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I hate the word âoffer.â I feel like the word has been co-opted by the slew of influencers and creators who tell you how to grow on any given platform. It makes it seem like slop. Itâs not.
What people are talking about when they talk about âcreating an offerâ is productization. In other words, making what you do into a product. Productization, or creating an offer, is beneficial for several reasons:
It forces you to package your services into a box thatâs easily understood
It makes selling easier
It makes delivering your service more standardized
It makes pricing easier
It serves as a starting point for all of your future scopes and pitches
All of these things together are extremely powerful for business momentum because they give you two things: efficiency and visibility. Two things you need to be successful in this game.
Iâm going to tell you a secret about offer creation. Sometimes, youâll create a perfect offer and no one will ever buy that exact offer from you. Ever.
The second secret: even if this happens, itâs not a waste of time. People may buy a version of your offer. They may buy something else that you do instead. Either of these outcomes are good for your business.
Weâre going to talk about the ingredients for a strong offer, and the key decisions you need to make to design one.
Iâm also going to share offer examples from other service entrepreneurs (who do not coach you how to grow on Substack or Instagram) so you can get a feel for how people like us do it.
If youâve been here for a minute, you already know what Iâm going to say next: if you donât have your positioning established, I strongly suggest you start there first. This will make everything easier. Go HERE and then come back!
OK, letâs get into it.
The Anatomy of a Strong Offer
Strong offers have a few things nailed down:
Transformation
They make it clear what your purchaser can expect to get out of your experience.
Delivery Method
Whether itâs a cohort, a 1:1 model, course, or some combination of all of these, itâs clear how they interact with you and when.
Timing
Itâs clear how long it will take - for you, and for them. And itâs clear when they can start, especially if youâre offering a cohort model.
Pricing
You know how much it costs. And youâre confident in the number based on what people get from it/the work you put in.
Letâs get into all of these, one by one.
Transformation
People buy an offer because they want something to change. They want to undergo a transformation. Iâll give you some thought starters below - as you think about your own skillset and services, which of these could make sense for you?
There are probably a handful that could apply to your business.
If youâre stuck, take a look at your positioning work. What tension did you say you solved? That will help you hone in on the transformation area you want to focus on for an offer.
Keep in mind, my paid subscribers buy me a latte every month and they can come to my Office Hours monthly to ask me anything. We can workshop your offer live together during that time!
Delivery Method
Youâve got many options here.
You could deliver 1:1, as a cohort, completely asynchronously, or some combination of all of them. Iâm going to lay out your options and the tradeoffs below.
Timing
How long will this take? A year, six weeks, a week?
Timing helps people understand how long the transformation takes and grounds them in the investment.
Pricing
Ahh, the part that makes everyone sweat. I would make the price a combination of:
What other people charge for something similar (aka, what the market looks like)
The cost of you delivering it (in terms of your time)
The cost of you delivering it (in terms of actual costs. Paying someone to help you, to do some on your behalf, etc.)
Take a look at these two articles on pricing for some help:
Put it Together:
When youâve decided on transformation, delivery method, timing, and price, you have created a full offer. Congratulations! You know it works if you can put it in a sentence or two.
My offer [NAME] allows for [TRANSFORMATION] in [TIMING]. We do this by [DELIVERY METHOD].
Examples In the Wild:
Here are a couple examples of strong offers Iâve seen in the IRL:
The Workout Witch
This woman is crushing it on Instagram, and itâs because she knows how to package up an offer. See how much information you get in just a little snippet? She addresses tension, delivery method, price, and timing all in one swoop.
Rise Together
This is a client of mine who needed to productize their instructional coaching in schools. This program covers what transformation schools should expect, how long it takes, and what it costs.
Mushaboom Studios
Creative services are notoriously hard to productize, but these gals do a great job. Check out their Brand Audit offer- simple, straightforward, and I know what Iâm getting.
What if No One Buys It?
Back to what I told you earlier; there is a chance you do this, and not a single person buys your offer/joins your cohort/whatever. What then?
Iâm here to tell you something: some of my most effective offers have actually never really sold.
It was the act of operationalizing it and putting it out into the world that got me more clients: often clients who paid WAY more than what my original offer was charging in the first place.
And as an added bonus, operationalizing my services made it a lot easier for me to send proposals to future clients. Iâd already thought about what Iâd deliver, how long it would take me, and how much Iâd charge - so when someone came in asking for a service, even if it wasnât quite what my offer said, I had a starting point.
Whatâs that saying about shooting for the moon and landing amongst the starsâŚ? I hate that saying almost as much as the term âoffer creation.â But itâs exactly that.
Business [Comma] Woman is for anyone who gets hives at the thought of marketing themselves or having to go get clients. If youâre building a business around your skills, donât let the marketing part get in the way. Whatever youâre good at: accounting, tarot card reading, window washing, marketing, therapy -if itâs legal, I want you to make money at it. If this article was helpful, please share it!