#339: How to Identify the Best Services to Offer Your Market in 2024

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia. Hey there. Welcome to another episode of the High Income Business Writing Podcast, the number one podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to earn more and less time doing work they love for better clients. With well over 1 million downloads from listeners just like you across 101 countries, 2023 was not a great year for many writers and solo marketing professionals. And when business is not great, one of the first things we tend to ask ourselves is, should I change or modify my offerings? Will that make a difference? Is that what it's really going to take to have a better year? Well, it's a great question to ask yourself, but it's important that you go about your decision in a more methodical way. So rather than just go with your gut, you'll make better decisions if you take a more analytical approach to this challenge. In this episode, we're addressing this question and this issue head on. My guest is Nikki Rauch. Nikki is a selling Coach and the CEO of Sales Maven. She has been doing sales for 25 years. She's got a strong sales track record, and her specialty is helping entrepreneurs, small business owners, and solo professionals sell successfully and authentically. This is Nikki's third appearance in the podcast. She and I are very well aligned in our marketing and our sales philosophies, and I love having these important conversations with her. I always walk away with a bit more wisdom and lots of new ideas to think about and to implement in my own business. We not only address the issue of service offerings in this conversation, we also get into some other related items like the importance of lifetime client value, Also tracking and doubling down on your best marketing strategy, something that I don't really see. A lot of people take the time to think through, to analyze, and then the biggest mistakes solo professionals make in their sales process when they're facing a difficult economy. So lots to cover here. I think you're going to get a lot out of it. I hope you enjoy the conversation. Nikki, welcome back.

Thanks for having me.

It's always a pleasure talking with you. We were just talking offline about how it's been so long, but it feels like just the other day we talked about.

I know. Well, I'm a huge fan of yours. I really enjoy you as a person. I love the way you think and just how you show up in conversations. So I'm delighted to get to have this time with you.

Thank You. And likewise, I feel the same way. And that's why it's fun to have these conversations with you. Because, you know, it's one thing if it becomes an echo chamber, right? Echo chambers can be fun for a little bit. And then you realize, ah, this is not challenging. But you. You bring up new ideas and thoughts and angles that make me think more deeply about some of this stuff. So I think that's good. It's a healthy echo chamber, let's say.

I'll take that.

Well, I wanted to talk with you today a little bit about offers. That's what I call them. We could talk about, you know, something to sell a new service, but let's just say I'm going to use the word offer. And to find that a lot of freelance professionals, writers, solo marketers, they get to a point where they feel like, I need to offer something else, I need something new. Especially right now, we're kind of in a weird economy. And one of the thoughts that crosses people's minds is maybe the problem is I've been offering the same stuff. Maybe I need a new offering, something to market, something new and exciting. And I wanted to have this conversation with you because I know you've done a lot of work in this area. You think about this a lot. About, you know, first of all, does that make sense? If so, when does it make sense? And then, okay, great. How do you go about finding the best possible offer to put out there to your market?

Well, okay, so I think you've gotta take a step back before you just say, like, I want something new or my clients want something new, or people will only buy from me if I have something new. That's not actually always the case. And some of it's like motivational strategies, right? Like, certain people get really excited about new and different, and I happen to be one of those people as well. So I love to challenge new and different, but I know this about my personality. And I also know it's not good for my business to always be like, here's something new. Oh, I can work on this now. And it gets a little bit of like, oh, squirrel. And you start to, like, go all over the place, and then you end up with a lot of offers and nobody's really sure what to buy from you. So I think. And I do this throughout the year, but at the end of the year, and we're kind of, you know, in the first part of 2024, so it's a good time to be looking at a few things. So one by Category, what did you sell in the last 12 months? What have been your biggest, like, contributors to the revenue? And I like to do this by category because it helps me get an idea of, like, what really is going on. And as a matter of fact, obviously, I just did this because we're at the beginning of the new year, and I had in my mind what my top three offers were. And then I actually ran my numbers, even though I'm tracking throughout the year. But I wasn't pay. I don't pay as much attention until I, like, really spend time and dig in. And what my top offer was, I thought was my number four offer, the thing that brought in the most revenue. And it was a shocker to me. I was like, what in the heck? And actually, a good portion of that offer came in in the last four months of the business year. So I think you gotta look at your offers. What is actually bringing in the revenue? Because a lot of times what I find with my clients and just with people in general is because they don't know by category what is actually bringing in the revenue, they spend time trying to sell things that's not even contributing 10%, 5% to their overall revenue. And I think that's a mistake because it's really hard to try to grow something from 5% to be something much bigger. But if you look at something that's like, oh, this offer brings in $200,000 a year. This other offer that I think, oh, I think more people want this. It brings in $10,000 a year. It's like, no, we should be looking at the $200,000 offer and how to grow that, because it's always easier to sell those things when you have momentum, and you obviously have momentum in your business. So I think you got to look at your offers by category and go, what's moving the needle in my business? And that's where you should start to spend some time and energy. And then the next piece of this I'll add there is. I think you should look and see who have been your top, like, in the last 10 buyers of that offer. Where'd they come from? And track back where they came from. Because I always say, like, you wanna pour gasoline on the fire, right? Like, we gotta build that bigger fire. If you really wanna scale your business instead of trying to grow these tiny little offers, like, I just had somebody recently, you know, with best of intentions, say, like, oh, Nikki, I can teach you how to sell more of your books. I have three books. But when I look at how much Revenue my books bring in, it just doesn't move the needle in the business. So I'm not going to spend money and energy and time growing my book sales unless it's part of a funnel that gets people to the other offers. And in this case it's not. So that's not where I'm going to spend time in injury. I'm going to spend time and energy on what are my top offers, where did those clients that are the buyers of it come from? And that's going to influence my spend on marketing and effort. And time on marketing effort is in those areas.

I like it.

And the, the only exception is if it's a small offer, because I do have one of these in my business. I have a tiny offer that actually does. It's part of the funnel. So it does get people in the door. And it's, you know, again, doesn't bring enough revenue to really justify, oh, I'm going to spend a ton of energy on it until I start to go. But that's the thing that people buy first before they buy these other things. So to me, that's like a foundation piece. What's the foundation piece of your business that gets people in the door so that you can make the other offers to them. And the other offers are the things that are in that top category. So for me, it's the 80, 20 rule. 80% of my business actually comes from about three offers in my lineup. And I have multiple offers, but it's the three offers that produce 80% of the revenue. So I'm only going to spend time and energy trying to grow that 80%. And because the other things are just going to grow kind of organically, honestly, they are.

They are. So what I'm hearing from you in terms of, okay, where do you start is start by running your numbers. Yeah, right. Start by looking at your number. So go back and look at your revenue by type of service. Right. By type of deliverable service, the type of engagement, whatever it is, get a really good handle on what that was. And then you can start comparing and then you can do some percentage analysis to see, you know, what came in, what percentage that represented of your total income. I also like to look at when it came in throughout the year to see if I see some patterns in terms of seasonality. There may be something there. And then what I also heard you say is also look to see who bought and where they came from, because that now gets into more of a marketing play. Right. We've been talking more about selling, but now, okay, where are those people coming from? I've always loved that analysis. In fact, it's one of my favorite things is when I look at who's really spending money with me. What was the source? And I've always been surprised. Cause I had them in my head, oh, it's like this or that or the other. And it changes. It used to change every year a little bit, but it was, you know, I remember one, my biggest client ever came from an unlikely referral and actually an invitation from someone that I had met at a previous client at an event who never even. That wasn't her role, is to hire me. I just happened to meet her. She was a marketing coordinator in a different department. You know, we had a great 45 minute conversation and that was it. I never saw her again. Years later, she remembered me and she reached out to me. He's like, I'm somewhere else. I remember you. I want you to meet our VP of marketing. And she brokered the introduction. And I didn't take her seriously because I thought, well, I remember the conversation. And she wasn't somebody who hired writers. She was kind of a lower level marketing person. And she's trying to introduce me to the VP of marketing. It just seemed unlikely.

Yeah.

But I'm glad that I took her seriously because this turned out to be my biggest client ever. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in income from that client. So, yeah, it's like knowing where they come from. But. Okay, so now that we know this is what we should be looking at, what other analysis or decisions are you making from that?

So a couple other things that I'm thinking about is those top tier offers. Does it make sense? And when I say top tier, I don't mean like your. I mean like the ones that are bringing in the most revenue. Okay, like your top categories of sales. Does it make sense to re offer those to people who've already gone through it? And I would really challenge those of you who are immediately dismissing what I'm saying to take a step back. Because I do this a lot with clients and they go, oh, well, somebody already went through the program. They don't want to go through it again. Are you sure? Or are you making that decision for them? Have you asked, have you put an offer in front of them? Because a lot of times, like for instance, one pretty significant category for me are strategy sessions. And I often, a few times a year, I make offers where people can buy multiple strategy sessions from me. So it's like a three pack of strategy sessions and they've got 12 months to use them. I cannot tell you how many times people have repurchased the three pack. I mean, I have one client who's probably on her 10th purchase, maybe even more of three packs of strategy sessions. And as soon as she uses her second of the three, she's like, send me an invoice for the next three. And it's become this thing that we do and sometimes I don't hear from her for months, but then, you know, she's got something she needs some sales coaching around. She comes back and I just had this happen the other night with somebody who we were wrapping up her third and she was like, I, I just like to have them in my back pocket. So I'm not saying that necessarily is going to work for everybody, but I find that a lot of times I can re offer the same offer to people and they'll buy it again and again and again. And I had a client who she has a group, like a group program that she puts on. And it's a pretty intensive, it's a three month program for people. And we were having conversations about growing her business. And I was like, how many people are doing Repeat of your 3 month? And she's like, what do you mean repeat? And I was like, well, you know, you're offering them to come back through. She's like, I've never offered anybody to come back through. I'm like, why not? She's like, well, they already got the information. Well, did they absorb it? A hundred percent. Are you sure that they wouldn't find value in going back through the program? And it was like a light bulb came on. She was like, I never thought about that. I'm going to go back and offer it. And guess what? People signed back up for the three month program. So be careful about just throwing out. Because somebody bought something from you one time, they won't want to buy it again because they very well might. And it's always your job to earn that business. And one of the ways you earn business is by putting offers in front of people, inviting them to take that step with you. Don't make assumptions.

Yeah. Don't make decisions for them. Or like a sales coach once taught me, don't sell with your wallet.

Yes. Well, I always say it like, don't make decisions about somebody else's wallet. Like it's not your business what's in their wallet. It's your job to earn the business. Put it in front of them, let them decide. I mean, I don't know Unless you have a very unique audience, which I know your audience is special, but unique in the way that they're not selling to adults. My guess is they're all selling to adults. Treat people with respect, they're an adult, they can make their own decision. Your job is to just put the decision in front of them and allow them to make it.

So I want to maybe take this concept you just discussed and I want to make sure that listeners can interpret and use it for their own situation. So we got two different types of listeners. We have those who sell basically custom freelance writing, copywriting services. By custom, I mean it's a unique deliverable for a client. They can't resell that. Right? It's like, I need this done. Great, let me get the specs. You go in and you create it and you get paid for it. Then we have listeners who sell a lot of strategy or advisory. You know, strategy session, brainstorming session, a roadmapping engagement, a content strategy workshop, something along those lines. And then we have maybe a third category which would be a hybrid. I would say that one's really, really common where you do both. You sell advisory and you sell execution. Well, I can help you execute a strategy that you're already coming to me with or one that we develop together. So to put your ideas into these different categories doesn't really matter. It applies to all three. If you've done, you know, a few case studies for client A, don't assume that that's it. They don't need any more. They have other success stories that they're going to want to document if they've spent the money, if they believe in case studies, there's a really good chance they're going to want to do more. This is not a static thing. Whatever. White papers, articles, blog posts, social media, anything, this is all going to be recurring, not a one time thing. So. Definitely applies there. Yeah, it applies if you sell mainly advisory. If you're more of a consultant, you sell more of the ideas. Strategy, advisory, absolutely. You just nailed it. Your strategy sessions is a great example of that. That's one flavor of advisory. And of course it applies to those who have more of a hybrid model where they offer both. You know, you can talk about reach out. Hey, are you still looking to put more of these out there? You know, can we take another look at what you have and maybe how I could help you with them? If they've bought it before, they're very likely to buy it again.

Yeah, and as a matter of fact, I just did A coaching session yesterday with somebody who actually I met through you, who was one of your clients, who heard me on your podcast, and who does some strategy sessions with me. And in the strategy session, we were talking about who has bought from her in the last few years of her business. And she primarily is selling web copy, like, for their website. And she's like, well, I've already done their web copy. And it's like, yeah, two years ago. But things change, and they may need some updates to their web copy or just even the way that we talk about certain things, types start to change. So let's go back and see. Do they need some updates? Would they benefit? And you're assuming that they're going to initiate that conversation with you, but your job is to initiate the conversation with them because they may need it, but are busy and haven't actually taken the time to reach out to you. And they'll be relieved when you reach out to them and say, hey, has anything changed? Do you have a new offer? Has something in your bio changed? Do you need a new bio? Like, there's all these things. And, you know, even speaking to case studies, I just had this conversation with a client who I was actually reviewing her case study for an offer, Right. That's attached to an offer that she's putting out. And I had made a comment about that, one of the kind of pieces of the case study that I thought that it needed to be a little bit stronger. And she was like, that's so interesting that you said that, because things have changed with this client. They actually have had some updated results come in, and I can go back to them now and get these updated results, which will put a much stronger, like, more compelling example of a case study to her offer. So maybe the case studies need to be updated too. Right? Like, again, don't make these assumptions about what a client needs or doesn't need. Make the assumption that they'll be happy to hear from you and all you're doing is just offering to be a resource, offering your services. And if they don't need it, okay. But if they do need it, they'll be delighted that you came back to them and made it easy for them to take that next step with you.

Absolutely. It's funny you say this about the web copy, because I had a similar situation happen to me recently. My photographer, she's great. Terrell Jackson, if you're in the Atlanta area, strongly recommend her. She does great work. She reached out to me a few months ago, well, last year, and she said hey, we haven't done a photo shoot in a while, and I think these photos are a little outdated. Of course, we hadn't seen each. She didn't know that I was grayer, but she assumed, okay, this guy's graying pretty fast. And I said, yeah, you're right. And then I did the math, and it'd been like five years, something like that. Five or six. Six years. I said, let's get this done. I said, I got these things coming up. I can't do it, but I can do it in September. I said, great, let's book a time. And we did. She wasn't bothering me. You know, she like, I don't think about this stuff. I go to my website. Like, I don't even look at my face. You know what I'm saying? So I don't think, oh, gee, these are really outdated. I look different now. In fact, I don't want to think that way. So I'm like, no, there's less gray hair in that one. Let's just keep it. If anything, that's what I'm thinking. But I want to that point, I really want to expand on that a little bit, because there is an assumption that when we reach out to clients past dormant, current clients with, hey, have you thought about updating this, or can I help you with more of X that we're bothering them? Can you speak to that a little bit? I mean, I want to go a little bit deeper with that, because I think that is a very strong subconscious concern that many creative people have.

It comes down to. Okay, so I'll give you a little analogy, and I may have even given this on the podcast before. It's this idea of. Imagine that you go out and you have a really satisfying meal. Do you know where I'm going with this ad? Have you heard me do this before?

I don't recall, but let's just go with it.

Okay, so you go out, you have a really satisfying meal, and the wait staff, you know, your waiter comes by and just drops the bill on your table, and you kind of think to yourself, like, okay, I guess I'm not gonna even be offered dessert. Now, whether you want dessert or not, it feels a little bit like a slide. Like, I feel a little slighted a little bit by. Or slighted by the fact that they didn't offer me dessert. Now, on the flip side, though, the waiter comes by and they offer you dessert, and you say, oh, thank you so much, but I couldn't possibly. I'm so satisfied. I'm so full, I'm gonna pass tonight. You know, the waiter doesn't go back in the kitchen and be like, oh my gosh, this person rejected me. They declined dessert. But from the perspective of you, you feel good that they at least offered it to you because there's a little bit of an expectation that of course they're gonna offer you dessert. That's part of their job, frankly. And your job is to earn somebody's business. So it is part of your job to touch base and reach back and put a new offer in front of somebody from time to time and they can decide whether or not they wanna stay on your email list, whether or not they wanna respond to your reach out. Like they're adults, they get to decide. It's one thing if you're like the little kid in the store going like, can I have some candy, can I have some candy? Can I have some candy? And the parents like, no, no, no. You know, at some point, like, it gets annoying. That's not what you're doing. Unless you are doing that and then knock it off. But realistically, most of people, you're holding yourself back so much because you're so worried that they're going to make some kind of judgment about, you're bothering me, you're being annoying. But in actuality, when you show up from this place of genuine, I'm here to be of service and I'm offering the opportunity to utilize my services. Would you like them, yes or no? People aren't like throwing fits and clutching their pearls and being like, how dare you send an email to me? Especially when you already have a relationship with them. They're like, oh, so nice to hear from this person. So great that they were thinking about me and oh, I hadn't thought about needing new photos. And now you've got an appointment scheduled that you don't have to think about again until September. Right? It's done. It's easy. The easier you make it for people to do business with you, the more likely they are to take you up on your offer. So you're not bothering them. You're actually being of service. You're providing value.

You really are. And I would say that it doesn't take much to add some justification language to your message. Right. So obviously if Terrell had said, you know, we did the photo shoot in September, it had been November, she said, hey, you ready for another photo shoot? That would be a little weird.

Yeah, like there's some context there. Right? Like what?

So, you know, I think the important thing Here is to think, okay, I'm going to put myself in their shoes. If I were the marketing director, and it's been eight months since we did those case studies, and I know that they do quite a bit of business. I bet they've had some successes over the past eight months, but they maybe want a document. So you reach out and say, that's the justification. I know it's been about eight months or so, and I figured you may have some new stories that you want to document. Would it make sense for us to reconnect to discuss something like that? Right. As opposed to, do you need any more case studies? Right. I mean, that's better than not asking, I guess. But what I'm saying is it doesn't take much to provide a little bit of justification. Justification goes a long way, even if it's very basic and simple.

And it should be basic and simple. You know, I learned this lesson years ago when I was in my corporate sales job. I had this one account, and the VP of the company, he had this thing like, if he saw you in their office, like, so I was going out and working with his salespeople. So a lot of times I was in his office, you know, getting ready to do a ride day with one of his sales reps or whatever. And he would come around and he'd be like, why are you here? And you always had to have a legitimate reason. Cause he didn't want vendors, the manufacturer, which I came from, as the manufacturer side. He didn't want manufacturer reps just hanging out in their office. You needed to have a legitimate reason for being there. And as long as you did, he was totally fine with it. And so it was a great lesson for me because a lot of times I will put my legitimate reason for my reach out in my message. And so when you're thinking this is exactly. I think what you just said is put some context to it, and then it makes sense to the other person. They're like, oh, it's not just, oh, they're just trying to get more money out of me. It's like, no, we did this eight months ago. You've probably had some great success stories since then. You know, does it make sense for us to have another conversation and look at some additional ways to provide some new case studies for you? Now you've got your legitimate reason listed. There's contacts there. And now they're going like, oh, yeah, we hadn't really thought about it. Thank you.

Yes, I'm with you. I do a 21 day prospecting workshop a few times a year. And one of the first things I have participants do, we create some foundational pieces. But then right away I have them reach out to past and dormant and current clients before we even go cold. And it is shocking to people, not to me, how much activity that generates. It doesn't mean that it generates a project right away, but it sparks conversation and dialogue and some of those turn into work or turn into an appointment, a zoom call, et cetera. It's pretty remarkable. I say start there to your point. And it doesn't take much. There's a specific type of email I have them do that. It's really short, but it provides a little bit of justification, just enough to create a, generate a response.

Yeah. And I mean, there's a reason that this is a common phrase when it comes to sales. Repeat business is the easiest business to earn. Like that gets said all the time in the sales world. Repeat business is the easiest business to earn. And so I often find that sometimes we just not we, not you and me, but like, cause we know this. But a lot of times people just dismiss this idea of like, well, they already bought from me. Well, yeah, and it's your job to put a next offer in front of them or provide them with additional ways that they can be supported from you. So never be afraid to start with the low hanging fruit. And again, like what you're saying, even if it's somebody they've worked with years ago or it's somebody they've had some kind of a connection with, that you've already built some rapport there, you already have. I call these rapport credits. Like I think about rapport bank accounts. Like you always are making deposits with every person you come into contact with. You have a rapport bank account, you're making deposits or you know, when you don't do something well, like me, sometimes I make missteps and there's a withdrawal that comes out. But for the most part, you should have a balance. And with people you've had long term relationships with, even if it's from years ago, that balance is still there. So when you have a rapport balance, they're much more likely to give you a little bit of grace, to give you a little bit of time, to give you a little bit of attention. If you're starting at cold outreach, you've got no balance. You're not necessarily in the negative, but you have no balance. So it's a much harder reach to do these cold outreaches than to reach back out to former clients, people you've had some type of a relationship with. And I just had somebody do this with me. I didn't really know what her intention was and wanting to like get on a call with me, but I had had a relationship with her. We haven't talked in like seven years, but we had a good relationship. We did some like collaborative type stuff about seven years ago. So when she reached out, I jumped on the phone with her and I don't normally do that. If it had been a cold outreach in the way that she did it and the way she approached me, my answer would have been no. So, yeah, don't miss those opportunities to work that rapport like you've got that foundation. Use it.

I couldn't agree more. I'm a big proponent. I call it lead nurturing, but it's really not just lead nurturing. It's really nurturing all. Especially your relationships. Right. Past and dormant Clients, peers, partners or potential partners, referral sources, anybody get them on a stay in touch. I'm going to use the word sequence, but it doesn't mean you automate it. It just means that you make sure that you're staying in touch every so many months with just a quick note of. Hey, in my preferred way is don't ask something of them every time. I like the two to one ratio. Two notes of. I came across this thought of you. Hope you're well, two of those about eight weeks apart. And then a third one which is, hey, you know, we did these case studies a few months ago. I'm sure you've had some new. Right. Are you. Would you be open to a discussion about doing a couple more. Right. I love that analogy of the deposits because that's exactly what you're doing. You're making deposits into that Rapport bank account. And then when you do the ask, you have a balance.

Yeah, yeah, I love that too, that you've got this idea. Like you have some strategy around it. Like these two to one. And one of the things I will say, a lot of times people go, but it's been five years, Nikki. Okay, well, you can still start ed's two to one now like it's the. You know that.

What is that? It's all or nothing.

Yeah. It's the best time to plant a cherry tree. Do you know this?

Oh, yeah.

Confucius saying the best time to plant a cherry tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today. Right. So you can start today and implement what you're saying at this 2 to 1 and see results.

That's a cognitive bias, this idea that we have. But it's been so long. I fall into that with things like thank you cards. It's like, ah, I missed the window. I should have sent this, you know, eight weeks ago. Hey, why not now? It's okay. I know this is late, but I wanted to let you know I'm just still so appreciative of X, you know, it doesn't expire, I guess, is the point. Especially if you're not asking for something. So, like your friend. I mean, seven years. But it goes to show that these balances don't decay as much as and as quickly as we think, right? Yeah.

You know, I still think there's people probably 20 years ago that I worked with that if they reached out to me, you know, 20 years later and was like, hey, Nikki, it's been 20 years. What's new with you? If nothing else, I would feel compelled to respond because, again, there's some kind of balance there.

Yeah. Yeah. It was easy for me to reach out to you. You and I have stayed in touch. You know, we talked about how it's been about a year since you were on the show, but we stay in touch. It's just a lot easier to do the ask, right? To make the ask.

Yeah.

And for you, I mean, I'm just guessing it might have been a little easier for you to say yeah. When?

Well, I mean, I'm a big fan of you, so it could be you have a good balance. But I get what you're saying, and you have been great, like, you know, over the years. I can't even remember the first time I was on your show, but it's been years. And then somebody reconnected us because I was like, I really would like to know Ed better because somebody had mentioned it to me, and I was like, I'd really like to know him better. And they're like, well, I know him pretty well. Let me reconnect you guys. And we have stayed connected kind of since then. And that was a couple years ago.

Yeah, it was. You even. You spoke to one of my groups at one of my client retreats. You know, you come on the show a couple of times since then, so there's so many applications of this. I had someone reach out to me the other day, and, you know, he had a small balance. Okay.

Tiny balance.

But the ask created an overdrawn situation. But that's okay. And we both know it, and that's okay. And he's very humble. So it's okay. But it goes to show, even a small balance can make a huge difference. So I, I want to shift a little bit here, Nikki, to a related topic, and that is mistakes that you're seeing solo professionals make in the selling process. Let's just call it during times that are more challenging than normal, like what we've been facing over the past year or so. Right. So what are some things you're noticing that people tend to start doing that are not serving them when the pressure's on? And what can they do about it?

Okay, well, we'll see if I, you know the first one that came to mind just when you asked me this question, I'm just gonna say it. And if you're like, that's not what I want to talk about, I'm okay with that. But here's one of them, is that when the pressure's on, the mistake I think people make is they go, well, I'm just going to launch a high ticket group program. And because that'll solve all my problems. And in some cases it might. But oftentimes the people that come to me and they're like, I just want you to help me kind of outline this group program. And I go, okay, do you have an audience for the group program? Do you have people that you are pretty sure are going to want to sign up for this? Well, no, I've never offered a group program before. Well, how's your email list? What email list? How often do you sell to your email list? What I don't like, you're going to have a really hard time filling a group program if you don't have an audience. Like, that's not the solution. Often it's not the solution. And I actually have a client right now who was like a business coach, gave her this kind of advice of like, just launch a high ticket group program. And when she came to me, I said, you know, this isn't my recommendation. And she's like, but I want to do it anyway. And I was like, okay. She's like, so can you just help me with the email, the communications, the messaging? And I said, yes, I will support you on it. And it's not what I recommend. And now she feels so deflated and she thinks nobody wants to buy from her because she couldn't fill the group program. You couldn't fill it because you didn't have the audience for it. So my suggestion in those cases, and this may work for some of the offers that I'm thinking about for your clients too, is that Sometimes instead of making these big launches and doing like all this, spending a bunch of time and energy and money on something, test an offer, put it out as a solo offer and see if one person will buy it to validate the offer. Because if you put out an offer and it doesn't matter when they sign up for it, you can start immediately. You don't have to wait to fill the program and all these things that go along with it. And you don't have to update your website and, you know, make all these changes and put all this money behind a big launch. You can test an offer first and foremost and see, is this a valid offer? Does anybody want to buy it? And I just had this conversation with a client actually this week over Voxer, where she was like, I'm thinking about removing a piece, you know, on my tiers of offers, removing it and replacing it with this other thing. And I'm just going to update the website and I'm going to build like a marketing brochure around it. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's test it first. She's like, well, what do you mean? I was like, send out the offer to your email list first. See if anybody wants to buy it before you make all these shifts. So it's the kind of back to where we started here of like, don't just throw out everything you've done and go, well, here's something new. It's like, let's test it first and see what happens.

I could not agree more. I'm seeing people. Oh, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to create a messaging workshop for clients because I know there's a need for that. Because I'm seeing a lot of problems with messaging in my audience. And they put it out there. They spend all this time creating the offer, then putting together the content for the workshop, and then they put it out there and it falls on deaf ears. I'm with you a thousand percent. I've learned that lesson and unfortunately I didn't learn it the first time. It's taken like three or four failures for it to finally sink in. Create a minimum viable product in terms of like, sketch out what the offer would look like. Go out to clients where there's some trust, right? Clients present and past, and test the idea there. Do you think this might be something? I don't care if you give it away in exchange for feedback and a testimonial, that's fine too. You need proof of concept. So I'm fine with that. But don't create and put all these time and resources into creating a new offer, a new service that you're not really sure is going to sell. You think people are going to want it, but they're not. There's a difference between want and need. You think they need it, but do they want it?

And will they pay for it? Because that's the other thing. Like, maybe, you know, like, oh, everybody loves this offer because you've been giving it away for free, now you want to charge for it. We don't actually know if it's a viable offer yet, because if you gave it away for free, free to a bunch of people and everybody signed up, we need to know, will people actually pay money for it? And you need to test it before you build a bunch of strategy around it. So, yeah, I love this idea of, like, just test and see what's the response. And I did this actually over the summer. I worked with somebody you and I know. Cause I know you had mentioned them to me, a coach of mine, and we kind of recreated a version of an offer that I've been doing. And he was like, okay, you know, here's what you're going to do. Like, we worked it out. And I was like, well, first I'm going to test it. So I just sent it out to my list, I put the offer out and I got buyers. And I was like, okay, so now it's a valid offer. Now I'll do all the other stuff that involves strategy around it. And it's been phenomenal. It's been great. But I test my offers first, and I want to see will people actually pay money for them.

Somebody once told me, it's like, you have a musical, don't hire the theater or the actors or singers yet sell the tickets. Once you have tickets sold, then go ahead and create it. It's the same idea, you know, which makes me wonder now, with concerts, have you noticed, like, they start selling tickets like, 10 months ahead of time? It's like, hmm, are they trying to see if they can actually sell out the arena or what? But no, no, I think that's absolutely brilliant. Is there anything else you're seeing out there from a selling perspective, that when the pressure's on, people continue to make, you know, or making these mistakes. What else comes to mind?

A lot of it kind of comes back to they start making assumptions. Oh, people aren't buying it because they think it's too expensive. Has anybody said that? And when they say too expensive, what does that mean? Right like, there's a lot of ways to make assumptions, and it's kind of human nature a little bit. And especially when it comes to sales, as I always say, like, we do two things in sales. We assume what the other person thinks about our offer, and then we hallucinate and decide for them whether or not they'll pay for it. But in actuality, we don't actually know until we ask questions. So I know I had a client. One of the things I advise is put some pricing on your website. I'm a big proponent of this. I feel really strongly about it. And so it wasn't something she had done. She put pricing on her website, and then she said, well, this person reached out to me and said, oh, I can't afford you. And it's because I put pricing my website. And I was like, well, hold up. Is that truly the case or what was she looking to spend? Because it doesn't really matter if she wasn't ever going to pay your prices. And there was like, the person wanted to spend a third of what my client charged. So her opinion about whether or not pricing is on our website doesn't count. She's not even a potential client. So check to be sure. Like, check your assumptions out. It's normal to make them. But check and ask. Find out what is it, and be sure that the people that you're asking are potential buyers, because otherwise their opinion is just that, an opinion. It's not fact.

And it would be a shame to make a big decision based on somebody who wasn't really going to be in your target market or your target buyer anyway.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I love it. Good. This is great. And that resonates very much with me. I think it's important to keep a level head during difficult times, not make rash decisions because we think that, well, you know, what we need is something new. I love what we talked about today, especially going back to people who have bought from you, doing the analysis every time, you know, I resist doing the analysis. It seems like a lot of work. It's not fun to gather this information sometimes because most of us don't have a system that spits it out like that. But I've never regretted doing it. In fact, if anything, it's been one of the most productive activities I do every year. So I think that's very wise advice. As we close. Dickie, what are you excited about in your world? What are you working on? And where can I send people to check out your resources?

Thank you so much. You know, I'm really excited. I launched just a couple months ago a resource hub. It's called the Sales Maimon Studio. It's got training content in there and I put a ton of scripts in there. That's one of the things people often ask me for, sales scripts. And there's a bunch of other resources in there as well. So that's kind of something that I've been excited to launch. I've been excited for people to go through some of the training content in there. And yeah. So looking forward to kind of getting that out there and getting it in front of people more. And then for anybody who would like to connect, I always like to wrap it around a gift, if that's okay.

I love gifts and I have.

Okay. I have a mini training and I don't know if I've offered this on your podcast before, so this might be new even if somebody's heard me on the podcast before. It's called Mastering the Sales Conversation and it walks through the five steps of how to have an effective sales conversation. So I'd love to gift that to your audience and then we'll be connected. You can get it by going to your salesmaven.com forward/high income.

I like that.

That's it.

Well, I love the sound of that. URL. Sales maven and high income. I have been through your training on the Sales conversation and the staircase and it's fantastic. So I highly recommend listeners check it out. It's going to be very much worth your while. So thank you for offering that, Nikki. And thank you for coming back on the show.

My pleasure, 100%. Thank you. I'm delighted to be here.

We will meet again. We will have a different conversation another time. Thanks again.

Thank you.

Well, that's it for today. I hope you enjoyed the episode and just a quick reminder to grab your free copy of my latest book, Earn More in Less time. The Proven Mindset, strategies and actions to prosper as a freelance writer. You can get your free copy@b2b launcher.com where you will also find the detailed show notes to this and all my other episodes. Enjoy and have a great day.