Should a course hold back key steps to protect consulting demand?

Not according to McKenzie's experience. His email marketing course held nothing back and went through every step he took with clients, yet he called the cannibalization worry "the exact opposite of the truth." Clients who hire him are paying for a check of their specific factors, not for secret steps.

How do you know a service has turned into a method?

The signal is repetition: the same kind of request keeps arriving and you have delivered the same kind of engagement enough times to teach it. McKenzie had done his email marketing engagement for about five companies and was turning many more away before he recorded it as a course.

Why would a client pay for advice that is the same as what everyone gets?

Because someone has looked at all of their factors first. When a decision could be worth six or seven figures, that review lowers the risk of being the rare case where the standard advice is wrong. The advice may be identical; the confirmation that it fits is what they buy.

Is the course a lesser version meant for weaker clients?

It is a complete method suited to a different level of stakes. A client with less riding on the decision may be well served by the course alone. The paid judgment matters most where a wrong call is expensive enough to justify an expert checking the fit.

When the Same Request Keeps Arriving: Splitting Method from Judgment

When the same kind of engagement keeps arriving, it splits in two. The part you have delivered many times becomes a method, and a method can be recorded and sold to anyone. The part that stays scarce is judgment: deciding whether that method fits one particular client, including the rare client where it does not.

Why requests start to repeat

Evidence brings requests for the kind of work the evidence shows. As public work and good engagements pile up, the incoming requests start to look alike. That repetition is a sign the business is working. It also creates a new decision: keep selling the whole engagement as scarce personal work, or separate out what has become teachable.

The email marketing example

Patrick McKenzie reached this point with email marketing. He had delivered the same kind of engagement to about five software companies and turned down many more because he had no time left. He saw two choices: keep doing it for about five new clients a year, or put it into a video course that taught companies to run the campaigns themselves. He made the course and sold it for $250 at launch, then $500, a fraction of what the engagement cost.

Why the course did not cannibalize the consulting

On the podcast where he described this, his co-host Keith Perhac raised the obvious objection: wasn't he cannibalizing his own consulting? McKenzie called that "the exact opposite of the truth." Perhac agreed, and noted that the course held nothing back. It went through every step McKenzie took with clients.

McKenzie's explanation is what makes the split visible. Clients want advice specific to their business, even when it is the same advice he gives everyone, because someone has looked at all their factors first. When a decision might be worth six or seven figures to the company, that check lowers the risk. They want to know they are not the rare case where the standard advice is wrong.

Who needs which half

The reason to pay for judgment is strongest where a wrong call is expensive. A client with less at stake may be well served by the course alone. So the two offers do not compete for the same buyer in the same way: the method reaches everyone who can use it, and the judgment goes to the cases where being the exception would be costly.

The cost of keeping the whole engagement scarce

Had McKenzie kept the entire engagement scarce, he would have been rationing the method along with the judgment. He would not have chosen scarcity for its own sake, but he would have given up the same reach that artificial limits on reproducible work give up, capped at roughly five companies a year.

Ask the question again when requests repeat

The audit question for any offer is: does the next customer take more of me? The answer is not fixed. Once you have done the same work enough times to teach it, part of what used to require you no longer does. Re-ask the question whenever requests start to look alike, move the method into something that can spread, and keep your attention for judging fit.