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What you’ll learn in this episode:
Your offer is the most important part of your business. Without it, your business can’t function.
That is why avoiding the common mistakes that people make with their offers is going to instantly improve your business and make you more money.
Today, I will be telling you the 5 biggest mistakes that I see people making with their offers, and the things that you can do to fix them if you find them in your offers.
Here’s a glance at this episode:
- You need a clear offer. Everyone isn’t a person.
- Your target market has a problem. Are you solving it?
- Plant a stake in the ground about your results.
- Being vanilla and blending in isn’t doing your offer any favors.
- Tell clients what to do and how to get your solution to their problem.
Mentioned in this episode:
Work/Connect with me:
Consults That Convert FREE Training
[00:56] Jessica: Hello, everyone, and welcome back to this week’s episode of the practical mindset podcast. I’m Jess Miller and I’m so excited to have you here this week to talk to you about something very important in relation to your offer. If you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, you’ve heard me talk about offers and how they are the most important piece of your business if you want to make consistent money. If you’re new to the podcast, welcome, and you will hear me talk a lot about offers.
[01:33] Today, I wanted to dial in on some things that I have been seeing come up most recently as I’ve been talking to some of my clients and others about their offer. Today, we’re going to talk about the five mistakes that I see people often make with their offer that is holding them back from either making money with their offer or having their offer really gain traction. These five things are things that I see sometimes very blatantly but often why they’re so sneaky is because, although I might see them and it might be showing up in the data that these mistakes are being made with an offer, what often happens is the person who is creating the offer or offering the offer is not seeing them. They’re sort of stealth under the surface and a lot of times we don’t recognize them and because this is happening very often in the industry, they don’t jump out at us because frankly a lot of people are making these mistakes.
[02:44] So, I want to jump right in today and talk about these because the offer, as I mentioned, is the cornerstone of your business. It is the thing that you are telling somebody that they need as the solution to their problem, and the more focused and targeted, and tight, and specific, that that offer can be, the more compelling it is, and the more compelling it is, the easier it sells. So, let’s jump right into these five mistakes that I see people make with their offer.
[03:20] Number one is that the person that you’re targeting in your offer is not clear. One of the biggest things that people struggle with especially when they start their business is this idea that they feel like their offer is made for everyone. They have a really hard time niching down or focusing in their offer to focus on a specific person with a specific problem, and when we go out into the market and we start targeting everyone, or all women, or all men, we are not being clear, and I know that that seems counter-intuitive because in your brain you’re like “it’s everyone, so how is it not clear who it is?” In reality, everyone is not a person. All women is not a person, and the way that I think about this is if I was sitting down to coffee with someone, pretend it was my best friend, and I wanted to tell her about my offer, and what it was that I was putting out into the world and I said that I wanted to offer this to all women, she would not be able to sit there across the table from me and have a person come to her mind. She would not be able to have my specific target client come to her mind. Now, if I said I am looking for a 5 foot two brunette, Italian American woman from New York who wants to grow her business and she wants to make more money with what she’s doing, the person sitting across the table for me can start to go through their mental file of people and dial in to this person.
[05:17] It’s very funny how that works. “The redhead from New York? Nope. The person who’s not Italian? Nope.” You start going through this file in your brain till you find this specific target person. So, one of the mistakes that I see is people not being clear enough, not being specific in painting the picture of this target person. Now, it doesn’t have to be a brunette Italian American from New York. It could be someone you know who is a huge Netflix fan or that person who just loves to watch sitcoms all day long. When we say that, again, we can start to really discriminate who that is we’re dialing in on. So, when you create your offer and you’re thinking about your target client and the person you’re targeting with that offer, you want to try to dial that in as tightly as you can so that when you’re sitting across the table from somebody and you tell them who your target client is, they can come up with a specific person in their brain that would fit that description.
[06:30] If you think about this from a practical perspective, when you’re out there talking about your offer to other people or maybe you’re connecting with others and you’re asking them “do you know somebody who XYZ?” You want to be able to be a specific as possible with that so that the person sitting there can help you find that, and the way that they help you find it is when you can paint a very specific picture for them. So, number one is the person that you’re targeting is not clear. Everyone is not a person. Neither is all women or all men, so that’s the first thing. So, I want you to think about your target market in your offer and I want you to ask yourself “is this clear? Is it a specific person? If I was sitting across the table asking someone to find this person, would they be able to think through their mental file cabinet and find that person to connect you with?
[07:35] The second thing is you are not targeting and solving your target market’s specific problem. When you think about your target market and the problem that they have, you need to make sure that your offer is created not only to target that person but also to solve that person’s specific problem.
[08:04] For instance, if I just use myself and my business is an example, my target market is an ambitious female entrepreneur who wants to have it all. She wants freedom, she wants her time, and she wants a thriving business that makes consistent money without sacrificing everything important in her life to get it, including her sanity. When that person comes into my 10K accelerator program as a solution, what they are struggling with is building their business up to consistent revenue. So, my offer, my accelerator, targets helping them get to making consistent 10K per month. It’s very specific. It is tied to the problem of consistent revenue for my target market, who is very specific. They are ambitious women. They are women who have been successful before. They know that they are made for more. They want to have a business that is thriving. They want to be making consistent money on a certain level. So, my solution is very specific to their problem.
[09:10] I had a client once who was a photographer. She’s an incredibly, incredibly gifted photographer. The problem was, she was targeting just generally newborn. She was a newborn photographer, and I said to her “what does that mean? How do I know? Is it just for newborns? Is it six months old? Where are you falling within this framework, and why does somebody want to hire you?” The reason that people wanted to hire her was because they wanted to capture the moment and they wanted to work with someone with her skill level who could do it quickly and efficiently, and just capture the most incredible photos that really captured that memory in that moment. As soon as she started saying that and targeting those specific people and talking about those brand new babies, she started making money easily, consistently, I don’t want to say effortlessly, but almost effortlessly.
[10:17] So, the more that you can dial into what is that problem. The million dollar tip here is listen to what your potential clients are saying and use their words, and tailor your solution to that specific problem for that specific person. For anyone who is a parent or knows a parent, the parents that are parents of newborns, the needs of a newborn, wanting newborn pictures, is going to be different than a one-year-old. It’s going to be a different sell. So, being specific and targeted to that client and solving that client’s specific problem is crucial, because once they can connect those dots, and you’re helping them connect the dots in your copy, in your marketing, in the way that you’re talking about your offer and positioning your offer as that solution, the more easily they will be able to come in.
[11:16] The third thing is you’re not offering concrete and clear enough results. This is a big one, and I want to say that I personally remember being there as a coach, starting out and being so afraid of putting a stake in the ground for the results that I offered because I was so afraid of what would happen if someone didn’t get them, and the truth of the matter was, at that time, I didn’t believe in my own results. There was that crack in my resolve because underneath the surface, I was struggling with the belief in my offer so I didn’t want to offer a specific concrete results. The problem with vague terms and vague results, and frankly, vague copy in your offer is that it gives people a sense of uncertainty and mistrust. What they are picking up is the vague results, and what people are buying in your offer is your confidence and your certainty.
[12:21] When you’re not confident and you’re not certain and you’re not willing to put your stake in the ground around your results, guess what? Neither is anyone else, so it becomes very confusing and very wishy washy, and oftentimes, people will not buy. If they are confused, that results in $0.00. People will often leave. If it’s a web page, they’ll leave the web page. If they’re speaking with you, they won’t be sold. They won’t be converting. So, if you are someone who is not offering concrete and clear results, I want you to ask yourself why. What is going on there for you that you’re not offering those concrete and clear results, and how can you double down on your belief and collecting the data for your offer and your results, so that you can step into what is your brand promise with your offer, and offer specific and concrete, and clear results, so that people know what they’re buying?
[13:26] Now, I want to also say, I want this as a side note to this, you have to be really careful, and I know people’s minds are probably spinning out right now as they’re listening to this, so hear me out. You have to be careful to not confuse the results that your framework, solution, offer, provides and the result that your client gets. In many ways, we are not responsible for, and we cannot control, the results that other people get. News flash: we cannot control other people. There have been clients who have come into programs that I have offered in the past where they don’t get the results that maybe they wanted or that the program promises, and I had to really put myself through those moments, and thankfully, I was able to do that and I’m here now, to understand that there is a difference between the results that your clients get, that is very much their responsibility, and the results that your program offers or that your framework offers.
[14:37] I’ll give you an example. If I have a client that signs up for my accelerator, and let’s pretend they come to two out of the 24 sessions that they’re going to get in six months, and their results are not where they wanted them to be, I don’t make that mean anything about my coaching or my program. Now, would I try to support them through that and make sure that they understood that they need to come to the calls and be in service to their results and helping them get to where they want to go? 100%, but I cannot do the work for them, and I am not responsible for their results.
[15:16] So, when I was able to rectify this seemingly disparate thing in my brain, I was able to step into so much belief about my offer. I was able to look at my data, I was able to look at the framework, and I was able to, if someone didn’t get results that they wanted or that I wanted them to get, I was able to go in and look at my offers and the results and what I was offering from a place of curiosity and not from a place of judgment or responsibility, where I was absorbing all of that as my responsibility. So, it is really important that when you think about what are you going to put your stake in the ground about as it relates to your offer and offering concrete clear results, that you can do that in service of your offer, your framework, your process, and be able to say that with confidence and certainty, and also be able to hold the space for someone or some of your clients that may not get that result, or may get that result on their own timeline and not make it mean anything about you or your business.
[16:31] Making sure that, in your offer, there is concrete and clear results is really important, and not using vague and ambiguous terms like “living your best life,” “having the best business.” It needs to be more specific. What does that mean? What is living your best life? If that is embodying what your offer is about, what does that really mean for someone? Does it mean having three more hours in a week? Does it mean taking a vacation every year? Does it mean not hustling in their business? Get concrete and put a stake in the ground for the results that you offer.
[17:11] Number four is, your solution is not unique and different enough. You’re not standing out from the crowd. One of the best examples that I have of this is one of my clients who is an incredible copywriter. An incredible copywriter. She is really just amazing at capturing people’s voices. She had that no nonsense attitude. She’s really direct. She just cuts right to the heart of it, and one of the things that she’s able to do is to help people really create a bold statement and stand out. Well, when her brand and her copy started to be bold and it started to talk to the client who wanted to be bold, guess what happened. Her business took off, and I mean every piece of it. It resonated with a whole different vibe. She stood out on her social media. She stood out on her sales page. Even her photography changed. The pictures that she was taking, her brand photos changed. Everything changed when she was able to position herself as unique and different in a space where you could be very vanilla. Copy could be just “let me write your copy,” and it’s not very interesting. When she started to do that, when she started to really dial in with the people that wanted to be unique and different, her brand stood right out as unique and different, and the way that she captured the process by which she helped people find their unique voice, find their bold language, really step into the limelight and be edgier and different, the way that she did that solution to their problem and the way that she did it set her apart from everybody else, and now, if you want bold copy, if you want to stand out from the crowd, she is your person, and the coolest thing about this, circling back to thinking about your target customer and being clear about that, when she talks to someone, when she started talking about her pitch and her business and her solution in this unique and different way, and that specific client, guess what? Every single one of us could come up with that person to connect her with, and here’s th crazy thing, so many people that she spoke to found that they were that person inside, too.
[19:40] So, the more clear that you get and the more unique your solution is, and the more different you are, and I think this also dials into something people talk about a lot, which is really being authentic and showing up as who you are, like you are uniquely you and different just by default of being you, so when you show up in that authenticity, when you are brave enough to let your uniqueness and your differentness really shine, it happens on its own, so then you and your solution and your offer and all of those things are unique just because it’s you, so really dial down in how are you doing it different? How could you talk about it differently? How is your solution different? Why you? As I said, one of the things that I see is that people are not unique. They are very vanilla. They’re not taking a stand for anything. They’re not unique and different, and therefore, they’re getting lost in the crowd. They’re just blending into everything.
[20:44] Number five is, and this is probably one of the most important pieces and the easiest thing that you could do right now. You could take all of these things and you could go and look at your offers and tweak them, and implement all these things. By the way, I really want you to do that. I want you to write all these things down and after this, go out and really look at your offers and tweak them. I promise you, if you just do that, you will see yourself making money and you will see your people coming to you more with your offers just with that, but this one, number 5, is probably the easiest one that you could do immediately. If you do nothing else, do this one.
[21:22] You need to have a clear call to action and you need to have a call to action every single time. Your offer is nothing if you do not ask people to do something. Your offer is nothing if you don’t literally make the offer to help them by telling them what to do next and offering for them to do something to get the solution for their problem. So often I see that either there is no call to action, I see this so much on social media with promotional posts where they’re talking about their offers and then there’s no “go do this thing” so there’s no call to action. I also see this very often on sales pages where there’s one button, just one call to action out of the whole thing, and there’s not enough so there’s almost essentially no calls to action. I see it there a lot, too, so either there is no call to action or it’s not clear. So, it’s not “buy this. Click here to grab a seat,” or there’s no specific call to action, or there are too many calls to action. So, it’s not clear and it’s not succinct, and you’ve got people running all over the place.
[22:42] Every time you talk to someone about your offer or they are on your sales page or you do a social media post about it or you put a banner up hanging outside your door, or there’s a billboard on the side of the highway, there needs to be the “call this 1-800 number.” Even on billboards, you see it. “Go to this place. Call Johnny here.” There are so many calls to action. It’s very specific. You need to have a call to action every time. You need to tell people what to do. I know that this sounds so logical and we forget about it, but you need to have a call to action, and even if you told people one time, you put one promotional social media post out or you have your landing page and there’s one call to action, you need to tell them again. You need to have it strategically there over and over.
[23:42] Good marketing and making good offers means that you’re telling them again and again. If anyone listening to this has ever heard of the sales stats, you know it takes 8 to 12 times in order for somebody to actually buy something from you. Every time you’re touching them, you need to be calling them to action. You need to be making that offer. It needs to be in front of them so that they remember it and think about it and you’re top of mind. So, I want you to go back and look, do you have a call to action every time you talk about your offer? Are you asking people “do you know somebody who you could connect me with? Do you know someone who is struggling with this thing? Do you want to learn more about this?” All of those things are calls to action, so you want to make sure that you have a call to action.
[24:32] Number two is you want to make sure it’s clear. “Buy here, grab a seat here, click the link in the bio.” Be clear about what you want them to do. Make sure that it’s clear. The third one is, make sure you only have one. This is a huge pet peeve of mine. I can’t tell you how many sales pages I see that have clicks all over the place. “Go to my Instagram, click on my Facebook page, join my email list.” When you’re on a sales call, consult call, landing page, promotional post, you want people to do one thing – buy your offer, and that is the call to action you want to have. You want to get rid of everything else. You want to make it clear and you want to have it be one thing. So, get rid of all those other navigations if you’re on your landing page, on your sales page, and if you’re asking people in an email or in a post, ask them to do one thing, have that one thing be to buy your offer, learn more here, book a consult call, whatever it is, but you have one clear call to action. Always. Always ask for the sale.
[25:44] In a recap, the five mistakes I see people make with their offers most often, and the five things that you can go and look at your own offer with right now to make sure that if you’re doing any of these things that you go and you change it, because I promise you, almost immediately, you will see the difference.
[26:06] The first thing is you’re not being clear on who you’re targeting. Everyone, all women, all men – not a clear target. You want to have a clear person that you’re targeting. Number two is you are not targeting and solving your target market’s specific problem. Find out, in their words, what is their problem and make sure that your offer is offering a specific solution to that specific target market’s problem. Number three, you are not offering concrete and clear results. You want to put a stake in the ground for what it is that you offer and make it clear about what somebody is going to walk away with and what the results are going to be from being in your program, from using your process, from being in your framework, and this really requires you to double down on the belief in yourself, and frankly, the belief in your clients to get the results that they want. So, doubling down on that belief that your offer can offer those concrete and clear results and that you have belief that your clients coming in can get those results, that they can make it happen, that they can do the work, and that they believe enough in themselves to buy that offer and get those results. Living your best life, or any other vague and ambiguous terms, result in $0.00. Confusion results in $0.00. Number 4, your solution is not unique and different. You are not standing out from the crowd. Vanilla language, vanilla solutions, they just fade into the noise. You want to stand out. Why you? Why does somebody want to buy you? What is unique about your offer and your program? How can you show up as the uniquely amazing and different person that you are, which automatically makes your solution and your offer unique and different? How can you do that, and how can you really position your solution as being unique and different so that you can rise above the noise, you can stand out from the crowd, you can really be different, and you can call in that ideal customer so much more easily when you are standing out there and you are speaking specifically to them. Number 4 is you don’t have a clear call to action. You need a clear call to action every single time you have an offer, you want to always make that offer, you want to ask someone, you want to call them to that action, you want to tell them what they need to do, you want it to be clear, you want it to be visible, and you want it to be just one. You don’t want to have a bajillion calls to action. You just want to have one so that people know exactly what to do when they are on your landing page, in your promotional email, on your promotional post. They have one job and that is your one call to action, which is “buy your product.”
[29:15] Those are the five things I see most often, and if you’re listening to this and you’re thinking as you’re hearing these things “Oh, my gosh. That’s me. Yep, I do that, too.” Guess what? You are not alone. I see this all the time, not only with my paying clients, but with people that I talk to about offers all the time, and because of this, I am extremely passionate about helping people create incredible and magnetic offers, and to that end, we are hosting our magnetic offers week. The week of March 7th. So, I’m inviting you all who are listening to this, who want to take your offer to the next level, who want to truly make your offer magnetic, to come join us in the magnetic offers week. We are going to show you. We’re going to break down offers, and we’re going to show you exactly how to make them magnetic. You could have an offer and it could be awesome, but if it is not magnetic, if it is not calling in your people, it is just going to be meh instead of magnificent, and you need a magnificent and magnetic offer as the cornerstone of your business if you want to create a thriving business that makes money consistently.
[30:32] So, head on over to the magnetic offers page. We are dropping the link in the show notes. It is free. You need to apply to be part of this magnetic offers week because we want to make sure that we have the right people in there who are serious about making their offers magnetic and that we know that we can help you, and we are not only going to show you the anatomy of how do you make an offer magnetic, but we’re going to help you in four days take your offer from something that’s just meh to something magnificent. Also, you have a chance for us, me and my team, to choose your magnetic offer to actually dive deep with as an example to make it extraordinary during that week, if you submit your offers. So, head on over. You do not want to miss this. The last time we did this, and we we only do this a couple of times a year, we had dozens of people that walked out of there literally waving their incredible offer in the air. They were so proud, and not only were they able to go out and find their most incredible ideal clients, but they were able to start making money today. So, we cannot wait to see you in magnetic offer weeks. As I mentioned, head over to the show notes. We cannot wait for you to join us. Until next week, everyone.
Have a wonderful, wonderful week.
