Everyone wants to know if their offer is going to work before they launch it.
I can’t tell you how many times people ask me to look at their funnels and offers and tell them definitively if it’s going to sell or not.
The only way to truly know…is to let the market decide with their credit cards.
That being said, there are a few foundational principles you can use to make sure your offer is as good as it can be, and that’s what I want to talk about today.
Before you launch your funnel, I wrote down a checklist I do in my head to judge an offer before I launch it.
I’ve linked up podcast episodes and book resources for you so if you think maybe your offer doesn’t pass the test, you can study it more and change up your offer!
I discuss the hot markets a bunch in my book Expert Secrets. The three hottest markets on planet Earth are:
Even if you’re selling lipstick or oils or a Disney vacation, your products still probably fall into one of these three.
Mascara sells beauty. Beauty matters because we think the more beautiful we are, the more love we’ll find.
Disney vacations sell fun. Fun matters because of the people we’re with and the relationships we want to experience and grow.
Even something like kitchen gadgets can be traced back to a hot market. You buy kitchenware so you can cook better food. Better food is better for our health. Or, you can go at it from the relationship and family bonding angle.
Figure out what market you’re in. If you can’t find a hot market to tie it to, go back to the drawing board.
Expert Secrets! Hot Markets is in Secret #3 The New Opportunity
Once you’ve identified your hot market (which is always considered a bloody red ocean), you have to find a blue ocean in the midst of it if you want your offer to sell.
Stephen Larsen has a great way to setting this up and in my podcast, you can listen to how he frames it.
You have to be able to throw rocks at your red ocean, thereby creating a blue one.
Marketing Secrets: Throw Rocks at the Red Ocean
Nobody wants to be sold something that will make them “just a bit better” than who they are right now. This is called an improvement offer and 98% of the population will hate it.
Instead, you have to create a new opportunity or vehicle. This is one of the most important parts of building an offer. No one wants improvement. They want a new opportunity they haven’t known or seen before.
Episode #312 Why Improvement Offers Never Win
What is the ONE thing your customer wants from your offer? That one piece, that if they get it, everything else falls into place.
As you’re crafting your offer and your sales message, you’ll be tempted to feature ALL the bonuses and features and benefits. You need to focus on the ONE big domino first and foremost.
Episode #29 – Knocking Down the One Big Domino
If you want your message to grow and to expand and to be shared and to go viral, it’s gotta fall in the prolific zone.
If you think of it like a scale, the normal boring zone is all the way to the left. The crazy zone is all the way to the right. The prolific zone is right in the middle.
Not too crazy, not to generic, just right!
This is discussed in Expert Secrets at length, and you can also listen to Podcast episode 102 to help get your offer into the prolific zone.
Episode #102 Prolific or Specific
You want to make as much FREE as possible, even if it’s not actually free.
The word free is such an important word to your offer. The idea is to find the thing people want most, and make THAT thing free. So if you’re selling a set of 10 books or CDS or courses or anything, make it so that the thing they want most…Book #9 for example….is free when you buy the bundle.
This strategy has worked again and again and again. You can listen to this episode to learn more about how to position your best stuff for free.
Episode #333 How to Sell Everything for Free
Scarcity and urgency are needed for an offer to sell. You can do this through manipulating supply, closing down the cart, taking away bonuses, etc.
Sometimes people are afraid to use scarcity because they fear they won’t make as much money, but it’s actually the opposite. You’ll make more!
Episode #62 How Tickle Me Elmo Manipulated Supply
The Epiphany Bridge is one of the most powerful concepts you can master on your journey to becoming an expert.
I go through it in detail in Expert Secrets, but here’s a part about the Epiphany Bridge that I learned from Tony Robbins. State control.
You have to be able to tell stories that put people in the same emotional state that you were in, the day or moment you had the “aha!” that got you to take action.
People don’t buy using logic. They buy based on emotion. Stories are the foundation to all selling.
- Episode #231 The Epiphany Bridge
- Episode #255 State Control
- Episode #308 My Epiphany Bridge Origin Story
You need to position yourself as the best. The only alternative. The premium option that is a no brainer because it’s so so good. Position yourself as the most expensive and the one who does it the best. Go after the premium market, because there is no benefit to being the second cheapest.
- Episode #151 Positioning and Posturing
There’s lots of other mental checklists I have before a funnel launches, and I’ll go into that more in future posts.
Talk soon,
-RB
Russell Brunson
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