Hi friend,
I promised back in April to send two more installments in a series on Sticky Offer Design, and it's been hanging over my head ever since. This is, btw, something I hear all the time from clients--having to write emails is hanging over my head. So, I'm publicly telling myself the same thing I tell my clients: let's look at how we can make that feel better for you!
✴︎ Here's where I went wrong: I took something I love (writing a newsletter) and made it a chore (by forcing a topic with a deadline on myself). In avoidance of the pain of making something I love into a chore, I just didn't do the thing I love at all for 6 weeks. That's a real baby/bathwater situation, no?
✴︎ Here's what I needed to make it feel better for me: Today I got an iced coffee and cleared my calendar for the morning and told myself "you just have to start an email draft, you don't have to send or even finish it" which did work to get this email written. Brain trickery!
✴︎ But also: Long term, I'm not going to commit to writing email series in the future. I like writing about what feels present for me in the week. You might be the opposite and love the structure of a content plan--the takeaway here is to know thyself not to do exactly what I do to get an email sent!
All to say, if you're avoiding doing a thing you love because you accidentally made it feel too hard, I see you. Sometimes the answer is to take a break from that thing; sometimes the answer is to reorient yourself to that thing; sometimes the answer is to push through and lovingly tell your demand avoidant brain that it is not in the driver's seat today!
Now might be a good time to tell you that I believe offer design, much like your system for creating content, should start with how it feels for you (the offerer) before you think about what the offer needs to be for your customer. Both are important! And the internal variables come first because an offer will never be sustainable if it does not feel good for you...
This newsletter is brought to you by:
The SBR Q3/Summer Seasonal Planning Retreat
Friday, June 26th 3-5pm EDT / Suggested Donation** $29
This quarterly review & plan live zoom session (with recording) + workbook is for small business owners, freelancers, and creatives who want to make a plan to wrangle their work.
Our two hour retreat call includes guided time to:
- review Q2/Spring
- cast your vision for Q3/Summer
- plan out your projects and tasks for the next 90 days
If you are craving time to sit down and make a grounded plan for the next season of your business, register for this retreat (and put it on your calendar) now!
In the words [read: zoom chat] of past seasonal retreat participants:
**Ticket-price donations go straight to my local food bank!
Minimum donation: $9 / Suggested donation: $29
|
...so here's a checklist of the internal variables to consider when you're designing your next ✨Sticky Offer✨, phrased as questions you can ponder:
Who do you want to work with?
If you think about your dreamiest customer, what did you love about them? What type of customers do you feel lit up by? Who do you want to surround yourself with and talk to all day?
For service-based businesses: What stage of their journey through the thing you help them with are they in?
For product-based businesses: What do they value the most?
If we know WHO you want to work with, we can design offers that appeal to that person.
⭐️ For example, if your dreamiest customer is someone who has owned a yoga studio for at least 5 years and is ready to take it to the next level, I would not advise you to design an entry level online course for them--they are probably looking for a VIP Day intensive offer or a mastermind group for yoga studio owners at that level of business.
What is your ideal day like?
Crucial to know! Stop and think (without clouding your vision by what you think you should do or offer in your business) about what an ideal workday looks like for you. What are you doing? Where are you? How are you working?
If we know how your IDEAL DAY goes, we can design offers that allow you to work in that way.
⭐️ For example, if your ideal day is throwing pottery on the wheel all day, it does not make sense for you to have an offer that is marketing-heavy, like a custom product or an always-open eCommerce shop. We might instead focus on designing for wholesale offers, once a month eCommerce drops, or IRL markets, which allow you to spend most of your days throwing pottery and occasional bursts of other activities.
When do you want to be marketing/selling/delivering?
This is a bit of a complex question, but it's a foundational one. Most people do not want to be marketing, selling, AND delivering all at once all the time. I love helping folks create an annual sales cycle, which means that they are marketing, selling, and delivering at specific times throughout the year, usually with some overlap.
If we know how much you like doing each of these parts of running a business and when you want to do them, we can design an offer that flows with your natural way of working.
⭐️ For example, if you love to go deep with people (long delivery) and do not want to be selling all the time, we would probably design a container that allows you to sell in bursts and fill your calendar for 6-12 months at a time. On the flip side, if you love making educational content (marketing) and hate sales calls and being tied down to one client for a long period of time, we would probably design an evergreen offer that requires very little energy in the way of delivery.
Where do you want to spend time IRL and on the internet?
The most overlooked variable! We have to think about where you are going to need to be in order to sell your offer, and there are infinite possible answers to that question.
If we know where you want to hang out, it's easy to intentionally design an offer that allows you to be in those places in your flow, but it's much harder to take an offer that you are set on and force it into places it does not make sense.
⭐️ For example, if you are an artist who loves going to craft markets, we can design products and displays that will sell really well at craft markets. But if you hate going to IRL events, we might design a totally different business around your art that does not include craft markets at all.
⭐️ Another example, if you are a consultant who loves going to IRL and online networking events, we might design a high ticket container for you which would have a long sales pipeline that you fill through networking. But, if you are a consultant who loathes small talk at networking events and could not care less about hanging out on LinkedIn, we might turn your expertise into an offer that requires less relationship building to sell it so you don't have to be in spaces you don't want to be.
⭐️ One more example, if you are a photographer who likes to spend time outside with people, it would not make sense to offer product photography! On the flip side, if you do not have the energy to spend 10 hours with people IRL, you might LOVE to focus on product photography. Where you want to be really informs your offers with this type of service!
Why do you want to make this thing?
This, my friend, is the single most important question on the internal variables list. The amount of energy it takes to design, create, market, sell, and deliver a ✨Sticky Offer✨ is not small. It is critical to have clarity about why you want to make this thing to know if it's worth the energy it will take. Sometimes offer ideas are beautiful, gorgeous, incredible creatures that are just not for us, or not for us right now. Starting with WHY gives us some measure of clarity that allows for discernment.
🚦Some green light WHY answers:
- This is my life's work
- I have been thinking about this for a long time and it finally feels right to make it now
- People keep asking me for this thing
- I'm ready to take the spaghetti I've thrown in the past and turn it into an intentional offer
🚦Some yellow light WHY answers (let's pause and give this some thought--it's not a no, but we might need to take a step back and make sure we have clarity about how this offer will help you before proceeding):
- I'm reacting to negative feedback I got about an existing offer
- I'm tired
- I need to make more money, quickly
🚦Some red light WHY answers (stop, and let's see how we could pivot to make this a more grounded and sustainable plan):
- Someone I admire is doing something like this and I think I will get what they have if I do what they do
- I bought a course that told me I need to do it this way
- This will get me passive income
- An AI source told me to make this offer
- Anything that starts with "should"
Creating a ✨Sticky Offer✨ is not just about your customer, the pricing, the copy, the market, and your sales process--these are the external variables and that's where most business advice starts. I think the most important variable is YOU. If the offer feels good to you and helps you achieve your ideal day, you will find the time and energy to do what needs to happen to make it sticky. If the offer is not aligned with your own wants and needs, it's just not going to stick.
Next time you're designing a new offer or working on refining an existing offer, run through this list first and journal or meditate on these questions, staying open to whatever comes up--the answers might surprise you! And if this list gave you a lightbulb moment, please tap reply and let me know.
Cool People Doing Cool Things:
My friend Kaeri designed an incredible resource to help you walk into a medical building and feel grounded in the knowledge that your experience is your truth, you are the expert on your body, and you get to choose the next steps on your healing path.
YOU ARE THE EXPERT ON YOUR BODY:
A Support Kit to Help You Retain Agency in Medical Settings
I personally have been at doctors' appointments (and vet appointments!) where I had to push back and ask things like, how did you rule out X or why are you not testing for Y before prescribing this? And it is HARD to have the wherewithal to look at a medical professional and question them while you are stressed and disconnected from your personal power. This resource help bring you back to yourself in those settings, and is essential for anyone who is self-advocating or just generally having to navigate medical situations. Get the kit →
|
What I've Been Wrangling This Month:
A peek behind the scenes aka nourishment for the curious, nosey, and those with Gemini placements 🙋🏻♀️
🌞 Asked the right questions to clarify adjustments to the offer ecosystem for a Notion consultant
🌞 Re-built the Notion workspace for an academic book editor
🌞 Advised on the homepage design, positioning, and messaging for a health coach
🌞 Wrangled the tech stack & systems design for a non-profit leadership consultant
🌞 Set up a newsletter template, weekly newsletter plan, and list segmentation for a yoga teacher
🌞 Thought-partnered on the sales cycle and launch flow for an astrologer/coach's new offers
🌞 Advised on how and when to bring two different business models under the same brand (or not) for a multi-passionate entrepreneur
|
OMG if you made it to the end of this super long email, here's a secret for you: my desk is currently COVERED with sticky note reminders, a bottle of chewable Tums, and the stack of unwritten thank you notes from my wedding 9 months ago 💚
🌎 Tired of trying to make someone else's plan fit your unique small business? Let's design your world to fit you → Book a World Building Session
🐴 Think you might be ready to wrangle your work but not quite sure? → Let's chat.
P.S. I leave in my em dashes because I refuse to change my writing style to prove I'm not a robot, but an LLM was nowhere near this email. Real thoughts from my real head, typos and all!