Lord Elon in the background. That single campaign tripled sales.
“One of them was like having me dressed as a priest and we had Lord Zucks and Lord Elon in the background and we were having a funeral in a church for the money that is being murdered in most people's ads campaign. Right. And that was a whole lot of fun making that ad. And everything that we did in that, in that whole script was a lot of fun. It was funny. And that one campaign tripled our sales.”
Steal thisBuild the ad you'd find funniest first, then check conversion, fun and attention often print money.
Framework
Improve consumption before you improve the ask
Most marketers obsess over the offer and persuasive copy, but Suby argues the biggest conversion gains come from improving consumption first, the hook and lead that get people to actually reach your pitch. No offer matters if no one consumes the content.
“And I think that the number one thing, if you want to improve the conversion rate of anything on any vehicle, The thing that you need to focus on is improving the consumption first. And so, you know, I think that you want to place a disproportionate amount of your effort on first getting that consumption. And the way that you do that is by understanding the hook and understanding the lead”
Steal thisSpend disproportionate effort on the hook and lead, fixing consumption beats polishing the offer.
Framework
Two-step funnel: free value first, then the offer
Rather than asking prospects to 'get a quote,' lead with a free report or piece of content that gets people to raise their hand on a low-stakes ask, then route them to a page that makes the Godfather offer. Suby says this nets 10x the volume of people into your sales process.
“So instead of saying, get in contact with our sales team or get a quote. You say, here's a free piece of information. They download that. Then you arrive them on a page that makes them a Godfather offer to get on the telephone. And you just get 10 times the volume of people that will come into communication with what it is that you do if you do that.”
Steal thisReplace 'get a quote' with a free report, then make the offer on the next page to 10x your funnel volume.
Number
Free-plus-shipping book funnel moved 1M copies
Suby's 'Sell Like Crazy' book is offered free plus shipping through a funnel and also sold on Amazon, totaling a million copies, a customer-acquisition engine rather than a profit center since books make poor moneymakers.
$1M
Books sold via free-plus-shipping funnel and Amazon · copies
“Yeah, we've sold a million copies now.”