How to Attract Clients

Episode 28: How to Attract Clients, with Erik Jensen

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How to attract clients with your HERO offer by Erik Jensen. Listen and learn about the best approach on how to attract clients.

Erik Jensen is the chief strategy officer at Predictive and a co-owner. Predictive helps clients build their authority positions in the niche(s) they want to serve — and then — monetize that position in the form of a sales pipeline filled with a steady stream of right-fit clients.

But often — Erik has conversations with agency owners, business coaches, and consultants (that’s our tribe here at Predictive ROI) — and he’s asked questions like…

“How to attract clients to buy more of my stuff?”

And like we talked about in last week’s episode — anytime we let thoughts of “GETTING” our “LIST” to “BUY” — instead of being focused on helping our clients and prospects solve a business issue or challenge they care about … then our thoughts, words, and actions make it pretty clear that we’re more about selling for our benefit and not helping them for their benefit.

Okay — let’s put a pin in that for a second because what might seem like weird irony — as you’ll hear — the focus of my discussion with Erik is actually about selling.

Weird, right?

But — and it’s an important “but.”

It’s about offering your clients and prospects what we call the HERO Offer — because when you offer it in the right way, at the right time (and candidly — in most cases…you’ll be asked by someone to share the details of what’s included) — then offering up the HERO offer doesn’t feel like selling at all.

Because if you follow the recipe, Erik and I lay out today — you’ll learn how to attract clients and build your HERO Offer in such a way that it’s all about solving an important business issue for your client…not driving revenue for you.

And again — irony — that doesn’t mean your HERO offer is a loss-leader and not profitable. It’s profitable, strategically priced, and strategically linked with your full value ladder.

Okay — lastly — before we dive in — let’s quickly loop back to last week.

Erik and I discussed three variables as the starting point for solving the equation of increasing sales.

The first variable is WHO. We covered “WHO” last week in Episode 27. If you missed it — just go here.

The second variable is WHAT. That’s the HERO Offer and what we’ll cover today.

And the third variable is HOW, which will be our focus next week.

As always — we’ll share specific examples and helpful frameworks in full transparency.

Why are we focusing on these three fundamentals in these episodes?

Because no matter how long you’ve been running your business — no matter how much experience you have — no matter how successful you’ve been — if we lose sight of the fundamentals…we lose our way, and we start showing up as “buy more of my stuff.”

Whether by accident or not – when we show up that way — it feels like a whole lot of not awesome for your clients, prospects, and audience.

So – think of these “WHO, WHAT, HOW” episodes as the Starting Block.

What you will learn about in this episode on how to attract clients for your HERO Offer:

Check out the 30,000-foot view of the HERO OFFER
What are the key criteria that an effective HERO OFFER includes
What are the five outcomes of a HERO OFFER to share with your clients — and in doing so — transition you from selling to only helping
What are the measures for success?
How best to price the HERO OFFER: loss-leader or premium-priced
How to attract clients to avail the HERO OFFER

Free Resources:

Download the free HERO OFFER worksheet: www.predictiveroi.com/what
Listen to the previous episode of How to Attract Clients entitled Step 1: Filling Your Sales Pipeline with Right-Fit Clients, with Erik Jensen
Order your free copy of “Sell with Authority”: https://predictiveroi.com/resources
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/b2bsalesfunnel
Website: https://predictiveroi.com/
Connect with Erik on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erik-jensen-b9946068/
Learn more about How to Attract Clients by listening to Step 3: How to Generate Leads and Sales for Your HERO Offer, with Erik Jensen

How to Attract Clients: Full Episode Transcript

Welcome to the Sell with Authority podcast. I’m Stephen Woessner, CEO of Predictive ROI. My team and I, we created this podcast specifically for you. So if you’re an agency owner or business coach or a strategic consultant and you’re looking to grow a thriving, profitable business that can weather the constant change that seems to be our world’s reality, well, you’re in the right place.

Do you want proven strategies for attracting a steady stream of well-prepared, right fit prospects into your sales pipeline? Yep. We’re going to cover that. You want to learn how to step away from the sea of competitors so you actually stand out and own the ground you’re standing on. Yeah, we’re going to cover that too. Do you want to futureproof your business so you can navigate the next challenges that come your way?

How to attract clients the right way? Absolutely. We’ll help you there as well. I promise you each episode of this podcast will contain valuable insights and tangible examples of best practices. Never theory. From thought leaders, experts and owners who have done exactly what you’re working hard to do. So I want you to think practical and tactical. Never any fluff. Each of our guests have built a position of authority and then monetize that position by claiming their ground, by growing their audience, by nurturing leads, and yes, by converting sales.

But all the while they did it by being helpful. So every time someone from their audience turned around there, they were given a helpful answer to an important question. So their prospects never, ever, ever felt like a prospect. I also promise you every strategy we discuss, every tool we recommend will be shared in full transparency in each episode.

Learn more on how to attract clients by listening to “Step 1: Filling Your Sales Pipeline with Right-Fit Clients, with Erik Jensen.”

How to Attract Clients: Erik Jensen’s Introduction

So you can plant your flag of authority, you can claim your ground, and you can fill your sales pipeline with that steady stream of right fit clients who never, ever, ever were made to feel like they were one of your prospects. Okay, so I’m excited for you to meet our very special guest expert today, Erik Jensen. In case you’re meeting Erik for the first time, he’s my business partner here.

Predictive. And we’ve worked alongside each other for the last ten plus years and you probably know maybe he has a depth of expertise in helping agency owners, business coaches and strategic consultants go deep into their niche to build their authority position and then create the right content strategy that helps them grow their audience, nurture leads. And as I said a minute or two ago, increased sales without a prospect ever being made to feel like they were one of your prospects, because no one, no one ever wants to feel like they were a prospect and that someone had set a goal to quote unquote convert them into becoming a new client.

But oftentimes, Erik and I have conversations with owners and coaches and consultants, and we’re asked questions like, Hey, how do I get my list to buy more of my stuff? And like we talked about in last week’s episode, any time we let our thoughts go to getting or our list or buy, instead of being focused on helping our clients and prospects solve a business issue or challenge, they care about that.

How to Attract Clients: Increase Your Sales Using the Right Framework

Our thoughts, words and actions make it pretty clear that we’re more about selling for our benefit and not helping them for their benefit. Okay, so let’s put a pin in that for just a second, because what might seem like sort of weird irony is you’ll hear the focus of my discussion with Erik today is actually about selling.

I know that’s weird, right? Because it’s important but it’s important about offering your clients and prospects what we call the hero offer. Because when you do that and you do it in the right way at the right time, and candidly, in most cases, you’ll be asked by someone to share the details of what’s included in your offer because you served it up in the right way at the right time, then offering up what we call the hero offer doesn’t feel like selling at all because if you follow the recipe that Erik and I lay out today, you’ll build your hero offer in such a way that it’s all about solving an important business issue for your client in not driving revenue for you. But just to be clear, and again, maybe this is ironic. That doesn’t mean your hero offer is a loss leader and not profitable. It actually is profitable because it’s strategically priced and strategically linked with your full value ladder. Okay. Lastly, before we dive in, let’s quickly loop back to last week.

Erik and I talked about three variables as a starting point for solving the equation of increasing sales. The first variable is who. So we covered who last week in episode 27. So if you missed that, we’ll include a link in today’s show notes. The second variable is the what? That’s the hero offer and that’s what we’re going to cover today.

And then the third variable is how which will be focused on next week. And as always, in full transparency, we’ll share all the examples and the helpful frameworks. So why are we focusing on these three fundamentals in these three episodes? Because no matter how long you’ve been running your business, no matter how much experience you have, no matter how successful you’ve been, if you lose sight of the fundamentals, we lose our way and we start showing up as Buy more of my stuff.

How to Attract Clients: Narrowing Your Options

And whether by accident or not, when we show up that way, I assure you it feels like a whole lot of not awesome for your clients prospects and audience. So think of those who what in how episodes. That’s the starting block. Okay, Without further ado, welcome to the Sell with Authority podcast. Erik Thanks, Stephen. I am excited to be back again and it’s fun to be diving through this series because obviously this is something that we see on the front lines and in the trenches all the time working alongside clients.

And so hopefully the perspective that we’ve got is going to be valuable for our listeners. Yes, agreed. And I think the point of view or lens that you bring to this conversation is a unique one because you’re in the trenches every single day working through strategic and tactical issues, as I should have said, you’re the chief strategy officer here at Predictive.

How to attract clients is something that I should put in the introduction. I don’t know why in the world I haven’t. But anyway, because of that unique chief Canary in the coal mine. Right. Well, okay, so we laugh about that sometimes, Right. But sometimes you’re the first one to raise your hand and say, yup, I’ll jump into that mine not knowing where it goes or what it leads to or what the oxygen level is or whatever, because you believe so firmly in experimentation and finding what works and all of that.

And because of that, you have this really unique lens of being in the trenches with clients working through very difficult things. So before we dive into kind of the main components of what makes a hero offer a hero offer and then break all that stuff down, everyone in granularity, let’s go, let’s go high level, let’s go 30,000 foot view, whatever way you want to describe that and then give us an overview in your opinion of what the HERO offer is like 30,000 foot view.

Got it. So, okay, a hero offer is simply the offer you are intentionally leading with as your best product or service. It’s where you expect and want most customers to begin. So big because all of us have sales and marketing materials that are going out. We need to have a focus because the more options you have, the less likely a prospect or lead is to become a client.

How to Attract Clients: Avoid Overwhelming Clients

So decision overwhelm is a real issue and it stops sales from happening. So a HERO offer is really about being able to cut away all of the extraneous decisions that someone needs to be able to make in order to know or to make the decision to work with you. And again, we’re not just kind of making that stuff up, right?

Yes, we do see that on the front lines. But there’s been a lot of research about this, too, Right. That decision is absolutely a reason why people don’t make a purchase. So like epic servers, 46% of customers fail to complete a purchase online because of overwhelming choices. And another study conducted by Columbia University, this one was actually really cool.

They put out 24 jars of jam, like what you’d spread on bread and 60% of customers would stop and get a sample, but only 3% would actually buy. So they did the experiment again and they only did six jams instead of 24, and only 40% of people stopped right? So fewer people stopped. Yeah, but of those that stopped, 30% instead of 3% purchased a jar right now.

So it’s this difference just because you have many choices and just because you’re having many conversations about those choices does not mean that you’re actually going to be selling anything because making the final choice, putting the money down in order to buy something is where the rubber hits the road. And what we know is if you have too many choices, you’re not going to have an easier time doing that.

Plus, it just complicates your marketing, your sales conversations, your materials, how your sales team is talking about it, how you onboard people. Like we can, we can go on about all the other benefits. But even if it only solved the one problem, the decision to overwhelm her offer is really a great way to focus and change the way you go about business.

How to Attract Clients: The Abundance of Choice

Okay. I think that that’s fascinating for a few reasons. But the one that I’ll bring up here is a great illustration based on the data on how the abundance of choice, counterintuitive as it may seem with the abundance of choice, actually works against you. Right. Well, and we won’t go into this today. I know that you’ve talked about this before.

This is obviously something that I demonstrate with our clients on a regular basis. There’s a really simple graphic that shows it. But the three choices are really kind of the sweet spot. Three pieces of information is the sweet spot as far as presenting someone. And I know that Columbia University research went down to six, but I think in most cases, especially with complicated purchases, which is the case for most agencies, coaches and consultants or larger purchases, kind of about three options is about right.

And we see this borne out when it comes to like SAS programs and good better best programs and all those other sorts of pricing models. Right. Okay. So 100% in like when you were talking about that as a pricing model, that immediately made me think of Drew McLellan from Agency Management Institute and in his I think it’s the Money Matters workshop that he teaches every year.

You know, he talks about the power of three and he’s like you come up with the middle offer first and then you move something away and decrease or pull out some of the scope. You drop it down to 20% and then you add some scope and you increase it by 35 for the upper end one. And when you see that and I’ve heard so many people argue against it, but then be willing to try it and then say holy bananas that totally does work.

Right. And it’s just because that’s how we as a species are able to navigate our surroundings and in three core pieces of information. And then obviously what ties those pieces of information together, which is three more things. Right. Is, is really that’s, that’s kind of where we comfortably max out. Yeah. Okay. So let me give that back to you as far as the high-level description and see if this is accurate or if you want to add anything else to it.

How to Attract Clients: How The “HERO Offer” Can Help Clients

Yeah. Essentially the HERO offer is something that is really simple for somebody to understand with a very clear value proposition, probably scope that is narrowly defined like, you know, exactly what the offering is. It’s not, you know, aimlessly wandering through the wilderness. And Wolf, see if we can find you a solution. Just write us the check.

And it’s and is priced in such a way that, you know, as is the agency, the coach, the consultant that is going to be profitable for you. This is not about creating a loss leader. Right. So we’re going to dive into this. There’s actually a whole set of criteria of what makes a good HERO offer.

And so I guess one of the things and I’m glad you brought it up is, yes, your HERO offer has to be helpful and useful to your clients. It’s now you can still do all of these other tactics. Right. We’re going to put that in the bucket of table stakes. Like this is a box you must check for all of your products and services.

And, you know, just keep in mind that customers don’t buy stuff. Yeah, they buy outcomes. And so you need to be making sure that the products and the services that you’re bringing to market are creating outcomes for your clients. Yeah, I, I love that because you and I know we obviously have these conversations, I should say you and I know that we have these conversations because we’re the ones having the conversations there.

But it’s like you know, we came up with this great idea for this thing, and now we just need to get people to buy it. And then when you start peeling the onion about why the thing or the offering or the service or whatever was created, you start to see the intent behind it.

How to Attract Clients: Know What Works and What Doesn’t

And then of course, I’m doing this sort of blanket statement, and I know that that’s not an absolute, so please don’t be offended by that. But it’s like when you sometimes when we peel that layer back, it’s more about whoever the service provider is and less about, to your point, solving a critical business issue or challenge.

You and I had. We often have this conversation of how do I get my client to care more about programmatic? You know, just as an example, like programmatic media buying, they don’t think they care about their business issue or challenge. Your job is to teach them how you can be helpful and maybe programmatic can be helpful in solving that business business issue or challenge.

But when we lead with programmatic it is so amazing, let me tell you how and why it gets lost in the clutter right? It does, yeah. And so, you know, if you feel like we’re beating anybody who’s listening, all of these lessons are because we’ve made the mistakes, too, and not just once. I would love to say that we’re quick learners, but we’re not.

And so we’ve had to make these mistakes time and time again. And until we finally, like, sat down and like, why does this keep happening? Right? Why does this keep being a struggle or why does this keep failing? And so these lessons, fortunately, we also get a lot of insights from working alongside a lot of other agencies, coaches and consultants.

And so we see these problems come up again and again and again. So you get a pretty big sample size. And so we’re able to go, okay, here’s here’s the trend, here’s the reason why. And so, you know, these criteria that we’re talking through, that’s not based out of us just making this stuff up that’s this based out of lessons learned from what we’ve seen working and what we see, not working alongside a whole lot of organizations over the course of, you know, a decade plus women.

How to Attract Clients: What Are the Criteria for A Good “HERO Offer”

So let’s go into some of the criteria. So let’s now go from a high level. Let’s go into high level and think a little bit. And I guess some of this is still strategic. Some of it is certainly tactical. And I know that when you’ve broken down the recipe for creating your offer, it’s kind of like three ingredients, three chunks or whatever.

So take us through now kind of an eye level breakdown of the HERO offer. Okay. So the three big chunks that we’re going to be talking through are obviously the criteria for the hero offer, right? So these are the things that we’re going to try to make sure that our hero offers, they’re all parts of the hero offer.

You’re not going to get all of them right. And that’s fine. You’re just going to try to put as many of them in as possible because the more of these that you have in there just you know, the more goodness your hero offer is going to have the the other big chunk that we’re going to be talking through is is really the the value proposition for the hero offer.

Okay. So that’s going to be like, what is the problem that you’re solving? How or where are the testimonies of case studies to back this up? What’s the short term versus long term outcomes, etc.? And then and then we’re going to be talking through the measures for success because your hero offer needs to be able to demonstrate the work that you’re doing.

Okay. So that’s really great. And I should mention, too, before we step into this, that this is actually a worksheet. So Erik and I are actually looking at this worksheet right now as we’re as we’re breaking this down in this conversation. That worksheet is available or or will be depending upon the timing of this episode.

How to Attract Clients: Breaking Down the Criteria for the “HERO Offer”

But if you go to PredictiveROI.com, you’ll be able to download for free of course this worksheet on how to attract clients so you can see this whole thing, this whole recipe again in full transparency just like I promised in the introduction. So anyway, I just wanted you to know that that’s a free resource that’s coming along with this episode.

Okay, So let’s go to criteria first. Erik, how would you break down criteria? Got it. Okay. So here’s the main criteria that we know matters. Okay? I’m not I’m not saying that this is an exhaustive list, but I’m saying that if you go through these and you try to capture as many of these things with your hero offer as possible, you’re probably going to be in a pretty good position.

So the first thing is, HERO offers tend to be relatively short. So they’re 60 to 90 days because again, this is the product that you’re leading with. This is your first thing that you’re putting out there. And what it does, it makes it easier to say, yes. What I’m agreeing is to go get coffee with you.

How to Attract Clients: The Experience of Working with Predictive ROI

I’m not agreeing to go get married to you. All right. Okay. And so a HERO offer is naturally a little bit easier to say yes to if the time frame is smaller. Think about anything else in your life. Right. It’s a whole lot easier to commit to a month or two or three versus a year or two or three.

Right. And so that’s one of the things is aim for this being achievable in kind of a 60 to 90 day time frame. If you come back to me and say, Erik, there’s no way we can do it in 60 to 90 days, I would say, okay, fair enough. That might be true. Or it might be that you’re trying to put £10 of stuff in a £5 bag.

So what can be pulled out? Okay, So that’s interesting. Literally just yesterday and you and I actually haven’t had a chance to to chat about this, but I had a conversation and at the same time, I had had a conversation with a prospective starting block member, somebody who was considering starting a blog here at Predictive. And so he asked me, okay, so how long of a commitment?

And I said, Well, 90 days. We want to see you go through and work alongside Erik and in our team for 90 days and get involved in the program, the training and all of that and participate in the events for 90 days. There’s a 90 day guarantee. If you don’t feel like it was helpful, you know, no questions asked or we’ll give you your money back.

And he was relieved. And I said, okay, tell me a little bit more about that. And he goes, he is I needed to ask because I thought maybe it was like a 36 month commitment. And I’m like, my gosh, no. And so then knowing that it was 90 days to your point that it’s short, achievable, it’s you’re not getting married you’re easier to say yes to.

And that was a great proof point for me yesterday in that conversation with him. Right. And so this is really important, especially with agencies, coaches and consultants, because one of the things we hear all the time is what makes you different? Well, we’re here to help clarify things. We think strategically. We’re a full service marketing agency. We really dig into their problems.

Like, these are all phrases that I hear probably about five times a day. Okay. And so ultimately what it gets down to is people like, well, they’ll know that we’re different when they work with us and they get to experience what it is like, okay, well, that might be true. Might not be, but let’s say that is true.

How to Attract Clients: The Importance of Thinking Upfront with Your Offers

Well, then you got to get them to work with you and be able to actually experience what that’s like. Right? So if you truly are that amazing to work with, then make it easy for people to work with you where you can. You can show what they’ve been missing out on and that they’re going to love you and they’re going to continue to work with you well into the future.

Amazing. So what are some of the other criteria in your mind? Yeah. Okay. And we sort of covered this a little bit, but all of this mentioned it again, and that is that middle offer in most cases, if you can make it, you know, the mama bear offer is, as Drew likes to call that. Right. It’s not too hot, not too cold.

It’s just great. So the middle offer as far as pricing or value ladder is always good, but your hero offer is going to end up as either your lower price offering or your middle price offering. Your offer will not end up as your highest priced offering. Look, okay, That’s the one thing you can for sure say is that it should not end up as your highest price because again, we’re talking about ease of saying yes.

Is it easier to say something that is, you know, the highest price thing that someone can buy? Or is it easier to say yes to something that is, you know, lower price or middle price? The reason why we talk about it being middle price is because a lot of times HERO offers have to do with strategic things. It’s the thinking they’re buying.

You’re thinking because very few of us can do our work without thinking upfront. Okay. Which kind of leads into that naturally that one of the next criteria, right, is that it acts as a filter to prevent more work with wrong fit clients. Okay. So that sounds like there’s a bunch of layers there.

How to Attract Clients: Don’t Burn Out Yourself with The Wrong Client

So tell us more about what you’re talking about. Yeah. Okay. And obviously, if anybody, you know, has been this client to others or things along those lines, I don’t mean this in a bad way, but all of us have been there where we have had a client we have wanted to help, or maybe we just said yes to a client because we needed the cash flow.

Okay, that’s just the realities of business. And it ended up being the crazy bag of a cat client. And just like our client we’re saying is, you know, it’s uncomfortable to necessarily agree for a really long term to do something. Sometimes we find that we’ve signed a yearlong or a two year long contract with the client that we really don’t want to be working with for a year or two years because we scoped it wrong and it’s not profitable.

We agreed to stuff that quite frankly, we’re not very good at it in the moment of desperation, we realize that they’re super indecisive or they can’t get their part done or, you know, whatever it happens to be. It’s just that it ends up being a wrong fit client. Whenever it’s around the client, it is not a profitable client. Okay?

You’re going to burn out the team, you’re going to burn out yourself. You’re going to put in additional work that takes away from the amount of profit that you’re getting from it, etc.. So a good hero offer gives you a chance to test whether or not a client is able to do the thing. So again, let’s let’s take that back to doing the strategic work upfront, the foundational work upfront.

How to Attract Clients: Doing Great Work in A Very Constrained Way

Many agencies, coaches and consultants need to get clients to work through some mental frameworks, make a date, dig into assumptions, you know, start talking through the language or the messaging that they want to use. All those are the sorts of things, Well, if you’re doing that work and you find out maybe there’s not much depth to what it is that they have, maybe their offer is bad, maybe their culture is terrible, and that’s not something that you help them solve, Right?

All these other sorts of things the hero offer can help you do that stuff so that you can do great work in a very constrained way because it has to be constrained. You said you’re going to get it done in 60 to 90 days and there’s no chance for school creep here, right? You’re going to be able to focus on what you do well and then you get a reset.

You get to say, hey, either we do want to continue to work together or you know what? We’re good. Let’s move on. Okay. I know that just because of time constraints, we need to move into a value proposition. They just haven’t been measuring success. Yes. Well, and that’s what I was just going to ask you. So is there anything else in this criteria that you think is really important before we move into the value proposition?

My gosh. Okay. So I obviously like profitability, pricing. That’s a whole other thing that will take too long to go through in this particular. But just no, I mean, like obviously that’s a big part of what we go through with clients. But there’s one that people forget about scalability. Okay. So if you think about your hero offer, ideally you want your hero offer to be something that you can sell a lot of.

How to Attract Clients: Conversation Framework in Getting the Client Onboard

Okay. And so scalability usually comes with our staffing. Okay. And so my question is that I put out to folks and by the way, we’re bad at this. We actually are bad at this particular criteria. So just know that’s what I’m saying. You get them All right. But let’s say it takes you two months to be able to bring someone in, train them to be able to execute on delivering this hero offer that’s pretty scalable.

Okay. Now, what happens if it takes you three years to be able to recruit and train someone to be able to deliver this hero offer, not scalable, right? So if this is what you’re pushing and this is what you’re leading with, if it is not scalable, you automatically throttle the growth of your business. Yup. So that I think is an important criteria to keep.

There’s like three or four more. But yeah, and I’m glad that you mentioned it because that is a big 100% right. So again, if you’re if you’re listening to this now, obviously you’re listening to this, you’re hearing me say this for Pete’s sake, stating the obvious, right? PredictiveROI.com/what you’ll have the worksheet that Erik and I are working from right now is the framework for this conversation.

So PredictiveROI.com/what the free worksheet okay let’s go through I know you’ve defined a value proposition kind of like five sub ingredients if that’s the right way to say so let’s go through value prop and why you think it’s such an important part of the overall HERO offer recipe. Great. So these are really the five questions I think we can get through pretty quickly.

They’re easier to talk about than they are to answer in most cases. So the first one is what problem or hurdle are you solving for your client? Yeah. In other words, why are they going to hire you? What’s the business problem? And again, I and anybody who’s your beat dog has probably heard me say this a dozen times.

How to Attract Clients: Solving a Business Problem of Your Client

I apologize if you’re able to say it again, you have to be solving a business problem. That is the reason why someone hires you. Is that a business problem not because of some business tactic that they want to do. So the example that I usually give is a website. A website is a tactical solution to a business problem. Not having a website is not the business problem.

The business problem is people don’t know how to find me. I don’t have a way to grow my list. I’m having to spend way more time and energy and phone calls and staffing up because people have to call in order to get answers to questions rather than going to the website and getting those questions, the web, the website tactically and deals with many of the business problems.

Okay, so what problem, what business problem or hurdle are you solving for your client with your hero offer? Right. Because again, they’re buying an outcome. They’re not buying stuff. Websites and stuff. What’s the outcome that they’re actually buying? What is the short term outcome your client can achieve with this? So that’s the next question. And again, that really puts you in a little bit of a box for some folks and they find it uncomfortable because what they want to do is they want to say, well, when we get done with this stuff, they’re going to have clarity.

Okay, but how does that measurable outcome in the short term? Clarity? Let’s measure that embrace. Right? So unless you’ve got a creative way to be able to measure that, it’s not what we mean by this. So what we mean is what is a measurable outcome that can prove to your client that the work alongside of you is doing what it’s supposed to do is leading to that outcome and is getting those wins so they can comfortably go, okay, if you guys can do this in 60 to 90 days, what would you be able to do when we work together longer?

How to Attract Clients: Demonstrate How You Work on A Solution

Well, like you shared last week in last week’s episode, that part of Sally being our right fit client, Avatar, you talked about how she has literally said to us, Prove to me that it’s working and prove to me that it’s working quickly so that that I can trust that you’re delivering on what you promised. If you take 60 to 90 days to create a subtle win, then trust in, you know, starts to not be built, or trust starts to languish.

Promise starts to look like it’s under delivered upon. So by being able to create fast wins and they don’t have to be earth moving wins, but creating some fast wins is important for confidence. Right. And you make a good point. This is not about shifting their entire business, but this is about them having demonstrated important moves based on the work that someone is doing alongside of you that they can clearly and easily see ties to the longer term strategies that you’re able to deliver later on.

So and then what is the long term outcome that your client can achieve? So let’s just imagine that when you know, you finish with a 60, 90 days, what are they going to be able to run with even on their own now? And if they continue to do this, what is that outcome going to be?

So again, you can demonstrate to them like it looks, we got short term wins. Yes. But we also made long term strategic changes with your organization or the way that you do things. And this is what it’s going to snowball into, Right. So it might be something as simple as, hey, let’s talk about how your pricing changed. We now demonstrated to you a way that you can charge, I don’t know, $5 more a widget.

How to Attract Clients: How The “HERO Offer” Will Change the Business Long-Term

All right. Let’s just say that was the thing. Okay? Short term is, hey, look at that. You guys sold five new products five more times and you made $5 more each time. Short term wins you virtual high five. Right. But then what you can do is you can say, okay, now let’s tie that to the long term win.

Let’s extrapolate that out. What does that mean over the course of a year? What does that mean over the course of a decade? Now all of a sudden, your work that they paid for, it’s like, okay, I paid $15,000 for this work, $20,000 for this work. And you just demonstrated to me that over the next three years or five years, I’m going to make $150,000 off of this investment with you.

Well, okay, So a tangible example. You were in the trenches with one of our sprinters, our 90 day sprint. That’s our hero offer here, everyone. And in the conversation around pricing, what that person should charge or what their business should charge, one of their clients. And we took them where our suggestion was: let’s take that normal price of $25,000.

Their fee for their version of their hero offer list for exit. Let’s see what happens because that company was worth it. The scope of work was worth it. Let’s charge $100,000 and or let’s suggest that which is probably getting heart palpitations. That right? Well, 100%. And you know what? That person whose business went forward, presented to the client that it was going to be $100,000 for the stock work.

Client said, yes, that business will now be forever changed. Yeah. So and again, that’s the short term win. Then you extrapolate that out and you say like, okay, what does that look like as far as wins across the board? Now for an annual client, just normal, let’s say nothing else changes, continue to get the normal number of clients or even half the number of clients, right.

How to Attract Clients: Provide Case Studies to Show Your Process Works

Half the number of clients and four times the price is still good math. Right? So those are things what we’re talking about is like short term outcome, long term outcome. And then one of the things that is really important with these higher offers is how you can demonstrate what it would look like to continue working with your client.

So how are you? What we usually describe this as is how are you painting the picture of the future? How are you making sure that they don’t run out of runway? So what you don’t want to do is you don’t want to create a higher offer that you get to the end of it and you’re like, tie it in a bow and you’re like, Cool, I’m done.

And we’ll see around right? It should be setting the stage for the other work that you can do. And by the way, that also gets into pricing, which I know we’re not going to have time to cover today, but the pricing should also naturally lead into what’s next. And then the final thing is really kind of the testimonials in the case.

That is we call this the gold medal. You know, we’re starting like we have a lot of references to running in our terminology, but a good hero offer also has testimonials and case studies to say this is what you can expect. Well, why? Because it makes a whole lot easier to sell. So this is going to be a reasonable investment.

It’s going to be over a short time. We have clear outcomes, short term we have clear outcomes long term. We have testimonials and case studies demonstrating that we can do this work really, really well. It feels like a natural and easy way to start. All of these things make it so that a prospect or a lead can look at that and go, Yeah, all right, this seems risk free or considerably less risky than it would to go.

How to Attract Clients: Finalizing What The “HERO Offer” Is All About

I’m going to sign a really expensive contract for one or two years with vague outcomes, a timeline that feels so long. I mean, like, gosh, a month from now and feels like an even right month ago. Seems like it was a year ago. And so, like, all these things become higher risk when you don’t have these things in place.

So the hero offer is really about designing a product that has low risk. Or when I think about it from a purely business development perspective, like in the trenches as sales work, which you know, that’s my lane here. Production exactly is like these five things that you just served up. Those are the things that I would then talk about.

I wouldn’t talk about features, advantages and benefits of the, you know, in the typical sort of specifications, if you will, of the HERO offer. I would talk about the hurdle. These are the problems that we’re going to help you solve. I’m going to talk about the 100 yard dash. I’m going to talk about the fast winds. Again, not earth moving winds potentially, or game changing winds, but it’s like I’m going to talk about the 100 yard dash.

I’m going to talk about how we’re going to add fast winds. I’m going to talk about what success looks like at the finish line and then the training for the marathon. Like you just said. Like what? How are we going to help our client then not run out of future? What’s next after the 90 day sprint using that specific example?

And then and then lastly, the social proof, making it really, really easy to say yes to you because of, you know, demonstrable success from other clients that you can point to and in full transparency make introductions with so they can do your prospective client can do invent you and do their full due diligence and feel like, okay, I’m making a good decision.

How to Attract Clients: Measuring Your Success

Right. And just because I know you and you know how your brain works, because we’ve worked together a long time, when you’re talking about the short term wins, in the long term wins, you’re going to use that as the opportunity to talk about testimonials in a case course, right? Because again, to say this is what we’re aiming for for you.

And the reason we aim for this for you is because this is what we typically see. So it doesn’t feel like afterwards you’re shoving me. See, I won an award right in someone’s face. It really is naturally part of the sales process. And you’re right. And that’s what it’s all about, right? So it’s how can we design a product or service that has the right criteria that we’re giving our our sales team or our sales person?

Or maybe that’s ourselves, right? The right things to be able to talk about. And then the third thing is measure for success. Yeah. So the next piece or bucket of stuff because when you frame up a conversation like that again, the whole point of this conversation is, yes, this is how you structure the HERO offer. And so when you’re talking about it or when you’re asked to talk about it, it never feels like by my stuff, by my staff, you know, it never sounds self-serving.

It’s about problem solving. So I know we only have a few minutes left. So this is the measure. I’ll be really short. So bring us in for a landing with the measures. Awesome. So this is not a big surprise. We have mentioned measurement several times as far as outcomes and they need to be measurable. So there’s really three things to keep in mind.

And we just make sure that people have these things down is what’s the baseline that they’re starting with. So that way they are with a client, they need to know what the baseline is, What is our short term success key metric like what are we looking to measure with the client and then what are our long term measures of success?

How to Attract Clients: Do A Final Check to Ensure You’re Delivering True Outcomes

What are we looking for? So again, when you’re designing this product of this service, really this is the final like check. It’s the test, it’s the litmus test to make sure that what you’re doing is delivering true outcomes. Because if you can’t answer the questions around measures, then my guess is your or what we typically see is not my guess.

What we typically see is if you can’t answer those questions, your hero offer is probably vague, undefined, or doesn’t have a real concrete outcome that you’re aiming for. A super smart partner. As always, thank you very much for sharing your insights. Before we go and say goodbye, the best way to connect with you. Okay, best way to connect with me.

So there’s always LinkedIn. It is. You can look up Erik Jensen, Erik G and CRM. You’re going to want to put Predictive into that Google search as well because there’s like a thousand of us just in every state. But if you look for me on LinkedIn, you’ll be able to find me there. You can always email me.

Erik I can’t predict a bright outcome. I really do. I’m happy to answer questions and things like that, and I enjoy being able to help folks. And then my favorite thing is actually when people sign up for our quiz so they’re free, they’re a great community. We teach for 10 to 15 minutes and then we open it up to questions.

How to Attract Clients: Take The “HERO Offer” Recipe and Apply It

Seriously, I feel like we take as much out of those sessions as anybody else, but that’s predictiveROI.com forward slash Q & A as in question answer. So Q & A and then you can just register and hop on. It’s pretty fun. Awesome. Okay, everyone, no matter how many notes you took or how often you go back and relisten to Erik’s words of wisdom, which I sure hope that you do.

The key is you have to take everything. You have to take this recipe for the hero offer that he’s so generously shared with you. Take it and apply it. Build your own, and start sharing it with clients, prospects and your audience. So, Erik, thank you again for saying yes for coming onto the show. Being our mentor and guide, I look forward to our conversation next week for the third ingredient in this starting block recipe.

But thank you so much for today, my friend. Absolutely. This was a blast and I apologize for anybody that if I’m talking too fast, I know that there’s a ton of stuff to cover, so you probably don’t even have to speed up this episode.