We’re wrapping up our four-part series on creating a predictably profitable online business with marketing funnels, and I’ve already given you a ton of insights to get started.

In episode 44, we talked about how to decide what marketing to do based on who YOU are and where your audience is hanging out. We went through four key questions to dive into figuring this out for yourself so you can market your business with confidence.

In episode 45, we talked about the three keys to a predictably profitable online business — and these are things that absolutely everyone can do.

In episode 46, we talked about setting the stage for your offer and taking your audience from opt-in to sale by setting the stage and getting them ready for your offer.

And that brings us to talking about offers. A lot of times when I have a new client or student who wants to build a marketing funnel they, run into a roadblock of what to offer.

Let’s dive right in.

Biggest Show Takeaways:

• When I wanted to transition from JUST offering 1:1 services to clients into offering 1:1 services PLUS my course, I ran into a bunch of roadblocks.
  • Roadblock #1: Does anyone even WANT to learn about marketing funnels?
  • Roadblock #2: How do people feel about marketing funnels?
  • Roadblock #3: What do people want to learn about marketing funnels?
  • Roadblock #4: I only have testimonials from 1:1 clients, so how do I get testimonials for my course when no one has taken my course?
  • Roadblock #5: What kinds of bonuses will make my course a no-brainer to buy?
• Yes, I love funnels and know they work. Yes, I have built lots and lots of funnels over time but the truth is, it’s a lot of work, and I want to know that people WILL actually buy my thing.
• One thing I struggled with and thought for a long time is that I needed to be big, fancy, and EXPENSIVE to be successful. It felt like the old chicken and egg question.
• How can I be successful if I don’t have all the fancy stuff out there, and how can I get all the fancy stuff without the clients, money, and success that I felt like I needed?
• This was a MASSIVE block for me for a very long time. It was just fear and feeling ‘not good enough’ creeping into my thoughts.
• What I found is that the secret is to really serve my audience. To truly understand them and what they’re struggling with because even with the best tools, team, and design out there, without knowing my audience and what they’re dreaming of, no amount of fancy marketing will get them to buy.
• You can have ALL the best stuff — an expert coach, the best design, the best tools money can buy and more — but without knowing a specific PROBLEM your audience has and the TRANSFORMATION they truly desire, you’ll end up creating a big old mess.
• Someone can give you an exact blueprint and even if you try to exactly replicate it will NOT work for you because they are not YOU. Their audience is not your audience.
• It works so much better to focus on the basics. Your essential ingredients are:
  • What is the problem your audience has that they want to solve?
  • What is the transformation your audience dreams about?
  • What is your offer to help them move from problem to transformation?

• Then you create a system — a Marketing Funnel — to attract, engage, and pre-sell your audience. Marketing funnels are a lot less about the technology than they are about understanding how to connect with your audience so they engage and pay attention to you.
• Create an OFFER that is the vehicle for our audience to get the transformation they crave.
• When you’re first trying to figure out what people REALLY want to buy, it can really seem overwhelming and frustrating but that’s usually because people don’t start with the problem and transformation.
• So what was the key that unlocked offers that people wanted to buy? It’s the Mini Offer Method.
• The Mini Offer Method is a way to easily test offer ideas BEFORE you spend a ton of time, money, or effort in creating something no one wants to buy.
• When you do it right, this will give you incredible confidence and insight into what your audience REALLY wants to buy from you. Let me break this down for you…
  • I wanted to switch from ONLY doing 1:1 work to offering a course, but I kept telling myself I just wasn’t ready, that I’d tried to launch a course in 2013, and it failed miserably. So this time I wanted to know this was a ‘sure thing’ before diving in.
  • I wanted to know that my course would sell AND that people would actually pay for it before I spent tons of time and money to build it out
  • This time, I decided to test out a bunch of mini offers BEFORE I built anything to see what people actually wanted to buy instead of ME just coming up with it on my own and wow, did that work!
• Here’s how I went about creating my mini offer:
  • I went into different FB groups where my people hang out and took a look at the discussions and questions people had, and I found a few questions that I could easily solve.
  • I created a mini offer — something that would take less than 2 hours for me to fulfill and be less than $200 for people to buy.
  • I kept the whole process simple. These were quick hit offers that didn’t require a lot of time or money. Some of the mini offers were less than $50.
  • Then I tested the mini offer out with my email list and in Facebook groups that allowed promotional posts.
  • I quickly discovered which mini offers worked the best — what people responded to and what they did NOT respond to.
  • After each mini offer, I’d ask my customer a few key questions to help me further understand their situation and what they REALLY wanted and their favorite way of getting that help.

• I got a TON of audience insights I never would have gotten on my own and a lot of confidence in how to talk with my audience. I also got a bunch of specific testimonials!
• BIG lesson: if you’re trying something new OR trying to figure out a message that really works for you, don’t try to create something HUGE right away. No big marketing, no big spending, no big anything. Instead, start with a mini offer. Get insights. See what people will pay for, and go from there. Start small, test, learn, tweak, and keep moving forward with baby steps to big success.

• Want to know which marketing funnel is right for you and your business? Take this free and easy quiz and in less than 5 minutes, you’ll know EXACTLY which funnel is right for you.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Marketing Funnel Quiz: https://www.michellelevans.com/marketing-funnel-quiz/
• Link to episode 44
• Link to episode 45
• Link to episode 46
• Link to Amy Porterfield podcast: https://www.amyporterfield.com/2018/02/199-from-two-failed-course-launches-to-pre-sell-success-with-michelle-evans/  
• Link to blog post about Mini Offers: https://www.michellelevans.com/use-mini-offers-validate-online-course/