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Emily Hirsh:

Hello, my friends, welcome back to the podcast. Happy February. And I hope your month is starting up strong. I feel like I really dove into this new year. It’s interesting. So I had COVID going over the new year and I didn’t really do a lot of planning because I didn’t feel like it because I was sick and it, I was like, all right, it’s just like another day, you know, new year’s Eve, I was sick and new year’s day. I was sick with COVID. Um, but then I got my, my momentum back a little bit and I was feeling better. And then I did do some serious planning. I didn’t, I didn’t set a bunch of crazy goals this year. I actually set a lot of goals that were really simple, you know, revenue, goals, savings goals, some health goals, some relationship goals. But then I have this goal to do a bunch of traveling and a bunch of adventures and just have fun.

But I also pushed myself to do a lot in January that was like on my list for the year. So for example, doing a whole 30 starting hundred 75, again, I’ve already, I did it last year, but I’m, I’m doing like both at the same time right now. And then we just had our best month in business. Again, we went from December best month to January now the best month, because we beat what we did in December. So I feel like I started the year off really strong and kind of with the, instead of like we’re, I’m going all in, starting in month one and it’s been incredible. So I hope you guys are experiencing the same and if you’re not, Hey, you can turn that around any day, any time, you know, it’s all about the way we show up and um, how we navigate whatever we’re going through and, and accomplishing our goals and removing what’s in our way.

And sometimes we’re in our own way. All right. So today’s episode I wanna touch on when is it okay to add a new offer? I recently got this question from one of our members in market like a pro. There is a once a month, uh, pick my brain session and we had a huge turnout of like 25 P people last month come to that, that session with me. And it was so crazy. It was like rapid fire questions. I went on for almost an hour and a half and I got all these questions and I just thrive on that. Like I love like throw anything at me. Nothing can stunt me. I’ll answer it all. I just love solving other people’s problems too. It’s fun. It, it uses a lot of my brain, but anyways, somebody, you know, they’ve found some success with their marketing.

They’ve been actually been in the program for a year when it was previously ignite and he was like, I know that you’re all about focus. So don’t worry. Like I’m not gonna change and not be focused, but when can I add a new offer? Like when is the right time? What’s your opinion on that? And the reason I wanna bring the question into the podcast is because this is really common that you guys entrepreneurs myself included that you sometimes make the mistake of thinking that a new offer, that it’s time to add the new offer, that

It is time to, um, go that direction and create something new because you think you’re ready for it when you’re not also, I see people do this because they think they have to there’s the concept out there taught by marketers and specifically, you know, Russell Bruner kind of made this concept to really popular, but is the value letter, right? Like the, the concept that you should have a, a product price at all different levels and you should have, you know, like a hundred dollars offer and a $500 offer and a thousand and then, you know, build this value letter. And I think that someday that is maybe a goal for a lot of businesses. And that makes sense. But the pro problem is that if you are under a million dollars a year and then under 3 million, like in between one and 3 million for having more than two products, like it’s not a good idea.

And so the concept, like the way that it’s taught is that people say, Hey, like plan your value ladder out on day one, like literally I’ve been to Russell’s events. And I like Russell, like I’ve been in his inner circle. I think he’s really smart. I think he’s a really good teacher. I just think sometimes he makes marketing seem like it, something is achievable. That’s like not realistic. And also that he makes it be like, it should be easy. You know, one funnel why the whole concept, which I’m sure that, you know, works for his marketing, but it is a detriment to a lot of you guys who then are like, is it just me? You know, so the concept and, and you know, he literally like teaches this and has events around this and it’s not just him where you sit down and you plan out your entire value ladder.

And the problem with that is number one, that’s extremely distracting. If you’re gonna go now, try to build a funnel that sells all those things. Number two, it is actually 100% impossible that you could create that many valuable products and offers that you could even create two at the same time. And then number three, you can’t just come up with that in your head. You need to go and get feedback and understanding as you sell your first offer from your customers about what they want more of or why they’re not buying. And if there’s something else you could give them for a lower priced product, a lower priced offer. And so you cannot just sit down and say, okay, I’m starting my business. Let me plan out five offers today. Like it will never work. And if you do that, you’ll be changing them. So first of all, I am, I am a very strong belief that you should have one, one, nobody is an exception here.

You guys do not listen to this and say, well, but I’m different. Okay? You’re not, one offer until you’re at a million dollars a year. And I promise you, if you do that, you will get to a million dollars a year faster because the of resources that it takes the time investment on your part, the financial investment of your marketing, the process that needs to go behind creating and delivering an offer, the feedback, the refinement, all of that, the amount of time that that takes, there is no way that you can do that while you’re still just starting. And you can do two of those, you know, put, spread all of that out with two or multiple offers. So until you’re at $1 million a year, you should be focused on one offer. And I promise you. I know it’s not sexy. I know it’s not exciting.

I know it’s fun to come up with new offers. I know that most of you guys are visionaries. I know that you probably do not have a shortage of ideas and things you could do and money making opportunities or things you could sell, but you will be more successful if you can focus on one offer. If you were at a million dollars a year and you’re considering adding another offer, this is what you need to, this is what you need to consider and kind of ask yourself. And again, these are my opinions. You might disagree. But I have seen a lot of behind the scenes, I’ve worked with a lot of businesses and I myself, you know, have gone through this. And I think, you know, part of this question, one person also in this training was like, well, you have the agency and market like a pro, like at what point, you know, did you decide to do that?

And can you do that? And, and they were asking me, actually, this was a separate question. They were asking me like, how do you market to the two different people? And I reminded them for four years out of the seven years, I’ve been in business. I had one offer. I had my agency and into hell that got to almost $3 million run rate, meaning in a month I made $250,000 until it got there. I didn’t even consider my other offer. And I wanna tell you, when I considered adding that other offer, I had a coach and a friend Alex sharpen, who was like, it is a terrible idea, do not add the offer. And he was like giving me a sub a hard time about it. And I did it anyways. And I’m very glad that I did so ha ha. But I even then it was like questionable, if that was the right thing for me to do.

And I, and I made that decision after I was four years in business, but even more importantly, I had gotten my company to a $3 million a year run rate and I had a team. And so these are the things to consider. If you’re under a million dollars a year, you, you should not have another offer. You could adjust and change the offer you have. If you feel like you need to make it better, if you feel like you need to change components of it, or if you feel like based on, you know, audience feedback or customer feedback that you need to improve, it that’s absolutely for fine, but taking, taking an existing offer and then trying to add something else and trying to sell both successfully. If you’re under a million dollars a year, it’s not gonna work, it’s going to be distracting and it’s gonna create so that both of those offers are not successful.

If you are above a million dollars a year or you’re getting closer and you think that adding an offer is something you wanna consider. Here’s what I would walk through. Number one is, are you removed from the delivery? Are you able to deliver the current product that you have and deliver that without you being involved? Like if you were gone for a week, would your company still run or would everything fall apart? And if the answer is no, which E this is why I waited until I was at almost 3 million a year revenue to add another offer. Because if the answer is no, you guys don’t always understand at this level, the amount of resources in work that you have to do in order to remove yourself from the delivery. And these are foundational business things that must happen. And so if you don’t do that work, if you don’t put process in place and start hiring team members and figure out your process for recruiting and hiring and training those team members and delivering your product and it, and, and you, and instead say, I’m gonna take what I have right now that I’m selling.

And I’m gonna go put my energy into another offer, or let’s even say another business, which not a good idea. You’re gonna take all that away from building the, the foundation of your company to run without you. And so I would never have added an offer if I wasn’t removed completely from the delivery. At the point that I added my done with you program, I was completely removed from the onboarding, the strategy, the ongoing delivery, every component of delivering for our clients. I had built my team. I had built my processes because that takes a lot of work. And let me tell you guys something that work is not fun. And so I think a lot of us, maybe you guys get to this place and you’re like, well, it would be way more fun to just go create another offer and start selling that and see the money come in from that versus doing, doing this, this boring work and this foundational work.

This is another instance that recently came up. So one of the entrepreneurs who I’ve mentoring, I have three, um, when I opened up a, a three month mentorship with me, um, uh, three, two and a half months ago, he was sharing with me, um, that he wanted to kind of go and, and split off into this other business idea. And, you know, he thought he could do both his current business and this new one. And he was telling me all the reasons why this one was gonna be so great and the opportunity and the real talk that I had to give him was you can absolutely do that, but you have to quit your other business because you cannot do both. And this is exactly what I said. And this is kind of something that a lot of you need to hear when you’re at the place that you have not removed yourself from the day to day, you have not built business foundational processes so that you can hire a team member and they can deliver your offer without you.

And they can work with clients or they can work with customers, or they can, you know, deliver your product, whatever it is, if you haven’t done that work, which so much work. And like I said, it is not fun. Then you have not earned the right to go and start another business, or to go and distract your attention and focus on something else. And specifically in this conversation, I was like, you know, I know that you are seeing all of these gurus out there, these big entrepreneurs who are doing that, right. They have all these companies and they have, you know, investments and real estate and NFTs and all this stuff, especially all these bros, okay. They have all this stuff, but it’s like, you don’t understand, they’ve been doing this. You need to think about the big picture. They have been doing this for 12, 15 years, and they’re now removed from one of those companies.

So they get to go mess around with NFTs or start this other side thing. They’ve earned that because they did the foundational work required to remove themselves from the day to day of that, that main core company that they started. And until you have done that, there is no way you can go distract yourself with something new, because, and, and, and you can especially, can’t do that to avoid having to do that foundational work. So the first thing you should ask yourself, if you’re considering adding a new offer, or let’s say you’re really crazy, and you’re ING, it’s already a new business. And I know I’m starting a software and I’m working on a software, but the, again, the only reason is because I’m removed from my delivery. So are you removed from your delivery? Now, there’s always gonna be work, of course, in your delivery and improving your delivery.

We’re constantly improving process. We are constantly refining, but I am removed. I have leadership team. I, I am involved, I’m collaborative, but I, it, it would not fall apart without me. I could go on vacation for a month and all of our clients would get what they needed, because I’ve built that process. Number two, you have to always understand that everything you say yes to is also a no. So you have to weigh and ask yourself if I on another offer, if I add another offer into my business, is it gonna take away from my existing? And usually this comes down to two things. One, your delivery is your delivery gonna suffer because your attention is going to be split or two, your marketing. If you take away, you know, is your marketing working? Is it something that can be scaled? Or is it something that’s requiring a, a ton of your attention right now and your, and your resources, time, money, or team.

And if you take that away from, from your current offer, is it going to actually make the sales go down or are they gonna be impacted? Because every single thing you say yes to is a no somewhere else. So there is something that will be impacted by choosing to you, add another offer or work on a new offer. And so you have to ask yourself, will I get more return on, on my investments, on my time, on my resources, if I put all of, if I continue to put all of my, my effort and my resources and what I’m doing into my existing offer that I already have, and I’m sure you could think of 10 things that you need to do to improve it. Or if you have a team who can do those things, that’s when you can be considering a new offer.

So, you know, is that the case, or if you go to work on your new offer, your existing one will be okay, so you have to weigh is working on another offer, a new offer going to take away from your existing one, or is it gonna be okay? And is it gonna actually add business revenue to your bottom line? And that’s something you have to be really honest with yourself and really compare like how much of your time and company resources are going into the marketing and the delivery of your existing offer. And if you remove those or you cut those in half, what would happen because that is what will happen when you launch a new offer, you’re gonna have to put a significant amount of time into that new offer. And if, and if that new offer takes away from your existing, then it kind of just cancels out the, all the efforts that go into it.

And this is where entrepreneurs are so funny. It’s because we want this like new and exciting. And we, we feel like we need to be in that chaos and, you know, constantly doing something new, new, new, but in reality, if we just buckle down and continue to make what we’re doing better, oftentimes we’re actually gonna see better results. So you have to really ask yourself that question. Okay. And then the kind of final point that I wanna make here on this, cuz those two are really what you should be weighing and considering. And honestly, for a lot of you guys, the answer’s gonna be, no, you should not add another offer yet. However, if you are going to add another offer, if you check the boxes and you feel like, yes, if I add another offer, it will add to my business rev new. It will increase my revenue and it will make me more money.

Then I am a fan of going to the, the upsell to the higher level offer. Not always, I think, you know, eventually again, long, long term as a business, you might have your offer and then a, you know, a down sell for people who that’s not a quite ready for and then an upsell for who want more. But I think that if you wanna go the route of adding more revenue in your business, usually adding the upsell, the higher priced offer is the better answer, which means it would be giving your current customers what else they want, the next thing that they need right inside of inside of your, your offer. Like if you were to provide a higher level elite service or give more support or more done for you or more services, whatever that is, what would that look like? And if you have current customers and current people buying your offer and asking for more or asking for what’s next, or it’s clear with their results or with, with the support that they need, that what you’re giving isn’t quite enough, and you have like a significant amount of people who could use more support, I would go in that direction.

So I’m a fan of the upsell of higher ticket, because if you’re going to, you know, revert your attention somewhere else. And it’s a good idea, and I’m not saying, you know, a hundred percent of the time, it’s a bad idea. I do have two offers and it’s been incredible. And my offers go together and you know, one leads to the other and another is a down sell for that one. And it, it works really well. So it’s not always a bad idea to add another offer. However, you have to make sure that it also goes with your other offer, that it’s not random. So if you have, you know, whatever your existing offer is, your two options are, you can either give people who aren’t qualified or ready for your existing offer something that’s your down sell. Or you can give those people who are qualified, who have bought your offer.

The next thing, that’s your upsell. And I’m a fan of going with the upsell cause it’s higher revenue and probably gonna make you more cash. And so if you’re deciding to do that, really look at, you know, your current customers, your current clients, the current people buying your existing offer. Are they asking for more? Do they need more? Well, it would help them take it to the next level, get them better results. And you kinda have to go back to, you know, a basic offer, positioning, basic offer strategy. But the thing is you do get a shortcut here because you’re already at a million dollar a year business. You’ve already proven who your customers are. Like, things will become more successful faster than, and when you launch your initial offer, because you’ve already hopefully built an audience and you have leads and you’ve gone through a marketing strategy and you know, what works and what doesn’t work.

And you have, you know, leads who haven’t bought from you. And you have customers who want more. And so that makes launching a new offer when the time is right, easier than launching the very first one that you ever launch had to prove in your messaging and whatnot. FThat’s BS. You don’t need a complete value ladder. You know, in the future like 5, 10, 10 years down the line, you might have multiple offers because it was a good business strategy choice when you did choose that. But until your existing core offer is where it needs to be. You’re removed from the delivery. And if you take resources, your personal resources or your team resources away from it, it’s not gonna suffer until then buckle down, do the boring work, build out the foundation, get your marketing to a place where it’s stable. It’s it’s, you know, converting, it’s consistent. Of course, you’re always gonna have to be doing work on your marketing. We’re never gonna believe that that’s not the case. However, you can get it to a place where your team is supporting you. You have process supporting and you have some predictability and then maybe it’s time to consider another offer. I hope you guys found this helpful and I’ll talk to you next time.

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