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Eliminating the Obstacles: How to Make an Offer

How to Make an Offer
I'm Madeleine!

I’m a small-town girl from Switzerland, rebel entrepreneur, warrior for freedom and visionary with big dreams. Passionate about: Live music, deep conversations, and desert landscapes.

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Over the past few weeks, we’ve gone over how to identify clients who are a good fit, clients who are a bad fit, and why you don’t want to make your offer to clients who are a bad fit. But let’s say you’ve identified the type of client you want to work with, you’re working through the sales process, and you’re in talks with a client you think will truly be an amazing fit for your offer. Now what? How do you present your offer in a way that will remove all the obstacles blocking your clients from giving you that “yes?”

That’s what I’m here to talk about today. Let’s go over how to make an offer that is almost guaranteed to get you a “yes.”

How to Make an Offer

Structure, Structure, Structure

My first piece of advice about how to make an offer: really make sure you nail down the structure of your offer. You want to be able to show your client your process from start to finish, step by step, so they can be reassured that they’re not jumping into the deep end without any idea of what they’re going to get. By outlining your process step by step (four or five steps, tops), they’re able to see a roadmap from where they are to where you can take them, and how long that process is expected to take. This will help them feel comfortable making a commitment because it creates a concrete schedule that they can commit to rather than forcing them to step into a tunnel with no light at the end of it.

Visual Aids Are Your Friend!

Something I’ve learned about how to make an offer is that many clients like to see the offer they’re accepting. For instance, we have a cute little graphic that we offer our clients to guide them through the structure of our process. This helps them not only hear about the structure but to see it so they can really have a visual representation of the journey they’re about to set off on with us. Think of it as a road map for your clients.

Let Clients Know Who This Offer is For…And Who It Isn’t

We’ve covered this extensively over the past couple weeks, but if you missed those posts, take a look back at Streamlining the Sales Process: How to Find Right-Fit Clients and When the Shoe Doesn’t Fit: How to Say No to Clients. When it comes to learning how to make an offer, once you know who your ideal client is, you need to make sure that the clients know, too. You want to make it very clear who this offer is and isn’t a good fit for, because this will result in most bad-fit clients recognizing that this offer isn’t for them, and it will save time for both them and you. As much as it’s within your power, you want to avoid getting to the very end of the sales process before you or the client finds out that this offer isn’t the right fit for them, after all. Try to make it easy for clients to take themselves out of the running by making it crystal clear whom your offer is built for. Learning how to make an offer is one thing, but you want to make sure you’re making it to the right people.

Offer Guarantees

That said, no matter how carefully you pay attention to how to make an offer, there is always potential that you’ll get to the end of the sales process, make your offer, have it accepted…then the client ends up realizing that this offer isn’t really aligning with their needs or desires, after all. This risk is likely at the forefront of your potential client’s mind, and it can result in a refusal of your offer if they get too concerned about not being able to change their mind. I find it helps to offer guarantees—failsafes, in a way, in case you enter into this relationship with the client and find out afterward that it’s not working out. For my business, we have three guarantees: we have a guarantee that we will help them free up the time to take advantage of our offer, if they need it; we have a guarantee that if our offer doesn’t end up aligning with their needs, they will receive a full refund if they decide our offer isn’t for them within the first month; and we have a guarantee that we will at least triple their investment in our program within the first twelve months of working with us. Of course, that last one requires them to show up and do the work—but if they do their part, we guarantee that it will be worth the risk they take on us.

Compare Costs and Quality

Another thing you want to do when learning how to make an offer is to set up a comparison between your offer and the offers of your competition. For instance, our clients will want to look at the comparison between our cost and services and what they could get out of hiring a COO. But you don’t only want to rely on beating your competition out by cost; in fact, I highly discourage doing so. You want to compete on value, not price. What you want to highlight is what your service brings to the table compared to your competition. Whether you can beat the price of your competitors or not, if your value is worth that higher price, your potential client will still be attracted to your offer over theirs because of the quality and unique amount of effort you bring to the table. Pair this with the guarantees you offer, and you won’t need to worry so much about how to make an offer. These commitments on your part will do plenty of the heavy lifting for you.

Stretch the Gap

Another important thing I want you to do while practicing how to make an offer is to think about how to stretch the gap. What I mean by that is this: you want to make it very clear just how far the distance is between where your client is now and where you can take them. You want them to really feel the potential pain and consequences of staying where they are rather than going on the journey of progress with you. Instead of only focusing on what they have to gain by working with you, make sure they understand what they have to lose by not working with you.

Price Your Offer to Be Profitable

The last piece of the “How to Make an Offer” puzzle is this: you want to price your offer to be profitable. As tempting as it can be to lower your prices to try to undercut the competition, the truth is, you’ll do better business if you price your offer in a way that’s profitable for you. This will allow you to hire the team you need to serve your clients in the above-and-beyond way that will always speak volumes compared to low prices. When you prioritize the quality of your service, your clients will feel their money was well-invested regardless of your price.

Now You Know How to Make an Offer They Can’t Refuse!

Now that you know my favorite advice on how to make an offer, I hope you’re inspired to go out and get your “yes.” Learning how to make an offer can feel a bit overwhelming, especially if you get a bit triggered by the idea of making sales, but I promise you that this method will never give your clients pause about your intentions. It’s always best to enter the sales conversation with a commitment to integrity and sincerity, and your clients will recognize and appreciate your genuine spirit. That’s how to make an offer: honestly and openly.

If you want to make sure you never miss an episode, come follow the 7 Figure Freedom Podcast on Spotify, subscribe on Google, or head over to Apple Podcasts. In the meantime, I’d love to connect with you over on Instagram or in the 7 Figure Freedom Club Facebook group so we can chat about what you got out of this episode!

Are you wondering if you’re ready to take the next step in your business? Curious about whether you’re a good fit for our services? Take the free business assessment quiz to find out! And if you want to learn more, you can visit my website or schedule a call with me today. I can’t wait to hear from you!

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