How Your Offer is Stopping You From Making Sales

Over the last few weeks we have talked about profit, as well as the self leadership required for growth.  

Now, I want to shift into talk about increasing revenue from a very practical, prudent, and purposeful perspective: what to do to make sales.

So, let’s dive a little deeper into sales, offers and how your current offer might be stopping you from making sales:

One practical piece of generating consistent, sustainable and profitable business is in your offers. 

Solid offers go a long way in creating ease, and having you work less while you maximize your earnings.

I’m of the opinion that the fewer the offers the better and more efficient your business will be. 

I’m also of the opinion that nailing your best client (or ICA) goes a long way in efficiency is well.

In January 2019, my husband and I headed to our favorite spa for a few days of R and R. 

We love this place. It fits our budget, has really luxurious customer service and is less than a 3 hour drive from our home.

John loves it because he can wear a bathrobe all day, even to meals. 

The food is exquisite. 

I love it because it gets John out of his head which in turn calms my nervous system way the heck down.

When John took over the business he runs now, he had high hopes of 10x’ing the business. 

His plan was to do more — sell more. 

He spent a good 18 months honing his sales skills which at that point were a limiting factor for his introverted self. 

John put so much energy into more being what would 10x his business. And I know for myself, I can identify with that.

It’s actually why I chose our brand promise that we will help you achieve more by doing radically less than you ever have before. 

I need the reminder as much as everyone else.

John’s commitment to 10xing the revenue was in February 2016 and it’s actually been nothing but an uphill battle since he took over.

He’s had to update antiquated machinery, turn over almost his entire staff and make some incredibly brave calls. Which by the way, all resulted in less — really high end but less machines, less staff, and less products, not more.

It all came to a head in January 2019. His stress levels were over the top, it was impacting our family and our relationship.

While we were away he made a key decision to shut down an entire revenue stream. 

As a manufacturer of capital equipment for research facilities and hospitals, he was trying to be too many things to too many people.

He was working on projects that were tedious in terms of lengthy RFP’s that he had to read through, a culture that went with the lowest cost provider, and mammoth construction projects and municipalities that wouldn’t provide deposits – requiring my husband’s business to front a lot of the cash on these major projects, not to mention bury them in paperwork for hours upon hours.

Finally, it became too much and John had to stop doing things the way they have always been done.

He started by making a commitment to only making a certain type of machine where he wasn’t competing for the low cost provider, where he could demand a deposit and focus his team on a specific skill set.

John’s real competitive advantage was his engineering process and some very specific, high tech equipment that most people in his industry don’t have.

By saying no to making this one type of machine, essentially shutting off an entire revenue stream, it freed up his time to think about easier ways to make money using his engineering skills and the technological capabilities of his facility..

It took him almost a year to shut this portion of the manufacturing business down and it wasn’t without additional headaches — headaches that confirmed he was making the right decision.

You would think he would lose money from shutting down a revenue stream, but he didn’t. 

Instead, he is widely sought after for his engineering and machines that has resulted in opportunities to do business with a large number of clients and higher profit margins. 

As a matter of fact, his profit margins now exceed the standard manufacturing profit margins.

He even has his former competitors — people who were making the machines he stopped making, reach out to him for custom parts or to outsource work.

So, less headache and more sales.

This is what happens when you create your boldest offer and eliminate the things that are stopping you from making sales.

Here are the ways you might identify with my husband even though he is a manufacturer and you are a most likely a service provider or offer smaller products:

1. Your offer is not a unique representation of how you can solve a problem so therefore you aren’t standing out in the marketplace. When John stepped out of the traditional way his industry did business, he widened his pool of customers, sold products at a higher margin, and became the go to in his industry for unique jobs that nobody else can do ultimately commanding a higher price.
2. Your offer is not leveraged, or lacks efficiency — there was NOTHING efficient when my husband was making this one type of machine. He was only making it because they always made it or did it that way or that’s how the industry was doing it. It took too much of his labor hours, didn’t allow him to price for profit, and he couldn’t make these machines in the quantity or turnaround time he makes other items. Making these machines was a one way ticket to burnout. They didn’t energize him. It was more of a should than anything else.
3. An offer that isn’t leveraged, feels off or maybe even heavy has a way more sinister impact on sales — it erodes your confidence. When your confidence is low, it makes it hard to sell anything. As a matter of fact, I did some research and had some convos on instagram around the theory that people are actually buying how confident or certain you are in your own offer. This is why I see so many good people struggle to make sales and how many influencers selling shit dipped in gold make gads of money. If confidence dips, imposter syndrome creeps in and things go south fast. Meanwhile the people who are actually frauds, never see themselves that way and sell, sell, sell.

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