The Results-driven Offer: And How To Use It To Grow Your Business
Three steps to creating offers that compel customers to buy
Crafting offers that compel customers to sign the dotted line
When you sell a service, benefits alone can feel a bit abstract. A client isn’t sure what they’re getting. But if you offer a clear result, they’ll get curious and ask you questions. You’ve just hooked a potential client. So how do we create results-driven offers that get attention?
There is a superacid so powerful that it will destroy steel, glass, and just about any other substance it touches within seconds. It’s called fluoroantimonic acid and it’s likely that you have the one material this substance cannot turn into a pile of goop in your kitchen.
Non-stick pans or rather, the Teflon they’re coated with, is immune to this acid’s destructive powers due to its unique chemical structure. So Teflon is used to line jars that contain this corrosive liquid.
But what does this have to do with getting more clients to accept our offers?
A lot of people assume that storing such a destructive material would require us to find some exotic technology when what’s required is close at hand. Similarly, when we want to attract attention to our offers, we too don’t need to look far.
We can use the benefits we’ve already delivered to our clients to create a specific kind of offer that engages prospects — a results-driven offer.
What is a results-driven offer?
It’s an offer in which you promise a result to your clients or customers. Instead of offering a phone, you offer them a result such as the ability to take perfect photos. Instead of offering a computer, you offer them the ability to edit videos without their machine crashing. Instead of another weight loss plan, you offer them a plan that lets them eat what they want and still drop pounds.
You offer a result that your audience can’t resist.
Results-driven offers get more buyers
The most famous case is Domino’s Pizza. Their pizza wasn’t considered the best. In fact, more people preferred Pizza Hut during Domino’s rise to become the largest pizza delivery company in the US worth over 3 billion dollars.
So why did Domino’s become so successful?
They had a results-based offer. Get your pizza in 30 minutes or it’s free. The offer got people to order the pizza and set a stopwatch to see if it came on time. When you had at least two options for pizza and one was Dominos, you knew which one would get there the quickest.
They didn’t promise to be the tastiest. They didn’t promise to have the most options for toppings. They didn’t promise to be the cheapest. They promised one result and that result attracted buyers.
But does this work for smaller businesses?
In the early 2000s, I was an SAT teacher and tutor. I wrote a book that taught high school students how to do well on the SAT Essay. But I knew that I needed to make a specific promise to get people to pay attention to what I had to say.
My offer was to teach them to write a 400-word essay in 25 minutes. Research had shown that 400-word essays got the highest score 90% of the time and my system helped students do this. Because of my clear offer, my book, The SAT Essay Formula, was the top result when you searched for “SAT Essay” on Amazon for several years and the book garnered dozens of testimonials.
So how do you create a results-driven offer that causes customers to beat a path to your door?
First, list the results your clients or customers have gotten with your product or service.
Second, decide which result you most want to put forward.
Third, craft a sentence that describes this result.
For example, one dating coach looked at his testimonials and discovered that many of his clients talked about how they were able to go on first dates without the dread they used to have. They also raved about feeling confident enough to ask more people out. This coach, having examined his results, then chose one he felt confident about promising.
He decided that he can get behind the promise to help his clients feel confident asking for a date. He said, “Even if you fear asking women out today, you’ll find that you can do so with confidence by the end of my program.” That’s a powerful promise indeed.
Another coach helps entrepreneurs change patterns of behavior. When I looked at her testimonials there were two common themes: her clients stopped doing things that were causing them to lose business, or they started doing things that helped them succeed.
What did she decide to promise?
To help her clients change three behavior patterns that are holding them back in 12 weeks. So far, she has had no trouble filling her practice and every year has to bring on new coaches to serve her clients.
But what if you cannot promise results in your field?
If your clients want to become rich, find the partner of their dreams, or win a gold medal, you can’t promise they’ll achieve these things.
With your help, they can do things to increase the chances these outcomes happen but they can never fully control them. That’s why these results are tricky to promise.
However, what you can promise are results the client can control
The client can control their behavior, the client can develop their skills and the client can gain greater power over their feelings. If your program can change behavior, emotions, or skills, then that can be a powerful offer indeed.
When business owners write their own sales pages, it often takes them weeks or even months. Being aware of this fact, online marketer, Sean D’Souza, taught several copywriting workshops in 2018 that he filled quickly. His promise: You’ll write a high-quality sales letter in three days.
Notice he didn’t promise that you’d make massive sales, something not 100% in your control, but he promised you’d get a high-quality sales letter written in a short time.
The fact that he offered such a clear, believable promise is one reason that his workshops filled quickly.
Summary
A results-driven offer is one where you offer a specific result for your product or service
Results-driven offers get a buyer’s attention because everyone loves the idea of getting results
You create a results-driven offer by listing results you’ve helped your clients achieve, decide which result you’ll promise, then crafting a sentence that describes the result.
When you offer your clients clear results, you give them what many other coaches and consultants refuse to give — the assurance of a positive outcome. The result you promise may not sound incredibly sexy to you, but it may be just what attracts your next client.