“Offer” has (unfortunately) become a buzzword in the B2B lead gen space…

I’m not surprised if you’re slightly confused as to what an “offer” even is. 

At its core, an offer is what you provide to your customers. 

But an “offer” is how you:

• Phrase and present what you do for the betterment of the customer. 

• Display relevant information in a way that shows the prospect you solve their problem

• Answer their potential objections 

You’re probably thinking, “Why does this even matter? They will be getting the same outcome.”

There are a few answers to this:

1) People's attention spans are dead

So if they come across your website, or read your LinkedIn post, and it takes longer than 5 seconds to figure out how you can help them, they’ll go find something else, or keep scrolling. 

I’ve had numerous sales calls where I check out one of my prospects' websites beforehand, and I have no idea what they offer. That’s me, someone with a vested interest. 

What if that was someone who didn’t care that much, or didn’t know they had a problem you could solve? They’d leave confused and forget about you.

2) It’s human psychology 

First, people want to know how your offer can benefit them. Secondly, they want to know how you achieve this outcome, thirdly, they want any remaining objections answered, fourthly, they want the cost, and finally, they want to see case studies/testimonials/reviews that back up said price point. 

It doesn't matter if this is throughout your lead gen funnel, on your website, or in an offer document/PDF; this is how you should present your offer. 

For anyone thinking that putting your offer in a Google doc and sending it out is “unprofessional,” I booked a meeting with a company worth £2bn with this approach- results don't lie!

I followed the previous 5-stage approach to offers, and put the best case studies into a Google Doc and sent it out. 

That’s the power of a good offer and presenting it in the right way.

I’m not someone who says there's a one-size-fits-all approach for anything,

But if there was ever something I’d say “this is flat out the best way to do something,” it would be that 5-stage approach to offers. 

Now, at each different stage, there are 1000 different ways to showcase each step, but that’s the structure and the order they should follow. 

Most people don’t do this. 

Most people don’t come close. 

In the nicest possible way, this is probably you. 

The close rate for almost every client we’ve ever worked with has gone up, and a big reason for this is that we fixed the offer for most of them.

It’s actually a non-negotiable if people want to work with us. If I don’t believe your offer will convert, and you won’t let me fix it, we don’t progress. That’s how important a good offer is. 

You can’t build a good lead gen system or scale any lead gen without a strong offer. 

Have you noticed that I say “offer” and not “offers?”

That’s because you can’t offer numerous different things and expect to generate consistent mid-high ticket sales meetings.

I mentioned the short attention span thing earlier; in that time, you can only focus on 1 major benefit. 

If you try to mention multiple of your 7 offers, you’ll confuse them, and they will leave. 

“But Joe, your business has 2 offers?” 

Yeah, we do, but both have the same benefit to the customer while accounting for slight situational differences.

If a secondary offer falls into that sweetspot, you can have a second one. 

But I wouldn’t promote more than 2, it will dilute your message and ruin your lead gen system. 

I know a few of the questions you’re now asking:

“How do I know if my offer is good or bad?”

I know this is a sensitive topic, kind of like telling you that your baby is ugly, but if multiple of the following are true, your offer is likely bad:

• Your close rate is low (below 25%)

• You have to overexplain what you do and how you do it to prospects

• You’ve never closed a cold lead before

• You’ve tried lead generation and never booked a meeting with a cold lead*

• You frequently feel the need to tell people how your offer benefits them

• Your LinkedIn posts or other marketing methods struggle to start conversations

• Your elevator pitch is longer than 10 seconds

  
  

*The rest of the examples can be because of other things, but if you’ve seriously tried lead gen and never booked a meeting, it’s because your offer is bad. I’ve seen campaigns with terrible targeting and horrible copy still book sales meetings because the offer was strong.

As I mentioned in the asterisk, if only one of the above reasons applies to you, your offer can still be strong. 

But if multiple apply to you, then yeah, your offer is likely bad. 

“What does a bad offer look like?”

The most common bad offers do similar things.

Firstly, they immediately bombard the prospect with information. 

“We do X, X, X by doing (buzzword adjective), resulting in (benefit) for you.”

These offers are under the assumption that someone needs to know every single detail of their offer immediately.

They couldn’t be more wrong. 

Entice mystery and start with one benefit. Look at my website, or my LinkedIn branding, I present my offer as:

“Mid-High ticket qualified sales meetings for your business.”

I don’t say how I do that or every intricate detail of my processes. 

Why? Because nobody cares!

People only care about how I can help them. I show the main benefit, entice a little bit of mystery, so they feel inclined to keep consuming extra information. 

If I positioned my offer as:

“I use my proven LinkedIn lead gen systems to book you qualified mid-high ticket meetings through content and outreach and build a long-term lead gen system while shortening your sales cycle to increase your company's revenue.”

You’d feel overwhelmed; there’s so much information for you to digest immediately. 

It’s like approaching a girl at a bar. If you go over and entice a bit of mystery, ease into the conversation, be a bit charming, you’re in.

But if you tell her your life story and leave her overwhelmed, you’re going home alone. 

The second most common thing bad offers do is make it about them, and not their prospect. 

• They’ll use industry-specific terminology that the customer doesn’t know/care about.

• They’ll share every intricate detail about every potential service. 

• They won’t share their pricing publicly (even a range, or "starting from")

All a customer wants to feel is listened to and understood.

They want you (the expert) to show them their problem and a solution. 

People don’t diagnose their own problems correctly, unless you shine a light on them.

That’s what good offers do. 

Let’s go back to the girl in the bar, if you won’t shut up about you, she won’t be interested! 

The final thing bad offers always have in common is:

They’re vague.

Specificity converts. 

I’m not even talking about having a hyper-specific ICP (which is a good thing, but not essential)

I’m talking about:

• Specific problems your customer is experiencing now.

Different seasons, or big industry changes change the main pain points a prospect is facing.

• Not making the end result tangible

The main benefit will get people interested in your offer, but the end result is what makes people buy. 

I’ve worked with multiple business consultants who had their main offer as “Grow your business.” But that’s a perfect example of a vague offer.

“Cut your working hours by 20% while increasing your revenue by 10%.” Is more specific.

Back to the girl in the bad one last time. 

At the end of the convo, saying “let’s go out properly, I’ll pick you up on X day, and we’ll go to X place.”

Is much better than “Let’s go out Thursday night.”

I know what you're asking,

“Ok, that’s great, but how can I fix my offer?”

I’ll repeat my 5-stage breakdown for converting offers:

1. People want to know how you can benefit them

On the homepage of your website, your LinkedIn banner/content, paid ads, cold email, whatever lead gen/marketing channel you’re using, make the main benefit simple and entice some mystery. 

“Mid-high ticket qualified leads for your business.” Is mine, it’s simple and entices mystery.

For you, think of the main problem you solve for your best customers, simplify it, and phrase it in a way that entices said mystery.

2. How do you achieve this outcome?

Again, keep this simple, don’t write paragraphs full of specific industry terminology.

Bullet point what you’d need for your customer, bullet point what the process looks like, and then the result they can expect. 

Keep it as simple as possible!

3. Answer any remaining objections in a subtle way. 

Think of the most common questions you’ve been asked in sales calls. Timeframes, guarantees etc. 

Before I offered my guarantee for the DFY LinkedIn funnel, that would be my main objection. So now I mention it, and proof from clients that I put it in the contract. 

If your main objection is time frame, use a testimonial regarding how long things take. 

If it’s price, mention the long-term ROI you’ve achieved.

If it’s trust, empathise with their current situation. 

There are numerous things you can do. 

4. Now show the price

In the current world that we live in, showing the price is essential. 

People have been burned; the amount of trust you build by being open with your pricing is worth it. Plus, you disqualify time wasters. 

If you’re saying:

“I don’t like showing the price; I need more information.” 

Then your offer is likely bad, or you’re offering way too many things. 

I’m sorry, but you’ll never build a proper lead gen system if you allow prospects to tell you what they need from stage 1 of the buyer's journey.

5. Testimonials, reviews, and case studies

Whenever someone is hit with how much something costs, they instantly put their guard up. 

So, back it up with previous success stories to put their mind at ease. 

I’ll repeat what I said at the start,

An “offer” isn’t the result you deliver to your clients.

It’s how you present it to future customers from a messaging standpoint.

I know this was a long one, 

So, as a thank you to anyone who’s gotten this far:

If you’d like your current offer looked at free of charge to take advantage of the best buying season of the year, you can either:

DM me the word “offer” on LinkedIn

Or book yourself directly into my calendar and put “offer” as your answer. (It's down below.)

I'd love to personally help you out.

Thank you for reading this far, 

Speak soon,

-Joe