3: How to Determine Your Offer so You Can Increase Revenue

Are you looking for ways to increase revenue? Wondering how to determine your offer? It starts with understanding a few things about yourself and how you like to deliver content.

Highlights

00:00 - The 3 things you need to launch and scale your business
02:15 - Deciding where to start
04:25 - How I determined my first offer
11:07 - How to determine your genius zone
12:56 - When to get input from others to obtain a broader view
17:59 - Knowing how you like to deliver content helps you determine your offer

Resources and Links

Register for Challenge Launch Bootcamp and learn how to create and deliver a 4-Day Challenge that boosts your revenue and skyrockets your business. CLICK HERE

Download my free guide, 3 Things You Need to Launch and Scale Your Online Business at banishbusinessclutter.com/guide. 

Get Canva: lydiamartin.biz/canva 

Want to make the most of Canva and learn how to create and organize all of your business designs? Purchase my Canva workshop at lydiamartin.biz/canvaworkshop.

Get Evernote: lydiamartin.biz/Evernote 

Want to organize your digital systems? Go to Banish Business Clutter.

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Transcript:

Last time we talked about the three things you need to launch and scale your online business. And that is that you need an offer, you need a launch or a marketing strategy, and you need leads. And the first thing we're going to be chatting about in our next episode are the six different types of offers. Of course, these aren't the only offers you can create, but six offers that you could consider as you're launching and scaling. 

But before we even go into the six types, I wanted to spend some time today sharing a little bit about how I determined my first offer, because you do need to understand some key things about yourself, about your audience, about the way you enjoy delivering content. And as you discover these things about yourself, it will help you determine the right offer for you, especially if this is your first offer. So, take a listen and I hope that you find this helpful.

Another common question that I get in addition to where do I start, it's like, I have so many ideas, it's hard to decide. Right. And this could be decisions on types of offer I should do, what type of launch should I do, how do I generate leads? So, I just want to remind everyone that indecisiveness is the enemy. Right.

So, what we're going to do is we're going to choose one or two things, okay, that we're going to narrow down, especially when it comes to like lead generation. You know there are so many ways to generate leads and I think people get tripped up in thinking they have to do all the things: I have to be amazing on Instagram, I have to be amazing on Pinterest, I have to start doing TikTok, I have to do, you know, all these things. And they don't realize that by doing all the things they are mastering none. So, I just want to encourage you because I'm getting ready to talk about the many different types of offers and launches and leads. And I don't want anyone to start getting that deer in headlights feeling like, okay, you just told me it was three simple things, but now I have all these choices to make. 

Remember we're going to decide and do. There's no right or wrong here. I always like to say, you know, there are business owners making millions of dollars using all types of offers, doing all types of launches and generating leads in all types of ways. So, there's no wrong decision here. It’s just the decision that's right for you. Okay. All right. 

All right, so let's go ahead and talk about these three things. What type of offers can you create? Offers are those things that you sell in your business to generate revenue. Okay. And it's not just things that you maybe necessarily want to create, but it's also something that is identified by your audience that something that they need or want.

And I'll share a little story about how I got started, because like I said earlier, I had so many ideas. I had so many ideas for offers. I'm like, I know I want to do a course, but what's that course going to look like? Is it going to be like a starter course where I just help people get from point A to point B? Is it going to be a signature course where I just tell them everything about a certain topic? And then I'm like, what topic should it be? And so, for example, I started looking over the five years prior to launching my business. I started thinking about what are the things that people typically reach out to me to learn. Okay.

I have known from the fifth grade that I wanted to be a teacher. Okay. I love to teach. It doesn't matter what the subject is, I have this passion of taking something that's difficult to understand and breaking it down for a student, okay, so that they understand it and all the light bulbs go off. I call it a celestial angel singing moment. I love creating those moments for my clients and students and members. Right.

So, teaching has always been a passion of mine, but I knew I needed to pick a topic. Even when I was trying to think of the name of my business, I'm like, what in the world am I going to focus on so I have clear messaging and I have an offer that people are going to buy? So, I just started thinking back over the five years prior, what were people reaching out to me about? And a lot of things popped into my head, because like I said, I had been a business owner in a direct sales business for 20 years. And then in the five, six years between that and launching my business, I worked in a corporate setting. I was a corporate trainer and coach to other business owners. So, I was like, why are people connecting with me?

And I started realizing, you know, a lot of times people come to me for digital help, whether it's organizing something, right, digital organization, or a system for generating leads, or a system for growing their business, or it was about a specific digital tool. A great example is Canva. When Canva first came out I saw the vision of that tool. I had no idea how big it was going to become. One of the most amazing tools for business owners, right, and I knew it would benefit me. I knew it would benefit the business owners I worked with.

So, I dug in, and I learned it and people would come to me all the time and say how do you do that what you just did in Canva? Okay. The other tool I was crazy fanatical about was Evernote because if you don't know my story. When I was in my direct sales business for 20 years, the first 17 years, even though I was building a wonderful organization and having lots of, you know, success in that business, I was frantic and frazzled 95% of the time when it came to organization. I did not come out of the womb an organized person.

So, when I was running that business, it was a lot of stash and dash. Do you know what stash and dash is, you know, where you're living in survival mode and you're running your business, you're raising your family, but things get moved. Nothing gets sorted and organized. You're just constantly trying to keep up. And if you had seen my desk and my office in the first 17 years of this business. You could never see my desk. I never knew where anything was. You know, this was pre-internet days. Right. I started my business in the mid-nineties before they even had a computer program to submit orders. Can you imagine? It makes me sound really old. I'm not that old, but my point is when technology started coming out, I embraced it. And that was one of the things people always came to me for.

So here I was a disorganized person, but in 2013 I was introduced to Evernote. I didn't get it at first. It sat on my computer for like six months and I finally phoned a friend, and I was like, Becca, please tell me. I don't get it. Why is everyone so excited about this tool? And she shared a few things with me and like literal light bulbs were going off in my head. I was like, this is going to be how I solve the paper tiger. Right. There were paper piles not just in my office, like my kitchen counter, my dining room table. I could never get caught up with the paper. And even though I was having success in my business, every time I would walk into my office, I felt like incompetent, right, like a total failure in this area, terrified that someone would actually come to my house and see my paperwork piles. Right.

But Evernote, I was like, oh my gosh, what if I could create an online system for paper? I didn't know what I was doing, but I just was like let me really learn this tool. I started creating my first Evernote notebooks, just like I used to create, try to create file folders. I never used my filing cabinets by the way. And I had all these notebooks now. And then I learned that you could scan your paperwork into these notebooks. You all, it was life changing for me. Okay. I fell so in love with this tool that I became an Evernote, they used to call it Evernote certified consultants in 2016. We're now called Evernote certified experts, but that tool and that experience of learning how to take paper and create an online system completely changed my life.

I always joke with people in my programs because the number of paperwork piles that we have in our house now is one. I have a bin next to my desk. Okay. I have a system called Sort-Scan-Shred. And I have a whole system of how I work with mail, how I work with incoming paper. And I sort it, I put it in my scan pile and a minimum of once a week, it gets scanned, and it gets shredded. I no longer have paperwork piles in my home.

So, knowing this journey and knowing that people would come to me and say, how are you using Evernote? And it wasn't just to get organized. I was using Evernote to like build my business. I was using it to like communicate with customers in ways that people are like, what are you doing? So, this sort of journey is how I finally narrowed down to the business I wanted to launch.

So, here's my challenge for all of you. As you're thinking about the offer that you can sell, it really requires I would say two things. You need to know your genius zone. Some people call it genius zone, your superpower, your calling, your God-given gifts, all those things. You may not think you have any, but trust me, you do. Okay. A lot of times people don't realize they have them because to them it's so normal and so natural that they don't think it's a big thing. And so, when people say, how did you do that or what do you mean you have this system for cleaning or gardening or home decor. Like I have no fashion skills, no home decor ability, so when I talk to people about these types of things, I'm a fish out of water. Right.

And so, if that is a gift you have, that's a thing you can teach. I don't care if it's dog training, if it's mountain biking. Okay. We all have things that we are either good at from birth, okay, God-given talent, or something we have learned in a journey. Right. Even the challenging things, the things we were not good at, at some point, if you've created a system or a framework or a blueprint for that. That is packageable into an offer that other people would probably love to buy from you. They will want to buy from you. Okay.

So, knowing this about myself, and knowing that I love to teach tech and digital tools and digital organization, I was like, okay, well, that's where I'm going to start. I'm going to start a business that is focused on helping business owners with these things. Then I was like, what do I name my business? What's the name of my first course going to be? And again, that overwhelmed, indecisive, overthinking things starts again. I'm like, oh my gosh. I could not think of what to name my business. I could not. So, anytime I'm in that moment, you have a choice. Right. You can either stay stuck or you can go to a person or a resource that is going to get you unstuck.

Sometimes we just stay stuck and we need a broader view from another party. Okay. So, I had met this gal at a networking event, and she was like, I don't think she identified herself as a branding coach. She called herself a story coach. She helped business owners create a story, okay, basically around their brand and their business. And, like I said, I remembered meeting her. So, I reached out to her, and I was like, can we just have a coaching session? She said, absolutely this is what we do.

So, I paid her for a one-hour session, and we literally talked for an hour, and I shared all of my journey, what I was passionate about, who I wanted to serve. We were literally in a Google doc, just typing out. And that's one of the things I highly recommend. Anything that comes to your head, you need to have a place where you write all of that down. Now I'm a typer or not a writer. I use Evernote, of course. And I have a note literally called "Brainstorm" in Evernote and any thought that comes to my head, I write it in there. I still have that note from when I launched my business. You should see it. It's just every thought that was coming to my head: I could do this, I could do this, what about this course? And that is what I reviewed with her on this session.

And we were about 53 minutes into this session. 53 minutes. I only have seven minutes left to this call and I still don't know what to name my business. We had thrown a few things around, and nothing was really resonating with me, but she was helping me get closer. I could feel it. And then she said the words. And I am a sucker for alliteration. I don't know about you guys. Do you all love alliteration? Like if you, follow me, you know, I use a lot of C-words, you know, turning clutter and chaos into clarity, confidence, and calm. I just love alliteration.

So, she said what about Banish Business Clutter? And I had to sit on it for a minute and I was like, okay, business. I wanted it to be very clear that I was not a home organizer because I am not that person. I cannot help you organize your home. I can only help you organize your paper, and your digital, and your mental brain. Those are the things I can organize. Right. But I love that the word business was in it.

And then I was like, clutter. Well, people understand that I don't mean just the clutter on their desk. Right. And that's when I found the quote by Peter Walsh, that clutter is not just the stuff on your floor, but it's anything that keeps you from creating the life you desire. And I was like, that is my focus. That is my passion. That is what I want to help people do. I want them to get unstuck in their brain. I want them to stop being paralyzed by their clutter, and I want to help them build a profitable business. And I couldn't figure out for the life of me, how to tie all that together. But she helped me in this one session, phrase it. And even at the time, I was like, I don't know if I really am going to keep that forever. Like, Banish Business Clutter, it might seem a little quirky to some. Honestly, I would have rather just picked my name, but LydiaMartin.com wasn't available and I was like, Banish Business Clutter. I looked; the domain was available. I was like, you know what, it is good enough. Okay. It was the closest to explaining what I did. So, I just made a decision and went with it.

And I will tell you, this name has served me way better than I ever expected. A lot of people, it's just intriguing enough that people go Banish Business Clutter, what is that? Okay. And I have also done some branding photos. If you guys have probably seen my sign, if you've been following me at all, I got this awesome sign that says, "my brain has too many tabs open." And I use that in a lot of my marketing because a lot of people can relate to that.

So, I'm just sharing the story because it's not just about creating an offer and saying, okay, great, I want to sell a digital course. You need to know a lot more information about you and your audience before you can really make the best decision on this. And it's going to help you make this decision. So knowing yourself, what you are either skilled at, or known for, that people go to you for, is one thing. 

Then another thing you will learn over time is how you like to deliver content. And one of the big questions I always get from people is should I pre-record my content or deliver it live? And this is a personal preference on how you like to deliver content. Right. Some of us love pre-recorded video or pre-recorded content because we are planners, or we like to create outlines. And we want to make sure we know exactly what we're going to be covering because off the cuff, we might tend to, you know, maybe go off on tangents, not stay focused, not cover what we want to. And I totally get that.

But what I have learned about myself personally, some of you may be able to relate to this, is that I am much more animated, passionate, engaged when I deliver content live. Okay. I don't know how many of you can relate to that or some of you may think no way would I do that? I think I've gained confidence in this area over time by doing it again and again and again. I was not super confident when I started going live. In fact, I embraced Facebook Live when it first came out, you know, early 2016. I was super nervous. I wasn't very confident, but I saw the vision of what video content could be for business owners. So, I jumped in with both feet with no fancy equipment, no knowledge of what I was really doing, but I just went live, okay, to share tips and to connect with people. And that confidence grew over time.

And I've learned this live aspect of delivering content has so many benefits. Because when you're delivering something live, even though I'm looking at a camera or speaking into a microphone, I have taught myself to envision the people on the other end. And just by being live, just knowing, you know, even if a few people are in the comments with me, I feel like I'm talking to people. Versus pre-recording content, it's just not the same. Right. When you know that you can stop and re-record, what will you do? You will stop and re-record a hundred times. Perfect example, I actually recorded my first podcast episode last week and I did it pre-recorded. And I'm not kidding you, there were probably 20 versions of my first episode.

Not only is that time consuming, but my personality and my excitement, it's much harder to generate that in something I'm pre-recording versus talking to you all live. So, I decided after that first episode that I want to even deliver my podcast content live. So that is why we are all gathered here today. I want to be able to answer your questions on live video, and then take that audio recording and that is what's going to become my podcast episodes.

I am never that person who says you should absolutely do this, you should absolutely do that, because we are all too unique. Okay. Each one of us has things that we prefer to do. Now, I don't mean don't step out of your comfort zone. Okay. We all need to step out of our comfort zone, no matter what we do. So, you got to stretch yourself of course. Don't just say, well, I'm never using video in my business because it terrifies me. That's not a good enough reason. All right. We don't want to not do something just because it terrifies us. We need to be strategic on how we can create an offer that we like to deliver and that our audience would buy from us in the way that we deliver it.

Want to learn more about the different types of offers you can create in your business? Go to banishbusinessclutter.com/guide because we've put together a guide that includes everything you need to know about launching and scaling your online business.

Thank you again for watching, for listening, for joining me in this journey.

We'll see you guys next time.