What makes an offer your clients can’t wait to buy? You might be having lots of conversations on LinkedIn but no-one’s coming along and asking to work with you. What’s going on?
Our speaker at June’s LinkingOut Club was Janine Coombes, who helps service-based small business owners put together offers that are easy to sell. She walked us through what you need to do to create an offer people really will pay you for and how to stop exchanging time for money so you can get off the hamster wheel and make your finances more predictable.
Why aren’t people buying from you?
We can be very polite on LinkedIn, can’t we? Very English. We’re happy to do small talk and hope people take an interest in what we do.
Thinking back to when she started her business, Janine said: “I kind of expected people to ask me to do stuff for them. I expected them to come to me with what they needed and actually you’ve got to do it the other way around. You’ve got to put together offers and say, ‘if you need help with this, then work with me’.
“You need to be constantly drip feeding. You don’t have to be saying it every day but you have to be putting out offers. You have to be putting out your hands so people can hold on to them. You have to be putting out these real, tangible hooks, so people can understand how you can help them.”
So you need offers! Here’s how to put them together.
3 elements to great offers
???? Promise
???? Package
???? Price
Let’s break those down.
What would you love to promise to your ideal client?
What does your client want? Do they want to be able to do something they couldn’t do before? Do they want to get a particular result? Do they have a big picture goal they are working towards that your offer contributes to?
Your promise is based on the outcome your client wants, not what you know they need. It needs to have an emotional pull, so they look at it and say, “I GOTTA HAVE IT!”
How do you know what your client wants? Ask them!
- Make notes during sales conversations about how people describe their situation and what they are looking for. If you have permission, record those conversations. Then use that phrasing in your offers.
- Ask people to give you testimonials telling you how they felt before and how they felt afterwards.
- Poll your audience (but beware if you’re doing this on social media, people who are not necessarily your ideal clients may weigh in too)
- Invite people to have a no pressure chat with you. Cherry pick 3 or 4 ideal clients and ask them for help. Ask open questions and let them moan. Again, ask them if you can record it and take notes.
What’s in the package?
This is everything you do to help your client get from their problem to their solution. Include all the nuts and bolts they can expect to receive when you work together.
You want to be able to tick off all their potential questions when you outline the details of the package you are offering.
Charge a fee that matches the value of what you’re offering.
Once you know what your Promise and your Package are, then you are in a better position to determine your Price.
Janine said: “If you get the messaging right, the promise, and the package right, the price should be much easier to decide.
Beware of mindset monkeys telling you to lower your price!
Janine said: “People are more tolerant of higher prices than you might expect and really the decision is based on that emotional element first, then the package, and usually then the price.”
Use your client research to update your LinkedIn profile.
Make use of all that lovely information you collected when finding out what people want to update your LinkedIn profile with words and phrases people use. Put them in your profile and headline.
Then create posts that tie in with what your ideal client wants. Delve into what you know people are struggling with.
- Questions about your offer
- Why you chose to do that offer
- Share anecdotes
- Share testimonials
- Have conversations around phrases you are using and see what people say about them. Do they use the same words you do? Are you using jargon? Are you talking at cross-purposes? Find that out in feedback on a LinkedIn post and then you can update your sales page.
Have a mental checklist of people you would like to work with and if you notice they are struggling with a problem, get them on a call for some market research.
Would you like to know more about this? Read Janine’s step-by-step guide on how to create an offer.
Connect with Janine Coombes on LinkedIn.