If there’s one thing you can predictably count on as a business owner, it’s that few days are completely predictable or the same. However, the closest thing we can count on for stability is providing a consistent service or offer that exists as the core work of our business.
But what do you do when providing that service has become stale or you’ve gotten to the point that your work is so streamlined that you’ve got a new creative itch that needs scratching?
In our last couple of posts within our Pivoting in Business series, we talked about shifting to a new target audience as well as navigating new business opportunities, and in this final piece of the series, we’re going to cover the shifts to make when creating a new offer for your business.
Whether you’re looking to scrap an old service and swap it with something new, or you’re simply looking to introduce an additional revenue stream, creating a new offer might be just what you need to put the creative spark back in your business.
Before we dive into the steps, here are some questions you might want to ask before pivoting to create a new offer:
- Are your current offerings becoming increasingly harder to market and sell, largely in part to your fatigue with them?
- Are your other offers so systemized and streamlined that you see an opportunity to introduce something new without it pulling away from what’s working well?
- Are you open to creating a new offer and looking at it as a creative experiment that might take multiple iterations to finesse and make profitable?
If you answered “yes” to any of those items, read on, friend! Pivoting to create a new offer will likely be a great way to provide a refresh your work and your business’ bottom line.
Determining Your New Offer
Maybe you’ve had a single lingering idea that just won’t go away, or maybe you’re on the total opposite end of the spectrum and have so many swirling ideas it feels impossible to pick a place to start.
Well, there’s good news no matter which camp you fall into: your idea isn’t what will determine a good offer to create, your audience will.
And if you’re also in the midst of pivoting your target audience, that’s just fine, these two pivots can be made in tandem beautifully.
Some business coaches and strategists in the online business space strongly believe in the art of pre-selling before actually creating the thing you’re selling, which we’re totally for, but as we’ve said before (and we’ll continue to say ’til we’re blue in the face), your business, your rules.
The benefit of pre-selling an offer all lies in validating it before you invest the time, energy and resources to create it, however, there are plenty of other validation techniques such as observing your audience’s pain points, having real conversations with ideal clients and customers to determine their needs and where you can fill a gap, as well as putting your idea out there to a focus group and getting honest feedback to solidify your core idea that makes up your offering.
Outlining Where It Fits Into Your Business and the Marketplace
So, once you’ve got your idea for creating a new offer, now you need to do a little more refining to ensure that your offer is not just something your audience has explicitly expressed both a need and desire for, now it needs to find it’s unique identity within the real of your business and the marketplace.
In the scope of your business, we want to look at how it fits into your value ladder (if you have one).
If you’re not familiar with a value ladder, it’s very much like it sounds…you’ll have multiple offers inside your business at varying levels of value.
The goal is that once a client or customer has ascended through one of your offerings, they will move up into the next offer, or rung, of your value ladder.
If you don’t have a value ladder, that’s okay. Will this new offer you're creating become your business' primary/sole revenue stream?
It’s key to understand where your offer fits into your business so that you can have a better idea of what needs to be included in your offer, and what shouldn’t be included, as well as identifying markers to know when someone who may not be a great fit for one of your other offers would be a good fit for your new one and vice versa.
In regards to knowing where your offer fits within the marketplace, this is all about branding and having an edge.
Hardly any idea is 100 percent truly original, however when we can craft something that is made with the needs and wants of our audience in mind and it specifically solves their problem using the method or solution you’ve developed through your unique experience and expertise, you’ll have a truly standout offer in the marketplace.
Coming Up with Your Game Plan, Creating a New Offer, and Launching It!
You’re rolling with your idea, and now it’s time to get into creation mode.
Whether you need to craft a deliverable that is set and ready to go the instant someone buys, or set up the system in which your ideal client will inquire about a service and then be onboarded, or design and write the sales page and descriptions…there are a lot of to-dos that go into creating something new, so start with the end in mind.
What’s the final deliverable? The thing you’re promising to your client or customers?
Work backwards in determining which step comes before the next so that you’ve roadmapped out the entire journey from someone discovering you and your offer to purchasing it and then being over the moon with their decision.
Then turn that into your launch checklist, and just remember, putting something new out into the world can be much easier than you think and possibly simpler than you’d imagine, but it can also take more time or effort than you’re anticipating.
Don’t get discouraged in your journey of making a pivot to create a new product. If you’ve done your homework, see the opportunity, and are excited about the potential outcomes, it’s something worth creating!
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