Would you pay someone the price of brain surgery to cut your grass? Of course not, but when it comes to crafting a service or product offering, that’s often what we’re expecting of our prospects. I’ll explain how in a moment, but first, let’s look at the anatomy of a great offer…
When it comes to your offer, there are five key alignment factors to consider. If you get these correct, you’ll be well on your way to an irresistible interaction with your ideal-fit customers. The five factors are: size, duration, complexity, confidence, and speed.
Let’s explore these a bit deeper:
Size
The most important factor in the positioning of your offer is the size of the problem you are solving for your customer.
There is a reason brain surgeons who remove tumors get paid more than landscapers who cut your grass. If you’re about to die from a brain tumor, that’s a big problem. If your landscaper doesn’t show up one week…it’s annoying, but not a big deal.
Find a big problem that is really bothering your customer, and position your offer to solve it, and you’ll find success.
Duration
The next factor in constructing an offer your prospects can’t resist is duration. If you can solve a big problem that has been plaguing your potential customer for a long time, you’ll be their hero (not that you’re looking to be the hero in this story…but that’s an entirely different topic). On the other hand, if the problem you solve is relatively new to your prospect, they might not have a good grasp of how much they need you.
Note: It’s always best if you can solve a problem for a customer that they already know they have, not one that you have to convince them that they have.
Complexity
Not only do you need to solve a problem that is big and long-plaguing, but it also needs to be a sophisticated problem. It helps you better position your offer if the problem you solve is too complex for the client to solve themselves.
Complexity creates higher price demands as well as urgency.
Back to the brain surgeon vs. landscaper: if you have a brain tumor, you can’t solve that problem on your own. It’s too complex. You must pay someone to help you and you’re more than willing to do so, without hesitation, because it’s a matter of life and death. On the other hand, if your landscaper doesn’t show, you can cut your grass yourself or hire a neighbor kid to do it.
If the problem your business solves is so easy the neighbor’s kid can do it, you’re not going to be able to charge much for solving it and there will not be urgency for your prospect to hire you.
Confidence
The certainty with which you can solve the big problem for your client is the next most important factor. If you are 20% sure you can solve the problem, it’s going to show in your offer and you are going to have trouble closing sales. However, if you’re 100% certain you can solve the problem, and you can demonstrate that confidence in how you frame your offer, you’ll have clients begging to pay you big amounts of money.
Speed
Finally, your ability to quickly solve the problem factors into your offer. If your client has a big, complex long-lasting problem that you can solve with confidence, but it’s going to take you a long time to do so, your offer will suffer.
It doesn’t matter if you’re the worlds best brain surgeon, if you can’t remove that tumor for 3 years, you are not going to be chosen by the patient.
By the way, this is also a factor if your offer doesn’t meet the first four requirements. If you can cut a beautiful lawn…with all the lovely checkered patterns in the grass…but you can’t get to it for 2 months, your homeowner customer is probably going to go with someone else…even if they aren’t as good as you.
People with big problems need them solved NOW, and they’re willing to pay big bucks for you to solve them. But if you can’t solve them quickly, they’ll likely find someone who can.
How To Form Your Offer
The five offer alignment factors above might seem like a lot to consider, but if you work through the right sequence, it’s really not difficult to create an offer that suits you and your business while also activating your prospects to action.
First, ask yourself, “Who do I love to serve?”
Start with the audience. Who do you enjoy serving so much that you would serve them for free if you could do so?
Second, ask “What do they need most?”
What’s their biggest challenge or problem? If you don’t know this, the best thing to do is have a conversation with some of them. Get a few prospects on the phone and ask them, “If you could remove one obstacle in your life right now, what would it be?”
Third, think about what you enjoy doing.
If the thing you love doing doesn’t align with the first two questions, you need to start over with a different audience that has a different problem.
There is no point serving an audience with a problem that you hate solving. Even if there is big money in it, you’ll find yourself burning out quickly and you will not be motivated to do the work.
I can’t overstate how important it is to get this in alignment for your overall wellbeing.
Last, ask yourself, “What am I the best at doing?” or “What can I become the best at doing?”
The key to demanding high-ticket pricing is by being or becoming the best at what you do. This might mean you need to specialize or niche down.
For example, you might find an audience such as churches who need help with volunteer recruitment. And you might love helping them improve their leadership skills so they can better lead their volunteers. Check marks on the first three criteria above.
However, there are lots of church leadership coaches out there. So what makes you different or better? This is where you return to the five alignment criteria above.
For churches, lack of volunteers is a big, ongoing problem with a good bit of complexity. But maybe other leadership coaches aren’t 100% confident they can solve it whereas you are. That could be the thing that makes you unique.
Or, perhaps all coaches are 100% sure they can solve the leadership problem if the customer will give them enough time, but you can help them become better leaders and get more volunteers very quickly. Now your uniqueness is in your speed. It’s your ability to solve the problem quickly that makes you the best at leadership coaching.
Ultimately, if you can’t find a way to be the best at what you’re doing—in some way or another—you should go back to step one and find a different audience to serve.
Pricing & Selling Your Offer
Your offer should be priced based on the length your prospect has been trying to solve their problem in conjunction with the pain associated with how long they have to live with it.
The key to selling your offer is showing the pain associated with not taking action and purchasing your solution. The cost of doing nothing needs to be contrasted with the cost of paying you to solve it.
It’s worth repeating: Your ability to sell depends on your ability to demonstrate the cost of doing nothing.
One last thought. If you’ve done this right, you should face some resistance. The cost of solving this problem should move your client into an area of discomfort.
Here’s why…
If solving the problem were easy and comfortable for your client, they likely would’ve already solved it for themselves…and if that were the case—they can comfortably solve it themselves—you’ve created the wrong offer. If they can solve it themselves, they don’t need you and your solution.
Your job in sales is to determine whether your offer will truly help them solve their problem and, if so, guide them through their own discomfort of having it solved into following your plan for the remedy.
Once they view you as a trusted guide, it’s all downhill from there.
The biggest problem I see is people crafting offers that don’t solve big enough problems. Too often we’re trying to solve grass-cutting sized problems but attempting to charge brain surgery prices. The answer isn’t to lower your prices (as is often our instinct) but rather to realign the offer.
If you find yourself having trouble bringing your ideal customer, their problem, your ability to solve it, and your enjoyment of solving it into alignment, we’d love to journey with you in making the proper adjustments. Contact us to get started…