As the host of the Productive Insights podcast, I’ve had the honor of speaking with some of the world’s brightest experts in marketing and entrepreneurship. Some of these experts include Seth Godin, Amy Porterfield, Guy Kawasaki, and Brian Tracy.
I’ve also had the privilege of working with some extremely bright entrepreneurs from all over the world in my membership program. It aims to help business owners grow their businesses profitably and predictably through smart sales growth strategies and secrets of successful sales.
One of the most important challenges I help my clients solve is making an irresistible sales offer while making a sales pitch.
Creating a successful sales offer that practically sells itself is the secret sauce to predictable business growth and that’s what we’re going to talk about in this article.
So, do you want to learn how to craft an irresistible offer to your customers?
Did you know that a compelling product (or service) that screams the value out loud makes your customers want to snatch that product out of your hands, throw a wad of cash at you, and run down the street before you change your mind?
Wouldn’t it be nice to have an offer that sells itself, so you don’t have to do the heavy lifting?
If there’s one thing that any business needs to ensure its ongoing success, it’s an irresistible offer that will increase your sales performance. And here’s the catch: making that irresistible offer that goes into creating an effective sales pitch doesn’t have to be all that hard.
It’s part art and part science.
Over the last 5 years, I’ve had the opportunity to speak with some of the brightest minds on my podcast named the Productive Insights podcast.
The two topics we’ve covered, quite extensively, on my podcast are marketing and offer creation:
Seth Godin (episode 200), Neil Patel (episode 1), and Michael Maidens (episode 202) are three names that come to my mind. In this article, I’d like to reveal some key elements of an irresistible sales offer while making an effective sales pitch.
Ready? Let’s dive in!
A compelling product or service solves a problem that your target audience is willing to pay for. Now, if you think your “product” is all, there is to your “offer”, you wouldn’t be alone. But you’d be wrong. Your product is only a part of your offer.
Your offer also includes how you position that product, and how you communicate its value. This is absolutely key!
Read those last 2 sentences again.
Warren Buffett once said: “Price is what you pay, value is what you get.”
Value is what your customer perceives it to be. And the price you charge for your product is what they actually pay. The key to creating an irresistible offer is to establish a perceived value that’s higher than the price you charge for your product.
Now, how do you increase that perceived value in your customer’s eyes?
Answer: You start to understand your customers really well and after that, ensure that you will help them solve a problem that they are extremely motivated to solve right now (via your product).
Create an offer that solves an urgent and compelling problem that your customer is facing currently and is willing to pay you for, and you’re off to a great start with the right strategies to increase sales.
Here are 5 ways to create or enhance your irresistible offer :
1) Develop empathy for your customer (and become an amateur copywriter):
In my conversation with Seth Godin on the Productive Insights podcast, we talked about the importance of empathy in marketing.
Empathy is one of the least used words in marketing and probably one of the most important. I’ve interviewed a few good copywriters on my podcast, and I’ve asked each of them this question:
Do you agree that about 80% of copywriting is about deeply understanding your customer, and developing empathy for their situation via detailed research?
And each time, the answer has been a resounding “Yes!”.
Being able to articulate your customer’s problem, and then positioning your product as a solution to that problem is at the heart of great offer creation that will naturally improve your sales performance.
Turns out, this is also known as copywriting.
Now, I’m not suggesting every business owner needs to become a professional copywriter, but I am suggesting that getting better at copywriting acts as a forcing mechanism.
It requires you to understand your customer and their problem (which your product will solve). It also forces you to get clear on your value proposition.
In my conversation with Michael Maidens, the creator of The Offer Academy, Michael highlighted the importance of empathizing with your customers. Understanding what they need, what they are looking for, and how your offer will fulfil their needs.
2. Analyse your customer journey :
HubSpot explains the buyer’s journey in three stages:
- Awareness Stage: The buyer realizes they have a problem.
- Consideration Stage: The buyer defines their problem and researches options to solve it.
- Decision Stage: The buyer chooses a solution.
How do you get your customer from the awareness stage to the consideration stage? How do you move them from the consideration stage to the decision stage? What are your customer’s needs at each of these stages?
Your messaging and your communication needs to consider the stage your customer is at.
For instance, at the awareness stage, your customer is usually looking for information to help them understand their problem and/or investigate possible solutions. Making an offer at this stage will most likely be met with annoyance and frustration.
At this stage, your role is to help them define the problem and perhaps hint at possible solutions. Your message should be focused on educating and informing the customer.
Typically, you’d make the offer when they’re closer to the decision stage.
3. Start with a big (outrageous) vision and then work backwards from there
Henry Ford, who revolutionized the automotive industry, once said, “If I asked my customers what they want they would’ve asked for faster horses”.
Sometimes, it pays to think outside the box. This means you need to think big and start with an “unreasonable” vision. Coming up with iterations on existing offers can work. But doing that isn’t game-changing and doesn’t create great offers.
Great offers start with a big vision.
Michael Maidens explains that it’s important to start big, and then, pair it up to something you can over-deliver on.
To create a great sales offer to your customers or audience, you’ve got to start with a big vision. When Steve Jobs announced the first iPhone, he explained that he was announcing three revolutionary devices: an internet communicator, a phone, and an iPod. And then, he revealed it was actually three devices rolled into one.
That was a great offer, powerful enough to skyrocket their sales productivity metrics.
Why?
Because it had a huge vision behind it. No one in the market had come close to delivering on such an audacious vision. I dare say, no one had even conceived it until he revealed his creation.
Rolling all those three devices into one device was an audacious idea, and he brought it to life.
The result?
A device that had a massive impact on humankind that changed the way the world works. So, start with a big vision and then do the hard work to drive it through to fruition.
4. Fall in love with your offer (so that your customers can fall in love too)
If you don’t believe in your offer, don’t expect your customers to believe in it either. You need to believe in the value you offer to your ideal customer, and you need to do so with every fiber of your being.
A large proportion of our communication is non-verbal but has a significant impact on how our offer is perceived by our customers.
Even if you communicate that offer online, your emotions and underlying beliefs around your offer should still trickle through in your writing.
Listen to yourself speak when you talk to potential customers. Perhaps, get someone to listen in on your conversations with the customers. If you hear pride and enthusiasm in your voice when you talk about your offer, then you’re on the right track.
You must believe wholeheartedly in your offer. It’s one of the earliest steps to create ongoing effective sales growth strategies. And if you don’t, then you need to go back to the drawing board and figure out the reason behind the lack of belief.
5. Use purchase incentives like guarantees and payment plans
Once your customer has decided to buy your product (these incentives don’t usually work unless your customer has already decided to buy your product) you can reduce friction to purchase via guarantees and payment plans.
Some people recommend limited-time discounts as an incentive to buy. Personally, I’m not a big fan of discounting because I think that erodes the perceived value of your product. There are other kinds of risk reversal techniques, however. For example, Domino’s Pizzas guarantee your pizza will arrive at your doorstep within 30 minutes of you ordering it (solves your problem of hunger in a timely way) or you get your money back!
You can also offer payment plans to help your customer with short-term cash flow problems.
This gives them an opportunity to buy your product without having to pay upfront. For obvious reasons, this works particularly well with higher ticket items.
There are many other ways to improve sales performance through compelling offers, but if you implement these 5 tips, you’re off to a brilliant start!
You’re welcome to reach out to me if you have questions.
You’ve got this!
Making an irresistible sales offer can seem scary at first, but once you put a pen to paper (or marker to whiteboard), your offer takes shape in the real world.
So, get out your whiteboard, think of a problem your customer really wants to solve, and get unreasonable for a while.
Think big, create an audacious vision, and start giving it form in the real world. Remember, every great creation starts with a thought.
You’ll see it when you believe in it.