Why Your Offer Isn’t Selling

Episode 13 of the Self-Made Mamas Podcast

As an online business owner, there isn’t much worse than pouring your heart and soul into creating an incredible new offer, putting it out into the world with the most beautiful sales page you’ve ever created, and instead of the avalanche of inquiries or sales you prepared for, you get…crickets. It’s hugely disappointing, it undermines your confidence as a service provider, and frankly, it can feel embarrassing AF. Today on the podcast I’m going to dig into why this happens, what you can do to prevent it, and share some advice for continuing to push through if and when this happens to you.

 

 

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If you are running or launching a client-based business and want to sell out your services and create profitable digital products, then listen close. The doors to my flagship program, aka my third baby, The Self-Made Mama Society are opening soon and I want you to get on the VIP Waitlist so you don’t miss out. The Society is the only program of its kind on the market—designed specifically to be accessible, hands-on, and results-oriented. I know there is no one-size-fits-all magic pill in online business, and that’s why The Society is a combination of cutting-edge curriculum, weekly group coaching, hands-on FB group support, and one-on-one sessions with me. If you want the best community, the most transparent and genuine support, and direct access to real expertise and action-focused coaching, head to theselfmademama.com/society to get on the list and get access to an exclusive VIP bonus when the doors open.

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Let’s cut right to the chase. If you have an offer, whether it’s a service or an information product of some description, and you think it’s incredible but the sales are just not rolling in like you wanted (or at all) then this episode is for you.

 

I want to start by looking at why this happens because I think it’s almost impossible to address an issue if you don’t understand it. When I first started creating and selling offers I knew enough to think, “Ok, something’s wrong here,” but I didn’t know enough to be able to effectively troubleshoot when things weren’t going the way I wanted. I’ve talked about this before back in Episode 7, but when I was newer to this work I would experience this issue of something I had created not selling how I wanted and I would scrap it and start over with something else. That meant I was always relying on the excitement of launching something new to drive sales instead of sticking with the thing I really wanted to sell and refining it over and over until it was where it needed to be, both in terms of the offer itself and in terms of marketing. The reason I would scrap it is because I didn’t have this deep understanding of offers and selling that I do now, and so I could not effectively troubleshoot and make adjustments.

Last episode I told you that your success comes down to your ability to consistently learn and apply new information about your target market, understand your own data and results, and adapt your actions accordingly. What we’re talking about today is one of the most important examples of this in action, because what we’re doing here is learning how to look at something that isn’t working and deduce why that is so we can make calculated adjustments.

 

 

The Problem With Your Offer

 

There are two overarching reasons why an offer doesn’t sell: the offer itself is wrong (for the audience, for the price point, etc), or the presentation and marketing of the offer are wrong. In my experience, 90% of the time it’s the presentation. Most people that I work with do not come up with crappy offers. They’re not out here trying to sell a PDF they ripped off of Pinterest for $1000 or anything like that. They’re creating genuinely thoughtful offers that are designed to actually help their customer or client. However, you can have the most incredible offer in the world and if you don’t have the presentation and marketing nailed down, no one is going to buy it.

 

For the purposes of this episode, we’re going to focus on the marketing of your offer as opposed to the actual contents and mechanics of your offer, because I know that’s going to be the actual problem for most of you listening. Inside The Society, I actually have a step-by-step process for creating a bangin’ information product and I walk you through everything you need to figure out and implement in order to create something that really impacts people’s lives and gives them the result you’re promising. Obviously, that’s the first step, because great marketing can’t fix a bad offer, but that’s a really in-depth topic that I just can’t teach in a 20-minute podcast.

 

Let’s assume you have an offer you’ve created with good intentions, that you know can help the people you want to help, but they’re not buying it. Now we need to look at the way you’re presenting your offer and see why it’s not attracting people or compelling them to buy. First, it’s important to look at the data you have available to you about your offer, even if it’s not very much at this point. Data doesn’t lie—it doesn’t care about feelings, it’s not attached to your ego, it just is what it is. Whenever we can gather data in our business, we have a really powerful tool we can use to make improvements and ultimately make more profits, but we have to be willing to track it and review it, even when it tells us things we don’t want to hear.

 

For example, let’s say you’re talking about your offer on Instagram, making posts about it, and you’re driving people to a sales page on your website or wherever. You’re getting clicks, you can see on your site analytics that people are coming to your page, but you’re not getting any sales. This tells us right away that people are interested in the general promise you’re making and whatever you’ve said on Instagram is enough to at least get them to click, but the sales page is either not giving them a reason to buy or it doesn’t align with whatever you’re saying to get them to click. Maybe they’re clicking through and thinking, “That’s not what I thought it was,” and leaving. That is data, and it’s very valuable information.

 

The same goes for ads. If your ads aren’t getting clicks, then the copy and creative on your ads are not resonating with your audience. In other words, they don’t care about what you’re presenting to them. On the other hand, if your ads are driving lots of clicks but you’re not making any sales, then we know that either the sales page is ineffective, confusing, or we’re driving the wrong people there with the ad.

 

If you are selling a service and you’re not getting any inquiries, then again you need to look at your data. How often are you pitching it? How many people are seeing your offer? If you’re not getting inquiries but you’ve only talked once in the last month about how to work with you, then the data is telling you you don’t have enough data. You need to pitch your offer as often as possible for at least a few weeks and if you don’t have any inquiries at that point, it’s time to change the way your offer is presented, because that means it’s not what people want. At least not the way you’re laying it out right now.

 

If you are getting inquiries but not closing sales, that’s data too. If this is the case, then chances are you’re presenting the offer wrong and your leads are not seeing the value in it. That’s a tough pill to swallow as a business owner, but it’s the truth. It’s really important to distinguish that it doesn’t mean what you’re doing is not valuable, or that you are not valuable, but it does mean that you’re not successfully conveying the value to your potential customer.

 

 

Getting Clear

 

How do we fix that? When it comes to selling your offers, almost every issue comes down to one thing—clarity. When I tell you that confusion kills conversions, I am not joking. This is a big deal and it’s the cornerstone of all your marketing, your sales, everything.

 

I want to take a second to show you a message I received from my client, Louisette. Louisette is a mindset coach for moms whose children have received, or are in the process of receiving, an ASD diagnosis. She is a faith-based coach, so she is specifically looking to work with moms who have a strong faith and are struggling to navigate their own mindset when it comes to their child’s diagnosis. Her work is really powerful and she is so smart and strong. I just really love her mission as an entrepreneur and her whole approach to life. She wrote to me a little while ago and this is what she said:

 

“About a month ago, you told me straight up my account wasn’t clear on whom I wanted to serve. To be honest I thought my message WAS clear lol. Then I put my ego aside and started going through all my stuff, my posts, my reels, my contents and I realised that you were right. So still confused, I went back 5 years ago and started creating content based on my experience as a mom. How it all started, my fears, my struggles but also my wins. Yesterday I posted a Reel that got me 35 new followers in a day. I used to have 1 a day and sometimes 0. For me it wasn’t just the numbers, it was the fact that more than 7 moms told me they connected with my story like what???? I was like OMG where have they been. So Melissa – thank you for being honest from the get go. You are awesome and I mean it from the bottom of my heart. Your no bs coaching is the real deal.”

 

First of all, how sweet is she? These messages make me grin like an idiot because I love to see my clients implementing our work together and seeing real results, it’s the most rewarding and exciting thing. Second, who else can relate to Louisette a little bit? Have you ever realized that your followers don’t give a crap about what you’re selling? Have you ever found yourself creating content just for the sake of it and feeling burnt out by never getting any traction or results? That comes down to a lack of clarity, and if you are not crystal clear about exactly what you’re selling and why your ideal customer should buy it, you can’t expect them to have any idea of what you’re selling and why they should buy it.

 

This is very, very common and it’s a problem that can run all the way from the very surface-level top of funnel touchpoints of your business all the way down deep into your actual offers. Often, we think we’re clear on what we sell and why someone should care, but we’re just not used to communicating with this level of clarity and specificity in our regular lives. It’s a bit of a shift to then think like a marketer when it comes to communicating about your business. As a solopreneur, that’s really your job—to think like a marketer, because you are one now just as much as you are a designer or a writer or a nutritionist or whatever you may be.

 

Here are seven questions to ask about your offer that will give you a lot of clarity and help you communicate really clearly about your offer and why your ideal customer should care about it.

 

1. What type of offer is it? Is it a done-for-you service? Is it consulting, a course, a workshop, an ebook? I can’t tell you how many sales pages I have seen that don’t actually clarify this. People have different needs and preferences, so they need to know right away if what you’re selling actually matches what they’re looking for.
2. Who is this specific offer for? When we’re starting our businesses we’re given a lot of advice around picking an ideal client to serve, but I actually believe that we need to identify an ideal client for every single offer so that our marketing for that specific offer can speak to them and only them.
3. What specific things does this person really, really want? Do they want a really polished, professional-looking business that blows their competition out of the water? Do they want more time in their week to spend with their family? Do they want peace of mind knowing that someone is handling an essential task for them? Do they want to lose weight, or feel better in their clothes?
4. What specific things are currently stopping them from having those things they really, really want? What are they struggling with? If you were your target customer, what would their “I really want X result, but _____” be?
5. What does this person need to hear, regardless of whether they buy your offer or not? What do you wish you could tell everyone struggling with these things?
6. What frustrates you about how people usually try to solve these problems? What are they doing wrong and why isn’t it working?
7. What results can someone expect when they buy this offer? How have you gotten those results yourself or for others?

 

If you can answer those questions clearly and specifically, then you have more clarity than 90% of people out there selling offers. Being able to answer those questions is going to allow you to have more successful sales conversations, create more compelling content to promote your offer, and give you the foundations of a sales page that actually makes sales. Inside the Society, you actually get access to my Online Offer System, which starts with those questions I just listed plus a few more, and then shows you exactly how to translate information into sales assets like a sales page, social media posts, and other content that will show your potential customers exactly what you’re selling, why they should care, and why you’re the right person to solve this problem for them.

 

I promise that just increasing your level of clarity around these things is going to make such a difference in how your offer sells and how you create content, you’re going to be amazed.

 

Lastly, if you are experiencing or have experienced an offer not really selling, I want to offer you a new perspective that might help. What if the rejection was just information? What if every No, or every ghost, or every announcement made to crickets was just Data? What if it didn’t have to be discouraging and hurtful because you just used it to adjust your actions and get better results next time? I find this perspective so helpful in allowing me to put my ego aside and keep going in the face of failure or less-than-ideal results. I hope you do, too.

 

As always, I hope you found this helpful and I’ll see you next episode!

 

ACTION ITEMS

A. There are two overarching reasons why an offer doesn’t sell: the offer itself is wrong (for the audience, for the price point, etc), or the presentation and marketing of the offer are wrong.

1. 1. In my experience, 90% of the time it’s the presentation.
   2. You can have the most incredible offer in the world and if you don’t have the presentation and marketing nailed down, no one is going to buy it.

 

B. In analyzing the success of your marketing, first look at the data available to you about your offer (even if it’s not very much at this point).

1. 1. With regards to an Instagram strategy, this could be looking at how many people are consuming your content but aren’t clicking through to your webpage or sales page. Or how many people click through but don’t purchase. What does this data tell us?
   2. With an ads strategy, if they aren’t getting clicks, investigate whether the copy and creative of your ads are resonating with your target audience and if they care about what is being presented to them. Alternatively, if you get a lot of clicks but no sales, determine whether your ad is being shown to the right people.
   3. If you’re not getting any inquiries on the service you’re selling, look at the data. How often do you pitch your offer? How many people see your offer? If you’re not getting inquiries but you rarely talk about how to work with you, then you don’t have enough data. Pitch yourself as often as possible to give yourself more data to work with.
   4. If you’re getting inquiries but no sales, this is also data. You may be presenting the wrong offer and your leads don’t see the value in it.

 

C. When it comes to selling your offers, almost every issue comes down to clarity. If you’re not crystal clear about exactly what you’re selling and why your ideal customer should buy it, you can’t expect them to have any idea of what you’re selling and why they should buy it.

1. 1. You may be clear on what you sell and why someone should care, but as a solopreneur, it’s your job to think like a marketer in how you communicate about your business to your customers.

 

D. To gain clarity and help you communicate clearly about your offer and why your ideal customer should care, here are seven questions to ask yourself:

1. 1. What type of offer is it?
   2. Who is this specific offer for?
   3. What specific things does this person really, really want?
   4. What specific things are currently stopping them from having the things they really, really want?
   5. What does this person need to hear, regardless of whether they buy your offer or not?
   6. What frustrates you about how people usually try to solve these problems?
   7. What results can someone expect when they buy this offer?

 

Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the Self-Made Mamas Podcast. You can find more information about working with us at theselfmademama.com or connect with us on Instagram at @selfmademama_. I can’t wait to chat.