In this issue I’m going to walk you through how to start the process for coming up with strong business offers in less than 60 minutes.

In a world filled with overcomplicated advice and complex frameworks for constructing offers, I’ll be explaining a much more organic approach. An approach solely focused on creating monetizable offers based on what you’re already good at.

Struggling to figure out what skills or services you really want to focus your business on is one of the biggest causes of procrastination in entrepreneurship.

And good business loves speed.

The faster you get your offer cleared up, the faster you can take it to the market and start testing it out for improvements.

By the end of this issue you’ll:

• Understand what makes a good offer

• Have a clear understanding of what you’re good at

• Know how to turn those into a monetizable offer

Sound good? Let’s get into it.

What is an offer?

When I started my first business I was lost.

I jumped around from one shiny object to the next, failing at each one just as quick as I was spinning them up.

I went from day trading, to Amazon FBA, to short term rental arbitrage, and more…

I was falling for every “get rick quick” promise and chasing whatever I thought was the easiest way to make it happen.

It wasn’t until I actually took the time to understand what I was good at that I started really finding success.

But I had to go back to the beginning first. I had to understand at a basic level what an offer was.

That’s it. You don’t need to take a whole course on offer creation, or spend $1,000s for a coach to teach you what it is or how to do it “right.”

I was so fed up with coming across poor advice on it that I decided to start working on productizing my process. You can check it out here.

When you’ve seen enough of them and, even better, created many yourself, you start to see the core pattern.

An offer just boils down to something valuable you can give to another for their benefit.

The whole process of packaging it up and selling it is where sales and marketing come in, but you have to nail down the offer itself first.

Here’s how I go about it.

What kind of skills can you offer?

If you’re starting from complete scratch, you want to ask yourself these 3 questions:

• “What am I better than average at?”

• “What have people paid me for in the past?”

• “What do family and friends always ask me for help with?

If you currently have a job, your marketable skills might already be right in front of you.

Ask yourself:

• “What skills do I use at work every day?”

• “Of these, which ones do I get great repeatable results with?”

• “What do my coworkers and/or boss rely on me specifically for?”

The best part about the job skills?

They’re already generating revenue so they’re validated.

If your company’s willing to pay you a salary for them, it’s very likely other companies in need of the same skills will pay you too.

Imagine doing your current job, but for multiple companies with more freedom and multiple times your salary.

What type of pain do your skills relieve?

The best offers are ones that alleviate a person’s pain. We’ll define pain as anything that frustrates people about their lives.

In business, when you think about people’s pain points, they really boil down to two main questions:

• “Do the skills you have save someone time?”

• “Do the skills you have save or make someone money?”

Bonus: “Does a skill do both?”

Can you think back to the last time you were so frustrated with something that you just wished you could pay to make it go away?

Off the top of my head, I was dreading taxes last year since I was doing both my personal (W-2), and my business taxes.

I usually use a software for it but it takes me hours to input everything and I never really know if I’m doing something wrong or missing things.

I decided to use a professional service for the first time.

It cost me $150 and took less than 20 minutes…

I was blown away.

My tax return more than covered the cost of the service and I didn’t have to spend a whole day fumbling through it myself.

It’s a no-brainer decision for me to use this every year going forward.

What did their skill do for me?

Saved me time, and actually made me money.

Identify if any of your top skills have the potential to save someone time or save (or make) someone money.

You’ve got a homerun skill if it can do both.

Who’s in the most pain?

The final step is putting thought into who your skill serves the best.

Up until this point we’ve been clarifying what you can do that people might need.

But who are those people that need it most?

It can feel a little abstract so lets take an example - say your top skill is email marketing.

And you’ve realized that you can make more money for other people’s businesses by improving their email marketing strategy.

The only big question you need to ask yourself is:

“Who’s trying to make money using email marketing?”

Right off the top of my head I think of:

• Agency Owners, Bloggers, Brand Owners, Content Creators…

And really almost any type of business:

• Ecommerce Stores

• Software as a Service (SaaS) companies

• Enterprise companies in almost any industry

It’s safe to assume that any of these examples above would probably be willing to pay someone who could do the work for them (save them time) and increase their profits (make them money).

It shouldn’t take long to brainstorm a nice list, there’s so many opportunities.

Putting it all together

Using the email marketing example again.

You could quickly construct an initial offer like:

It might not sound like much now (that’s where marketing comes in), but you have complete clarity on what you can offer, and who might want it.

Of course the offers will (and should) evolve over time as you:

• Get better at what you do

• Serve more customers

• Get better results

The beauty of a good offer is that when you have the basic form and you take it straight to the market, you can quickly pivot and update as needed based on direct market feedback.

Do you hear crickets? Tweak it.

Do people love it? Double down on it.

Are they asking for more things? Pivot or add to it.

That’s why creating an offer shouldn’t be approached as a perfect science.

It needs to be as dynamic as the market and ready to change with it.

Big step one? Done.

That’s it for today.

See you next week,

-Matt

PS. I’m almost finished building the product I mentioned above. You can get an early look here.

PPS. You can always respond to this email with questions or DM me on twitter.