1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:03,319 I've spent so much time creating it. I don't want all that time to 2 00:00:03,399 --> 00:00:06,799 have been a waste. But the thing is that you have already invested that 3 00:00:06,879 --> 00:00:11,960 time. You can keep investing more time into something that's not serving your business 4 00:00:12,240 --> 00:00:16,559 long term, or you can completely change tech and you can say, well, 5 00:00:16,600 --> 00:00:19,679 I'm going to put my time and energy into something that is going to 6 00:00:19,760 --> 00:00:24,920 work, that is going to serve my business long term. Welcome to Imperfect 7 00:00:24,920 --> 00:00:28,399 Action. I'm Steph Taylor. For years, I read all the books, 8 00:00:28,480 --> 00:00:32,920 downloaded all the freebies, and did all the courses, but it wasn't until 9 00:00:32,920 --> 00:00:37,359 I started taking imperfect action that my business had its first million dollars. Here, 10 00:00:38,560 --> 00:00:44,399 imperfect action is about doing things before you're ready, prioritizing consistent action over 11 00:00:44,439 --> 00:00:48,840 perfect action, and moving forward even when you're not sure you're doing it right. 12 00:00:49,880 --> 00:00:53,840 On this show, you can expect mindset advice, actionable marketing tips and 13 00:00:53,880 --> 00:00:58,039 strategies to build a business that brings you more profit, more freedom, and 14 00:00:58,200 --> 00:01:03,040 even more joy. You want the list to get my daily businesses. Every 15 00:01:03,120 --> 00:01:07,239 day, I'll send you a bite sized prompt designed to help you grow your 16 00:01:07,239 --> 00:01:11,680 business in a more intentional way. Sign up at Steph Taylor dot Co forward 17 00:01:11,680 --> 00:01:18,840 slash DBB or at the link in the show notes. Hey, welcome back 18 00:01:18,840 --> 00:01:23,239 to In Perfect Action this episode seven hundred and seventy eight. Today, I'm 19 00:01:23,439 --> 00:01:27,680 sharing a couple of ways to know if it's time to retire and offer that 20 00:01:27,799 --> 00:01:33,599 your business sells. It's really easy and really tempting to just always create more, 21 00:01:33,680 --> 00:01:36,680 add more offers. You've put one on your website, and then just 22 00:01:36,719 --> 00:01:38,159 add another one, and then that one lives on your website forever, and 23 00:01:38,200 --> 00:01:42,560 then you add another one, and you end up with so many different offers 24 00:01:42,599 --> 00:01:48,120 that your business is selling. And sometimes to grow you actually need to take 25 00:01:48,159 --> 00:01:52,200 a step back before you can move forward. You need to create that space 26 00:01:52,799 --> 00:01:56,959 for something new, for something different, even if you don't yet know what 27 00:01:57,040 --> 00:02:00,879 that is. So that's why in today's episode, I'm going to run through 28 00:02:00,920 --> 00:02:05,879 a couple of questions to ask to decide whether it's time to retire an existing 29 00:02:05,920 --> 00:02:08,879 offer in your business. Now. I've done this before a couple of times. 30 00:02:08,919 --> 00:02:14,479 I did it with my very first course that I created way back in 31 00:02:14,680 --> 00:02:21,199 twenty seventeen, so quite a while ago, and that was a course about 32 00:02:21,240 --> 00:02:27,960 Facebook ads, and ultimately my decision to retire that course was purely because I 33 00:02:28,039 --> 00:02:32,879 wasn't passionate enough about Facebook Ads to keep learning and staying up to date enough 34 00:02:34,039 --> 00:02:37,560 to then be able to pass on all of the changes that were happening in 35 00:02:37,599 --> 00:02:42,039 the course. So every time the Facebook updated something in the ads platform, 36 00:02:42,039 --> 00:02:45,000 then I needed to update the course. And I just wasn't that interested in 37 00:02:45,039 --> 00:02:49,039 Facebook Ads and the amount of work that it took to keep updating it. 38 00:02:49,680 --> 00:02:53,319 I realized, actually, this doesn't really this doesn't excite me. I don't 39 00:02:53,319 --> 00:02:58,039 want to keep selling this, so I retired it. I've done that with 40 00:02:58,159 --> 00:03:02,439 several other offers, and most recently was my Digital Product Creator's Vault, which 41 00:03:02,479 --> 00:03:07,759 was a twenty seven dollar offer that I created back during the low ticket offer 42 00:03:07,800 --> 00:03:13,439 craze in twenty twenty when everyone was creating twenty seven dollar offers and there was 43 00:03:13,520 --> 00:03:16,639 so much value in it. Like I genuinely loved this offer, and I 44 00:03:16,719 --> 00:03:21,400 thought that if people could see how much value I'd included, then it would 45 00:03:21,439 --> 00:03:24,599 make them want to join Launch Magic, which is one of my signature offers. 46 00:03:25,159 --> 00:03:30,280 But they couldn't get through all of the content in the Digital Product Creators 47 00:03:30,360 --> 00:03:34,759 Vault because I'd put so much in there. And then It ended up essentially 48 00:03:34,759 --> 00:03:38,719 cannibalizing Launch Magic because when I launched Launch Magic twice a year, people would 49 00:03:38,759 --> 00:03:43,159 say to me, well, I'll join next round because I haven't had enough 50 00:03:43,199 --> 00:03:46,360 time to go through the Digital Product Creators Vault yet. I want to go 51 00:03:46,439 --> 00:03:50,560 through that first, and then I will join launch Magic next time around when 52 00:03:50,560 --> 00:03:53,520 I'm ready to launch it. So, even though there were two very different 53 00:03:53,560 --> 00:04:00,520 offers, it was stopping people from buying the offer that I knew would really 54 00:04:00,560 --> 00:04:03,240 be the thing that they needed. So I retired it. It's obviously it's 55 00:04:03,280 --> 00:04:06,879 still available for everyone who bought it. It's still available as an upsell for 56 00:04:06,960 --> 00:04:12,120 one of my offers, but I no longer promote it to my list. 57 00:04:12,120 --> 00:04:15,319 I no longer talk about it on social media or this is the first time 58 00:04:15,319 --> 00:04:18,279 I've talked about it on this show in years, because I knew that it 59 00:04:18,319 --> 00:04:24,160 would stop people from signing up for Launch Magic, which was ultimately holding them 60 00:04:24,199 --> 00:04:28,439 back from having profitable launches. The thing that they really really needed was Launch 61 00:04:28,519 --> 00:04:31,000 Magic. The Vault was awesome and full of value, but the thing that 62 00:04:31,120 --> 00:04:35,319 was going to get them to that next level they weren't buying that. And 63 00:04:35,759 --> 00:04:40,680 it's really it's so hard retiring an offer, especially when you've put a lot 64 00:04:40,720 --> 00:04:43,360 of time and effort into creating it, like I did with the Vault. 65 00:04:43,920 --> 00:04:46,240 But it comes down to sun cost fallacy, right, And you know, 66 00:04:46,519 --> 00:04:50,000 I had to google what it actually what the definition was, because I kind 67 00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:53,759 of vaguely know what it was, but I didn't know like the technical definition 68 00:04:54,000 --> 00:04:57,439 the Google tells me. Sun cost fallacy is the phenomenon whereby a person is 69 00:04:57,519 --> 00:05:02,040 reluctant to abandon a strategy or loss of action because they have invested heavily in 70 00:05:02,120 --> 00:05:06,040 it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial. We 71 00:05:06,079 --> 00:05:12,720 see this happening in so many areas of life, and especially when it's something 72 00:05:12,720 --> 00:05:15,279 in your business that you have created, you know, especially when it's an 73 00:05:15,279 --> 00:05:16,240 offer, and you're like, oh, well, I've spent so much time 74 00:05:16,279 --> 00:05:19,439 creating it. I don't want all that time to have been a waste. 75 00:05:19,680 --> 00:05:24,399 But the thing is that you have already invested that time. You can keep 76 00:05:24,480 --> 00:05:30,040 investing more time into something that's not serving your business long term, or you 77 00:05:30,079 --> 00:05:32,319 can completely change tech and you can say, well, I'm going to put 78 00:05:32,319 --> 00:05:35,759 my time and energy into something that is going to work, that is going 79 00:05:35,839 --> 00:05:40,600 to serve my business long term? Okay, So I'm going to run through 80 00:05:40,839 --> 00:05:44,680 some questions to ask yourself to decide whether or not to retire your offer, 81 00:05:45,199 --> 00:05:47,439 And at the end, I'm also going to share two ways that you can 82 00:05:47,639 --> 00:05:51,360 retire it because I know, like when it comes to actually going about the 83 00:05:51,360 --> 00:05:55,680 process of retiring it, it can be a little bit daunting, especially if 84 00:05:55,680 --> 00:05:59,480 you've never retired an offer before. Okay, So the questions to ask number 85 00:05:59,519 --> 00:06:03,240 one, does it serve your long term vision for your business? Is this 86 00:06:03,319 --> 00:06:06,720 something that you still want to be selling five years from now? And does 87 00:06:06,720 --> 00:06:11,040 it allow you to build the kind of business that you want to have five 88 00:06:11,120 --> 00:06:14,000 years from now. So, for example, if you want to have a 89 00:06:14,160 --> 00:06:18,000 one hundred percent online course based business, but you are too busy delivering one 90 00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:23,399 on one client projects to create that first online course, then something needs to 91 00:06:23,439 --> 00:06:27,920 shift, and something needs to change. For something to change, your office 92 00:06:27,920 --> 00:06:31,680 suite is a great place to start making these kinds of changes. Intentionally designing 93 00:06:32,000 --> 00:06:38,199 the things that you sell in your business can shift. The direction can shift 94 00:06:38,560 --> 00:06:41,360 everything can shift, the amount of time you have, the amount of money 95 00:06:41,360 --> 00:06:46,120 your business makes. A small small shift here can create a huge shift, 96 00:06:46,319 --> 00:06:49,480 a huge ripple effect throughout your business. Number two, does it fit in 97 00:06:49,519 --> 00:06:53,160 with the other offers you sell? So, does it fit in with the 98 00:06:53,199 --> 00:06:58,240 rest of your offer suite? Does it play a nice part in the journey 99 00:06:58,360 --> 00:07:02,759 that you are taking your ideal client on. So often I will see a 100 00:07:02,800 --> 00:07:06,360 business with one offer that's like, here's how to grow a house plant, 101 00:07:06,680 --> 00:07:10,839 and then they've got another offer that's like, here's how to build a plant 102 00:07:10,879 --> 00:07:15,160 shop. They are completely unrelated. They are two completely different ideal clients, 103 00:07:15,639 --> 00:07:20,199 and it's going to make their messaging and their positioning really murky, really unclear. 104 00:07:20,759 --> 00:07:24,680 Right, So are you then, if you're selling both of those? 105 00:07:24,720 --> 00:07:28,720 Are you the house plant expert or are you the building a plant shop expert? 106 00:07:29,360 --> 00:07:31,000 And now if you want to sell both of those, now you need 107 00:07:31,040 --> 00:07:36,600 to attract both houseplant enthusiasts and plant shop owners, and you need to work 108 00:07:36,879 --> 00:07:41,000 to grow your audience with both of those people, and your content needs to 109 00:07:41,040 --> 00:07:45,800 speak to both of those people, and it just becomes really messy and a 110 00:07:45,800 --> 00:07:47,800 lot of extra work. The easier way to do it is to just pick 111 00:07:47,839 --> 00:07:51,879 one of those and serve them with multiple different offers. So, for example, 112 00:07:53,160 --> 00:07:55,879 how to start your plant shop, how to grow your plant shop, 113 00:07:56,040 --> 00:07:59,839 how to franchise your plant shop. I don't know the different things that they 114 00:08:00,040 --> 00:08:03,639 might be experiencing, the different problems and different desires that they might have at 115 00:08:03,680 --> 00:08:07,120 different stages of that journey. So then you're only focusing on attracting that one 116 00:08:07,120 --> 00:08:11,800 ideal client and you're taking them on a journey over time with different offers. 117 00:08:11,240 --> 00:08:15,439 Okay, Number three, Is it easy to sell? Or does selling it 118 00:08:15,480 --> 00:08:18,519 feel like a struggle? Now, if you are struggling to sell it, 119 00:08:18,519 --> 00:08:22,240 it doesn't necessarily mean that it's the wrong offer. It could be the messaging 120 00:08:22,360 --> 00:08:26,160 isn't quite landing. Maybe you're not communicating it in a way that resonates with 121 00:08:26,199 --> 00:08:30,160 your ideal client. This can happen if you're not very specific with your messaging, 122 00:08:30,199 --> 00:08:33,399 if you're trying to talk to too many different ideal clients. Then it 123 00:08:33,440 --> 00:08:37,159 could be that it could be that your sales process for it isn't working. 124 00:08:37,240 --> 00:08:39,759 So the journey that you are taking that potential buyer on before they buy, 125 00:08:39,960 --> 00:08:43,840 that's not quite a line. It's not quite effective to sell them into that 126 00:08:43,919 --> 00:08:48,159 offer. Or it could be that the offer itself isn't really something that they 127 00:08:48,240 --> 00:08:52,960 want. It's not solving a problem that they have or a problem that they 128 00:08:52,559 --> 00:08:56,159 experiencing badly enough they want to spend money to solve it. Or maybe it 129 00:08:56,200 --> 00:08:58,960 doesn't do a task that's on their to do list, or it doesn't deliver 130 00:09:00,039 --> 00:09:03,360 for a win that they want. There's something there that's you know, they're 131 00:09:03,360 --> 00:09:07,559 not really seeing why they should invest in it. And if you've tested different 132 00:09:07,600 --> 00:09:11,919 messaging, different positioning, you've tested different sales processes, and you're still struggling 133 00:09:11,960 --> 00:09:15,919 with it, it could be that it's time to retire it and replace it 134 00:09:15,919 --> 00:09:20,279 with something that does solve a problem that they will pay money to solve. 135 00:09:20,440 --> 00:09:24,080 Right, Okay, Number four how much of an income hit would your business 136 00:09:24,080 --> 00:09:28,360 take by retiring this offer? And this one is hard because sometimes or often 137 00:09:28,399 --> 00:09:33,279 you do have to take a bit of an income hit to create that space 138 00:09:33,679 --> 00:09:37,679 and time to create a new offer. For example, when I started shifting 139 00:09:37,759 --> 00:09:43,039 from pretty much all client work to building a business that was online course based, 140 00:09:43,720 --> 00:09:46,440 I started letting go of clients one at a time, so I didn't 141 00:09:46,480 --> 00:09:50,799 fire them all in one hit. I know you hear this quite a lot. 142 00:09:50,840 --> 00:09:52,320 Like I fired all my clients, it was one at a time, 143 00:09:52,840 --> 00:09:56,039 so I still had a little bit of client income coming in, and I'd 144 00:09:56,080 --> 00:09:58,840 let go of one and then try and replace as much of that income as 145 00:09:58,840 --> 00:10:03,000 I could with online course sales before I then let go of the next client. 146 00:10:03,360 --> 00:10:05,600 But it was something it was still a risk that I had to take. 147 00:10:05,639 --> 00:10:09,759 I still had to let go of those clients before the income came in. 148 00:10:09,799 --> 00:10:13,519 And it's scary. I know, it's really scary, but you also 149 00:10:13,639 --> 00:10:16,840 kind of have to back yourself and trust that you can figure it out, 150 00:10:16,360 --> 00:10:20,720 trust that you will be able to get that income in if you let go 151 00:10:20,799 --> 00:10:24,039 of that client. And if one offer, look, if one offer is 152 00:10:24,039 --> 00:10:28,000 one hundred percent of your income, I probably wouldn't recommend that you retire that 153 00:10:28,120 --> 00:10:33,159 offer until you have other income streams because that would be very risky. But 154 00:10:33,320 --> 00:10:37,600 is there a way that maybe you could scale it back a little bit and 155 00:10:37,759 --> 00:10:41,600 free up your time then to go and create other offers so that your income's 156 00:10:41,639 --> 00:10:45,200 not reliant on one income stream. And then, on the other hand, 157 00:10:45,279 --> 00:10:48,039 if an offer takes a lot of time for you to deliver but it's not 158 00:10:48,120 --> 00:10:52,159 a huge percentage of your income, that's probably a great place to start with 159 00:10:52,240 --> 00:10:54,440 an offer to retire so then you can free up more of your time to 160 00:10:54,600 --> 00:10:58,559 focus on creating an offer that's not going to be as dependent on your time 161 00:10:58,639 --> 00:11:05,159 to deliver. Okay, Number five is delivering this offer limiting you from having 162 00:11:05,200 --> 00:11:09,480 a bigger impact in other ways. If you are working one on one with 163 00:11:09,519 --> 00:11:13,120 clients and you know that you can serve more people in an online course program 164 00:11:13,320 --> 00:11:16,960 format, you know, like a bigger group for example, but you don't 165 00:11:16,960 --> 00:11:20,639 have time to create it because you're too busy with clients, then that might 166 00:11:20,679 --> 00:11:24,720 be a sign that it's time to retire it and look at how you can 167 00:11:24,759 --> 00:11:28,799 start to shop differently, how you can start to serve your audience in more 168 00:11:28,879 --> 00:11:35,039 scalable ways, or even starting to dial back the amount of one on one 169 00:11:35,279 --> 00:11:39,240 or other time intensive offers that you sell. So for example, putting up 170 00:11:39,240 --> 00:11:41,879 your prices for one on one and working with fewer clients and then using that 171 00:11:43,000 --> 00:11:46,679 time to create those offers that are scalable and that allow you to help more 172 00:11:46,720 --> 00:11:50,120 people in one go. And then last question number six, do you enjoy 173 00:11:50,240 --> 00:11:54,759 delivering this offer? There is only so long that you can keep doing something 174 00:11:54,799 --> 00:11:58,559 you hate in your business, because if you don't enjoy doing it, if 175 00:11:58,559 --> 00:12:03,799 you don't enjoy showing up and delivering this offer. Ultimately you're gonna end up 176 00:12:03,840 --> 00:12:07,480 hating your business. You potentially might burn out. It's not great. So 177 00:12:09,360 --> 00:12:11,519 when we look at this, though, I want to differentiate between two things. 178 00:12:11,639 --> 00:12:15,840 Is it temporary boredom or temporary pain? Like you just at the moment, 179 00:12:15,840 --> 00:12:16,720 you're going through a bit of a rough patch with this offer. You 180 00:12:16,759 --> 00:12:20,919 don't enjoy it because maybe you've got one painful client, or you've been delivering 181 00:12:20,960 --> 00:12:24,039 it for six months now and you're like, ah, this is a little 182 00:12:24,039 --> 00:12:28,080 bit repetitive. I'm a bit bored. I wouldn't retire an offer because of 183 00:12:28,240 --> 00:12:33,759 a temporary pain. But if it's something that you really just it doesn't feel 184 00:12:33,759 --> 00:12:35,919 aligned. You can't see yourself doing it in your business a year from now, 185 00:12:35,919 --> 00:12:41,679 five years from now, then it's probably worth retiring or at least considering 186 00:12:41,879 --> 00:12:46,919 retiring it. So one of the things that I really want to reiterate is 187 00:12:48,080 --> 00:12:52,480 intentionally designing your offer suite is the one thing that's going to determine who your 188 00:12:52,480 --> 00:12:56,840 business attracts, how much you make in sales, how consistent those sales are, 189 00:12:56,879 --> 00:13:00,399 and how much freedom you have in your business. If you don't have 190 00:13:00,440 --> 00:13:03,200 the right office suite, you're gonna be limiting your freedom from the get go. 191 00:13:03,759 --> 00:13:05,840 Now, I have a short course called Offers Sell More. It's a 192 00:13:05,840 --> 00:13:11,440 self paced course and workbook to strategically design and refine your office suite in three 193 00:13:11,480 --> 00:13:13,679 hours so you can make more sales, help more people, and escape that 194 00:13:13,720 --> 00:13:18,919 all or nothing revenue roller coaster. To get all the info about Offers Sell 195 00:13:18,960 --> 00:13:20,679 Moore, send me a DM on Instagram. I'm there at Stephtaylor dot co. 196 00:13:20,840 --> 00:13:26,519 Send me olsm or head on over to Steph Taylor dot co slash olsm. 197 00:13:26,519 --> 00:13:28,399 We'll pop the link to that in the show notes as well. Okay, 198 00:13:28,480 --> 00:13:33,639 so let's say you've decided now to retire your offer. That's one offer 199 00:13:33,679 --> 00:13:35,919 that you're looking at. You're like, oh no, I'm gonna stop telling 200 00:13:35,960 --> 00:13:41,320 this. You have two options. So the first option is to tell your 201 00:13:41,360 --> 00:13:46,320 audience about it and use that retirement of the offer as a way to almost 202 00:13:46,480 --> 00:13:50,639 run a limited, limited time launch campaign for a couple of days, maybe 203 00:13:50,639 --> 00:13:52,519 three days, maybe seven days, whatever it is, where it's their last 204 00:13:52,600 --> 00:13:56,320 chance to buy this offer. I would do this if you just want that 205 00:13:56,360 --> 00:14:01,039 one last cash injection and you still enjoyed the delivering the offer. You just 206 00:14:01,080 --> 00:14:03,720 don't want to do it long term. On the other hand, if you 207 00:14:03,759 --> 00:14:07,320 do not ever want to deliver this offer ever again, then option two might 208 00:14:07,360 --> 00:14:11,159 be the better way, and that is, don't tell anybody about it. 209 00:14:11,559 --> 00:14:13,799 So unless obviously, if it's a client offer and you've got clients that are 210 00:14:15,080 --> 00:14:18,320 doing that work with you, let them know obviously, but don't tell. 211 00:14:18,399 --> 00:14:22,279 You don't need to tell the rest of your audience that you are retiring that 212 00:14:22,399 --> 00:14:24,399 offer. If you don't want to ever offer it again, great, you 213 00:14:24,399 --> 00:14:28,039 can remove it from your website, remove the check out page, remove whatever 214 00:14:28,080 --> 00:14:31,919 needs to be removed, remove all references to it, do a Google search 215 00:14:33,000 --> 00:14:35,159 for it, and just make sure it's not still showing up in the search 216 00:14:35,200 --> 00:14:39,559 results. All of that, and that's it. You don't have to it 217 00:14:39,559 --> 00:14:43,159 doesn't have to be this big fancy like, ooh, I'm retiring my offer, 218 00:14:43,200 --> 00:14:46,320 and you don't have to explain yourself or anything like that. All right, 219 00:14:46,399 --> 00:14:48,720 So there you go a couple of questions to just check in about whether 220 00:14:48,960 --> 00:14:54,320 you need to retire a particular offer or not. And if you've learned anything 221 00:14:54,320 --> 00:14:58,159 from this podcast so far, please take thirty seconds to leave a quick rating 222 00:14:58,200 --> 00:15:01,320 and a review. In Apple Podcasts, I read them all my team reads 223 00:15:01,320 --> 00:15:05,799 them all. We spend a lot of time producing this show, three episodes 224 00:15:05,799 --> 00:15:09,679 a week. It's a big time investment and I really do appreciate every single 225 00:15:09,000 --> 00:15:13,440 review that is left, so please take thirty seconds to do that. Thank 226 00:15:13,480 --> 00:15:15,120 you so much for listening. Catch you next time.