$100M Offers: How To Make Offers So Good People Feel Stupid Saying No (Acquisition.com $100M Series) (English Edition)

The Grand Slam Offer only becomes valuable once the prospect perceives the increase in likelihood of achievement, perceives the decrease in time delay, and perceives the decrease in effort and sacrifice. A prime example of this happened in the London tunnel system. The biggest increase in rider satisfaction (aka value) was never from faster trains to decrease wait times. Instead, it was from a simple dotted map that showed them when the next train was coming and how long they had to wait. The dotted map, which only cost a few million dollars, decreased the riders’ perception of time delay and sacrifice (being bored waiting) more than actually making the trains faster (which costs billions of dollars to do). Isn’t that cool? This is how we need to think about our products.

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The only way to conduct business is through a value exchange, a trade of dollars for value. The offer is what initiates this trade. In a nutshell, the offer is the goods and services you agree to give or provide, how you accept payment, and the terms of the agreement. It is what begins the process of getting customers and making money. It is the first thing any new customer will interact with in your business. Since the offer is what attracts new customers, it is the lifeblood of your business.

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It’s an offer you present to the marketplace that cannot be compared to any other product or service available, combining an attractive promotion, an unmatchable value proposition, a premium price, and an unbeatable guarantee with a money model (payment terms) that allows you to get paid to get new customers . . . forever removing the cash constraint on business growth. In other words, it allows you to sell in a “category of one,” or, to apply another great phrase, to “sell in a vacuum.” The resulting purchasing decision for the prospect is now between your product and nothing. So you can sell at whatever price you get the prospect to perceive, not in comparison to anything else. As a result, it gets you more customers, at higher ticket prices, for less money. If you like fancy marketing terms, it breaks down like this: Increased Response Rates (think clicks) Increased Conversion (think sales) Premium Prices (think charging a lot of money).

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Pro Tip: Fast Beats Free The only thing that beats “free” is “fast.” People will pay for speed. Many companies have entered free spaces and done exceedingly well with a “speed first” strategy. A few notable examples: The MVD vs DMV wait in line forever or pay $50 you can skip the line and get your license renewed privately. Fedex vs USPS (when it absolutely positively has to be there overnight). Spotify vs Slow Free Music. Uber vs Walking. Fast beats free. Many will always be willing to pay (price) for the (value) of speed. So if you find yourself in a market competing against free, double down on speed.

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A commodity, as I define it, is a product available from many places. For that reason, it’s prone to purchases based on “price” instead of “value.” If all products are “equal,” then the cheapest one is the most valuable by default. In other words, if a prospect compares your product to another and thinks “these are pretty much the same, I’ll buy the cheaper one,” then they commoditized you. How embarrassing! But really . . . it’s one of the worst experiences a value-driven entrepreneur can have. This is a massive problem for the entrepreneur because commodities are valued at the point of market efficiency. This means that the marketplace drives the price down through competition until the margins are just enough to keep the lights on: “just enough” to become a slave to their business. The business makes “just enough” to justify the owner waiting anxiously for things to “turn around,” and by the time that lie is realized . . . they are in too deep to pivot (at least, until now).

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1) Massive Pain They must not want, but desperately need, what I am offering. Pain can be anything that frustrates people about their lives. Being broke is painful. A bad marriage is painful. Waiting in line at the grocery stores is painful. Back pain . . . ugly smile pain . . . overweight pain . . . Humans suffer a lot. So for us entrepreneurs, endless opportunity abounds. The degree of the pain will be proportional to the price you will be able to charge (more on this in the Value Equation chapter). When they hear the solution to their pain, and inversely, what their life would look like without this pain, they should be drawn to your solution. I have a saying I use to train sales teams, “The pain is the pitch.” If you can articulate the pain a prospect is feeling accurately, they will almost always buy what you are offering. A prospect must have a painful problem for us to solve and charge money for our solution.

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And I was very specific. In that business (Gym Launch) - we turned down - and still do - anyone who is not that avatar. That means no personal trainers, no online coaches, etc. Could I have helped them? Of course I could have. I mean heck, the majority of our portfolio is comprised of non-gym companies. But in order to maintain product focus, and high converting messaging, knowing exactly who the product was for was a game changer.

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Here are the basic tenets of what I look for in markets. Let’s run through them before we return to the offer. When picking markets, I look for four indicators: 1) Massive Pain They must not want, but desperately need, what I am offering. Pain can be anything that frustrates people about their lives. Being broke is painful. A bad marriage is painful. Waiting in line at the grocery stores is painful. Back pain . . . ugly smile pain . . . overweight pain . . . Humans suffer a lot. So for us entrepreneurs, endless opportunity abounds. The degree of the pain will be proportional to the price you will be able to charge (more on this in the Value Equation chapter). When they hear the solution to their pain, and inversely, what their life would look like without this pain, they should be drawn to your solution. I have a saying I use to train sales teams, “The pain is the pitch.” If you can articulate the pain a prospect is feeling accurately, they will almost always buy what you are offering. A prospect must have a painful problem for us to solve and charge money for our solution.

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The degree of the pain will be proportional to the price you will be able to charge (more on this in the Value Equation chapter). When they hear the solution to their pain, and inversely, what their life would look like without this pain, they should be drawn to your solution. I have a saying I use to train sales teams “The pain is the pitch.” If you can articulate the pain a prospect is feeling accurately, they will almost always buy what you are offering. A prospect must have a painful problem for us to solve and charge money for our solution. Pro Tip The point of good writing is for the reader to understand. The point of good persuasion is for the prospect to feel understood.

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Many of us thought, naively, that owning a business would be our crowning accomplishment — a final destination — when in reality, it was just the beginning.

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