The most important thing for your business is understanding your audience.
The second most important thing is being able to craft an offer that they can’t refuse. A Godfather Offer.
People underestimate how important a great offer is for their business because they are focused on the marketing of everything. But your offer is where everything starts.
It’s how you come up with the perfect messaging for your audience that converts random strangers into loyal fans.
But you can’t just create an offer. You have to create an offer that is so irresistible people feel silly rejecting it.
Now, something important to keep in mind here. I’m not talking about hard-selling or over-selling. I’m not talking about getting the face of your audience and screaming at them so they know they are stupid if they don’t buy.
I’m talking about creating an offer that they will love so much that it feels like you don’t have to sell.
Before we dive in to how to create one I think it’s important to understand what an offer is.
What Is an Offer?
To put it simply, an offer is everything that you buy. It’s not just the product, it’s also the price, the warranty/guarantee, customer service, community, and whatever else comes along with it.
A product is part of an offer but an offer is never just a product. Got it?
The 11 Types of Offers
There are 11 main types of offers:
- Hard Offer: Requires payment upfront
- Soft Offer: Payment can be made later
- Negative Option Offer:
- Installment Offer: Payment plan
- Charter Offer: Early one-time discount
- Exclusive Offer: Offer only for certain people
- Limited Offer: Scarcity-driven offer
- Limited-Time Offer: Deadline-driven offer
- One-time Offer: Offer only seen once
- Qualified Offer: Application required
- Combination Offer: Combining two or more of the above
I’m not sharing this list to confuse you but to simply show you the different options. There is no best type of offer here.
A Good Offer Reflects the Market
Okay, so what the fuck does this mean?
Most people that put an offer out there do so thinking it’s a great idea because it works for them. So they tell people exactly what they think they need and how the offer fulfills that need.
But the market wants what it wants and it’s important to understand where the market is at so you can give it the right thing.
For example, if you wanted to get into the weight loss market and decided to create a book called, “How to Lose Weight With Keto“, then guess what will happen?
Nobody will buy it. The market is too mature for something so basic.
They don’t want to learn how to lose weight with Keto. They already know how to lose weight with Keto.
So then what do you do?
The 5 Levels of Market Awareness
In general, there are 5 levels of market awareness:
- Promise
- Promise Expanded
- Promise + Unique Mechanism
- Promise + Expanded Unique Mechanism
- Prospect
We’re going to look at the first 3 because the truth is you can build a business just fine understanding them.
1. Promise
This is the basic thing that the market wants. Let’s stick with the weight loss example and say losing weight doing Keto is the basic promise.
The first couple of people that come out with offers doing this will find success.
And technically, you can still find success even when the market is more mature, but you have to be the first person someone comes across who is just getting started on their weight loss journey.
That isn’t easy.
2. Promise Expanded
The next level is when you extend the promise. Lose 20 lbs doing Keto in 10 days. It’s still the same promise, but it looks even better by promising faster results.
3. Promise + Unique Mechanism
This is the level that you want to get to because it’s the level you can stay at. When the market starts to copy you and you don’t want to continue to fight copycats then you can simply change your unique mechanism.
Lose weight with the Carnivore Diet (an offshoot of Keto). Why does this work so well?
Because people love novelty.
At this point, the market is saying they’ve tried every solution so what makes yours different? It’s because you’re introducing a brand new mechanism.
So look at what other people are doing and understand that if you’re doing the same promise with the same mechanism then it doesn’t matter how much more you add to your offer.
Bonuses, customer support, price, it doesn’t matter. It will get lost in a sea of sameness.
The Hidden Competition
Another thing to look out for is the idea that there is competition for your offer that you might not recognize.
Let’s switch up the example and say you’re teaching people about SEO. So what you’re promising is traffic. You’ll help people get more traffic to their website using SEO so you do your market research and look at everyone else that is teaching SEO.
But that isn’t your only competition.
What about the people that are talking about getting traffic through Pinterest? They are your competition as well because they are making the same promise.
More traffic.
They just have a different mechanism for it.
This means you also have to understand how getting traffic through SEO is better than getting traffic through Pinterest (I’m not saying one is better than the other).
So if I tell you that your offer has to be superior to your competitors I am talking more than just the people that you sit next to.
How to Create Your Godfather Offer
First, this isn’t about finding a niche that isn’t saturated. Saturation is good because it’s a sign of a healthy marketing.
The key is that you’re looking to be a Brown Pigeon in a sea of Grey Pigeons. And you do that by creating a Godfather Offer so irresistible that people can’t help but buy it.
What’s the Promise?
You can’t do anything without understanding you are helping and what they want. Not what they need.
What outcome do they want? This is the promise that you’re going to offer them.
You can start general if you want. I want to help people lose weight.
Or you can get specific. I want to help people lose weight in their bellies.
But you need to understand what outcome you’re going to promise otherwise the next step doesn’t make sense.
Research
We’ve talked about the need to research but what exactly are you going to research? You need to look at the market and understand how your competition is handling the following things:
- Unique Selling Propositions
- Unique Mechanisms
- Deliverables
- Benefit Claims
- Price & Terms
- Premiums & Bonuses
- Risk Reversals
You don’t need to be thorough and make sure you get everyone in the market. Aim for the top 3-5 competitors that you can find if you can find them at all. And you’re making up each of these categories for them.
For example, if your competition doesn’t have a unique selling proposition then don’t force one upon them.
The Components of Your Offer
With your research done you can start to piece together your Godfather Offer. But what are the components of an offer?
- Deliverables
- Benefits
- Price & Terms
- Premiums & Bonuses
- Risk Reversal
- Reason to Respond Now
- Call to Action
If this sounds like a sales page template then you’re right. All of these things are considered parts of the offer.
Remember, the offer is far more than just the actual product.
What About the Format?
You might’ve noticed that we haven’t talked about the format of your offer yet and for good reason. There are tons of different types of digital products that you can put into your offer.
What matters is that you’re able to deliver the information the best way possible for you and your audience. If you’re terrible in front of the camera then doing videos might not be the best idea.
If you want to charge $1,000 then putting everything in a book probably won’t work out for you.
What really matters is that you’re able to deliver on the promise through whatever format that you choose.
What They Want vs What They Want
For the longest time I thought that to succeed with a business you needed to create an offer that people wanted and not what they needed.
This still holds true, but what they want is usually deeper than simply giving them the outcome.
Yes, they want to lose weight, but they want to do it in a new way that they haven’t tried before.
Yes, they want to make money, but they want to make money in a new way that makes them feel good.
Once you understand the basic level of what they want then you usually need to go even deeper to truly understand in what package they want it in. Once you start doing that, your offer begins to sell itself.
Attach it to a Feel Good Funnel and it can feel like you’re unstoppable.
