3 Questions that Will Make Every Offer Better

Welcome, welcome. I'm so happy you're here today. Today we are going to talk about offers. Offers are anytime you tell people what you do, why it matters to them and how to get it. For me, that's that's the core of sales sales is when we tell people what we're doing and give them an opportunity to buy, I often think also of offers as invitations. 

So that's, those are words I use pretty interchangeably. But what we're going to talk about today is ways to make every offer better. So making more offers is part of what almost everyone I encounter, including myself needs to do as a business owner to grow your business more offers, telling people more about what you do, creates more opportunity, and more income and all the things that you want more of. But also at the same time, it's important to really think about the offers you're making, not to make it harder on yourself, or any of the things like we're not trying to deep dive into the depths of your soul and your offers. 

But I think there are a couple of questions you can ask yourself, there are questions I asked myself all the time, to make your offers better. And I mean better in terms of easier to understand easier for people to relate to easier to, for people to buy from all of those things. So the three questions I'm going to share with you today are the questions I use, and that I share with clients all the time that helped make offers more effective, and just make the process of making an offer simpler. So there are three questions that we're going to address. 

The first is one I asked myself all the time, because particularly if you're anything like me, this is something I have to really work on in that as being more direct. So the first question is, how can I be more directed? I actually, this was just a good example of that, because I took basically the most indirect way possible to get to asking the question, I in terms of writing posts and creating content, if I can use 5000 words, instead of 500. I totally will. I like to tell the stories, I like to do all the things. 

But really, sometimes direct is required and helpful. I cannot tell you the number of times that I have written like a short, sweet direct post and had somebody go, I didn't know you offered that when all of the 400,000 word posts that came before it were about the same damn thing. So people need direct, and it's how can I be more direct is important, because even in the long posts, you can be direct. But being more direct, oftentimes is just doing like, Hey, I'm Sarah, here's what I offer. Here's how you get it, here's why it's important. And ending it right there. Like not caring into like defending it, or might even just be, hey, I'm Sarah, here's what I offer. 

Here's how you get it. And you can assume that in all the other 400,000 words you've written, they get the why they need it. Right. Sometimes we just have to say this is what we have. This is how you get it, period. And that's enough. So for you, you know, how direct Are you being? And how can you be more direct? And here's what I know. I say this to clients all the time, I say How can you be more direct? And they're like, oh, direct is uncomfortable. Because when we're direct, we're saying like I have something for sale? And I think it would be helpful for you to buy it. Right. It's called asking for the sale. 

But you know, we don't ask, we don't get things we don't ask for it. Right? So like I tell my kids all the time, they'll be like a cookie would be nice. And I'm like, Ah, we don't get things we don't ask for. So that's, that's cool. But being direct and saying, Here's what I have, here's how it helps you here's how you get it is really helpful to the people in your audience, particularly if you work with people that are doing a million things at once, like I do, you know, sometimes they just need like, Oh, it's right here. It's simple.

 So question number one is, how can I be more direct? I almost never have a case where I can't be more direct. But so, you know, for me, it's a constant practice. I write a post and think, How can I be more direct? And then I take some words out or I add something at the start or I changed some stuff around. It's like, okay, how can I be more direct? And sometimes it's like, Man, I'm direct enough, good enough. And sometimes I take it apart until it's like real direct, but it's something you can practice with every post with every piece of content with every live with every video with everyone. How can you be more direct?

 The second question is how can you be more specific So what I mean, when I say specific is how can you talk really carefully and specifically to the person that makes them feel heard? For example, there is a difference. I was doing this with a client the other day. I said, Joe, who do you help? What do you who are your people? And she said, Well, frustrated parents, parents who feel like they're struggling to communicate with their teens. And I said, Okay, well, like specifically, though. And she said, What do you mean? I said, Oh, the thing I always have people do, and I don't mean this in a creepy way is pretend like you're standing outside the window to their house. And your noses pressed up against the glass, and you're watching what's going on? I told you a little creepy. It's not meant to be creepy. 

But if you're watching them, what do you see? And she was like, Oh, well, I don't see any communication at all. I see a kid wearing headphones and a mom on the phone. Like looking at her phone and the kid walking around looking at their phone, and they just walk past each other all the time. They don't talk about anything. Ah, that's much more specific, right? Then frustrated and not communicating. There will be a parent, when she shares that, that absolutely sees themselves in that. And then she said, or in some cases, I might see, you know, where they're having a conversation, and it's getting really loud. But they're actually not even having the same conversation. Like one's talking about one thing, one's talking about something different. And they haven't even realized they're not talking about the same thing yet. It's just like escalating. Ah, okay. 

That's specific. I know, for me, I often have people. Like, I always imagine that I have clients that get so frustrated by the to do list of the things to do that they have this long list besides them on their desk, and they're sitting at their computer, sort of headed hands or fingers that keyboard and nothing is moving. Because they don't know where to start. Or I know I see people that are just like, I imagine them sitting in their car before they go into the networking meeting, trying to figure out what to say, right? Or looking at the money that they've made or haven't made and thinking like, I'm not meant for this, when in fact they are. 

Right. So for me, the more specific you can be, the better. And you do have to sort of imagine like, what, what do I see and hear that my people do that tell me what they need that I what story, I could tell them that they are going to see themselves in as, like, make this offer. So for the client who works with parents, it was, you know, you see yourself and your child, you're both in the House, and you're both on your phones, and you're both wearing headphones, and you've never talked about any of the important things and scares you, I can help. Which is very different than if you and your kid aren't communicating I can help. Right? Very, very different offer. So it doesn't have to be longer. 

Doesn't have to be complicated. But it can be more specific. And sometimes the specific story takes a longer time to tell that's okay. Sometimes the specific story is less direct, also, okay. It may be everything you write isn't going to be direct and specific. And the next question. But if you're constantly asking yourself, these three questions, all of your offers get better. 

You know, maybe for a while you just work on DirectX. I feel like that's what I work on all the time. For a long time, I really worked on specific but I'm pretty good at it now. And so that leads to the third question. The third question is, how can I make it simpler to buy? Right? How can I make it simpler for them to get to me and what they need? So one of the things I find is a lot of times people have layers of stuff, of you know, go to this link, do this thing. 

Whatever that people feel like they have to go through to get to the person they need help from? Or it's like, go to my website, click on this box, do this next thing, whatever it is, how can you make it simpler? How can you explain it more simply? How can you make the process of saying yes, simpler? How can you share that? You know, I had somebody last week, who is joining group coaching that starts this week.

And she said, You know, I don't know if we started out as a Kinect call. And she said, I don't know if we're gonna have time on this call, but I want to talk to you on group coaching. And I said, you know, if I can't explain it to you in about a minute, it's too complicated. And so I took the 30 seconds or so it takes for me to explain how group coaching actually works. You And then she said, Okay, I want to do that. 

But for me, if it takes any more than about 30 seconds or a minute for me to explain the things I offer to you and how it actually works, it's too complicated. That's not going to be the case for every business. Like I have a client, who's a professional organizer. And sometimes it takes a little more for her to like, set the parameters with the people. But generally speaking, her base level conversation is like, if you need your house cleaned out, we'll clean out all the stuff. And then they talk details, right? But the simplest thing to lead with is yes, we can do that. Here's how we start. Right? So with people as you make offers, what's going to make it easy for them to say, okay, that's an easy thing I can do to start, sometimes I'll say, reply to this email, or just like, send me a quick message or whatever, somebody is gonna have to take the step like, I'm not going to stalk them. 

Because that's not how I run a business. But at the same time, it's like, what can be simpler? How can it be simple for them to do what you're asking of them? How can it be simple of the for them to take whatever the next step is? In for you? Right? What's the simplest version of your offer? For me, it's come get coached, because I will hear you. And then we'll do what you need. Right? You'll grow the things that you're struggling with now will will will find new struggles to replace them with but they'll will stop that struggle. And we'll move forward. So you know, what, simpler that you could offer? 

What are you making more complicated than you need to? Where are you using 400,000 words where you could use 40? And I do that there's partly indirect, but that's in being more direct. But that is also simplifying? Like, can you simplify what you're offering people to make it easier to understand? So these are three questions that really make a difference. How can I be more direct? How can I make it simpler? How can I be more specific, all of those questions, they're not all things you'll do at once. But pick any one to serve it, practice it. And then see if you can be direct and specific. 

See if you can be direct and simple. See if you can be simple and specific. Right, combine them together, start to play with it. But the more you think about it, the more you practice it, the easier it gets. The other thing you can do. And I recommend this to people all the time clients connections, whatever it is to shop a little bit in the Facebook world, in the internet, on LinkedIn on the places you love. Look at the way other people are writing offers. Look for directness, look for specific newness, look for simplicity and be like, Oh, interesting. That's simple. That's interesting. I could think about doing it like that. Or see something that's very direct and think like, oh, God, I wasn't offended by that. That's interesting. 

Because I think we think direct is going to offend people. And yet we see direct offers all the time. And we think like, Oh, that's cool. I might need that. We don't think Oh, my God, they just came right out and told me what they have. They're the worst. Right? And when we see something really specific, we're like, oh, gosh, I can totally picture that. I can totally feel it. And it's like, oh, so look for examples. It's a really good practice. I do it all the time I see stuff go by sometimes I'm like, Oh, that's interesting. I don't know. 

You know how I feel about that. I wonder what that would look like for me. And it's not copying them. It's more like, Okay, how do I apply that in my business? I'm constantly poking things just like you are. Let's keep poking. Okay. And so from here, what I will tell you is I did a little quick episode last week that gave a little quick overview of all the things coming into the uncomplicated business world. And the next couple of months, group coaching is launched. 

We already had three offers a day workshop on November 20, and doing a workshop in my Facebook group, which is the same name as this podcast, about moving from connecting to selling, bridging those two. So you know, if you feel like you're doing a lot of connecting with people and no sales and you're not growing a business, you're not getting any clients from it, that workshop is for you. Because it's going to talk about how do we connect one to the other without being like stalkers about it and weird. And no, in December, there are two things happening.

 The first is the next round of the course I teach on sales and teaching people to give through sales and to sell by giving, which is called selling for weirdos. We'll open again early in December. If you are looking to love salesmen are this is the way to do it. And then in the middle of the month 13th 14th and 15th, I do a free planning workshop every year come play with us. It will be on noon at noon Eastern on those three days and we're going to do planning for 2024. 

It might be not exactly the kind of planning you're used to, and that's a good thing. So come play with us. If you are interested in coaching, I have spots for you. If you are interested in doing any of these things, you don't know how to start. Come ask if you have a question. I'm here like I'm a real person. I answer emails, I answer Facebook messages, I answer stuff so fast. And if I can be of help to you, I would love to be happy making offers and I'll see you in a couple of weeks.