The Fierce Business Babe Podcast Ep 109: Creating Your First Offer

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In today’s episode I am going to be talking about creating your first offer. We will be diving deep into different types of offers and the pros and cons of each offer. We will also be diving into how to map out and create your offer along with so much more.

Creating Your First Offer

By: Melissa Lin

Today we are diving into how to create your first offer, and maybe you already have an offer. This will also help you with brainstorming your next offer. Every single day, new businesses are starting all around the world. globally. It's absolutely incredible every single day, and you might be thinking about wanting to start your own business. Maybe that's why you're here. Hello, welcome. So excited to have you here in the community. Maybe you've already started and aren't sure what to offer, or what to create first. Or maybe you're well into your business and trying to determine what to offer next.

If you fit into any of these categories, you are going to absolutely love this because I'm going to be diving into the types of products that you can create in your business, which ones I recommend starting, when the best time to do those is, how to start, and even help you outline your first offer. So yes, we're going into all of this together, right now. So get ready and get your favorite notebooks ready, your favorite pen, favorite beverage, whatever you've got going on right now. There really is no one right, and I'm like air quoting right now. There is no one right or wrong way to create your first offer.

Something I truly believe is there is no cookie cutter plan to business, you get to create the business of your dreams and the way that you want it to be. You get to create a business that fits your lifestyle instead of trying to fit your life around this business. Right? This is all about you and what you want to create, and there really is no one right or wrong way to create your first offer. However, there are some things to keep in mind when you do create your first offer and I want to walk through that with you first before we even go into how to break your offer apart, how to create it, all the brainstorming, how to fill in the gaps of your offer and things like that.

So for example, a lot of people and I know this because this is what I did when I first started in 2014. A lot of people will want to create a low ticket offer, maybe an E-book or a download, because they feel it'll be easier since it's (and I’m air quoting again) cheaper. This really isn't the case most of the time. So I'm going to go through a few things with you, before we dive in how to actually create your offer. I want to talk about the differences between eBooks, online courses, private coaching, and one on one coaching to help you determine what to offer first or what to offer next.

E-Books

Now a lot of people will go into eBooks first, right? They feel that they are safer. Right? They're comfortable, they're a little easier to create. They help you build confidence in your area of expertise. Yes, they will help you gain some momentum, but it will be difficult to generate income, especially a high level of income when you're first starting out. Especially if you have a smaller audience. So if you have a smaller audience, let's say 500 followers, 1000 followers, something I want to interject with is followers don't equate to income in your business. I have some clients who have 1000 followers, and they've hit $10K months $15K months in their business. I have some clients with 500 followers or less who have already hit $5K months. So followers don't equate to your income. I have some clients who have come to me, and before they started to work with me, they had over 50,000 followers, and they were making less than a few thousand dollars per year in their business. So I don't want you to get too stuck on the number of followers. However, I do want you to sort of think about the size of your audience, how connected you feel with your audience, and how much your audience truly likes, knows and trusts you. So this eBook or some smaller, maybe a challenge, anything like that is a lower ticket offer. It is great to start out with, it helps you feel safe. However, it's going to be very difficult to make a high level of income in the beginning of your business because you're just starting to get your content out there. You're just starting to develop your business and speak to your ideal clients.

For example, if you have an eBook for $49 or let's say $50 just to make numbers a little easier. For you to generate a $5K month, you have to sell at least 100 eBooks, which may be very, very easy for somebody that's got, you know, 50,000, 100,000, 200,000, 300,000 followers. However, if you're just starting, it may be a little more difficult, because not everybody in your audience is going to be ready to buy. If you want to hit a $10K month, then you have to sell 200 of those. That's not just once. It's not like that's recurring monthly revenue for you. You've got to do that every single month, if you want to continue that $5-10K, if that's your only offer.

So, eBooks are definitely great to have at some point, if you have a huge audience right now. Yeah, go ahead, get started. However, if your audience is smaller, and you're newer, I wouldn't recommend that first. Again, not cookie cutter, definitely you don't have to do what feels best to you, but I wouldn't recommend that first, if you're wanting to have a little bit of a higher cash injection into your business as you get going. That way, you can start to outsource a little sooner and really start to grow the business a little quicker.

Online Courses

The second thing I want to talk about is an online course. I love courses. Every single one of my programs includes some type of course hub, because I love creating videos and content that you get to keep for life. Now creating an online course does require knowledge in some type of text, some type of back end, some type of copywriting. If you are starting, and in the beginning stages of your business, you probably aren't outsourcing just yet. So these are things that you may need to do yourself. It's definitely great. If you have an audience that you've been building a relationship with, an online course would be great to be able to sell. Some of your audience has already started to get to know you, like you, trust you, and you've started to really show up as an expert in your field. Now, let's say just for numbers, easy numbers for us, right, let's keep it easy today. If you have a $500 course, technically, probably $497, for buyer psychology, however, let's keep it at $500. For easy math, let's say it's $500. For you to reach a $5K month, you've got to sell 10. 10 spots in your online course, and if you've got a decent sized audience that really likes you, knows you, and trusts you. That really isn't too tough, right? You can easily get those conversions a few a week, boom, you've got your 10. If you want to hit a $10K month, then you get to sell 20 of those courses per month. Again, if this is your only item that you're selling, your only product in this one moment. Then as you continue to scale your business, you know, maybe you want to sell 10 spots in your course per month and then two private coaching spots. Then you can very easily hit your $10K, $15K a month by having a few different offers. However, we're just talking about one right now to get you started, I wouldn't recommend trying to launch five different things at one time, start with one, master it, get it out there and then start to think about what's next for you.

Private Coaching

So that really helps us dive into the next item that you could start with which is private coaching, some type of coaching program, one on one coaching. What this is going to do is help you provide the most income and the most experience learning for yourself. This is the one I usually, not always, but usually recommend that you start with, especially if you have a smaller audience. So, some things to keep in mind when you're trying to determine what to offer. First is okay, how much do I want to bring in each month? So if we go back to the one on one coaching, the private coaching, for you to reach a $5K month, let's just pretend that your one on one coaching is $2500 for a three month program, or four month program, whatever it is, you need two of those spots to fill each month to hit a $5K month. very doable, and to do a $10K month, you've got to fill four of those spots. Again, very doable. And then, as you get to expand your business and grow your business, if you have a few online course sales and some eBooks and some group coaching programs, that's how you really get to start to scale.

Things To Think About

So again, some things to keep in mind when you're trying to determine what to offer first, or maybe what to offer next. Ask yourself what is my goal income? How much do I realistically need to make right now? If you're just starting in your business and you want to leave your nine to five, how much do you have to make to be able to replace your nine to five? How much do you need to live, your expenses, rent all of those things? Then ask yourself, okay, what's my audience size? And realistically, how many people do I need to bring into whatever offer I'm going to create. Start to think about that and map that out and we can do some reverse engineering to determine, okay, this is the program I want to create, this will be the price points. Just a quick spoiler alert, your price point is the very last thing that you even think about when you start to create your program. So those are some questions that you can ask yourself.

Brainstorming Your Offer

Now that you've asked yourself that, and you've determined what type of offer you want to create first, or maybe what you want to create next, let me walk you through the brainstorm and how to actually create it. How to determine what's going to be inside, we're going to need a few things. Number one, a transformation that your offer provides. I'm going to walk you through how to determine that and what that looks like. Number two, you're going to need structure behind your offer. Number three, then you've got to create some deliverables to your clients.

So let's first brainstorm your offer. That transformation. You have an idea already, what you want to create what transformation you want to help somebody with. Most of the time this is something that you've already achieved yourself, something you've overcome yourself. Usually, we like to teach others something that we've already done, not always, for example, maybe you're a business coach, you went and got your MBA, you have the experience, but maybe you haven't built your own business yet. So there's definitely some examples where you may not be the future version of your ideal client. However, in most cases it is. So think about the transformation you want to help somebody create. That's where your ideal client would like to be. That is your point B.

So I'm going to be talking about two different points, point A and point B, point B is where your ideal client would like to be. And then point A is where your ideal client is right now in this moment. I want to walk through an example with you, and as you start to think about it this way, I want to share with you that every program you create will most likely have a different ideal client.

So if we look at my product suite, my customer journey and my business, I've got the Fierce Business Academy, which is our beginner program for coaches and service providers wanting to start their business and scale it to $5K months. So they're just starting, usually still in their nine to five, wanting to get out to go full time in their online business. Then we also have our mastermind to help you hit six figures, it's called the Six Figure Fierce Business Mastermind. This is usually for somebody who already has our foundations put together. They've already made a few thousand per month in their business, and they're wanting to scale to consistent $10K months. Very different spots in their business and in their life than somebody who is just starting their business. So because of that they're very different ideal clients, they have a different point A and different point B than the Academy ideal client one. So keep that in mind, each of your programs will have a different ideal client.

Now that we have point A and point B, I want to walk through an example of let's just say an online business coach. Let's say that point A and I will use my Academy as an example; The Fierce Business Academy. So when people come to me, and they are wanting to start their online coaching business or service based business, but they're unsure of how to get there, the steps to get there, what they need, the skills, the tools, that is the point A. That's where my ideal clients are before they enter the Academy, typically. Now, when they leave the Academy, the point B, they will have gone through all the necessary business building steps to get their business up and running. Yes, we implement as you go. So yes, you start signing clients inside the program. You bring clients in and you continue to scale the tools that we've taught you and give you with all the social media and lead generation and all of those things. Sales. So that's the point A and point B for our academy and I want you to think about, “Okay, what is the point A for my program that I want to create or my offer? Even a product will have a point A and point B. Then what is the outcome, the transformation, the result, that point B that I want to create? That is the first thing you have to think about when you create your first offer.

Mapping Out Your Offer

Now we get to go into "Okay, what is going to be inside my program? How do I get somebody from point A to point B?" This is going to be the filler in between. This is basically your program, your product, your service, these are the teaching points for your offer. So questions I want you to write down, I want you to start to go through and brainstorm are: “What does the process of getting from point A to point B look like? What are the things that they actually need?” So for example, if someone is wanting to start their business, not sure how to start, what we typically take them through the Academy is; okay, we help them to find their niche, their ideal client, map out their offer, we do it together, then we map out social media, their content calendar, their content, marketing strategies, and lead generation. All the tools they need for sales, how to start signing clients, what payment processors to use, both front end and back end. So that's the process that we take our clients through. What do your clients need in order to go from point A to point B? Okay, and then what do they need in terms of information? Because, yes, there's definitely lots of coaching involved. But, what information do they actually need, because usually, this is stuff that you can turn into a video tutorial or something where that can start to move into a hands off operation for you. So that when you get on calls, it's more of the coaching.

How Long Does Your Offer Need

Then I want you to start to ask yourself, “Okay, how long will it take my ideal client to realistically go from point A to point B?” So here's an example. When I was an online health and fitness coach years and years ago, you know, it would take some of my clients more than just a day to get familiar with My Fitness Pal, the tracking app for food. So we needed to add that into the program of, hey, let's give you a few days, not just one day, a few days, to get familiar and start to practice and this and that. So really be realistic, because those people coming into your program, they're going to be brand new, they've never done this before. So you want to ask yourself, "okay, when I was brand new, just starting, how much time did I realistically need?" You know, and I'd definitely rather you give a little extra time, and if not, you can always surprise and delight and add an extra few weeks on the end, if you need some more time. However, we want to try and map this out as accurately as you can. You're definitely allowed to experiment, you're allowed to make changes down the road, but start to think about how long it is going to take them?

Creating Deliverables

Now let's actually think about Okay, once I've got that I know the point A I know my point B. I know what I need to teach them when I get to teach them inside? How do I actually create the program itself? What deliverables do I need inside? Now, I want you to ask yourself these next few questions, and I'll give you some examples of what we do in our programs. But number one, how would you like to actually deliver it to your clients? What does this look like? For us, we try to make it as hands off as possible, while still creating an incredible client experience. So for example, inside of our academy, we do have video modules for everybody to go through. Then we also implement together and we have a Slack channel for questions, then also group coaching calls. So we've got a lot going on. There are a lot of different ways that we deliver information to our clients and help answer questions.

How do you want to deliver to your clients? Do you want to give each of your individual private coaching clients a Google Drive folder, where you upload things, this is what we do with all of our private clients, but if you're doing a group coaching program, and maybe you've got 30 people inside of your program, you probably won't really have that time to give everybody a Google Drive folder, and then also be giving everyone individual support, as it's a group coaching program. So start to ask yourself some of those questions. What does the accessibility look like? How much accessibility do your clients have to you? If it's a private coaching program, then I'm assuming they'll have some one on one access to you? How many calls are they going to receive each month? How many do they need? How long should they be? So these are some things to ask yourself and start to experiment with as well and because it may not be perfect the first time you do it, but you can adjust as you go along.

Personal Access

Another great question to ask yourself is “How much accessibility do all your clients have to you?” Then what do you want to utilize to communicate with your clients so all of my private clients, I'm very, very picky about who I work with privately as we only work with a few. I only have the space and availability to work with a few private clients per year. Then everything else is a higher level mastermind that has some hybrid availability with me, or group coaching program. So I've got a lot of different ways to work with me, but my private clients do get daily Voxer access and private coaching calls. Then other containers, group containers, we use different containers for client communication. So ask yourself and think about what tool you love to use with the programs that you've gone through yourself. So if you're wanting to run a group coaching program, you may want to run a Facebook group, or maybe create a Slack channel for that program. There are a lot of different things you can do, and I want you to sort of think about what type of communication will my client need with me? How do I want to structure it? How do I want to deliver it? There are so many different ways that you could do this. There's no right way, there's no wrong way, and your clients are going to have an incredible experience.

So start to think about these things and brainstorm these things as your deliverables. They will look different for different packages and different offers and different programs, our deliverables and the things that we teach, and the structure of our programs in the academy are very different than the mastermind, because the mastermind does include some private coaching as well. So start to think about that, as you start to create this.

Pricing

Then, the very last thing to think about is your pricing. Pricing is last. I don't want you to even think about it until you've done everything beforehand. So I'm not even going to go into pricing today, because I want you to develop the program first, and do all of that before you go into pricing. That will be another episode or send me a message on Instagram, share with me what you've created, and then I can guide you and help you and give you some tips on the pricing. Then your program is complete and ready to go, and ready to get out there. Really make sure that you start to outline it, I like to outline all of my offers, my programs, so that I know what's inside, because the more confident you are in your programs, the more confident you are with what you're teaching in your programs. Know your programs in and out, because then you're going to show up so confidently, when you do get out there and start to actually sell your offers.

So today, we covered so, so much, and again, just the tip of the iceberg. There's so much more into creating your offer as you get it out there to the world and pricing and things like that, but I wanted to give you tons just to get started. So you walk through what type of offer that you can create first, based off of a few different things in your business right now if you're just starting, and then how to determine that transformation to point A to point B, how to determine what's going to be inside your program and how you can deliver it.

Again, there's so many ways to do all of it. We've delivered our programs in so many different ways. There's always new platforms, new software that’s coming out. So we're always working towards improving our customer experience or client experience. Even more. All of the time. We're always wanting to improve. So we're always playing with new tools that come out because technology is just so incredible. It's so cool we can do these days. So get going on your offer. I would love to see your offer as you start to map it out. Send me a message over on Instagram, @TheMelissaLin, I would love to see what you've put together. And then pricing will be next. See you next time!

Topics we cover include:

E-Books
Online Courses
Private Coaching
Brainstorming Your Offer
Mapping Out Your Offer

And so much more!

Times to check out:

(7:57) E-Books

(11:15) Online Courses

(13:22) Private Coaching

(15:42) Brainstorming Your Offer

(19:46) Mapping Out Your Offer

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