The Real Reason Your Offer Isn’t Selling with Amy Traugh
- Amy Traugh
- Mar 26
- 12 min read
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Why Your Offer Isn’t Selling and How to Fix It
Refine Your Messaging: Building Bridges with Words
Messaging is the first place to start. Think of your messaging as a bridge between your offer and your ideal client. If that bridge isn’t sturdy, no one’s crossing, regardless of how amazing your product is. Imagine a farmer's market scenario: one vendor just states, "I have the best apples," while another paints a picture, "Are you tired of bland apples? Mine are crisp and juicy, a fresh bite of fall!" Which one draws you in? The latter, of course. The key difference is highlighting why it matters to you, not just pointing out what’s being offered.
Your audience wants to know the specific transformation they'll experience. Are you addressing their current struggles and what they actually desire? Dive deep beyond features or surface-level problems and explore their core pain points. Tools like chat GPT can help brainstorm and uncover these insights. Clearly articulate how your offer solves their most pressing issues and what their life could look like on the other side.
Positioning: Make it a Must-Have
Once your messaging is solid, focus on positioning. Your offer should feel like a must-have solution, not just a nice-to-have option. A great analogy is buying water. At a grocery store, a bottle is cheap; at a concert, it’s pricier but still justifiable for immediate thirst. If stranded in the desert without water, you’d pay anything for it. Position your offer as the immediate solution to a critical problem, just like that bottle of water in the desert. It’s about creating urgency by showing the high cost of inaction.
Avoid shallow methods of urgency, like limited-time bonuses, and instead, emphasize the consequences of staying stuck. What does your client’s future look like if they don’t act? Offer solutions that address their high-priority pain points right now. This approach invites them to see your offer as the obvious, essential choice.
Simplify Your Sales Process
A smooth, simple sales process is crucial. If potential clients find it difficult to purchase from you, they're likely to abandon the attempt. Think of a complicated restaurant menu that frustrates diners – they’ll likely leave unsatisfied. The buying journey should be seamless, with clear calls to action. Ensure your clients know exactly how to proceed and remove any friction from the purchasing steps. Your website, for instance, should have easy and repetitive calls to action so that it feels intuitive and straightforward.
Understanding Buyer Readiness
Lastly, consider the varying levels of buyer readiness in your audience. Not everyone is ready to purchase immediately, and that’s normal. Some aren’t even aware they have a problem yet, while others know something’s off but don’t know how to fix it, and a few are actively searching for a solution. Your content should address all these stages – educating the unaware, nurturing those with growing awareness, and facilitating the purchase for those ready to buy. If you only target ready buyers, you miss out on nurturing a significant portion of potential clients.
To sum it up, if sales are slow, revisit these four areas: ensure your messaging conveys transformation and builds interest, position your offer as a high-priority solution, simplify your sales process, and tailor your content to different stages of buyer readiness. Each of these pieces is a part of the puzzle that, when aligned, creates a compelling picture that attracts and retains clients. By making small adjustments and reviewing these key areas, you might find that your offer just needed a little tweak to shine.
Remember, the issue probably isn’t your offer itself. Keep refining, and don’t give up. You’re on the right track to growing your business sustainably. Keep going, and keep cheering for yourself!
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Transcript for Episode 404. A Simple 3 Step Framework to Attract Ready-to-Buy Clients
Amy [00:00:00]:
Have you ever wondered why your offer isn't selling the way you expected? You know, your work is so valuable, your clients get amazing results. But. But for some reason, people just aren't buying. This can feel frustrating and even a little personal. But before you assume that it's the offer itself, there are a few critical areas that you need to check first before you burn it all down. And more often than not, when we take the time to look at these issues, we can discover where the issue truly lies.
Amy [00:01:23]:
And the first place to look is in your messaging. You know, we hear this all the time, but really, when it comes down to it, your messaging is that bridge between your offer and your ideal client. And if that bridge isn't solid, people aren't going to cross it, no matter how amazing your offer is. Now, a really good way to think about this is if you are in a walking through a farmer's market during the summer, you have one vendor over on the side saying, I have the best apples, while another vendor is going, hey, are you tired of really bland apples? These apples that I have right here, they're crisp, they're juicy, and they taste like you're biting into a fresh taste of fall. So which one are you stopping at? I'm willing to bet it's the second one, right? Why? It's because they didn't just sell you what they were selling, they showed you why it mattered. Your audience is the same way. They really don't care about features like the number of calls, number of modules in your program. They care about how you are solving their problem.
Amy [00:02:40]:
So are you clearly articulating the transformation that they're going to experience? Because if your ideal client doesn't clearly understand exactly how you and your offer are the solution to their problem, they are not going to buy, no matter how amazing it is. And when you speak directly to your audience's pain points, desires, challenges and outcomes, you meet them where they are. So how do we even know if our messaging's the issue? Well, start here by asking yourself these questions. What are they struggling with right now? What is the specific frustration or obstacle they're facing? And I want you to get really, really detailed instead of vague problems like overwhelm their lack of confidence. They're unsure get really, really specific here. They're tired of spending hours creating content that just doesn't convert. You know, really good way to brainstorm is actually by using chat GPT. So just getting in there and having conversations with that AI module or whatever AI module You, like, really get down to the core beliefs, because we all like to think it's one thing.
Amy [00:04:05]:
We all think our messaging is clear, but until you really get to the root cause of what are they struggling with right now, you're just going to remain stuck. So once you know what they're struggling with now, we want to know what do they actually want? And we want to go deeper than all this surface level stuff. You know, we hear all the time, like, oh, step into the next level version of yourself. What does that mean? What does that actually look like? You know, your clients don't want just more clients. They want the freedom, the confidence that comes with consistent, reliable sales. What does that income create when you can frame your messaging around that bigger vision? Oh, my gosh, it opens up so much opportunity. And the one other thing I really like to dive into with messaging is what happens if nothing changes? What is the cost of staying stuck? And this is really what creates urgency. You know, all too often we think that the only way to create urgency is by creating, like, okay, the doors are closing.
Amy [00:05:18]:
You know, you get these bonuses of X, y and Z. Yes, that's one way to do it. But if you can really highlight the cost of inaction, highlight the cost of staying stuck. So they do. Don't take action now. What will their life or business look like in six months when you're strategically placing these little reminders about the consequences of this inaction? That can really be a powerful motivator, because what we're trying to do with our messaging is reflecting their current reality, painting a picture of what's possible. And this is what creates that emotional connection. And that connection drives buying decisions.
Amy [00:06:07]:
So if messaging is this bridge, positioning now is how you invite people to cross it. It's like making your offer feel like a must have, not a nice to have. I heard an analogy years ago by one of my dear friends, Jessa Rose, and she actually was on the podcast a few episodes back. I'll link it below in the show notes. She gave this really perfect analogy. Say you wanted to buy some water. Here you go. The grocery store, you can buy a case, an entire case of water for like, five bucks, right? So say you're at a concert.
Amy [00:06:49]:
Now you're willing to spend five bucks on a bottle of water for just one bottle. Why? Because you're thirsty. There's no other options. You have that need. Like, it is a must have right now because it's hot, you're dehydrated, you're thirsty, so you're willing now, to pay $5 for that exact same bottle of water you could get for a mere few cents in the grocery store when you bought the case. Now think about it as if you were stranded in the desert. You haven't had anything to drink for days. You are literally, like, fighting for survival.
Amy [00:07:28]:
Now, what would you pay for that bottle of water? I mean, you would pay hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of dollars for that same bottle of water. So what we're doing is when we're framing our offer to address a pain point that your audience has right now, they're more likely to invest. And I'm not saying you have to dig and dig and dig and dig and dig and use pain point marketing. No, we're not trying to create pain point marketing. We're not trying to be bro marketers. What we're just strategically trying to do is positioning our offer as the solution to a high priority problem that your audience has right now. Because if we're not, it could be that your offer is not selling just because they don't see the need. They don't see the need as urgent or essential.
Amy [00:08:24]:
So when you position yourself as the obvious solution to the problem, we do this by connecting it directly to our audience's current pain points and showing them how this is the fastest, most effective path to the result that they really want. We want to know, what is that need right now? And then we create the urgency by showing them the true cost of delaying the action. We paint a vivid picture of what life will look like on the other side. We're not just describing the process, because a lot of times that can be overwhelming. And if we're going deep into the process, people are going to just shut down because they have that story going through their mind that, okay, well, this hasn't worked before. All right, I don't have the time. I'm busy. But when we're highlighting the tangible outcomes and the emotional relief that they'll experience, it is powerful.
Amy [00:09:28]:
I had a recent client that was offering a social media strategy package. Sales were really slow because she was positioning her content as a way to or her services as a way to improve. Improve your content. When we took the time and just shifted it a little bit and reframed it to focus on solving a more urgent pain point. As, you know, stop wasting hours creating content that doesn't convert, what did that do? It caused her audience to pay attention. And what happened then? Her sales increased. So you can have the perfect message, you can have strong positioning, but it's really important that These two things are solid. If your process is confusing of how people can buy from you, people are going to walk away.
Amy [00:10:23]:
A really good way to think of this is imagine you're at a restaurant. You're really excited. You're probably at the Cheesecake Factory. You've got that book. You know, they don't have just like a two page menu. No, it's like a book that they hand you. So you're flipping through the menu is overwhelming. But when you go to order, you finally decide, but then the waitress is like, well, no, we don't have that.
Amy [00:10:46]:
We're out. No, we're, we're out of that one too. Oh, I'm sorry, we're also out of that one. It gets frustrating. And this is what's happening. When your sales process is really complicated or unclear. Your potential clients are getting frustrated because they don't know. They don't know know actually what you do.
Amy [00:11:05]:
They don't know how to buy from you. So I want you to look at your process, look at your funnel, and put yourself in the position of your ideal client. Is it easy for someone to understand what to do next? So say, hey, you know what? I really like what you do. I really think that you are the solution to my problem. But I have no clue what to do next. I have no clue. Don't make it hard for people. We want to create as seamless of a process as possible.
Amy [00:11:38]:
And a lot of times this can feel a little awkward. I don't know if awkward's even the right word. But you like, take for example, your website. You need to have calls to action all over the place. I know it seems like we're being repetitive, that we're just stating the obvious over and over and over. But at the end of the day, no one's paying attention. No one's paying as much attention as we think they are. So it's really important that you continue to repeat, repeat, repeat, and look at your buying process and make sure that process is as easy as possible from the perspective of a ready buyer.
Amy [00:12:20]:
And speaking of a ready buyer, buyer readiness is the final piece of this puzzle. So you can have all of the last three steps we talked about completely beautifully in place. But you have to remember that not everyone in your audience is ready to buy right now. And that is totally normal because we have people at three different stages, people that are not even aware. They don't even realize they have a problem. They found you online, they're like, oh, this is kind of interesting. But they're really not aware of that problem. And then you have the buyers that they know something isn't working and they're looking for the solution, but they really don't know how to fix it.
Amy [00:13:02]:
And then you have the people that are actively looking for the right person to help them. These are your ready buyers. But when you're creating content, whether it be podcast episodes, whether it be email, Whether it be YouTube streaming services, I mean any of these things, content isn't just social media. Your content, no matter where it is, it needs to speak to all three groups. You want to educate those who are unaware, that don't even realize they have the problem. Nurture those who realize, yeah, I do have this problem and now I'm paying attention. And then we want to make it easy for the people that are actively looking for the right person to help to buy. So if you're only speaking to people who are ready to buy today, you're missing out on clients who just need a little bit more time or a little bit more information.
Amy [00:14:00]:
So if you're finding your offer isn't selling, let's recap the four areas. First, messaging. Are you clearly communicating the transformation that you provide? Are you building that bridge? And then offer positioning. Is your offer framed as the solution to an urgent, high priority problem they need to solve right now? Next is our sales process. Is that sales process simple, clear, easy to navigate. So when someone is ready to say, yes, I need this, they can buy without any friction or hesitation. And then our fourth piece is buyer readiness. Are you meeting your audience where they are right now in their decision making journey? These areas work together.
Amy [00:14:53]:
It is like a puzzle. And looking at that puzzle from a zoomed out perspective, that's what builds that beautiful picture. Because when one of these is off, it's like you're missing puzzle pieces. But when they align together, they fit together beautifully and you see the full picture. So I want you to take a few minutes today to review these areas in your business. Remember, get curious, ask yourself questions, run experiments, dive into your data. Because these small little adjustments can lead to big results. And remember, your offer typically isn't the problem.
Amy [00:15:39]:
You might just need a little tweak to create more sales. I am here cheering for you. And until next time, stop guessing and start growing.
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