🎯 Work Smart Wednesday - July 17, 2024
How I helped my client to 10x their income in 8 weeks: a study in simple offers, the power of anticipation, and a quote from Leonardo Da Vinci
Work Smart Wednesday
👋 Hey there!
Here is your weekly dose of Work Smart Wednesday
In these emails I will share with you 3 things to help you work smarter.
1. 🤑 How I helped my client to 10x their income in 8 weeks: a study in simple offers
Long story short: Simple offers sell better, even when they seem to provide less value.
Ghayth was referred to me by his friend who was a client of mine, Mousa. Ghayth ran a “full-stack” Social Media Marketing Agency (SMMA); he did everything for clients - content creation, analytics, posting, channel management, everything. He had a team of 3 fully remote employees and 7 full time employees in his office in Jordan. And Ghayth was stressed as fuck.
At the time, he was making about $2k per month from the retainers he had drummed up from his personal contacts. Unfortunately, he had about $7k in fixed costs for this business. And one of his key clients just fired him. He was referred to me in order to help him stop this business from sinking by getting some new clients on board.
It became apparent in our first session that things were moving quickly and we didn’t have a lot of runway. We only had a matter of weeks to turn things around.
There were a number of issues we needed to solve: reducing stress, improving delivery quality, communication, management, hiring, systems, legal coverage, customer service, client retention, and (most importantly) revenue. A business can’t exist long without revenue.
Most of Ghayth’s issues stemmed from his offer. His offer was difficult to explain, and even harder to deliver. Clients weren't crystal clear on what they were meant to get, and they were angry when they didn’t get it. You cannot appease someone who doesn’t know what they want.
We took a deep dive into what exactly his offer was. Why would anybody look into buying something like this in the first place? What situation were they in when they started looking for solutions? What did they want to achieve by hiring someone?
We then jumped into what the offer included - what was difficult to deliver, what were his strengths, and which parts were seen as the most valuable by clients.
When we discussed his strengths, Ghayth dropped a bombshell. He had worked for social media companies and had expert-level knowledge on how the algorithm worked. Not only that, but discussing posting strategies really lit him up and aligned well with his long term goals. We were onto a winner. But how to monetise that?
First, we vandalised it. We stripped a lot of the offer out and refocused it on one small part - posting the right content at the right time. We would make relatively light edits to existing videos that clients would provide us with and then we would post them in a special way which maximised impact. We focused on one specific audience, a specific subset of YouTubers, and got things started.
We focused on one specific audience with one specific problem, and created one specific promise using one specific process. We created a “no-brainer” offer with a kickass guarantee (30m views in 90 days). It transformed the business.
BUT, to tell the truth, Ghayth was pretty skeptical at first. He had real resistance to completely stripping his offer back, especially as he had a potential big lead in the pipeline for his original offer. They wanted digital marketing, ads, SEO, 8 reels, and a podcast episode each month for a total of $4.5k pm. That was almost business-saving money that seemed hard to turn down. It doesn’t seem to make sense that stripping back the offer to give clients less value could save the business. However, I knew from experience that it would.
You see, simplicity IS valuable in itself. It is difficult to buy something you don’t understand. People are much more likely to buy something that clearly solves a specific problem that they have.
Switching to a simpler offer solved multiple problems at once:
Delivery would become quicker and easier as we only do one specific thing
Our costs would come down as we wouldn’t need such a large team
Our clients would be happier as they would know exactly what they’re paying for
Our prices could be increased because we can more easily explain the benefits
We would be less stressed, with less to do and more time spent on something that genuinely excited the founder
Nonetheless, it took a couple of weeks to help Ghayth become comfortable with the switch. It happened after an interaction with an unhappy client. It was time to change.
As always with a new offer, we started with warm outreach. We told people we already knew that this is what we do now and why it is awesome. It feels a bit awkward at first, but it works REALLY well. I provided a system, and a template, to get it going.
Revenue quintupled (5x) within 30 days, clients started closing much more easily (some closed even without sales calls), referrals started pouring in, and we could charge more. The main thing we did was simplify the offer. We actually took "value" out by reducing what we did, but by doing so it added value in the form of simplicity. Simplicity is its own value. Within a couple more weeks, we had gone from $2k per month to $23k per month and had a waitlist of clients desperate to sign up.
The business totally turned around within a very short period of time thanks to a couple of hours of work simplifying the offer.
Imagine the feeling of clients begging to pay you. Or the look on your partners face when they realise your business is taking off and everything is secure from now on.
I have been doing a lot of offers work with clients recently, and across the board the results have been great. I have had some requests from others to help them with their offer, and I have decided to run it as a limited time offer myself.
Until the end of July only, you can book a place on my “Profitable Proposal Programme”. You get:
Expert support to create a winning offer
A complete clarity offer audit (worth £197)
3 live sessions to work on your offer (worth £591)
Asynchronous support to implement (worth £397)
If you buy before 23:59 on Wednesday 24th July, you also get:
Proposals template library (worth £99)
Warm outreach scripts and sequence (worth £199)
Client onboarding checklist (worth £99)
The price and mindset masterguide: How to raise your prices with confidence (worth £199)
Total value: £1,781
One time price: £597
On top of all this, you get my $5k guarantee. If you don’t start to make an extra $5k profit per month ($60,000 per year, 100x your investment) within 90 days from the work we do together then I will not only give you all of your money back, I will also work with you for free until you are on tracking to make that extra $5k per month.
This offer is only available for two weeks and I do not know when I will run it again (if ever!). If you want to create a no-brainer offer so you can decrease your stress and increase your income, reserve your place now here.
Calvin’s clients are now literally begging to pay him.
🆕 This month’s resource for referrals has been updated - you can now earn my template “Easy Offers Summary Table”.
🎁 Receive rewards for referring your friends 🎁
📩 A simple table to outline and improve your offers. This template is not sold anywhere, and is only normally available to those that work with me 1:1. I rotate these templates monthly. This template is only available in July.
2. 🔮 The power of anticipation
Imagine you have a child who will go to university for the first time next month.
Imagine this child will be living on campus and, for the first time in their life, they will need the type of household tools and supplies that were readily available to use at home.
Now, list 20 things your child will need to buy to be ready for "adulting".
(Take a minute and try to think of 20 things before you continue reading)
I'm willing to bet that this simple exercise was more difficult than you thought it would be. And I'm willing to bet that if you actually had a child moving away next week, a list like the one IKEA provides in-store would be immensely helpful (pictured below).
Except IKEA goes beyond just providing a list.
They put everything on that list in a large, plastic container (which, quite conveniently, is one of the 20 items on the list) and will sell you this "University Starter Box" for just $99.
It gets better - if you add up the retail selling price of everything included in the kit the total would be $123.82, yet the box is sold for just $99. No brainer, right?
Not only are they providing you with convenience, but also with a discount. I would argue that the bulk of the value of this offer isn’t in the discount, but in helping customers anticipate their needs.
People are bombarded by decisions every day and it is easy to overlook something you need. Even more pressing, in such a high stress world with an overabundance of options it is often difficult to know what you actually need. How do you know which of the 50 options is best to pick? Often, we would welcome somebody making things easy for us by predicting what we need and offering it to us. Lighten the mental load.
We don't all have children heading off to live on campus next month.
But for those of us who have businesses, we all have customers who could benefit from our help in identifying what they need in advance of when they realise they need it. In return, your customers will reward your company with happiness and cash.
Three examples of how this is used:
Marketing agency: Noticing that a customer recently started a YouTube channel and reaching out to offer a complete YT starter kit, or video editing services, or a campaign to cross promote it with other channels you manage, etc.
Shop: Incentivising future purchases based on past purchases, for example offering a $5 voucher for nappy rash cream to people who recently bought nappies (diapers).
Car repair garage: Sending reminders to past clients to come and change to winter tyres based on when they did it last year or current weather patterns. Or little bonuses or discounts to incentivise people to come in when servicing is due. Or adding “impulse purchase” products like car fresheners or coffee in your waiting room. It sounds small, but it can make a HUGE difference. (This is a real example from a client that I worked with that helped my client go from $60k per month to $140k per month).
Having a clearly defined audience - and offer - makes it much easier to anticipate customer needs so you can capitalise. When done well, your customers will thank you for it.
This post was adapted from one a reader sent to me.
3. 💡 Quote I'm pondering
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” - Leonardo Da Vinci
One of the figures from history that I am most impressed by, Da Vinci was a true polymath and trailblazer. As complex as his works were, this quote reminds me that real genius lies in making things simple. Simplicity is the state to strive for.
👋 Want to work together?
When you’re ready, here are 2 ways I can help you:
🔍 Clarity Call - We will discuss your situation and create a step-by-step action plan together so you know exactly what you need to do next for maximum impact
🧩 Are we a good fit together? - See whether you and I are a good fit together by answering this short quiz. You will immediately see whether or not we are a good fit, and receive a personalised answer for what the next best step will be for you based on your answers.
That's it! I can't wait to hear what you think. What did you find most useful? What do you want more or less of? Reply to this email now and let me know
Also, if you have anything interesting to share, I want to know about it😊
Have a great week,
John
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