--- title: apple never discounts. neither does rhode. neither should YOU 🍎 --- here's the play that holds your margin ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­    ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­   | View in browser 8-9 figure brands · 90 seconds Emails of the week 🔍 Brand: Rhode  ·  Category: beauty  ·  Sends ~3x/week Every discount you run trains customers to wait for the next one. You know this. You run them anyway, because the month needs a number. Rhode found another way. Four sends, zero discounts, full price held. And nothing you cannot copy. Here is how, email by email. Email 1  ·  the technique sell 💄 Subject: Plump lip trick Preview: for bouncy, fuller-looking lips. The email sells two products by teaching a ritual. Glide the Peptide Lip Shape to contour, swipe the Peptide Lip Boost on top for the plumping effect. It reads like a tutorial, not an ad. The three five-star reviews are woven in as proof, and the ingredient rationale (Hyaluronic Acid, Fenugreek) gives the technique a reason to believe. The reader learns something, and the sale is the byproduct. what to steal Teaching a two-product routine sells the pair without a bundle discount. The technique is the offer. what to test Pull your two most-paired SKUs and write the ritual that connects them. Lead with the how-to, let the products follow. Email 2  ·  the education series 📖 Subject: rhode report: Glazing Milk Preview: flood your skin with moisture. This one launches a recurring format: the rhode report, where they break down a skincare trend, explain the science, and show the routine. The trend, the science, the routine. The product is the answer at the end, but the email would be worth reading even if you never bought it. A recurring educational series turns the newsletter itself into a reason to stay subscribed. what to steal A named, recurring series (the trend / the science / the routine) gives people a reason to open before they know what is inside. what to avoid Do not launch a named series you cannot sustain. An abandoned "Issue 1" reads worse than never starting, and teaching that never ties back to a product just trains people to consume. Email 3  ·  the objection answer ❓ Subject: ask rhode: Spotwear Preview: when should i use a hydrocolloid patch? Another named format, ask rhode, built around a single customer question: when should I actually use this? It answers the exact hesitation that keeps someone from buying a product they do not fully understand. No urgency, no code. Just the one piece of information standing between curiosity and purchase. Answering the objection is the whole email, and the sale takes care of itself. what to steal An "ask [brand]" format lets you answer purchase-blocking questions in the open, as content, so no discount is needed to close the gap. what to avoid Do not answer trivia. If the question is not the one actually blocking the sale, you have made content that feels educational and moves nobody closer to buying. Email 4  ·  the no-discount launch 🚀 Subject: Get to know Highlight Milk × Pocket Bronze Preview: summer on the skin. Here is the real tell. A two-product launch, and the offer is not a discount. It is a waitlist plus consumer-study proof (96%, 94%, 91% on one, 100%, 100%, 97% on the other) and a date to remember. They manufacture desire with scarcity and evidence, then let the launch land at full price. A discount on a launch would train the audience to wait for the next one. Rhode refuses to start that habit. what to steal Launch on a waitlist and a date, not a discount. Anticipation and proof do the work a promo would, without eroding price. what to avoid Do not fake the demand. A waitlist nobody joined and stats that sound invented is just a slower launch with weaker urgency. This only works when the proof is real. Now the easy objection. “Sure. Rhode can afford to never discount. They’re a celebrity brand with all the demand in the world. Must be nice.” But the no-discount play was never a celebrity privilege. It is a decision. Plenty of brands with no famous founder make the same call and grow faster for it. Here is one. Watch this 📺 $1.5M to $30M in a few years. Bootstrapped. Barely a discount in sight. Damian and Roland built Feminera with no investors and no famous founder. Profitable from day one, named Germany’s number-one e-commerce growth champion by the Financial Times. Josh sat down with them on how they scaled the exact way Rhode does: teach, build the brand, and refuse to train customers to wait for a sale. Four moments worth the click: “When you train your customers, it is like a kid you hand your phone to every day. They start expecting it.” ▶ 37:14 “Look at Apple. I never expect a discount from Apple, because they train you. We don’t have discounts. That’s it.” ▶ 37:49 “You give the customer free content and value they learn from. In psychology, when you give someone a lot, they give you something back.” ▶ 40:14 “Content first. That is the best way for long retention. Not for the quick and fast money.” ▶ 41:01 ▶ Watch the full conversation We read it so you don’t have to 📰 Your retention team is optimizing for this month. Not for LTV. Fast Company  ·  George Kapernaros  ·  3 min read The argument, in one line: teams build what gets rewarded, and chase what gets reported. SHOWS A NUMBER NOW Onboarding emails, quick wins, sitewide discounts. Easy to report. Gone next month. COMPOUNDS FOR YEARS Teaching, brand, protected price, fixing the structural leaks. Harder. Never urgent. Where LTV lives. Same tension Rhode and Feminera already resolved. The discount is the number-now move. The discipline is the compounding one. Gut check Can your team name the 3 to 5 inputs that actually drive your LTV? If not, this week’s to-do list already told you where their attention went. That gap is the whole reason a lifecycle audit exists. We find the flows quietly leaking, the discount habit eroding margin, and the retention levers nobody has built yet. Then we tell you which three move the number. Book a free lifecycle audit → Cheers, Josh P.S. Look at your last four campaigns. Count how many led with a discount. If it is most of them, you are not running a brand yet, you are running a sale, and your customers already know to wait for the next one. Josh Chin Chronos Agency  ·  LTV Profit Lab Reply to Josh → Chronos Agency, Sin Ming Lane #06-76, Midview City, Singapore City 573969, Singapore Unsubscribe Manage preferences | | --- |