Ep. 047: 5 Questions to Ask Before You Create a New Offer
Creating new offers can be great for your business if the offer is the right one to get you closer to your goals. But it can also be a huge time suck, distraction, and waste of your resources if you're doing it for the wrong reasons. In this episode I'm giving you 5 questions to ask yourself before you create and market your next offer.
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Erika Tebbens: Bro marketing culture and sketchy MLMs have given modern business a bad reputation. It feels harder than ever to succeed as an entrepreneur, even though we've got an abundance of info and tech, right at our fingertips. If you feel frustrated, running your business, stress over your sales schools or are baffled by marketing strategies, you've come to the right place.
You deserve to run a successful sustainable business without spamming all of your friends or wasting time and money on marketing gimmicks. This is The Sell It, Sister Podcast, and you're going to learn how to make more money without complex systems or sleazy sales tactics. I'm Erika Tebbens and I teach highly motivated female and gender expansive entrepreneurs that selling doesn't have to suck.
I've been running successful businesses and teaching others how to sell smarter, earn more and create raving fans for over 15 years. And I'm excited to share what I've learned with you. If you want success without truly serving your clients, profits without any passion, or the next get rich quick scheme, I'm not your gal. But if you're all in as an entrepreneur, want to make a difference with your work and are ready to run a business you're proud of, then get ready to sell it, sister.
If you find that you're struggling with sales conversations, if they stress you out, or you find that you're always stumbling over your words, or you're not closing as many sales as you like, or you just are really petrified of coming across as that pushy sales person, I have great news for you. I have a totally free, completely, a hundred percent free, no catch, no sleaze sales method guide just for you. So when you download this guide and I'll give you the URL in just a second, you are going to be able to, you start selling smarter this week. Yes, really. So what this is is a framework, a customizable framework that works, whether you sell a product or a service or both. So this is not weird scripts that you have to memorize or anything really convoluted or complex. It's just an easy way to remember what to say, how to say it and why to say it when you're having a sales conversation with someone, I think you're going to love it.
I know. I do. I know it's worked for me for many, many, many years. I know my clients love it too. It gives them a ton of confidence when it comes to selling. And that confidence translates to closing more sales. Right. So if you need this, if this is a tool that seems like it's beneficial to you, I want you to go to bit.ly/sellitsisterpodcast. It's all lower case. And it's all one word again. That's B I T dot L Y Bitly essentially forward slash sell it sister podcast. It's really, really quick to go through, but if you have any questions or anything, be sure to reach out because I want to make sure that you are a selling superstar.
Hey sisterenos. I feel like, uh, for any murdering us that listened to this. I feel like that should be, that should be our new moniker, right? Where my True Crime fans? You know who you are. On this week's episode of The Sell It, Sister Podcast, we are talking new offer creation. And actually for the whole month of March, I want to focus a bit more on stuff that we talk about when we are thinking about scaling and creating new offers to grow our businesses.
But this, this week's episode in particular, I want to really get to the questions that need to come before we start to do something new. Before we create a new offer in our businesses. Because I think a lot of times we get sold on these different ideas of things that we quote unquote, "Have to have, or should have, or should be doing."
And the reality is, is that not everyone needs to, uh, have a podcast, have a monthly membership site, have a group program, have a free Facebook group, do challenges, do webinars, like all of these things, right? So it just really depends on you and your goals and your clients and your business framework and all of that.
There are so many things that go into it. And I think what happens is when, when people are telling you, oh, all of these things that you, you should be doing, we begin to feel like, "Well, I'm not going to be successful if I don't do that. So now I'm like freaked out. Now I should probably create this other thing. I should have this offer for this other group of people." And, and we, we really start to come at it from this more of like a scarcity or, or a fear vantage point. And, and I say this for myself too. Like sometimes all it takes is somebody's Facebook post, and suddenly your brain is just spiraling out and you're like, one minute you were fine.
And the next minute you're like, "That's it. I, I suck and I need to, you know, write this whole new sales page and create this new program, or I need to stop offering this thing, or I need to stop doing this or start doing that." Like, it's just, it's wild. And so this isn't, this isn't me pointing fingers at all.
Uh, I, I will struggle with this too. And sometimes it's just like, it's we just, we have those moments where maybe it's the end of a long day, right? We're we are like, not in the greatest mindset already. We've maybe had a frustrating day, uh, or, you know, something has set us off and now we see this thing and it just, it like pokes at that insecurity.
Uh, and we, we ultimately should never be creating something that is, uh, built upon our, our insecurity or our FOMO or anything like that, because that is, uh, just a castle built on sand. So instead I want to help you with some really good questions that you can ask yourself when you're in those moments, you can actually pause and think and make a better informed decision for yourself and your business.
So you, you know, you're sitting there and you're starting to think about creating an offer. And one thing that I want you to think about is, "Am I doing this out of guilt? So is there a segment of my audience that just loves what I do, but always says that they can't afford me." Right? So this is a really common limb.
Well, you're like, I, you know, I'm, I'm always having these sales calls or people are always DM-ing me or whatever. And I know these people are raving fans. I know that they enjoy my content. They, they watch all my Instastories, they, you know, read all my posts, whatever. Uh, but they are still saying like, "I just, I, you know, I can't afford you."
So I think a lot of times we start to get really wigged out and we're like, "Do I need to create something for them? Am I leaving money on the table? Uh, am I being a bad person because I'm, I'm excluding them." And, and all these things, we are, again, our brains start because spin out now. There's nothing wrong inherently with creating some sort of bridge offer that is for those people that are maybe in a little earlier stage. Right? So this is not a bad thing to be considering. However, uh, again, we don't want to do something out of that fear or insecurity or guilt or any of those icky feelings. So you can create something for them.
There's lots of options. But creating something from that place of guilt is only going to make you feel resentful when you have to deliver on it. Right? So the other little, uh, like caveat, little asterisks I'm going to give here is that there will always be something, anything that you offer that people say they can't afford.
It could be a $5, uh, monthly fee for a Facebook membership group. And there are always going to be people who balk at the idea of $5 a month. I mean, there are people who listen to free podcasts and go on free webinars and do all sorts of, you know, like engaging with free content or, you know, learning from free content and they bitch and complain about it too.
Right? So even things that are free, there are people. Who will complain and who will say, you know, again, $5 a month is like ridiculous that you would even be charging that people should just like, do what they do for free blah, blah, blah. I'm not gonna go down that path on today's episode, but that is a whole thing.
And there are always going to be people out there who can pay what you, you know, what your rates are, what your packages are, whatever that is. So there's strategy there that goes into, you know, how do you speak to those people with messaging and, and, and all of that. But don't feel like, "Oh, just because I create this offer, that all of these people who say they can't afford me will suddenly jump on that bandwagon." Because trust and believe that I have had some stuff that is relatively low cost per month for, uh, as little as like three months time.
And there are still people who are like, "Oh my gosh, I would, I would love to, and I can't do it." And now that's fine. But they, that they feel like they can't do it or they can't do it, or whatever the case is. I am just here to remind you that, uh, their role, even if you think that you're going to create this thing, and then you'll be like, what's the phrase, like shooting fish in a barrel or whatever.
Like, like you're just gonna like take this net and scoop all those people up and put them into that thing. That is not always the case. Right? Cause sometimes people will say, "Oh, it's, it's the money. It's a price thing." But in reality, there's a lot of other stuff that they're not telling you, um, on the backend.
So just ask yourself, "Am I creating this other offer out of guilt?" Now the, on the flip side, versus, you know, going lower ticket, going higher ticket as well, like if you are being made to feel guilty or something foolish for not having some high ticket offer, like if somebody just says like, well, you know, why would you have this digital download that is $25. And then you have to sell, you know, a hundred of them to have $2,500 in a month when you could just sell one thing that's $2,500, right? Like, yes, you're getting to the same goal. Yes. I, I get that like, theoretically, it's easier to sell one of something than a hundred of something. But if that doesn't fit in with what you want to be doing, especially at whatever, you know, at the current point you are at in your business, then it doesn't doesn't matter if you set up a $2,500 offer, if you don't feel confident selling that offer, if you don't want to deliver on that offer, uh, if that is not right for you in this moment, you don't have to do it. So either way, just don't create something out of guilt. Because again, you will be resentful when you have to deliver on it.
Next question to ask yourself, is, "Am I doing this to feel busy or to self-sabotage in some way? So are things going well or not going well? And I think that if I start a new project, it will alleviate some of my anxiety." So I don't know about you, but I feel, or basically my whole life have just fed and lived, eat breathe, sleep the idea of, uh, my, my worst is bound up in how productive I am. And also if I'm busy, it really quiets that chatter in my brain. Because now I might be busy on something that doesn't matter, that doesn't get me closer to my goals.
That is not an income producing activity. But damn, if it don't feel good. If it doesn't feel like I'm being productive and industrious, and a really good worker bee, and worthy of whatever comes next. Right? So sometimes, even though it sounds counterintuitive, we get to this place in our business where we're like, "Oh, look at that. Like, things are going pretty well. Like sure. I I'm always happy to like make more money, but I, now I have consistent income and I love what I'm doing. And you know, I have a VA who helps me." And all of a sudden it can start to feel like, "Oh, God, I, I need to be doing more. I need to be doing something more. I need to be, you know, writing a book. I need to be starting a podcast. I need to be doing this. I need to be doing that." And that is what keeps people stuck because instead of pausing to think, "What is it that I really, really, really want to do? Next, what is going to get me to my bigger goal? What is my bigger long-term goal?"
But instead of thinking about any of that, we just want to try to alleviate our own feelings that like that we should be doing something more. Right? So don't just create something for the sake of forward momentum. It needs to make sense in the larger plan of where you want to go with your business. And sometimes, honestly it can be the case where we do know the next thing that we want to do, but it feels harder.
It feels scary. And so as a way to procrastinate, we're like, "Oh, I got to create this other thing." Right? "I got to create this offer cause then I need to create a sales page and then I need to create an opt-in and then I need to do this and I need to do that." When really the thing might be that you do want to write a book, and, but that feels really scary and daunting. So you're like, "I need to do this other thing first before I'm allowed to do that." Right? So don't, don't do that. So now, if you've answered these two questions, you know, you're not doing it out of guilt and you know you're not just trying to procrastinate or feel productive so that you can feel worthy, then we can move on to the next three questions.
So think about, "Who am I creating this for and what do they need, and is this something that leads them to a next level offer?" Or is this the next step after you have finished working with them? And have you realized that you were coming up against this quote unquote thing again and again? So let's just say you are a, I'll actually, I'll use an example of a past client of mine.
So she's a Disney travel planner. She's an amazing person. She does these customized travel plans for a busy professional families or, you know, busy professionals and their families. To go to Disney and the other parks in Orlando and around the world. And you know, when you're doing something custom like that, it's not, it's not dirt cheap, right?
It's not 1999. She spends a lot of time and a lot of energy and her pricing reflects that. But she was running into time. And again, just so many people who are like, "Oh, I would love to not have to research this all on my own. I really love you. I love what you do. I would, you know, I hope that one day I can hire you to do the whole plan, but it's just not in the budget right now. Like even, even going to Disney is a stretch for us." So we created a mini course that basically walks the person through the steps that she does with her clients. Now, this doesn't cannibalize for her clients, because again, these are busy professionals, even if they have this information at their fingertips, the fact of the matter is it's not that they're dumb and they can't figure it out, it's that they don't have the time and they just want to outsource it. Right? So the course filled this gap of the people who, uh, have the time or are willing to put in the time because they don't have the money, and while she's not doing it all for them, she's giving her expert tools and tips and tricks and all of that stuff, so they can go through it on their own. And with that comes a lower price point, right?
Now, there's also some times where you're working with somebody and maybe it's a six-month commitment and you get them to where they want to be. And they feel like now they just need maintenance.
Right? So think of it, like, I dunno, like, like a weight loss program or something. You're like going hard for however long it takes again, let's say six months, and then you have lost that 15 pounds. And now you need a maintenance plan to keep at it. So sometimes people feel like, well, my clients will end up coming back, you know, three months later and saying, "Can I do a one-off session with you? Or can we, you know, do like a call a month for the next three months? I feel like I need some extra support and guidance." So if this is a thing that keeps coming up for you, you could say, "Okay, well, how about instead of our regular, like two times a month coaching, we are going to bump it down to just once a month. This is like a maintenance plan. So you just know that you have me in your back pocket, and we will talk once a month and I'm going to help keep you on track and it's going to be, uh, something that you sort of graduate into. Right?" So that is another thing as well. So really think about again, what are the things that keep coming up that aren't just, uh, like, "Oh, I, Oh, I can't afford you." Or something like that. Like, what are the actual things? Are there things that, that people need to know before they start working with you? So let's say you are, uh, you do branding for people, right? Let's say that you get a lot of people who come to you and you realize they can't even answer your questionnaire because they haven't even thought about fundamental parts of their brand.
So maybe instead of selling that in, selling them into that high end branding package and like web design package that they are inquiring about, and you know, they're not ready for, maybe you sell them on a smaller thing that walks them through how to best answer those questions first, because then you can take that and you can run with it.
Right? So if there's, if there's a gap that you continually see that is preventing people from taking advantage of your other offers and you want to fill that gap, that is, that's an option right there. Uh, next, think about where does this fit in with the bigger picture of my business and my goals. Will this get you closer to your goals further away or neutral?
So I've already sort of touched on this a little bit. Um, but again, think of it in terms of the larger notions for what you, what you ultimately want. Right? So do you want to work fewer hours with fewer people and have really deep relationships with those people? Okay. Well then you probably need to have like a higher ticket offer that is going to be something that you know, is not for everyone, that is for somebody at a different level in their business or their life, whatever it is that you do, who is going to be able to pay you those rates, is going to feel good about paying you those rates. And because it's a higher ticket thing, you get to work with fewer people and you get to spend more time with each person, right?
So that is one option. Or maybe on the flip side, you really want to impact hundreds of thousands or millions of people. Well, then you're, you're going to need to create a different vehicle to make that happen. So if you are, you know, if you're thinking like, "I want to, you know, I'm, I don't know, like a, like a social media, strategist and manager, and I really want to help business owners everywhere be able to feel really great about doing social media" Right? And you know that you have your people who they pay you and you manage all of their social accounts and you do all of that. That is your high ticket offer. But you're still like, "Oh my gosh, I see these other businesses struggling. And you know, I, they can't afford my, you know, for me to do it for them." And maybe you're also like, "I don't even want to take any on any more clients." I'm using an actual example of a, of a past client of mine here, um, who was completely booked out. And she also knew so many people who just, even if she weren't booked out, couldn't pay her ongoing month to month retainer fee for that management.
So we work together to craft something that fit into her larger goals of wanting to educate and empower more business owners so that they could confidently run their social media accounts. So we created a separate, lower ticket offer in that realm to help those people. So that was really great. It was really successful.
It worked and it fit into the larger term, uh, or the, the larger, like, bigger picture goal of her, of her business and also her revenue goals as well. So we were able to do both. Um, and then, lastly, so you've gotten through all of that. Now you need to think about what do you want create, right? So again, let's go back to that, that high-end, uh, brand designer, web designer packages start at four grand for a full year brand and website refresh.
Right? So now you want for people who can't yet afford you and you realize you don't feel guilty, nor are you doing it to feel productive. You have a really good handle on your own workload and an amazing VA to help you and even a subcontracted designer to help with some of that client work. So that's awesome.
But now you've the room and the bandwidth, you can ponder how you want to serve the new clients and what the pricing is going to be around that. So then you start to think, you know, is this going to be a course? Is this a downloadable guide? Is this a monthly membership, a six week branding bootcamp program?
Can they book you for an audit with a plan that they need to implement? Like what is that thing going to be? So a lot of times when I'm working with clients, this is what we figure out. Because again, if you've hung around for any amount of time here, you know, I'm not about one size fits, all right?
Because something that works for another person might not work for you. So back to that social media manager who I worked with. She had assumed this would be some sort of course. Because courses are one of those things we see marketed a lot. And the next few podcast episodes, I'm going to dive deeper specifically into like, do you need a course and how to create one if you do and how to sell it and all of that.
So if you are thinking about a course, and there's nothing wrong with courses, you'll want to stay tuned for those episodes. But what she didn't realize was there was actually a more simple way. So instead of having to spend all the time and the energy to create a course and then market it and sell it, and all of that, we were able to figure out how can people book her for like an hour a month to plan out their whole social calendar, that they then have to take and they are responsible for implementing. But this way it checked all of the boxes. Right? So it was a lower ticket thing. It didn't add a lot more working hours to her plate. It allowed people to get the help to grow their own social media with confidence. Right? And to get that business coming in from their new and better social media presence like we covered all the bases, but we cut out this whole create a course process because it just ended up not being necessary.
So if you're like, "Yeah, yeah, Erika I'm here. I, I have these ideas swirling. I don't know which one to do." Like just message me and we can, we can maybe chat and see if we can figure it out because there are going to be things that work best for you and your audience. And again, we have to think about both components of those for it to really be sustainable and work.
Uh, so yeah, so that is, those are the five questions that you should think about whenever you're creating a new offer. So, "Am I doing this out of guilt? Am I doing this to feel busy or perk or procrastinate? Uh, who am I creating this for? And you know, what do they need? Where does this fit in with the bigger picture of my business and what would I like to create?"
So again, if you're like, "Whoa, I never thought about it that way." Or "You've given me some ideas." Or, "Oh my gosh. Now I'm questioning if I really want to create that thing and maybe I should do something else." Whatever it is, I love, love, love hearing from listeners. I hang out the most on Instagram. So please, you know, it's, uh, take a screenshot of this as you're listening to it on your phone, post it in your stories.
Tag me, let me know your takeaways, any ahas, and you can always privately DM me. I read all of my own DMs. I am super, always happy to help. Uh, I want to make sure that you feel good and clear on your next steps in your business. And, uh, you know, they're really, the, the beauty and the curse of, uh, being a digital CEO is that there are so many options, right?
So, which is great because different options work better for different people. But that can also feel really overwhelming because then you have decision fatigue and you don't want to waste a lot of time and money going down a path that might not be the best path. So, uh, reach out, say "Hi." Uh, you know, tell me your, your thoughts on the episode or what your favorite true crime podcast is or whatever, because again, back to True Crime.
It's what I'm, it's what I'm doing when I'm not working. I'm usually like listening to True, to True Crime or watching like a True Crime series for realsies or Parks and Rec for the a hundred thousand time. Anyways, I digress. Thank you for listening. I really, really appreciate you being here and as always, happy selling.
Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of The Sell It, Sister Podcast. If you loved it and you want more, be sure to subscribe so that you never miss an episode and then head on over to sellitsisterhood.com to join my free Facebook community group. And as your mama said, "Sharing is caring." So if you got a lot of value out of this episode, be sure to share it with your biz besties too.
