Sales and Cigars | Matt Anderson | What's Wrong With Your Offers? | Episode 171

[00:00:00] Hey everyone, Walter Crosby with Healing Sales Development, your host of Sales and Cigars.

[00:00:04] Today my guest is Matt Anderson and we're going to talk about marketing.

[00:00:08] We're going to talk specifically about offers, the offers that we should be making to our

[00:00:13] prospects.

[00:00:14] We're going to talk about the mistakes.

[00:00:17] There's four big mistakes that business owners typically make with offers.

[00:00:22] And we're going to talk about a formula that we should be using to think about

[00:00:26] how we connect those offers with our prospects and get our customers to buy.

[00:00:31] So go grab a cocktail, grab a cigar, strap in for another exciting episode of Sales and

[00:00:36] Cigars.

[00:00:56] Matt, welcome to Sales and Cigars.

[00:01:02] Return visit.

[00:01:03] Appreciate you taking some more time.

[00:01:05] Yeah, thanks for having me back, Walter.

[00:01:06] I've been enjoying these conversations.

[00:01:08] Well, hopefully we're selling some books.

[00:01:11] Hopefully we're educating the audience on what they could do a little better with

[00:01:17] their marketing.

[00:01:18] Yeah, it's been fun.

[00:01:23] Really getting good feedback from the people who've purchased a copy.

[00:01:26] And that's always gratifying to hear that people are not just learning stuff but also

[00:01:32] enjoying the read.

[00:01:34] Yeah, like I said before, it's a manual.

[00:01:38] It's not a romantic novel.

[00:01:42] It's not one of those esoteric marketing books that are like, what the hell is he

[00:01:47] saying?

[00:01:48] It's like, oh, that's what I'm doing wrong.

[00:01:51] There it is.

[00:01:52] You should probably mention what we're talking about so we don't lose people.

[00:01:56] My copy has got a bunch of little tabs sticking out of it.

[00:02:02] It's how I read books these days.

[00:02:05] I put little sticky notes in sections that I can go back to easily.

[00:02:10] Yeah, that's helpful.

[00:02:13] But yeah, the book is first fix your message and I just wrote it as a way to make it

[00:02:17] easier to share what I do and hopefully help people out before they're ready for services

[00:02:23] to really understand how to think about their marketing and be able to address their

[00:02:28] marketing problems in kind of a different way by starting with your message and then

[00:02:34] working backwards from there.

[00:02:36] Show the cover again.

[00:02:37] So I got a question and I always think of this question like 8.39 o'clock at night

[00:02:42] and I can't call you, the bird.

[00:02:44] Yes.

[00:02:45] Is there some subliminal message with the bird that your little marketing brain is working

[00:02:49] here?

[00:02:50] No, there's no subliminal message.

[00:02:53] I needed a cover and was looking at different stock art images and this one really struck

[00:03:01] me as having the right combination of whimsy and kind of tone.

[00:03:10] It's a book about an important subject but it's not super serious.

[00:03:14] So I wanted to kind of strike that balance.

[00:03:17] I just want to clear that up.

[00:03:18] It's not a subliminal message in the marketing piece.

[00:03:20] Bird is just a bird.

[00:03:23] Sometimes in marketing or in anything else, especially with images, you're thinking about the

[00:03:29] emotional impact as much as any explicit.

[00:03:33] And for me, a cigar is often just a cigar.

[00:03:36] Yeah.

[00:03:37] Yes.

[00:03:38] And then for Bill Clinton, we won't go there.

[00:03:43] All right.

[00:03:44] Let's go to chapter 8 in the book.

[00:03:49] And I think it's an important topic.

[00:03:51] I think it's a topic that as business owners and entrepreneurs, it's really vital that

[00:03:59] we get offers right.

[00:04:02] And it's a really powerful chapter.

[00:04:06] It's not one of the super long chapters but it really you cut right to the chase.

[00:04:11] So let's do that.

[00:04:13] Let's talk about those big mistakes that you've seen throughout your career and that you sort

[00:04:22] of document right out of the gate there.

[00:04:24] Yeah, sure thing.

[00:04:25] So chapter 8 is right in the middle of part 2 which is where we kind of walk through

[00:04:32] step by step the order of problems that people tend to have in marketing.

[00:04:39] So the chapters before that talk about making sure that your marketing is doing the things

[00:04:45] that it needs to do to grab attention, which is to speak to the underlying psychology of

[00:04:51] the customer.

[00:04:52] And then make sure that you're doing the things that you need to do to be persuasive

[00:04:57] in terms of making your pitch.

[00:04:58] And the natural thing that follows and this is where a lot of people stumble is

[00:05:03] in not having a very good offer or any offer at all.

[00:05:08] And so you can kind of think about the mistakes that people make in terms of their offers in

[00:05:13] kind of three or four broad categories.

[00:05:16] The first one being just not making an offer at all.

[00:05:19] I can't tell you how many times over the last 20 years I've had clients come to me.

[00:05:24] Mind boggling, right?

[00:05:25] That we don't even a shitty offer is better than no offer, right?

[00:05:30] You would sure think so but I can tell you that there's just numerous times throughout

[00:05:37] the last nearly 25 years that I've been in marketing where a client has come to me and

[00:05:42] they're frustrated and they're wondering why their marketing isn't working.

[00:05:46] And I look at their ads and I look at their webpages and they never ask for the sale.

[00:05:54] And it's mind boggling to think about it, you know, but whether it's because you're

[00:06:00] too close to it and it's so obvious to you what you're selling that you don't

[00:06:05] realize.

[00:06:06] I think that's a big part of it.

[00:06:09] We're often as a business owner too close to our own stuff and we just like, well this

[00:06:15] is obvious, we don't even think about it.

[00:06:17] Yeah, the curse of knowledge is a real thing.

[00:06:20] We've talked about it a lot in these episodes but the reason why is because it shows up

[00:06:24] in so many different places.

[00:06:25] And this is another, I'm sorry I didn't catch that.

[00:06:28] Yeah, this is another curse of knowledge is it shows up in the offer.

[00:06:33] So no offer, big problem.

[00:06:38] Another one if I recall correctly is a low value offer.

[00:06:43] How does that have a negative effect on a prospect's desire to do business with you?

[00:06:53] Yeah, so if we get over that hurdle of not making an offer then probably the next most

[00:06:58] common problem that I see is that when they do make an offer, they don't do anything to

[00:07:05] position the value of the offer.

[00:07:09] Or they phrase the offer in kind of an offhanded way.

[00:07:13] So it's what you might think of as a kind of a weak or tepid offer.

[00:07:20] The challenge there is if you're going to ask for the sale, really ask for the

[00:07:25] sale.

[00:07:29] And this is where I think that many business owners especially when they're starting out

[00:07:33] in marketing are almost embarrassed to ask for the sale.

[00:07:38] They don't want to be too salesy, they don't want to be manipulative and all of those

[00:07:42] are good instincts but at the same time you don't want those instincts to cause

[00:07:46] you to formulate your offer in such a way that it's not attractive to the customers

[00:07:52] who need it most.

[00:07:54] I don't know if that's tracking with your experience with the clients that you've been

[00:07:58] serving.

[00:07:59] Oh absolutely, sometimes they don't put the right words in it, they don't tie it back

[00:08:06] to what you talk about in the first part of the book.

[00:08:08] We're not really connecting with the prospect but more often than not it's convoluted and

[00:08:14] we got to sift through a bunch of words to figure out what it is, what's in this

[00:08:18] for me as a prospect.

[00:08:21] And I think that definitely resonates with what I've seen and I know I've made that mistake,

[00:08:28] I've gone about it's like somebody really is this somebody going to pay this?

[00:08:32] And if I think about it wow what am I actually helping them save, what am I helping

[00:08:37] them solve?

[00:08:38] And it's always 10 times.

[00:08:40] What I'm asking for they get a 10 times return and if I don't offer that then

[00:08:47] they shouldn't buy in my mind.

[00:08:49] So I'm giving great value and I just I lacked the confidence years ago that I didn't have

[00:08:56] it.

[00:08:57] So I think that resonates with the audience.

[00:08:59] Yeah definitely.

[00:09:00] So you know before we got on here we were talking a little bit about this subject of

[00:09:05] offers and you mentioned that you just recently reread Alex Hermosi's book on offers.

[00:09:11] He's a direct marketer who kind of rocketed to fame in he had a company that provided

[00:09:18] advertising services to gyms and was doing I think at its peak about $30 million a year

[00:09:25] in subscription sales to gyms to provide their marketing services.

[00:09:30] And I think one of the big takeaways from that book is he put this really into he

[00:09:38] put the value of an offer into a formula that can I think provide a really nice framework

[00:09:44] to kind of think through step by step whether your offer is high value or not.

[00:09:51] And the starting point for the value of an offer is the expected value that the customer

[00:09:57] can expect to receive from purchasing your product or service.

[00:10:02] So expected value is the value of the dream outcome you deliver multiplied by the likelihood

[00:10:09] that they're going to achieve it.

[00:10:11] So if I have a product that can make you a million dollars a year right that would be

[00:10:17] really a valuable product but it's not that valuable if that product is a lottery and

[00:10:23] your chances of getting that million dollars are one in 10 million right.

[00:10:28] Then the value exceeds the cost of the lottery ticket which is you know why they say

[00:10:34] lotteries are tax on people who are bad at math.

[00:10:37] Right.

[00:10:38] But if you think about that it gives you a starting place for creating a valuable offer.

[00:10:43] You want to make sure that the outcome you're delivering to your customers is something

[00:10:48] that they really care about and that you can attach a high amount of value to.

[00:10:53] And then you need to make sure that your offer includes all the components

[00:10:58] that give your customer confidence that they're going to succeed with that offer.

[00:11:03] Now sometimes that's as simple as listing out the features that will give the

[00:11:09] customer confidence that the product will do what you want it to do.

[00:11:15] So if you take this microphone for example it has a variety of features

[00:11:21] that are supposed to deliver good sound you know from the way it captures

[00:11:25] the bass to the whatever they call the pattern of recording the shape of the sound

[00:11:32] and how it excludes background noise.

[00:11:35] And the direction is this.

[00:11:37] So you see how those features then give you confidence that it's going to deliver

[00:11:42] the outcome that you want which is you know premium quality sound better than

[00:11:46] what you're going to get off of a laptop.

[00:11:49] You know other times it means bundling other services along with your offer.

[00:11:55] I see this often in my clients that do B2B software you know SaaS products.

[00:12:03] Often when they start to bundle in a training program and implementation

[00:12:07] consulting and a configuration step that you might get for free if you sign

[00:12:12] up for a two year contract or three year contract.

[00:12:16] Well then all of a sudden the doubts or objections that the potential

[00:12:21] customer has begin to drop off because they're like well OK I

[00:12:26] was worried about actually implementing this.

[00:12:28] Everything sounds good until you sign on the dotted line and you get going.

[00:12:33] And well they're going to walk me through the implementation process

[00:12:37] and they've got this great onboarding thing and then they're going to train

[00:12:40] my employees to use it so that they'll actually use it.

[00:12:43] And there's other features that maybe there's a mobile app

[00:12:47] so that my sales team can use the application while they're on the go.

[00:12:52] And so that removes another obstacle to my success.

[00:12:55] And with each thing that you add to that offer that improves the likelihood

[00:12:59] that they're going to get the outcome they want the more valuable

[00:13:02] the offer appears to be.

[00:13:05] Absolutely.

[00:13:06] And in the more complex the sale it's more of those it's less about

[00:13:11] features it's more about those those things that we're using to augment

[00:13:16] right where there's really a deliverable that helps them achieve that outcome.

[00:13:21] And yeah definitely.

[00:13:23] But this kind of gets to the underlying point which is that most people forget

[00:13:29] to you know if they remember to make an offer they forget to explain

[00:13:33] what's included in the offer and then they forget to message

[00:13:38] all the reasons that the offer is going to be successful.

[00:13:42] So they think that they've accomplished the persuasion goal

[00:13:46] as soon as they persuade people that they need the product.

[00:13:49] But that's that's just the starting point.

[00:13:52] Often when you see in a direct response sales letter or an infomercial

[00:13:57] or something like that almost half of the time messaging

[00:14:02] the the entire pitch is spent on the offer.

[00:14:08] And the reason is because there are so many questions

[00:14:11] that people have about your offer that you often don't think about

[00:14:15] and addressing those questions get them to the finishing line much faster.

[00:14:20] And being able to think about when you're putting your offer together

[00:14:24] being able to think about what those objections are going to be

[00:14:28] what's going to cause that that prospect to be like

[00:14:31] ah this all sounds great but right.

[00:14:34] And everything that comes after that but we need to address

[00:14:37] in our offer explain it share it

[00:14:42] and help help take that away to improve the likelihood of that

[00:14:46] of them reaching the dream outcome.

[00:14:48] That's right.

[00:14:48] And the reason you want to do that in your offer messaging

[00:14:52] is because that's the least defensive place

[00:14:56] you can put those attributes of your offer

[00:15:00] to persuade your customer.

[00:15:03] Right.

[00:15:03] If you've walked through your pitch

[00:15:05] and you've persuaded them that they need what you sell

[00:15:08] there's always going to be these latent objections

[00:15:11] and the what you can answer those objections implicitly

[00:15:15] not saying you're probably wondering if X Y Z

[00:15:18] and here's our answer to that objection.

[00:15:21] It you know that comes off defensive it comes off weak

[00:15:24] if instead you could say and you get this

[00:15:27] and here's another thing and you get this so that

[00:15:31] you know there's no problems in implementing

[00:15:33] and we're going to include a mobile app for you free of charge

[00:15:36] so that all of your employees can use it whatever

[00:15:40] they need to and they can do it on the go or in their downtime

[00:15:44] and you know so that you get the results that you want

[00:15:47] and they actually use the system.

[00:15:49] You know you're answering a whole bunch of objections

[00:15:51] but you're not having to call out those objections

[00:15:54] or give additional validity to it.

[00:15:56] You're just adding strength to that offer

[00:15:58] and as you know from years of delivering sales training

[00:16:03] when you can approach the customer from a standpoint

[00:16:06] of strength you give them confidence

[00:16:09] they begin to relax into trusting what you're offering them

[00:16:12] and they're much more likely to buy at that point.

[00:16:15] And the you know I think I think there's a

[00:16:21] when we talk about the the infomercial right

[00:16:23] the the Ron Popil type infomercials right

[00:16:27] that kind of started that with television and things

[00:16:30] but we deliver those in landing pages

[00:16:32] we deliver them with videos we deliver them in words

[00:16:36] right and it's but the concept is that we're

[00:16:40] I think the important piece that you said is that latent objection

[00:16:43] it's not being in defensive position.

[00:16:46] We're saying and we do this and we do that

[00:16:50] and we allow the prospect in their mind to be like oh yeah

[00:16:54] that's taken care of oh yeah that's taken care of without the

[00:16:58] without without that defensive position

[00:17:00] and I think that's a really solid point

[00:17:02] that that is important to do in in in our offers

[00:17:07] because it just psychologically it makes it

[00:17:11] land easier with the prospect.

[00:17:14] Yeah you know one of the tricks to doing this well

[00:17:17] is often when you create your offer

[00:17:19] you're holding a couple of things back

[00:17:21] that you can then throw on top

[00:17:24] it to really close the sale.

[00:17:26] So if you think psychologically about what's happening

[00:17:30] when you're listening to a pitch

[00:17:32] say you're persuaded that you need a particular solution

[00:17:35] right you need a dedicated microphone instead of

[00:17:39] the microphone on your laptop

[00:17:41] and the pitch is explaining to you all the benefits

[00:17:44] of a dedicated microphone

[00:17:46] and then you find out but you know once you're

[00:17:49] like mostly persuaded there you're at that point

[00:17:52] you're kind of curious well what's the price.

[00:17:54] Now the reason infomercials often hold the price back

[00:17:56] to the very end is they want to build additional value

[00:18:00] in that offer so that you know the customer

[00:18:04] is creating that picture of how they're going to get

[00:18:07] their dream outcome and it's you know

[00:18:11] the product must be expensive right because it's

[00:18:14] delivering a ton of value to them

[00:18:16] and then when you find out the price

[00:18:18] it's that what you were saying before

[00:18:20] it's that 10 times less than they were thinking

[00:18:24] it could be

[00:18:26] and you know by holding some of those details back

[00:18:29] you can both address those objections

[00:18:32] that naturally form implicitly

[00:18:34] but you can also build that impression of

[00:18:37] there being so much more value that the purchase

[00:18:39] becomes a no brainer.

[00:18:41] Yeah it's building a little bit of tension

[00:18:44] but the tension is positive because people are leaning

[00:18:47] in they're not feeling pressured

[00:18:49] they're not feeling like oh this is bad

[00:18:52] they're leaning into this and it's like

[00:18:54] like I want to learn more I want to see where this goes

[00:18:57] and like they keep getting value added on top of it

[00:19:00] and then boom like the price is perceived to be

[00:19:04] valuable and reasonable

[00:19:07] and almost a no brainer.

[00:19:10] Yeah you can do that the way you infomercials do

[00:19:12] right by adding additional products or things

[00:19:15] like that to a bundle

[00:19:17] and then the bundle feels valuable

[00:19:18] but you can also do that in many more traditional

[00:19:21] sales settings just by adding additional messaging.

[00:19:25] You know we talked earlier about explaining

[00:19:28] additional features that you might not have been

[00:19:29] aware of before after you've introduced the offer

[00:19:32] or begun to ask for the sale.

[00:19:34] That's another way to do that.

[00:19:35] Now we've been talking mostly about the expected

[00:19:38] value side of that equation but the other part

[00:19:41] of Hormozia's equation which I think is important

[00:19:43] to at least mention is he says you have to

[00:19:46] discount the expected value by two things.

[00:19:49] How long it's going to take the customer

[00:19:52] to experience the benefit.

[00:19:55] Right.

[00:19:56] If you can deliver an outcome fast it's going to be

[00:19:59] a lot more valuable than if the customer has

[00:20:02] to wait to experience that dream outcome.

[00:20:04] So I think the example he uses in the book is

[00:20:08] the exercise program that takes six months

[00:20:11] to cause you to lose weight and the weight loss

[00:20:13] pill that causes you to lose 30 pounds in a month.

[00:20:16] You know the weight loss pill is going to deliver

[00:20:20] the outcome faster at least that's what it claims

[00:20:24] and then it's also going to require less effort from you.

[00:20:27] So a product that requires a lot more effort

[00:20:30] for you to get the outcome is going to be

[00:20:32] less valuable than a product that delivers

[00:20:35] that outcome in a more effortless manner.

[00:20:39] Yes.

[00:20:39] And it's showing them that they have to spend

[00:20:44] you know there are in effect paying for speed

[00:20:48] great with this offer and some people are happy to do that.

[00:20:53] And but what really becomes important is the speed

[00:20:58] with less effort on their part where they can do something like

[00:21:03] oh you're going to make it easy in his book.

[00:21:05] You know you're going to make it easy for me to shop.

[00:21:07] You're going to make it easy to go make those decisions

[00:21:09] when I go out to eat.

[00:21:11] You're going to make it easy for me to have live my life.

[00:21:14] Right.

[00:21:15] In my offers for like helping people change how they hire sales people.

[00:21:19] It's it's like we're not requiring you to completely upset your apple cart.

[00:21:24] We're going to show you how this is done and we're going to do this for you.

[00:21:28] We're going to do this for you.

[00:21:29] And it's keep it's that and this and this as you said.

[00:21:33] And they realize oh I don't have to do this.

[00:21:36] Oh I only have to do the part that I really care about.

[00:21:40] Right.

[00:21:40] That final part of the interview and making sure that they're a fit.

[00:21:44] Right.

[00:21:44] It in you've got to get them there.

[00:21:47] Right.

[00:21:47] To you got to help them see that there's value in your offer that I'm not getting

[00:21:53] the results I want and so they lean into your offer and then you keep adding

[00:21:57] this value as you as you add on to it.

[00:21:59] And so that's where urgency comes into an offer is the time.

[00:22:03] Right.

[00:22:04] Yeah.

[00:22:04] I guess I'll rate.

[00:22:05] Hey thanks for being part of sales and cigars.

[00:22:08] I wanted to share a new project that we just launched.

[00:22:11] I wrote a new book called Scale Your Sales.

[00:22:13] It's written for the CEO.

[00:22:15] It's a short powerful book that explains the seven critical mistakes

[00:22:20] that CEOs make with their sales organization.

[00:22:22] It provides actionable steps that you can take to fix those problems

[00:22:27] in your business today and it might even help you get out of the sales seat

[00:22:31] yourself.

[00:22:32] So appreciate you listening to sales and cigars.

[00:22:35] You can find this book on Amazon or wherever you buy books.

[00:22:38] Thanks.

[00:22:39] When you think about the value equation time is a factor that you would

[00:22:45] discount the expected value from both time and the effort that it takes you.

[00:22:52] But once you have a valuable offer you often also need to incentivize

[00:22:58] your customer to take action right away.

[00:23:01] You know this is something I learned from doing direct response marketing

[00:23:05] early in my career.

[00:23:07] What we what was drummed into my head from the beginning was you have to ask

[00:23:12] for the sale and you have to convince them that they're going to fill out the

[00:23:16] order form and take it to the mailbox and put a stamp on it or put it in the

[00:23:21] self of the return to envelope.

[00:23:23] And they have to do it now because if they don't walk into the mailbox right

[00:23:27] now 95 percent of the time the magic will dissipate and they'll never

[00:23:32] purchase what you would just convince them that you want to purchase.

[00:23:35] So some of the ways that people add urgency is by limited time sales.

[00:23:42] Right.

[00:23:42] That's an obvious one.

[00:23:45] Living in Michigan we both experienced Art Van one of the larger

[00:23:48] furniture stores in the country and their thing is they have a sale very

[00:23:54] frequently so often that it's almost comedic.

[00:23:56] You know there's a president's day sale and that's followed by the

[00:23:59] it's almost Easter sale and then it's followed by its Easter sale.

[00:24:03] And you know I'm a little bit but not that much.

[00:24:06] Not really.

[00:24:07] If you are thinking I need to replace that sofa and then you see an ad

[00:24:11] that says this weekend only saved 30 percent on sofas.

[00:24:14] Well that's that's a pretty compelling

[00:24:17] offer and it gets you to take action now.

[00:24:21] You know another good example that I saw there's this company down here

[00:24:26] that I had replaced my windows and what they do is they do in home sales

[00:24:32] and when they come out and they give you an estimate they offer a 20 percent

[00:24:37] discount for agreeing to the estimate right there.

[00:24:40] And if you don't agree right there well you still get a pretty good price

[00:24:46] but that little nudge to say OK decide now and don't make up your mind takes

[00:24:52] you know don't wait to make up your mind takes a lot of the hesitancy off

[00:24:57] the table right it rewards you for taking action immediately.

[00:25:01] Yeah and that has to be done in a from a sales

[00:25:05] perspective in the living room or at the dining room table.

[00:25:08] Right. That has to be positioned and messaged well with a little nuance.

[00:25:13] Definitely.

[00:25:14] But you know the 30 percent this weekend to buy

[00:25:16] the couch you've been waiting for for the last six months.

[00:25:18] All right now I'm motivated to drive to the store to go look at the couch.

[00:25:24] You know they don't tell you you're going to have to wait 16 weeks to get

[00:25:26] the freaking couch but that's right story.

[00:25:29] Yeah. Yeah I know exactly.

[00:25:30] But it's your point is an important one.

[00:25:33] Urgency tactics can come off as if you're trying to strong arm the customer.

[00:25:38] And as soon as you leave that impression you're going to turn off a vast majority

[00:25:42] of your market so you want to do that definitely often.

[00:25:46] It's just often just a little bit of messaging that reminds them

[00:25:51] of the outcome that they want and tells them that they should act now

[00:25:57] while they're still thinking of it so they don't forget or so that they can begin

[00:26:01] experiencing the benefits that they want sooner is enough to remind people to.

[00:26:08] Oh yeah I really do want this and I'm not going to get it until I actually pull

[00:26:14] the trigger and purchase whatever that product or services.

[00:26:17] And in that particular in that sale situation with that offer

[00:26:21] we bought some gutter guards right.

[00:26:25] Yeah.

[00:26:26] Leaf filter I think is the one we bought

[00:26:28] and you know I had an objection at the end of it.

[00:26:33] Look I know you get 20 percent if I do it now and you're only going to give me

[00:26:36] 15 percent later I get all that but here's my problem.

[00:26:39] It's freaking January and you're going to seal up all these gutters.

[00:26:42] You told me yeah you did.

[00:26:45] That's what we're going to do.

[00:26:45] I'm like this stuff isn't the silicone is not going to set properly when

[00:26:49] it's 12 degrees out and snowing right.

[00:26:52] And it doesn't.

[00:26:53] And he's like we'll seal it we're going to do it.

[00:26:56] And if it doesn't work it's right here.

[00:26:59] We will come back until it works.

[00:27:03] Right.

[00:27:03] So I'm like well if you come back in the spring time when it's warm that will solve

[00:27:07] the problem and he's like it's in writing we will do it.

[00:27:10] All you do is call this number.

[00:27:11] Right.

[00:27:12] And that he handled that objection because it's part of their process

[00:27:17] because somebody figured out we want to do these all year round.

[00:27:20] But silicone isn't going to isn't going to gel properly in 12 degree

[00:27:26] weather in Michigan. So so that's that's part of it.

[00:27:29] I think there's one other thing that we should cover

[00:27:32] and that is in the book that

[00:27:36] I think business owners the audience really needs to understand this is that

[00:27:40] is making enough offers and can you give a context around that because I think

[00:27:44] that's important.

[00:27:45] Yeah, certainly.

[00:27:46] So what you're

[00:27:50] creating a marketing plan your

[00:27:53] obvious focus is on trying to sell your primary product or service.

[00:27:57] Right. Because that's where most of the money is made.

[00:28:01] But the more complex your sales process

[00:28:04] the more important it is to have different ways for the customer to engage with you

[00:28:11] because the purchasing cycle takes a longer time.

[00:28:15] They take more time to make up their mind.

[00:28:17] They have more questions, more objections they have to overcome and things like that.

[00:28:21] And so when I talked about this as in terms of problem

[00:28:27] language of not making enough offers, but the solution is really to find ways

[00:28:33] to give your customer to engage short of making the sale.

[00:28:37] So if you think of the typical landing page for a website,

[00:28:43] you've run some ads that grab their attention,

[00:28:47] you know, and once you've grabbed their attention, they come to this landing page.

[00:28:53] They read about your product.

[00:28:54] They're interested, but they're not ready to buy right now.

[00:28:58] What else can you offer them that gives them opportunities to learn more about

[00:29:04] the product, maybe overcome some of their objections

[00:29:08] that can deliver value to them, that will improve their confidence

[00:29:13] that you can actually deliver the dream outcome that you're promising,

[00:29:18] those kinds of things.

[00:29:19] And what's often important there is doing that in a way that allows you

[00:29:25] to collect contact information where you start to understand who your prospect

[00:29:30] is and can then communicate with them through low cost channels like email

[00:29:36] in the future.

[00:29:38] And it's often I've seen this time and again with clients that

[00:29:44] when we're able to add a really effective email sequence and a secondary

[00:29:49] call to action like an informational booklet or brochure

[00:29:54] to their offer, give them an intermediate offer that allows them

[00:29:59] to engage the customer that they can often increase their sales by 30 percent,

[00:30:04] 50 percent, even 100 percent just because they're able to keep staying

[00:30:10] engaged with that customer over the entire length of the decision cycle.

[00:30:13] So so those additional offers are as you talk about enough offers,

[00:30:18] those additional offers allow us to engage with that prospect at some level,

[00:30:22] especially if we have a higher high ticket item that we're trying to

[00:30:26] bring them into, we give them something that is less,

[00:30:30] less expensive, but brings them in.

[00:30:32] We collect some data.

[00:30:33] We get them in and they get a taste of what?

[00:30:36] Well, wow, they're over delivering.

[00:30:38] They're giving us a lot of value here for almost nothing.

[00:30:41] Maybe I should keep listening and then you make these additional offers

[00:30:48] that are slowly maybe ticking up in value and in cost.

[00:30:53] And this is this is adding income and revenue to help help your advertising

[00:31:02] budgets keep going because your cost of your lead gen is dropping.

[00:31:07] If you have it, it's it works really well when you can actually charge for those

[00:31:12] intermediate offers.

[00:31:13] So take myself, for example, I sell fairly high priced marketing strategy

[00:31:18] services that many of my potential clients, some of the people who would be

[00:31:22] my best clients, don't know to even shop for because they've never encountered

[00:31:27] someone who can solve their marketing problems the way I do.

[00:31:31] And so if I were to run ads and describe my service and it's a pretty compelling offer,

[00:31:37] there's a lot of different features in terms of how facilitation

[00:31:42] really reduces the effort that's involved, allows you to get a marketing strategy

[00:31:47] faster instead of a three or four month process.

[00:31:49] It's a three or four week process or even faster than that in many cases.

[00:31:55] So my core offer has a lot of the things that would make that offer valuable.

[00:32:02] And it's often a third or less than what people would expect to spend with

[00:32:06] a normal ad agency to get a better outcome.

[00:32:09] But that's not enough because the customer doesn't trust me yet.

[00:32:14] They have no reason to trust me if they just see me with an online ad.

[00:32:17] So my answer to that was to write the book that we've been talking about

[00:32:20] for a first fix your message.

[00:32:23] And so the very first step for me to engage people is with an ad that talks about

[00:32:29] the marketing problems and says, hey, if you have this problem,

[00:32:33] you really ought to read this book.

[00:32:35] And then the next step is they go to a landing page and that landing page has

[00:32:39] a sales letter that gives a very long and involved pitch for why this book

[00:32:43] is going to be really valuable and it's the solution they need.

[00:32:47] And they can purchase the book then for just seven dollars online.

[00:32:51] And that is that makes an initial sale.

[00:32:56] And then once I've made that sale, I have some additional offers.

[00:32:59] And the goal of those offers is what they call to self liquidate.

[00:33:03] You know, I want the initial the cost of the book that they purchase.

[00:33:07] And you know, the percentage of them that purchase one of the

[00:33:12] lower cost, high value products after they purchase the book to cover my cost

[00:33:18] of advertising pretty quickly.

[00:33:20] And if I can do that when I can do that,

[00:33:23] then I can grow my audience very without having to commit the, you know,

[00:33:29] tens of thousands of dollars in capital that it would normally take before

[00:33:34] you have a large enough audience to then to sell the higher value strategy

[00:33:39] services.

[00:33:40] So that's a really efficient way to, you know, make your advertising pay for itself.

[00:33:48] And that that flow.

[00:33:51] So, so, you know, I think the mistakes that we covered was that people don't have

[00:33:57] an offer that they have an offer that's that's poorly done, weak and is too low

[00:34:04] of a value for what they're what they're really offering.

[00:34:06] They're not creating this certain level of urgency and that they were not having

[00:34:12] enough offers offers to continually keep these people engaged and to to bring them

[00:34:19] along, especially for our high ticket listeners.

[00:34:23] And then let's talk a little bit at land on this idea of of a call to action

[00:34:29] and getting people to do something.

[00:34:31] Is that is that something else you see as a challenge?

[00:34:33] Yeah, I think in the book,

[00:34:36] I classified that under just not making an offer.

[00:34:39] You know, when we talk about the clients that I've seen where I can look at their

[00:34:42] marketing assets and it's like, well, the reason you're not having a problem is

[00:34:46] you never asked for a sale.

[00:34:47] That is, you know, that that's often one of those problems.

[00:34:51] But I also think that

[00:34:55] you maybe I'll describe it this way.

[00:34:58] The other kind of the other side of that coin is that

[00:35:04] people often don't make the offer frequently enough.

[00:35:08] So if you think about the normal home page,

[00:35:12] you'll often see a buy button in the hero section and then you'll see a buy button

[00:35:17] on the bottom of the page.

[00:35:18] And I've had a number of clients where if you just put a button for them to

[00:35:22] click after each section of the website to say, hey, if you're ready to buy,

[00:35:26] you can buy right now or take action today that that alone,

[00:35:31] just adding extra buttons, even though your designer is going to tell you it's ugly,

[00:35:36] is a way to dramatically increase the conversion rates on your web pages.

[00:35:42] I've had some web pages where adding a few more buy buttons has increased

[00:35:49] conversion rates 20, 30, 40 percent.

[00:35:52] And that's because you're

[00:35:54] giving them an opportunity to buy the moment they're convinced.

[00:35:59] And that's also a way to put it into sales parlance,

[00:36:03] not to keep talking past the sale.

[00:36:05] Right? If you think you've convinced them, allow them to buy.

[00:36:09] And when we have it on a web page or landing page or some kind of a sales

[00:36:14] letter, we don't know when that happens in their mind.

[00:36:17] So we can't do it every three sentences.

[00:36:19] But to have that there after each section gives them that ability.

[00:36:24] And I was just at a conference where we had an email marketer

[00:36:28] who whose company does a lot of emailing and supporting companies and creating

[00:36:33] engagement. And one of the things he said about those buttons is exactly what you

[00:36:39] said, we should have them more frequently.

[00:36:42] But they also can have four or five words.

[00:36:46] They can be a partial sentence.

[00:36:48] They don't have to be exactly by now.

[00:36:50] It can be different words for the different sections.

[00:36:54] And we can make those words as whatever we want, because we can make the button

[00:36:58] whatever we want. So that ties directly to what you're talking about.

[00:37:02] And and we're giving them the opportunity to make the buy.

[00:37:06] Right. And one piece of advice I've seen designers often give that I'm

[00:37:11] in many cases, I disagree with is to use the same verbiage on the button

[00:37:17] every time. And when you can phrase your call to action in terms of what they just

[00:37:22] read, the thing that drew their interest in the first place and, you know,

[00:37:27] and that would vary section by section.

[00:37:30] It often makes it more natural and feel less like you're strong arming them.

[00:37:35] It makes it more natural for them to click that button and actually go ahead and buy.

[00:37:38] You know, one thing before we wrap up,

[00:37:40] but I know we're getting to the end of our time here,

[00:37:42] I just want to clean up the something we talked about in terms of those

[00:37:46] secondary call to actions.

[00:37:47] While we talked about the benefit of having some ancillary products or services

[00:37:52] like the book that I described that you can charge money for and that being valuable

[00:37:57] because it's it will pay for the cost of your advertising, ideally.

[00:38:04] It doesn't always have to be something you charge for.

[00:38:07] And in fact, in many cases, it's more effective to give away

[00:38:10] something that is a high perceived value like a book or like

[00:38:17] an audit or a checklist or something like that.

[00:38:21] And the reason being that it's a lot easier to convince someone to get

[00:38:26] something for free than it is to charge for it.

[00:38:31] And so the amount of money that you save on having to run additional ads

[00:38:36] to get them to actually follow through and purchase and download the lead

[00:38:40] magnet, for example, just by making it free is another way that you can play

[00:38:45] with the cost of your advertising and deliver value to your customer and make

[00:38:49] sure that you collect that email address so that you can follow up with them

[00:38:53] until they buy.

[00:38:54] Thanks for watching another episode of sales and cigars.

[00:38:57] I'm looking for guests.

[00:38:59] I'm looking for really good guests who have an interesting story to tell

[00:39:04] their entrepreneurial journey.

[00:39:06] They want to talk about something that's going great in their organization.

[00:39:10] I'm really interested in speaking to business owners and CEOs.

[00:39:14] The other type of guest I'm looking for is somebody who's got a passion

[00:39:17] for cigars, and we can do a short episode about a pairing,

[00:39:22] about a new cigar they discovered, about something around their passion

[00:39:27] of cigars. So if one of those things fits you or you know somebody

[00:39:32] you want to make a recommendation, shoot me an email, ping me on LinkedIn.

[00:39:37] I'd love to get some guests from the audience.

[00:39:40] Appreciate it. Thanks.