Good Marketing, Good Business

064: Improve Your Offer, Improve Your Business

August 11, 2024 • Shannon Stone • Episode 64

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Optimising your offers / services / packages can be the catalyst to growing your business. I've had the pleasure of seeing this happen time and time again and so, I want to share with you seven ways to improve your offer.

By listening [and taking notes], you’ll learn:

  • How you can either make small but mighty tweaks or a complete overhaul of your offer (either can be great)
  • The big mistake business owners often make when creating more ‘affordable services’ such as memberships
  • How reducing friction with your offer inclusions and packaging can be a huge blessing of efficiency for you and your clients

This is a brilliant, deep-dive episode that I know if you apply these improvements to what you sell, you’ll see vast improvements.

Enjoy!

Links Mentioned:

GMGB Podcast - Ep 9: Presenting Payment Plans The Right Way - listen here

GMGB Podcast - Ep 46: Starting A Business Doesn’t Mean Starting At The Bottom - listen here

Behind the Lens Podcast with Alan Howle - EP 14: listen here

→ Join the waitlist for the Service Business Boardroom here.

Resources:


If you’d like to work together with me as your 1:1 business and marketing consultant, book a call here.

Shannon Stone:

H ey guys, welcome to the podcast, super excited to have this chat with you here.

Shannon Stone:

Today. We're going to be talking about probably one of my most favorite areas in business, which is your offer and the services that you sell. So we've got here improve your offer, improve your business, and there's no way you can change my mind about how true that is. When you improve what you sell and not just from we're really going to jump into it, but not just from what you include in it when you improve that offer, that very thing that you sell, there is this beautiful snowball effect that happens for businesses and, as you know, I love to get to the root cause of a situation that will create the biggest difference, the biggest impact. And it's one of the biggest reasons I do what I do now as a business and marketing consultant, where I holistically look at the business. I'm not just looking at the marketing. We love our marketers, myself being one of them, or more so one once upon a time, having run an agency and all the bits and pieces. But one of the things that our friends in marketing often don't do, just because it's not within the scope of what they do and I think it's not wrong in any kind of way, it's just important for people to know the difference. But it's where people can kind of throw a lot of categories of business growth and development into this one big category of marketing. But marketers won't give you feedback on your offer, who it's for, how you've priced it, the model that it is, how it sits within your service suite of other offers. If you sell multiple things, multiple services and packages generally, you will find there's not many people that will give you that kind of advice there, and we often think it's marketers who are promoting those services of ours that should in inverted commas give that feedback. But it's not their job. They might give you a little bit of advice and things here and there, but it's really not their job. So let's try to make this episode that job for you today, so super excited to be jumping into it. I have seven different ways you can improve your offer. So you definitely want to have a pen and paper for this one. I will say as well.

Shannon Stone:

In October so it's August at the moment in October, I will be doing an offer workshop, so a workshop completely focused on offers. So, if you don't know, offers are just another term for and I guess the gurus might get super technical but I use it interchangeably with the services that you sell and the packages that you have. So I don't know why I've kind of just gravitated towards often calling them offers, but that's what I do. So in October, doing an offer workshop, and it's so important because this whole part of your business deserves a whole workshop to work it out. It's what I always do with my one-on-one clients having a look at what they're actually selling, because everything comes from that. It's not just about getting new people to your business. It's like what are the tweaks that we can make? Like I said in the title, improve your offer, improve your business. This is 100% a fact. So, if you are interested in coming along to that workshop, join the waitlist for the Service Business Boardroom, which is a program I've developed that I've just recently started sharing. So I've got the waitlist up at the moment just as we start to get everything organized. But that offer workshop at this stage is only going to be for people inside that program. But join the waitlist. It might be something that you're interested in. It's going to help you to really grow your business. But, yeah, the link for that will be in the show notes or the description. So, yeah, just reiterating the fact to you how important the offer is in your business.

Shannon Stone:

So, before we jump into these seven areas, what I want to tell you about yourself and your expertise, the thing that I absolutely know whether you have a dash of imposter syndrome or not is I know you are incredibly good at what you do. You are, and I'm sure your humble self tells you maybe otherwise sometimes, or downplays it a little bit, but even just think about the impact, the look on your client's faces when they tell you things, the changes that you make, the improvements that you make. You know you're really good at what you do. So, having that as the preface, I always think, okay, if you are so good at what you do, let's make sure we package up that wisdom in a way that it really helps people. I don't want you to hold yourself back, or even hold your clients back, by leaving certain things out of the package that you're selling, and we can do this in a really cool way. But we also don't want to undercut yourself as well, remembering how good you are at what you do.

Shannon Stone:

Now we don't want to be, and I think, especially in these economic times, we want to be mindful of things that are happening in the economic environment. So it's not about ripping people off that's like never been our perspective over here but it is making sure that you price your services accordingly, with the value that you bring to people, and there's a lot of ways you can do that. And your offer is kind of the heartbeat of how you really create that transaction. It's why they're actually hiring you, not just because they want to hang around you and listen to your really cool jokes or anything like that. They want that expertise from you because you're helping them in some kind of way. So I wanted to preface that just to remind you, in case you didn't know or you forgot, how good you were at what you do. But that has to be at the baseline. You have to know you are good at what you do and we have to package this up into something where it really makes sense for your clients, but it also really makes sense for you. We can talk about delivery models you know the way you deliver your services but probably something for the workshop or a whole episode in itself.

Shannon Stone:

So let's jump into the seven improvements that you can make to your offering. All of these have been things that I take my clients through and I'll share some examples as we go through, because I think examples are the best way for you to see if that is something that applies to you. So, as we jump into these seven, I find that some people want or need complete overhauls when it comes to their offers, and for others, they either want or need just small tweaks. So it can be either or, and it depends on the different bits and pieces that we'll go through. So the first one when it comes to improving your offer, so simple is your pricing. We'll get that easy one out of the way. But I've seen with many clients it's like what they're selling is actually great, they're just radically underpriced themselves. So looking at your pricing and you might just take one of these seven and just say, okay, that's the only improvement I need or want to make right now. But some people, you know, it might be two or three or all seven.

Shannon Stone:

So having a look at your pricing is a beautiful way to improve your offer and again, it's got to be aligned with the value that you create, the value that you create, the value that you deliver to people. But if you think about your overall business goals, say whatever metric, whatever number it is that you're going for, instead of working with even more clients, is there space for you to increase your prices? So you work with the same number of clients but you're actually earning more. Let's all work smarter and not harder. So number one is your pricing. Number two is the length of delivery. So, depending how you work with people myself let's use myself as an example in this so when people come to work with me, we work with them initially for six months. Now this is my October.

Shannon Stone:

This year will be my ninth year in business, so I've had a few iterations of how long that length of delivery has been. When I work with clients I had a model where I would work with them for one month. First we do a bit of a deep dive, a diagnostic period, and then after that one month we'd work together for 12 months Long kind of runway. But I did that for a couple of years. Then I went to. I think the next iteration was I wanted to go into just nice, neat three month blocks at a time and I did

Shannon Stone:

that for some time as well, probably a couple of years, and then I went into what I have now, which is the six months block of time, and then it just continues to roll over. After that I could and have definitely thought about doing longer blocks of time now, because I do have clients just continuously signing on, which is amazing.

Shannon Stone:

But having a look at your length of delivery is a really great way to improve your offer, not just for yourself and for your own increased security in business, but depending on how you work with people and the services that you sell. Often the shorter timeframe doesn't actually make sense and say you are in working with them and that three months if you, a lot of people seem to go for three months. We've all been there but say people are working with you for three months. It can be really like a jarring to just stop at end of three months and sometimes that three month mark is not where the progress needs to be made or it just doesn't make sense, whereas if you made it a little bit longer maybe that works better for you. So, depending on what you sell, just revisit that length of delivery and how long that looks like for you.

Shannon Stone:

Now, different people, different businesses selling different things you might need to be a little bit more fluid with that. I spoke to a business recently where the way they work with people needs time, quite a bit of fluidity. As far as they can't just schedule their clients in weekly or fortnightly or monthly. There's other things going on with their clients where for their business it makes sense for it to be a little bit more fluid. But is there a way for you to bring this length of delivery into place where it serves those clients but it also serves yourself as a business and also brings you more of that security as well, especially if you've got retainer models in your business?

Shannon Stone:

So that is number two, which brings us really nicely to number three, which is your models. So when you're looking at your offer, what is the business model or the model of your offer? Some people will be doing retainers, which I'm an absolute fan of. If your business makes sense for it which, honestly, most service businesses it does make sense to have a retainer model in your business. And another podcast idea. We can definitely have a whole chat on that, as we will do at the offer workshop in October as well. But the model, the retainer model is one where I see it as a win-win for both sides for yourself, for that security, and also for your clients as well, depending on the services that you work with them on. Another model, subscription as well, is a great model. Again, this would depend on what it is that you're selling Slightly similar but slightly different to the retainer model. But if you can have clients continuously working with you, having those continuous payments coming in, that's always going to be amazing for you and as long as that meets the value that you're providing to those clients, it's going to be a win for them as well.

Shannon Stone:

Okay, number four is payments and payment plans. This is often one that people don't think about when it comes to their offer, and it doesn't just come up in the offer, it also comes up in conversions as well. So sometimes people won't sign up, not because they can't completely afford your services. They just need a bit more flexibility on how they pay. And this is where payment plans can come in really beautifully and help you to increase the number of conversions that you have.

Shannon Stone:

Remember I said at the start, I love to look for what's the root cause of a situation. That will make the biggest difference. So for a business is it? Yes, everyone wants to grow their business, earn more each month, each year, that kind of thing. But maybe it's not just down to lead generation, maybe it's down to your offer and it's the way that you're presenting the pricing. And sometimes people need payment plans. If that's something you're happy to offer, then that's a great improvement to your business as well. Win for them because they can get started. Win for you, because that's another client for you to help.

Shannon Stone:

I do have an episode, episode nine, completely focused on payments and payment plans. Definitely, give episode nine a listen, if you want. Almost like the scientific approach to payment plans. I think I covered all the I's and all the T's in that episode. So, yeah, check out episode nine. It's definitely a favorite of mine, for sure.

Shannon Stone:

Okay, that is number four payments and payment plans. Number five is a massive one, I will say it's not for the person or the business who just wants small, subtle tweaks to the offering. It is where you create offers around results. So if we were to just blank canvas what it is that you sell and we looked at, okay, what is the result that you actually help people to achieve Number one and then number two, how would you help them to achieve it? Like no holds bar, if you could just dream up the best absolute way. So say, you're like a project manager, for example, and you help businesses with their project management. You're like an outsourced extension to their team, like what would be the best way? So maybe the result is that you help their projects to stay on track for X, y, z reason we know the beautiful results that come from that but essentially, within the function of what you do, you help their projects to stay on track. Now, you, being a project manager and an extension of their team, but still outsourced, being your own business and your own entity, what would you bring to the table to make their life so much easier. What's all the skills, the expertise, everything that you would love to package up for them to help them to achieve that result? That's basically the energy I want you to bring to dreaming up how you would recreate the offers or the services in your business.

Shannon Stone:

So, blank canvas, let's just, even if it's just for the sake of an exercise, even if you don't do it, but maybe you will take some extra ideas from it and you might bring it to your current offers today, or you might run with this brand new, blank canvas recreated offering for your business. But that's what I want you to have a look at. How can you create offers around the results that you help people with with a no holds bar approach? It's like I want to do this with them and this with them and I want this platform and I want these check-ins or maybe certain things I've got currently, you know, too frequent. It's like I have all these meetings with them, but they absolutely don't make sense and they're just kind of there to chat, type of thing. Maybe you need to start taking those things out. That's why a blank canvas approach we just clear the slate, look at the result that you help people to achieve, and, within the scope of what you do within your expertise, how could you help people to really achieve that result? And just let yourself dream up anything that comes to mind. Even if you don't end up doing it, I'm sure it's going to get a lot of ideas flowing, and you could go one of two ways. One, you create that nice, new, beautiful offering. Or two, you take some of the things that you created in that exercise and you bring it to how your offers look at the moment. You might change it up a little bit. So that is number five create offers around the results that you help people with. Okay, number six is about don't reduce the scope.

Shannon Stone:

Now, I wanted to find this one for all of us. What a lot of people will do. So. You might have, I don't know, a couple of services in your business and some people might have it structured where here's like the big package, the medium package and the small package, something like that. A lot of people when and I should say this it's like you actually know people should be working in that big package. The big package could be the one that you've just dreamed up, right, but some people will start to break off parts of their packages so they can create services and offerings that are more affordable, and this can be a bit of a problem. It can be a bit of a problem because, from my perspective and this is a fact like, there are clients at every single price point, there's clients at every single price point. And if I come back to you being so good at what you do, why would you work with someone and this is not like a person thing but why would you create a package that is any less of your skill set and also any less of based on what people actually need to receive, in order to achieve the result that was so good? You should rewind and listen to that again.

Shannon Stone:

But you want your services to be great. You don't want them to be broken off, downsized, watered down versions of what they could be and what your clients actually need. Make the packages what they need to be, and either two things One, make sure you're targeting the right people who are going to value those services. Or two, bring payment plans into the mix. So if people can't afford certain services, don't create watered down services just for those people to afford it. Look at creating payment plans and look at other options so that they can work with you and get the result that they're actually looking for. So I just see it as a way of being more in integrity. It's like I want to help people the way they deserve, not where their budget is. And if, worst case scenario, they can't afford that, then maybe it's that we don't want to help them, because if we're going to help them, we're going to help them properly. So that's kind of my perspective on the matter.

Shannon Stone:

So number six is don't reduce your scope, don't break down your packages, your services, your offers. Make them be what they need to be and stand by that for sure. Just on that as well, there's nothing wrong with having more affordable services in your business. A lot of people end up creating, say, memberships because they're a more affordable way to work with the business. I think there has to be the right time and place when you bring those services into the mix of your business. And I see it as that analogy of you know, in the airplane they always tell you to put your own mask on first before you put it on everyone else.

Shannon Stone:

In business, you need to make sure your business is functioning, it's profitable, you're working with the people. You've got lead generation on all of that set up, like things are working. You want to get to that critical mass before you start creating, you know, small membership, subscription-based things that are almost like just a downsell and actually end up being a distraction for you and for potential clients, a distraction from what you should actually be selling. So I wanted to add that in there for us, okay. And number seven the last one that I wanted to share with us around improving our offers so we can improve our business is when you're looking at what you're selling, we want to reduce the friction and I've got a great example for us. I was on and I love offers. I love offers and the way, the impact it can really make to a business and how we can design it. I almost feel like part scientist, part artist when I get into working with people and their offers. But I jumped onto and I will pop the link Alan Howell's podcast from Triple Effect Media and we jumped on there and we were chatting all about offers and how we can enhance them and improve them and he said this is how he came up with his offering.

Shannon Stone:

So in his business Triple Effect, who do obviously amazing things. They create six months of video content over two days. So Alan and his team will fly to you, I believe, anywhere in Australia. They'll fly to you or come to you, you and over two days they'll help capture all that footage and then they will help you to turn all of that into content. It includes so much more the scripting, the strategy, probably running the ads.

Shannon Stone:

Alan is a gun. He said someone had said to him and you can listen to this on the podcast but he did a similar thing, but I think he did the filming over multiple days or maybe multiple weeks, or that was kind of set up a little bit differently and he had someone say to him could we do this over like a couple of days and just knock it out and, you know, capture all of that content and then that'll do us for the next couple of months. Lightbulb moment and Alan ran with it and that's how he came to what he does today. He reduced the friction instead of, you know, and it was a win-win for both of them. It's like for him as a business having to probably source a location, book it in, get the team together and stretch it out over weeks or months, whatever it might be, versus let's knock it out in one or two days. That's also a win for the client as well, because they're not having to take time out from their business to go do filming, getting their hair, makeup, clothes all of that organized and everything that comes with that as well. So I share that as an example of a beautiful way to reduce friction in your offers.

Shannon Stone:

So are there certain things that cause maybe a little bit of I don't want to say chaos, but maybe chaos or just slow things down or make it a little bit more difficult. Or even if you look at the objections you get in your business, they could be signs of where friction is happening as well. Or if you just look at your services and your package and think, okay, how could I make this easier? How could I make this even more efficient? What Alan did so much more efficient, so much more amazing, so much easier for him and for his clients as well. So reducing friction is another great way to improve your offer. Now, even if you just think of that as a way to improve an offer, reducing friction how this impacts improving your overall business is you can probably work with more people Like it brings all those efficiencies, for sure, but it opens you up to being able to work with more people. So anytime your business can be more efficient, save more time, you can channel all of that free time and that energy into working with even more people. That's one of the ways how, when you improve your offer, you can improve your business. So they are just some of the ways you can improve your offer.

Shannon Stone:

If that didn't feel like a workshop, I know what we're going to be covering, but to me it's like that. What we just covered is already so many amazing things On the workshop. It'll be a lot more easier to digest and a lot more tailored to you. So the seven areas, just to recap, is number one it's your pricing. Number two length of delivery. Number three your model. So are we doing retainers, subscription or any other kind of models? Number four is your payments. So payments, payment plans. What I didn't say on that you can listen to it in episode nine is are they putting deposits down? Are they paying 50% now and 50% later? These are all the things that you want to think through and I do cover that in episode nine.

Shannon Stone:

Number five create offers around results. That's really dreaming up and blank canvas Like let's blank canvas everything that it could be. Let's just dream it up as an exercise now, and then we can decide what to do with it after that. Number six is don't reduce your scope. So let's not water down our services. And number seven is to reduce friction. So that is what I have for you today Improve your offer, improve your business.

Shannon Stone:

The only action step that I have for you is to join the waitlist for the Service Business Boardroom. I will have a link in the description. When you join the waitlist as well, there is a beautiful PDF that is seven proven strategies to help grow a service-based business. So if you want a few marketing and when I say I want to give it the credit that it's due like these are seven laid out strategies from start, like seven different ones. You only need to pick one of them for your service-based business and say, okay, that's what I want to do and run with it. So when you join the waitlist, you get sent that as well. That is what I have for you today.

Shannon Stone:

I realized the time, so this literally was a masterclass slash workshop in itself, but if you have any questions, always reach out. I'm hanging out on LinkedIn a lot at the moment, so feel free to come say hey and connect, if we haven't already. So just find Shannon Stone over on LinkedIn. But I hope you have an amazing week and I'll talk to you very, very soon. Hey, thanks for listening. If you found this episode useful, I'd love for you to send it to a friend. The best podcasts I have found have all been recommended to me. If you can spread the word by sharing this episode, I can spend more time helping you by creating episodes just like this one. Send it, text it, tell somebody about it, whatever you need to do. The more you spread the word, the more I can focus on creating needle moving episodes to help you and your friends.

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