Stop creating new offers before fixing your current sales problem

* Transcript created by AI – may contain errors or omissions from original podcast audio

One of the biggest things I see with business owners, particularly smart, ambitious business owners like yourself, is that we as entrepreneurs are very good at coming up with ideas. And so if something isn’t selling the way that you hoped or maybe, you’re wanting to scale and go to that next level, instead of actually diagnosing what the real problem is, you think, “Maybe I need to create something new.”

So today I wanna talk to you about whether creating a new offer is the right thing to be doing or whether there is a core problem that you need to be addressing before you dive in and create something new to sell. If any of this sounds familiar, make sure you stick around and have a listen.

Welcome to the Intentional Money Show, where we talk business growth, profitability, mindset, and building a wildly successful creative or digital business without sacrificing your life in the process. I’m Clare Wood, business profit coach, speaker, author, and unapologetic believer that you can build wealth and freedom doing work you genuinely love.

Each week on the podcast, we dive into the strategies and honest conversations that will help you scale sustainably, increase your profit, and build a business that actually feels good to run. Let’s grow your profit.

So is this new sexy offer something that you do need to pursue or is there a core problem that you need to diagnose in your existing offers first? Now, sometimes there really is a true offer problem. Sometimes the market’s changed. Sometimes people just don’t want what you’re selling anymore. Now, I’m not saying that you should never create something new because sometimes creating something new is a very smart  strategic move.

But what I am seeing is that a lot of the time creating something new is not the strategy. It’s just avoiding the uncomfortable truth of what is really going on. Now, let’s be honest, creating something new feels really fun. I love that dopamine hit of coming up with a new name, a new sales page, creating a whole new product or offer.

And, a lot of entrepreneurs, I think it’s something like 80% of female entrepreneurs have ADHD. And maybe you don’t have an official diagnosis, but I bet that you can relate to loving the bright, shiny object and having heaps of ideas. We are ideas machines, and we convince ourselves that this next thing is the thing.

This new offer will be easier. The new price point will be easier. The new audience will be easier. The new market. And sometimes that is true, but a lot of the times we’re just avoiding that deeper uncomfortable work of fixing the thing that’s already in front of us.

And look, I am the first person to stick my hand up and say fixing the actual core root of a problem is not always fun. It requires getting honest with your, your sales numbers or your messaging. It really is sometimes just the uncomfortable process of chipping away layer by layer and figuring out what’s going on.

And it’s just not really that glamorous as compared to whipping up a brand new offer and telling yourself that this bright new shiny object is going to be the thing. So here’s an uncomfortable truth that I wanna share with you. If you are not good at selling your current offer, there is a pretty good chance that you are not magically gonna become good at selling a new one.

And again, I am saying this from experience because sometimes we think, “If I create the new thing, it’s gonna be a lot easier.” I know that, you can have a $5,000 product that’s not selling at quite the rate that you want it to, and you think, “I know, let’s sell something that’s $50.” And you find it just as hard to sell that $50 thing. And here’s the kicker. If you were shifting from, having this high price point offer and you, I’m gonna sell something at a low price, is that you actually need to sell a hell of a lot more of the low price thing to make the same amount of money.

When you’re creating something new and you haven’t fixed the marketing or the sales process, you haven’t solved the core problem. You’ve just created a different version of it. And this is why you have to be numbers led before you go down the path of creating something new. You need to just stop guessing and actually look at the data.

Like, how many leads do you actually have coming in? What are your conversion rates? How many sales calls are you doing? What’s your email open rate? How many people that you have a sales conversation with are actually converting? Find out where your current potential clients are dropping off because these numbers will start to tell you what the real problem is.

An example of this, you might be emailing your list and your open rate is sitting, below 25%, and you are thinking, “I just need to reach more people.” But the truth is, your current audience isn’t even seeing the offer that you’re sharing. And so creating a new offer, you’re still gonna be in the same boat.

Or there might be a top of funnel problem. You might need to focus on getting more eyeballs or expanding your audience before you go and create another offer. Or perhaps you’re in the other boat.

Maybe you are getting heaps of leads. People are watching your content, they’re booking calls, they’re coming along to your webinar or however it is that you sell, but they’re not converting. And then this tells me something different again. It tells me there might be a messaging problem, a sales problem, a pricing problem, or a trust problem.

Maybe the way that you are selling is not actually truly demonstrating the transformation that you offer. But regardless of what this is showing you, again, the solution isn’t necessarily building something new. It might be fixing the way that you are selling what you already have.

This is why I’m a big believer in having a monthly metric meeting. Once a month, sit down and look at the stats in your marketing. This isn’t just looking at your P&L, actually going, “How many new leads have I got?” across all your social media platforms. “How many people are joining my email list? How many people are opening my emails?

How many people have booked calls? How many people have converted?” Look what is selling and figure out where the sales process or your marketing funnel is getting stuck.

Now, I know a lot of people have resistance to looking at numbers and stats and metrics, but these aren’t here to shame you. They’re here to show you where the problem actually is. And this is a really important shift if you’re stepping into that next level of business. You can’t just keep thinking, “I need a new offer,” or, “I need a new product,” without actually looking at the evidence.

Because I hate to say it, but business is boring at times. And sometimes we have to keep doing the hard thing again and again until we get really good at it. And that’s why being numbers led means that you get good at diagnosing the true issue rather than avoiding it and trying to create something new and put a Band-Aid on the core problem.

So before you launch something new, here’s some things to ask yourself. Firstly, why am I launching this? Is there genuine demand? Have people asked me for this?

Does it solve a problem your audience already cares about? Or are you just creating it because you’re bored? Are you creating it because you’re avoiding selling the thing that you already have? Maybe it feels boring or uncomfortable to promote your existing offers. Are you creating it because you’re convinced that if you find something new or if you’ve got a different price point, then it’s gonna be a lot easier than fixing what isn’t working right now.

Like I said, again, it’s not to say don’t ever create new products or services or offers, but just be careful when you go about doing it. One last thing that would be remiss of me to not talk about, being the money gal, is I want you to think about profit. Because sometimes when you create something new, there’s a lot of time, energy, effort, costs that go into building it.

The teams working on it, the marketing, the messaging. And all of that energy and financial resources could have actually gone into improving the profitability of what already exists. And again, I say this from a place of experience. I love creating new things, and I’ve learned the hard way that might not be the most profitable way to grow your business.

 One other thing that I wanna talk about is if you do wanna go and create a new offer, you need to be really mindful of your capacity. One other thing that I wanna remind you about if you are wanting to create a new offer is you need to check your actual capacity. Do you and the team actually have the bandwidth to deliver this new thing as well? Because new offers create complexity. You need to be having more sales conversations, more systems, onboarding, team training.

And if your business is already feeling heavy, adding another offer might not give you that relief. It might actually give you even more challenges.

Sometimes we think if I’m selling more things, I’ll make more money. But sometimes it has the opposite effect, and I see this with clients of mine. I’m like, “Whoa, there’s so many different things to buy here. People might come here and not even know what the right thing for them is.” And there’s a saying, “A confused mind doesn’t buy.

Often more offers actually creates more confusion and your audience doesn’t know which of the things is right for them.

This is why the most commercially strong businesses actually have a very simple business model. They’re very clear on who they serve, they’re clear on the problem they solve, and they’re clear on the transformation they create. They’re not constantly reinventing themself every five minutes.

They’re actually willing to diagnose and refine what they’re currently selling properly before they decide something’s broken.

So to sum up today’s episode, if you’re sitting here thinking, “Maybe I just need to create something new,” I just want you to pause. Not forever, just long enough to be honest with yourself and ask yourself whether this new offer is a smart strategic decision or whether you’re just avoiding a deeper uncomfortable truth.

Often the most profitable move isn’t to add something else. It’s to fix what already exists

Thanks so much for tuning in to today’s episode of the Intentional Money Show with me, Clare Wood. I hope you have a wonderful and profitable week, and I look forward to chatting to you again next week.

Thank you so much for tuning in to today’s episode of the Intentional Money Show. If you’re ready for more profit, come find me on Instagram at clare_wood_coach. Thanks so much for tuning into the podcast, and I’ll chat to you again next week

* Transcript created by AI – may contain errors or omissions from original podcast audio