What all the most successful businesses share is that they have a “complete customer journey”.
Sounds a bit abstract, however, let me explain. Understanding this makes a difference between giving up and making it straight up impossible to make money and between raking in some nice profits and dominating your competition.
There is a nasty trap that people get caught in
I was talking with a friend a while ago. She ran Facebook ads promoting a webinar, a live online event.
A very simple system.
- People click on an ad
- It takes them to a website showing them info about the webinar
- They register for the webinar
- They show up for the webinar and get some valuable information
- By the end of the webinar, they get offered a mobile app that they can buy if they want more training.
It is a single ad that sells a single product through a live webinar.
My friend spent around $200 and made sales of around $400. Profit of $200.
She was disappointed.
When she told me I was thrilled by the result on the other hand.
She thought “just $200”? That is pretty bad.
Here is how forgetting about profit can make you a whole lot of money
What I thought however was 200% ROI on a front end offer on a first try in the most competitive and expensive market top advertise in which is USA?
Pretty, pretty good if you ask me… There is so much potential in that! Let me explain.
The thing is that it is not uncommon at all for business to lose money on their first front end sale. Getting a 200% ROI on the first sale is very good considering her market.
Advertise and sell at a loss to make more money?
There are a lot of businesses willing to pay more for advertising than they make on the sale of the first product.
They can do that because they have a “complete customer journey”
Here is what successful businesses do to crush their competitors
Successful business usually operate like this:
1. “Indoctrination offer”
It all starts with Facebook ads and a simple funnel that is used to make that first sale.
We call the first offer the “Indoctrination offer”
It is generally something cheap, something easy to understand, something incredibly valuable. Something that your ideal customer really wants but doesn’t have yet.
Here is what makes a great “indoctrination offer”
- Something cheap, it has to be an impulse buy, where the price is not a barrier.
- It is instantly understandable. Your customer needs to immediately understand what the product does and understand the value of it.
- It is easy to use and brings immediate value without much effort.
- It needs to connect well to your main offer
For example, if you sell marketing training your indoctrination offer could be a book called “100 split test winners” you would sell it for $7.
For the target market it is extremely valuable to see testing other people were doing and how it went.
Marketers know that that information is likely to bring them considerable amounts of money. It is very easy to understand for the target audience and they can instantly see value in it. The low price makes it an impulse buy.
Here is how the indoctrination offer should not look
A bad book to be used as an indoctrination offer would be “History of advertising” 500 hundred pages about the history of advertising. The problem with that is that it would not bring immediate fast result. Most likely would not connect well to any of your services or other products, and it would take a long time to consume.
You want the indoctrination offer to be consumed as fast as possible and the value of it to be immediately felt by the customer.
An indoctrination offer should be unique
In our horse training business, the first thing we sell is a tailor made halter.
There are no tailor-made halters on the market. There are no halters that you can ride with on the market. It is something people immediately understand and immediately want. The price is also low so it is an impulse buy.
An indoctrination offer can be many things. It can be a pack of quitar picks, it can be simple software, it can be a t-shirt. It can be a makeup brush.
Colombia records for example offered 13 records or tapes for $1. Do you think they were able to make money selling that?
The “indoctrination offer” needs to be something irresistible to your ideal client.
If you think that it doesn’t make any sense to sell something and “lose money on it” do you really think that Colombia records would be doing it if didn’t make them money in the end?
They were a huge publisher at the time thanks to that deal.
Here is the secret to why this madness actually works so well
The “secret” of the indoctrination offer is that it fundamentally changes the relationship with the prospective customer.
You are no longer a business “they walked by” they are a customer.
Where do you shop most often?
If you are like most people you most often shop in place where you have already bought something before.
I am like that as well. I always go to the same electronics store, I service my car in the same service, I buy the food always in the same shop. I go to the same restaurants.
Getting the first sale is crucial and very difficult.
That is the magic of the indoctrination offer it gets you that first sale. It makes people comfortable with your business.
Where are you likely to buy something expensive? Somewhere you never shopped before, or somewhere where you already bought something and had a good experience?
It is obvious.
This is why business are willing to lose money on it
That is why so many businesses are willing to lose money on that first “indoctrination sale”
2. “Main offer”
After the indoctrination sale comes the “main offer”
Every business has a “main offer” it is “the thing you sell”
The main offer can already be a lot more expensive than the indoctrination offer.
You are no longer selling to a stranger. You are selling to a customer.
It becomes a lot easier.
You can also already sell more difficult to understand products.
For example, it is easy for us to explain what a tailor-made halter is. Our customers know what it is, and they know exactly what they will get.
However, our main offer is online training that costs ten times more than the halter.
It is by comparison very expensive. It is also hard to explain the product. It is a bunch of videos, online support, access to a community, eBooks. It is just hard to get across what they are actually going to get.
However, because our customers already bought something from us and had a positive experience. They are much more likely to believe us when we say
“hey you really need this bunch of videos; it is really going to help you”
3. “Profit maximizer”
After the “main offer” comes the “profit maximizer”
What most businesses do is that they just have one product and they sell it. After they sell it to someone, they had a sale and they go look for another customer.
Now, think about what I said above. People shop most often in the places where they have already bought something.
It is super stupid to not offer your customers something else as well.
That is when the profit maximiser comes in.
For example, for our horse training business, we might sell the indoctrination offer and lose money on the sale. Then we might sell our online training, which is our main offer and turn a profit.
However, that is not the end. After people get our online training, they are often excited to go to a live event and get some help live, check whether they are doing it all correctly.
Some want to give us their horse in training or get private lesson. They start by buying a cheap halter, then they buy an online training for hundreds of dollars and they ideally end up by giving us a horse in training for thousands of dollars.
You do not even need to create a new product
If you do not want to develop another product, you can just find another business that serves the same customer but is not a competitor and set up a partnership with them.
Sell somebody else’s product for a commission.
Here is how McDonald’s does profit maximizers
Basically, all businesses can come up with some sort of “profit maximizer” I have seen coffee shops selling coffee machines. In McDonald’s they say “do you want fries with that?, Do you want extra onion rings?”
Electronics stores have their “Don’t you want an extended warranty?
You can offer monthly paid memberships, coaching services, extra warranty, or you can just offer more units of the same thing.
The beauty of profit maximiser is that you don’t have to spend anything on advertising anymore. You have the customer.
Now you have the key to making your business unstoppable
Acquiring a customer is very expensive and it is only going to keep getting more and more expensive.
If you just have the main offer, while your competitor already has an indoctrination offer, main offer and a profit maximizer in place. There is no way for you to compete even if your product is significantly better.
So, let’s get back to my friend who was disappointed about her $200 profit.
Do you now understand why was I so excited about it?
Imagine actually creating the whole customer journey.
Imagine not spending $200 to promote her event but to spend a thousand dollars or more to get more people watching it. Do it every week.
All of a sudden $200 profit could turn into $2000 profit, every week…
So, if you do not have an indoctrination offer or a profit maximizer, come up with something. Not having them not only means that you are throwing money away, but it also means that you will get eventually overrun by your competitors.
If you want us to help you get more customers, schedule a free consultation with our friendly chatbot Lorena.