#159 - ”Front End or Back End? What’s Your Offer Game Plan?”

Hey there everybody. It is Kate here from hellofunnels and welcome to the Doing It Online podcast. Today I'm going to try and keep it really short and really valuable. I've just come off the back of two weeks of COVID so I'm now trying to film something without every 30 seconds the poor editor having to jump in and cough out, cough out me. Cut out me coughing. So we're going to keep it, we're going to keep it short and sweet. But that is perfect for today's topic, which is around offers and this is a slightly more advanced topic. Guys, this isn't really about what to do if you don't have an offer yet. But this, this episode is designed for those of you who have an online program already and it's selling, you know, maybe not selling as well as you want, but you're like, okay, I now need, I want to grow, I want to get more profit, I want to be able to scale. And so you start thinking about what's next, what is the next program you should create. And before or you go and make that decision, you need to know if right now what you have is a front end offer or a backend offer. So let's dive on in guys and I'll explain everything.

This is the Doing it online podcast with your Host, serial entrepreneur, 6 and 7 figure funnel strategist and super nerd Kate McKibben, where every week we're here talking nerdy and sharing the things that actually work to help you do what you do online. But better, easier and with a ton more profit too. Are you ready? Let's do it.

Alrighty guys, so first of all I wanted to explain what even is a front end offer or is a back end offer and therefore, hopefully this will make it really clear for you to be able to see what you already have and therefore what you already need. Because this is one of the things that you kind of. No one tells you in the beginner stuff, guys, but to be able to grow a multi six figure, seven figure business in the online education space, to be able to do it in a way that's profitable and not just insanely stressful, particularly with how online ads and things like that are getting more and more expensive. So basically, if you are ever intending on running paid traffic, you need to be able to have both a front end offer and a back end offer. And your front end offer is an offer whose purpose and the way that it is marketed, the funnel that's set up around it, the whole purpose of that is to cover the cost or most of the cost. And hey, if you're lucky, maybe a little bit of extra on top, but to cover the cost of your marketing, to make your marketing pay for itself. So what this does is it means that your second offer, your back end offer, is then pure profit. I mean, obviously you have to take out cost of team and all that stuff, but it doesn't have like 30%, 40%, 50%, sometimes higher taken out of it to cover the cost of the ads in the first place. Now when you only have one of these guys, if you only have one offer and you're trying to scale, like, yes, some people luck out and they get a big organic audience and this isn't a problem for them. That's like 2% of people out there. For the other 98% of people to be able to grow past a certain point, you're going to need that paid traffic. And usually what happens is when you get started with paid traffic, you can usually do it up to a certain level. Again, that's quite affordable. That will give you a good return on investment that, you know, you can give Facebook 10 bucks and it'll give you back 20 kind of thing and that's great. But then you go, okay, well now I want to grow more. I'd like to bring on team to help me. I'd like to expand, expand my business. I'd like to stop being the one doing everything 24 7. And that's fair enough. That's allowed. That is the natural journey of business. So to be able to afford to have a bigger team and all the other things that you want to do, to invest, maybe, you know, get some better equipment or some better tech or, you know, reinvest in making your program even better, you need to be able to also earn more. And also, you know, maybe you just want to be able to earn more, that's fine too. But you'll find that usually what people think that they then have to do is like, okay, great, I've got a program and it sells well and I've been running ads to it and that's been working. So I'll just run more ads, I'll just spend more on paid traffic. And the nasty surprise most people get is that when they do that, is that all of a sudden, and it's weird, it's not like it's not in direct proportion to how much you're spending either. You might go, okay, well I'll just spend a bit more. And then all of a sudden it's twice as expensive to even get one sale. Or you might not, or you might get less sales when you're spending more. So this is just the way that Facebook ads work. And so we, a lot of people then get stuck at this point and then they go back and they go, oh, well, maybe there's something wrong with my offer. Maybe I need a whole new offer. And they go back to the start and they keep getting stuck in this little loop of starting again and starting again because anytime they get something moving and they try to grow, it gets too expensive. They get, they hit a point, they don't know how to get past that point and they go back to the start. The solution, how you get past this point is by having a second offer, by having a back end offer or, or for some of you, having a front end offer. So that's what I wanted to really talk about today, guys. So there's this. So every online education business, it needs both. It needs one offer, one funnel, one marketing setup to be growing your list, to be covering the cost of your marketing, to allow you to kind of grow as fast as you want to grow. And then it needs a second offer, a second funnel, a second way of launching a second problem being solved or a is problem being solved in a bigger way that is then going to increase your profit. That is then going to mean that you are not having to go out and find new customers all the time that you have, you know, you're able to increase the average order value of the customers. You do have all of this good stuff. These things together combined in the right way make a very healthy business. A business is able to grow a business that won't drive you crazy. That's what we all want. So you need both of these. Hopefully that's kind of clear now. So what a lot of people think, and it seems to be about 50, 50 like people, they have their online program and they're like, okay, well they hear this idea that you need to either have a front end offer or backend offer. And everyone just makes the assumption of one way or the other. So people go, oh, okay, well I need, now I need a higher ticket. Like I've got a 997 program or 4,97-program. Now I need a higher ticket. That's how I'm going to grow. That's how I'm going to solve this problem. Or other people. And again, it probably depends who you're following on Instagram, depending on what they're talking about, the other 50% of people go oh well, I need a $27 or a $7, you know, little mini but mighty offer or a micro but mighty offer. And that will solve my problem. And the thing is that yes, you do need one of the two, but not everyone knows what their current offer actually is and how to make that right decision for whether that what they need is a higher ticket or a lower ticket to best maximize what they have and what they the business they already have. And also to actually help them to get towards the business they actually want to get. Like, this is why we spend the very first thing that everybody who comes to work with us does is to spend time going through what we call the design phase, where you actually get really clear on the business that you actually want, how you want it to run, what you want to look like, how you going to be working, how you want to be showing up, team size, all that stuff. Because depending on what you've said in that kind of like those decisions that you've made there and the business non negotiables that you set, then that kind of really, that's, that's like 50% of making this decision of do I need a front end offer or do I need a backend offer. And then the other 50% is really comes down to what makes sense for your niche for your business. So if just say you currently have right now a 497-997 kind of, you know, DIY style signature course, you could with that go either way. You could grow massively by adding a $7 front end offer or 27 front end off. Like there's a whole bunch of different types of front end offers out there. Guys. Please don't limit yourself to just thinking that it's $27 mini courses or bundles of templates or whatever. There's a whole bunch of them and know that's one way of doing it. The other way of doing it was obviously going, okay, well maybe I need something more premium. I need like a 5,000 to a $10,000. Maybe I need a mastermind. Maybe I need more of a done for you. Like again, so many different options here. So you've really got to, and this is why I said you've got to be clear on the business that you want. And the, you know, because there's pros and cons to both. So some of the pros and cons of running a mini offer up front, like a mini but mighty offer, is one that you need to be really, really good and comfortable with ads like you can only get started pretty well on your own. But to kind of get it to that next level where you want it to be, to be able to get the number of people through, through your funnels that you want, you're going to need some good ad skills or you're going to need to be able to invest in a good ads person. That doesn't always happen first go. Sometimes it takes a few. So that's usually a, a bit of a roadblock for a lot of people. You also have to be prepared to be dealing with. All of a sudden you now go from having like five new customers a month, 20 new customers a month, whatever it is, to having potentially thousands, which means a lot of admin, a lot of customer service stuff. So you really got to make sure you've got that team support, you've got that stuff dialed in. Now that's not to say that it's not a brilliant way of doing things, but you know, you don't want to kind of go in there blindfolded. The other thing is sometimes like if you do also down the track, want to have a more premium program, depending on what it is that you're teaching, sometimes it's just not appropriate or it's not going to sit with your brand to go out there and offer something for $7. Like not everybody's brand is going to have the capacity for that. So again you have to think is this going to be the right choice for me? Is this going to be the right choice for my business? If it's not, then what might be better for you is to actually create a back end offer. Therefore your current 497 to 997 signature course becomes your front end offer. And then you just have to make sure you've got a really solid funnel set up. I'd recommend a webinar funnel. I'd recommend our webinar funnel. Actually it's a slightly different way of doing things. But you know, you want to make sure that becomes the goal of that then becomes not about making profit, it becomes about how many people can you get through this webinar funnel While the sales of your 4, 97 and 997 cover the cost of your marketing and then having again a really good strong funnel set up to bring people up to your next level to your more premium offer. So the sort of like the pros and cons I guess of having the more premium offer is again you need to make sure that you know, if you're going to go and create one or the other, obviously creating Something you can sell for $7 versus something you sell for 7,000 is going to be much quicker. So you have to be happy to go spend a bit of time digging in creating something really amazing. Whether it's mastermind, whatever, you know that, or creating a whole new course curriculum, what again, whatever is appropriate for you. So it takes a little bit longer to get going. It also generally just takes a little bit longer in general. Because even if you kind of go, all right, this is going to be the structure for me. I'm happy to make my 497 offer, my front end offer. I'm happy to not make any Profit off my 497 offer. Scale it with ads, try and get as many people through it as possible and then start inviting them onto the higher, my higher level. Realistically, you're probably looking minimum three months before the first person is ready to come to then upgrade. So you got to be able to say, okay, I'm happy to spend three months not actually putting any much money back into my business. So this is why it's so important, guys. I mean, obviously, hopefully you have a list already. You can use that list to be marketing stuff in between and getting you some extra profit bumps. Like we're not assuming you're not gonna make any money ever. But I just wanted to. And I'm also not saying that having a premium offer is bad. I think it's brilliant. I think it can absolutely revolutionize your business is what we teach inside our elite program for people who, you know, already have like a six figure ish kind of course business and they're wanting to get it up to 7. Like going premium is absolutely one of the best ways to do it, but it's not always the right way for you. So this is what this episode is about, guys. I wanted to just throw out some thinking points. If you are at that point, if you have an online course and you're like, great, what's my next step? How am I going to grow this? First of all, I want you to know that you need those two. You need those two pieces to work together. You need a front end and you need a backend. But then just deciding what is going to be right for you and what therefore that makes your current program. That's a really important decision. Obviously if you ever want any help with this, guys, that we do inside our programs, inside Ecourse Empire for people with signature wanting to get a funnel set up for their signature offer and have a lower ticket for front end offer in front of that or if you're wanting to set up a more premium offer and a premium offer funnel, we do that inside our elite program. So if you ever want help with that, guys, feel free. DM us, we can chat with you, help you figure out what's the best one for you. But otherwise, guys, I hope this has been useful. I hope this has sparked a few little ideas. I hope this is, you know, sparked a few what will then go on to become extremely successful front end or backend offers for our lovely listeners. And yeah, we'll be back next time, same time with more goodness, hopefully a little bit longer. And I'm amazed I didn't cough. I didn't cough once. This is brilliant. But I'm going to go before I actually ruin that. So thanks so much guys. We'll see you next week. Bye.

Thanks so much for listening to the Doing it online podcast. If you love this episode, don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. And if you're ready to take your online course sales to the next level with your own six or seven figure funnel, let Kate show you exactly how how today@Stealmyfunnel.com.