If your offer isn’t selling as much (or as easily) as you’d like it to, it might be because you’re talking about benefits and outcomes that aren’t actually what your ideal client wants.
I see examples of this ALL THE TIME!
Copywriters pitch their email-writing services by saying, “I’ll help you get a bigger open rate and more clicks.”
In fact, lately I’ve had several copywriters pitch ME their services with this kind of wording.
At first glance, it might sound like these are the “right” benefits for a copywriter to talk about.
But at second glance, isn’t it obvious that a person could get those outcomes and still end up being very unhappy?
You could get “more clicks” on your emails and still not end up getting any more SALES.
Especially if the copywriter has a philosophy that emails should be vague and hype-y in order to get those clicks.
Like “click here for my secret [whatever]…” with no details.
That kind of thing gets clicks for sure, but will they be clicks from the kind of person who would buy a high-ticket service?
In my experience: no!
That kind of thing is a total turnoff to empowered clients who see value in investing.
You’ll get clicks all right – but will they buy or will they unsubscribe?
If they unsubscribe, the copywriter still provided the benefit that they claimed they would! 🥴
My point is: no one who’d see value in paying a copywriter more than $5 is thinking, “I want more clicks.”
They’re thinking, “I want more of my email list to buy my offer!”
(and maybe their thought is also specific to what kind of offer – like “I want more of my email list members to buy my high-ticket package”)
This is similar to another pitch I recently received from a “setting” agency, saying, “If I could prove that I helped 150 coaches generate a total of 16,000 warm leads last year, would you be interested in speaking with me?”
Uhh… no!
Anybody can say they generated leads. (and it might even be true!)
But were those leads the right people and did they end up buying?
Any seasoned coach/consultant will tell you that when we are pitched on getting “leads” (for example: “do you want 20 sales calls on your calendar this week?”), it sounds AWFUL to us! We don’t want a million sales calls or a million leads.
And I think this is because, deep down, we don’t really believe that any of these people will bring us the RIGHT leads who’ll actually buy.
I mean, if 80%-95% (or even 50%!) of those 20 sales calls actually bought, that’d be one thing.
And I think we’re getting down to the crux of the matter now: these kinds of outcomes/benefits sound unsophisticated.
It sounds like these folks (the copywriter, the setting agency, whoever) don’t work in a precise enough way to make sure that the leads (or clicks) they bring us will actually have a high likelihood of converting to new sales.
And if you really know what you’re doing, you CAN reverse-engineer that to an extent. It’s largely a matter of getting specific enough about the messaging you use to recruit the leads.
And we know that if 80%-95% of their leads actually converted to high-ticket sales (for example), they’d be using THAT as their outcome/benefit statement because it sounds far more impressive, and is what we actually want.
Now, I know at this point many will object:
“But if I were them, I’d be uncomfortable talking about sales as the outcome/benefit of my work. I’m not ultimately in control of whether those leads convert or not, because I’m not involved with that part of the process – I’m not the one on the sales call.”
True!
That’s why when I help people describe their outcomes and benefits, I don’t have them use just one sentence, like:
“I’ll bring you 16,000 leads and at least 8,000 of them will convert!”
Hehehe. Of course not.
I created a 500-word offer pitch framework that allows you to make a lot of caveats regarding the outcomes and benefits you’re talking about.
One sentence isn’t enough for all that.
And actually, before I delve into that pitch framework, I’ll also make the point that I only use the framework with coaches and experts who actually DO work with precision and sophistication and HAVE had at least some past clients get the end result (in this case: sales).
I suspect that a lot of the people who aren’t talking about sales as a result are simply inexperienced or ineffective at what they do – because none of their clients HAVE gotten sales from those leads or clicks.
They only know how to get attention, but not necessarily from the right people who are inclined to buy.
So I wouldn’t even take someone like that as a client, or share this framework with them.
But let’s assume that you’re a copywriter or setting agency or some other kind of lead-generating expert – and some of your clients HAVE gotten increased sales from the leads/clicks you generated.
We’d reverse-engineer your offer statement from THOSE clients.
We’d look at what they had in place and what factors allowed actual sales to happen, despite your not being involved with the sales part of the process.
Perhaps for the copywriter, one of those factors would be: “client already had an email list of 5,000 or more.”
Perhaps another factor would be: “client already converts calls at 50%-60% when prospect meets X, Y, and Z criteria.”
Perhaps another factor would be: “client has already sold an offer of $3,000 or more, at least 10 times.”
In this case, a rough outline of an offer statement might sound like the following:
“I have a great offer for coaches and consultants who’ve already sold an offer of $3K or more at least 10 times, and would like more sales of that offer from their email list.
“Here’s how we’ll accomplish that:
“1) I’ll use _____ process to understand exactly what attributes your past buyers had, that we now need to incorporate into your email copy to attract more like them.
“2) I’ll incorporate these into my 5 proven email templates that I’ve already used with 20 past clients in the coaching industry to convert high-ticket sales for their offer.
“3) [not sure what else]…
“This offer includes [features/details]
“The best person for this offer:
“–Has an email list of 5,000 or more
“–Converts sales calls at 50%-60%
“–[other qualifications]
“This investment for this offer is [price].
“DM me if interested…”
See what I mean?
I totally understand the fear of naming your outcome as the thing your client actually wants.
Even though you know that would be far more attractive a message than what you’re saying now, it feels like too much pressure – you don’t want anyone to come back to you and be upset if they didn’t get the end outcome.
Plus, you know that not all of your past clients got the end outcome, so it feels a bit out of integrity.
That’s why I created this framework for your offer message – so that you can understand and communicate what kind of person is best placed to get that end outcome, and not sound like you’re making wild-eyed claims that you can help anyone to get results.
(And so that you aren’t put in the position of promising the outcome. Read that offer statement outline again – does it ever actually promise the outcome? No!)
So, if you recognize yourself in what I’ve written here (i.e. you realize that you’ve not been talking about the outcomes that your ideal client actually wants), here are your next steps:
1) Ask yourself whether any of your clients actually got end outcomes or not.
If not – you may need to look at your skill set and the amount of experience you have.
Do you truly understand where you fit in your clients’ transformation journey?
Do you understand that journey well enough to know how to do your particular piece of it in a way that’s going to enable the end transformation?
Or are you operating in more of a “silo,” without enough sophistication, and might actually be doing stuff that’s detrimental to what they’re trying to achieve?
You might need to gain more experience, knowledge, and sophistication before you’ll be able to help enable end outcomes.
If some of your past clients DID get end outcomes, great! Move to step #2.
2) Analyze what was different about the end-outcome-getting clients as compared to others. Make a list of factors.
3) Write your Strong-Method™-style 500-word offer statement in a way that incorporates those factors, as well as that end outcome that you were previously reluctant to state! 😉
4) Write daily value content that is aimed ONLY at that type of person who possesses the factors needed to get the end outcome. Explain, from many different angles, how they can get that outcome, and write a summarized 100-word version of your 500-word offer statement at the end (again…weaving in the outcome!).
5) Add people to your friends list (or other audience) who show signs of possessing the necessary factors to getting an end outcome (or at least don’t show signs of dealbreakers).
Do these 5 things and you’ll be well on your way to more sales from people who value your work AND are likely to get a result and make you proud. 🙂
If you want efficient and effective help with these steps – from someone who’s gone through them with tons of coaches and other experts in every niche imaginable – you may want to DM me on Facebook. 🙂
These steps are the majority of what I cover in my 30-day 1:1 intensive for coaches and other experts.
If you send me a DM and tell me you’re interested, we’ll have a quick chat to see if it’s a good fit for you and your business.
More information about the program is available here.