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Sell Better: Part 2, Create The Urge To Buy.

Linsi Brownson

Be Brilliant In Your Business Podcast, Episode 84

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Welcome back for part two of the How to Sell Better series.  Last week we kicked things off by talking about clarity and not having a clear enough offer.  If you miss that episode definitely go and check that out.  

This week, we’re digging into the second reason: making your offer compelling. You don’t want to miss the three ways to create your own compelling offers.  Adding these three pieces to your offer will create the urge to buy with your clients. 

In This Episode:

  • [01:42] A lot of us put out offers that are not compelling at all and then we do all this work and we wonder why people aren’t buying from us.  We know it is valuable.  The truth is they don’t see the value! 

  • [02:17] If people aren’t buying from you, they need to be told exactly why they should.   It is probably happening because you are still in your head thinking about it and you should be in their head thinking about it. 

  • [02:41] What is compelling to your audience is going to be a little different than what is compelling for everyone else’s audiences but there are some key components. 

  • [03:03] Think about what you buy and what you are compelled to buy. Also, think about your specific client and customer.  If you were them how would you be compelled to buy.  

  • [03:31] The first thing that makes a compelling offer is when you give exponential returns or you give someone a greater than exchange. 

  • [03:58] The perceived value of your offer to them needs to be greater than the perceived cost.  If they perceive it as an even exchange then they are going to be a lot less motivated to take action. 

  • [06:38] A compelling offer gives our clients the motivation to take action.  Many business owners are working so hard to sell something that is valuable but it is perceived by their people as a basic exchange.  

  • [07:25] Your client isn’t thinking about all your hard work.  They are thinking about their time, their money, and the results they want.  Your clients are amazing people but they don’t care about you, they care about them.  

  • [08:02] People hire us to help them manage their time, manage their money, and get the results that they want.  It is all about your client.

  • [08:11] Can you deliver something that is worth exponentially more than what they are going to pay for it? That is an exponential return and that makes you offer a lot more compelling.

  • [09:05] The things we buy either bring us pleasure, relief, or both. The more convenient it is for us to buy the faster we can get that pleasure or relief the more motivated we are to take the action. 

  • [11:41] Think about what ways you can give your potential customers instant gratification.  Make the buying experience feel very pleasurable and give an instant sense of relief. 

  • [12:10] Another component of a compelling offer is having a hook.  A hook is something about your offer that makes it unique and better than other options.  One way that people often do this is by creating scarcity. 

  • [14:07] Another hook is creating a package service or creating a product out of your services.  This is one of the quickest ways for service companies to boost their conversions by creating products with the services they offer. 

  • [15:44] Take a look at what you are selling and see if it is unique, gratifying, and provides exponential value to your clients. 

  • [15:58] In order for your clients to buy from you or book with you, they need to feel an urge in their body to take that action.  That thought that will generate that urge is “I need this.” Your job is to figure out in your offer what is going to trigger that thought for them. 

  • [16:28] The better you understand your client and the more you can think like them, the easier it becomes to create clear and compelling offers for them. 

  • [16:51] Creating amazing offers for your specific clients takes some trial and error.  Remember that business itself is an ongoing experience.

Take a look at what you are selling - is it unique, gratifying, and providing exponential value to your clients? 


The more you can get out of your head and into your client’s head the clearer and more compelling your offers will become.

Episode Links:

Transcript

Hey, Mavericks. Welcome to the show. Welcome back for part two of the how to sell better series. Last week, we kicked things off by talking about one of two reasons why you may be having a hard time selling whatever it is that you're offering people. And that was all about clarity, not having a clear enough offer. So if you missed that episode, definitely go and check that out. Because that will give you a lot of clarity, and help you make it a lot easier for people to buy from you.

So today we're digging into part two, which is making your offer compelling. So a lot of us put out offers that are not compelling at all. And then we do all this work, make all these offers, we're scratching our heads trying to figure out why the heck aren't people buying from us, because what we're offering them is so valuable. But here's the truth, they don't see the value. When people are not buying, it's because they don't see the value. Now, this doesn't mean that your offer isn't valuable, I'm totally with you, I think you're worth a million bucks. But if people are not buying this from you, they need to be told exactly why they should. And this is probably happening simply because you're still in your head thinking about it, instead of being in their head thinking about it. And I talked about this quite a bit in the last episode.

So let's talk about what makes an offer compelling. The truth is that there's no exact formula that you follow, right? What's compelling to your audience is going to be a little different from what's compelling to everybody else's audiences. But there are some key components. And so these are the things that I just want you to consider in terms of, I want you to put on both hats here, actually, I want you to put on your customer hat.

So I want you to really think about this from the standpoint of what you buy and what you're compelled to buy. And then I also want you to think about your specific client or customer. And if you were them how they would be compelled to buy, right. So again, it's their thoughts, it's not your thoughts. But you can kind of get into the empathy role a little bit and see this from a human perspective, as well as from their specific human perspective. So the first thing that I think makes a really compelling offer is when you give exponential returns, or you give someone a greater than exchange, so everything in the world has a cost to it right? Taking you up on your offer is going to cost your client something, what does it it's either going to be time or money, both of which are very valuable to your client, right. So the perceived value of your offer to them needs to be greater than the perceived cost. And if they perceive it as an even exchange, then they're going to be a lot less motivated to take action.

So it makes me think of this demonstration that I've seen some speakers do. I've seen this a few times, like motivational seminars. So they're up on stage talking to the audience about usually about taking action about not overthinking and not being skeptical and just sort of like being in it to win it right. You go go go. And so they'll stand up there and say, does anyone in the audience have $1 in exchange for a $5 bill? If you give me $1 right now, I'll give you five, and the first person to make it up here gets the $5 bill. And so there's always someone in the room who's done this before who has their money ready and they are just like up doing it. They're running to the front of the room. But the people who've never seen this before are looking around the room, like, what the hell? What's happening right now what kind of trick is this, I'm not going to run up to the stage and look like a total idiot. But then the first person gets up there, and they make a $4 profit in all of five seconds. And then the speaker takes out a $10 bill and says, okay, who wants 10 for five, and people start moving. And then they do 20 for 10, and then 100, for 20. And by this time, there is a stampede to the front of the room, because now everybody is on board, believing that they have a chance to make 80 bucks just for getting out of their seat, it is a great incentive to take action.

But imagine instead, if that speaker pulled out $100 bill, and said, Okay, you guys, I have this beautiful, crisp hundred dollar bill. And I'm going to give it to anyone in the room here. If you have 520s, just give me your 20s, you get this hundred dollar bill, the room would be silent. Everyone would be confused as to why the speaker is asking them to help him make change. And someone might do it, I'm sure there's a lovely woman sitting in the audience who's like, I have 520s, this poor guy needs some change, let me help him. But there's no Stampede, there's no excitement, there's no real energy or motivation to get up and go. And that is the difference in the energy of a compelling offer versus a basic exchange. And many business owners are working so hard to sell something that is valuable, right. But it's perceived to their people as a basic exchange.

We do this because we're in our head, we're thinking about our time, what we need to earn to pay our bills, all the things that we've invested to get here, all the education we have all the student loans that we have, how long we've been in business, or even how good we are at our job, our job. We're taking all those things into consideration and thinking, I'm giving them so much value, how could they not want this. But your client isn't thinking about any of that. They're thinking about their time, their money and the results that they want. I say this, frankly, to some of my clients, like your clients are amazing people, but they don't care about you. They care about them. And I think we're all that way, right? We choose to do business with people that we like. And I believe that you I believe that all of my clients are amazing, wonderful people and that they do care about me.

But no, when it comes to deciding to hire me or not, people aren't going to do it. They're not going to be that woman in the crowd making change for the speaker, out of the kindness of her heart, right? People hire me to help them manage their time manage their money and get the results that they want, right? It's all about your client. So can you deliver something that is worth exponentially more to your person than whatever it is that they're gonna pay for it, that is an exponential return, and it makes her offer a lot more compelling.

The next one is instant gratification. So as humans, we are motivated by three things. Number one, to seek pleasure to, to avoid pain, and three, to conserve energy whenever possible. This is called the motivational triad. And it is primal conditioning that has not evolved for us despite the fact that most of us are no longer living in caves or being chased by saber toothed tigers.

Now we just buy things, our motivation turns into our spending habits. But the things that we buy are either things that give us pleasure, or that give us relief, or both right? And the more convenient it is for us to buy, the faster we can get that pleasure or that relief, the more motivated we are to take the action and do it. And I'm not even talking necessarily about receiving whatever it is that we're buying. I'm talking about the experience of buying, being pleasurable, giving us a sense of relief and a sense of instant gratification.

So I'm going to give you the example of my friends over at Africa unboxed. If you remember back to that episode that was 73. Let's say that you decided to send your best friend a one of a kind box full of handmade gifts from them. So you would get instant pleasure when you have this great idea. I'm going to send Jolene an Africa unbox, she's just gonna love it so much, that's dopamine hit right off the bat, right. And then you get the pleasure and the joy of going to the website looking at beautiful things, you get little instant hits of dopamine. And then you feel the rush of oxytocin, the love hormone, right? When you're thinking about your friend, and how much you love her and what she's going to enjoy, and kind of picking out things that you think she'd really liked for this. And all of that happens before you ever even decide to buy, right? Then you actually make the purchase. And you have thoughts like, I'm a great friend, I can't wait. And this box is checked, like project done. And you get a sense of relief, and instant gratification, because you get the notification your payment went through your box will be delivered shortly. Right?

That entire experience in the buying process is filling you with pleasure with relief and with instant gratification. And it was all so easy and convenient to do online. Right. So this is an experience that you have created for yourself a positive buying experience. And the reason I thought this was a great example is because you get all of this benefit, but you're not getting the box, you don't get the box immediately. You don't get the box ever, but you got the reward of having this experience of buying it right. So understanding that this whole pattern and what motivates people to take the action is these three things will help you create a much more compelling offer. So think about what ways that you can give your potential customer or your client, the instant gratification, how can you make that buying experience feel very pleasurable, feel like an instant sense of relief, like you're taking action, right now, this is going to be so great, you're so excited, right? And then making it easy and convenient, so that they can just feel the good feelings for themselves. And everybody wins.

Another component of a compelling offer is having a hook something about your offer that makes it unique and better than other options. So one way that people often do this is by creating scarcity. So limiting the availability in terms of time like this is only available for 24 hours, or the number available only have seven seats left. So sign up now, right. But creating some kind of limitation are just people to take action, instead of waiting around and wondering and looking for other options, right. Another way that you might do this is with value ads. So putting something like sweetening The deal was something that isn't necessary for the product or service you're delivering.

He decided to add 3d renderings to his services. So 3d renderings are not something that's necessary and not even very common for residential architect firms to do, because it's kind of expensive to get them made. And you don't really need it. And so what they used to do is offer them as add on options, so clients could pay for them separately. And a lot of times clients wouldn't pay for them separately. They didn't want to pay the extra money to have these done. But they do get really excited about them. They really want the 3d renderings. So we found a way to build it into his services. And he's got a great resource to get them done. It's affordable, and it works really well for them. And he's not losing any money, but he is creating more value. And clients love to receive these.

So it's great for their marketing, because people love to see before and after images. And it's also really good for the selling because it helps him stand out among than competition. And it gives the client something that they're really excited about. It's a visual element that they can wrap their heads around while they're deciding to hand over their credit card.

Another hook is creating a packaged service or almost creating a product out of your services. This is one of the quickest ways for service companies to boost their conversions by creating these products for the services that they offer. So I'll give you another client example. A graphic designer charging $95 an hour for her services. She can offer a holiday promo pack instead of 95 bucks an hour. She's creating a promo pack that includes a social media banner for each of the clients online profiles, a newsletter banner for their email list to add templates, and to social posts, and then a product mock up all of these things that highlight whatever their special holiday offer is, and she's charging them 350 bucks. This sounds like a super deal right? Because There's a bunch of goodies in the package. And they're all templates so the client can use them over and over again. So they see a ton of value in $350, this no brainer price tag for something that they can use this holiday, they can use the next holiday and just change out the promo. And she can get all of this done in three hours. So she's actually charging a little bit more for this package. But it's a win for everybody. Because it's so simple. It's so exciting, and it's easy for her to do. So that's an example of a packaged service, it makes your offer very clear. And it makes it super compelling.

So these are just a few examples of compelling offers or the components of a compelling offer. So that you can take a look at what it is that you are offering and see if what you're selling, if it's unique, if it's gratifying, and if it's got exponential value to your clients. And remember back to the last episode, I said that in order for your client to take action, in order for them to buy from you or to book with you, what they need is to actually feel an urge in their body to take that action. And the thought that will generate that feeling of an urge is I need this.

So your job is to figure out in your offer, what is going to trigger that thought I need this for them. So the better you understand your client, the more you can think like them, then the easier it becomes to create clear and compelling offers for them. Alright, I hope that this two part series on how to sell better has given you a helpful perspective to see your offers in a new way. So you can make the best use of what you've got to give people creating amazing offers for your specific clients takes some trial and error. So don't give up if you're not there yet.

Remember that business itself is an ongoing experiment. So this isn't a one and done thing that you're going to be able to just check a box and call it good forever. But it is a skill that you can develop that will help you at every level that you ever want to grow to. If you want help creating an amazing offer and honing your selling skills. I gotcha. Come and visit me at linsibrownson.com or connect with me on Instagram at Linsi Brownson. Have a great week, you guys.

Hey, I know that running a small business can feel complicated. So let me help you uncomplicate it. I teach people how to harness their creative brainpower to take clear and focused action to accomplish their goals without burning out. I offer a free one hour consultation where we uncover what is really getting in your way right now. And I'll show you step by step how to create an aligned business that you will love to build. In this conversation. I'm going to give you the foundation to work confidently every single day. And it's going to be super simple. I want you to have the time, energy and freedom for everything that you want in life. And I want you to start having it right now. To find a time that works for you visit Linsibrownson.com