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Imagine this: You find yourself on stage in front of your most ideal prospects. The audience is sitting in front of you, and they’re ready to buy. Their hands are literally on their wallets. Now it’s time to make your offer and to get some new customers.
There are two possible endings to this story.
In one, your offer falls short. You lose out on the opportunity to sell to hundreds of people at once. Instead of making a ton of sales, you just make a few. Why? Because you’ve fallen short of architecting an offer that your audience truly wants.
In the alternate ending, you come out with an irresistible offer, an offer you’ve designed exactly for your audience. In that scenario, you barely even need to sell your offer. As soon as you begin describing it, you can see their energy change. They are hungry to get their hands on what you are selling.
Related: Learn How to Ask for the Sale
The difference between these two situations is all in the offer.
When you take the right steps to create an irresistible offer, one that begins unfolding the moment you step on stage, and you make a presentation that sells, you will make a lot of money. But, you need to be strategic about your offer. Here are a few of the most powerful strategies from Irresistible Offer Architecture for making an offer they can’t resist.
In “4 Ways to Make an Irresistible Offer Without Selling,” we described how to do a great presentation that introduces your offer. Here, we cover the four must-haves of any offer:
1. Know your audience (better than they know themselves).
“Always enter the conversation already taking place in the customer’s mind,” suggests author Robert Collier. When your entire presentation shows that you know and “get” your audience, you have already sold your audience on you. When you introduce your offer, one that solves your audience’s biggest problem, it is simply irresistible.
Related: How to Close Deals Without Coming off as Salesy
2. Offer chocolate and vanilla.
One of the key places entrepreneurs fall short is just having one thing they offer. This puts the audience in a position where they are making a binary decision — a yes or a no. Instead, never show up with just one thing. Make sure that you show up with two or three components.
If you have a book, also offer a course that helps them implement faster. If you are selling an event, also offer a product so they can receive immediate gratification. Think about it like this: You might not care to read a book, but you might like watching videos. So, offering people different components gives them a way to say yes.
3. Show them what’s in it for them.
So many people speak about the features of their offers instead of focusing on what people really care about — the benefits. For example, you might say “I am selling a 563-page book.” But, if you’re selling to performers and achievers, they don’t want a ton of pages to wade through. They are more interested in the Cliff Notes.
They want the golden nuggets — the shortcuts — and they want the results. So, don’t tell them about the length of your book. Tell them about what it’s going to do for them. Is it going to bring them more sales? Get them more leads? Speak in benefits instead of features, and you’ll come out with a much stronger offer.
Relatd: Creating Sales Presentations That Convice Prospects to Buy
4. Always come bearing gifts.
Think about what you can do to add value to your offer. What bonuses can you layer on top of it to move your offer from almost-irresistible to truly irresistible? There are so many options here. You can include anything that will increase the real or perceived value to your clients or prospects.
People worry that they sound like they’re doing infomercials when they offer bonuses. Sure, I’ve seen it, when done incorrectly. If you’re concerned this might be you, consider calling your bonuses “gift with purchase” like they do at the mall. Just keep in mind bonuses motivate them to take action in the present moment, which is key if you want to sell.
Bonus tip: Use deadlines and create urgency.
Deadlines almost always increase your sales. Why? A little thing called FOMO (That’s Fear of Missing Out if you’re not current with your acronyms). People are more motivated by fear of losing their chance to buy than they are by happiness or pleasure.
Use specific time frames, limits and deadlines. Give people an ethical reason why there is a deadline. For example, it could be that this offer is only on sale at the event so they have to buy before they leave, or it could be that you’re a coach so you can only take on so many people, as you only have so much capacity.
Related: What It Takes to Score a Homerun in Sales
Ellen Langer, a Harvard professor, did a study where she had people cut in line to use the Xerox machine at a college campus. When the actors used the word “because,” the other students were more than 90 percent compliant with their request to cut in line. So, when you tell your audience why there’s urgency, they will be a lot more comfortable with buying on a deadline.
Now let’s go back to the story in the beginning. Are you going to be the first guy who gets up there with a luke-warm offer? Or, are you going to be the successful entrepreneur whose offer sells like crazy?
When you bring more than one offer, focus on the benefits, layer bonuses on top to add value and use deadlines, your offer will be impossible to resist. And you’ll truly be serving your audience.
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