EPISODE 66 OF WHAT WOULD THEY DO? THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE PODCAST FOR SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS
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Sales have slowed down. Your offers suddenly feel questionable. And now you’re wondering whether it’s time to scrap everything and start over.
Before you retire your offer and spiral into an offer identity crisis, listen to this episode.
This is where I break down one of the most common mistakes online business owners make during a sales drought:
Assuming the offer itself is the problem.
Because often?
The issue is not the offer.
This episode explores the hidden friction points that quietly stop people from buying and how business owner bias, unclear messaging, and missing context create confusion long before someone reaches the checkout page.
What we cover:
Why slow sales don’t automatically mean your offer is redundant
How founder bias impacts your messaging
Why your audience often needs more clarity over features
The subtle friction points stopping people from buying
Why people don’t “just get it” the way you think they do
The key question to ask before retiring an offer
Soundbites:
“Customer experiences combined with powerful messaging that taps into the language and the mindset your audience uses and is stuck in don’t rely on context and prior knowledge, they create clarity, trust and momentum right from the start. And when you intentionally design a customer journey, your audience just gets it because you’ve primed them in the lead up to that decision making point.”
“This question and the answer to it alone is going to give you a really good indication whether it’s the messaging and the positioning of your offer that needs to shift or whether the structure and the deliverables might have to change. Because often, your offer isn’t redundant. Often it’s the way your customer experiences it.”
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Episode Transcript:
Nadine Nethery (00:00)
Hello, hello and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. We are going to dive into a really familiar question that a lot of online business owners, possibly you, would have asked yourself at some stage of your business journey. So today’s listener question is this one. I’ve been stuck
in a sales drought and the longer it’s going on the more I doubt my offers are still relevant. How do I self-diagnose this dilemma?
Unfortunately, as online business owners, we often rush into decisions without taking a step back and trying to diagnose the actual problem. So before making that rushed decision and retiring all your offers that are no longer selling, and certainly that might be the case right now in the shifting online space in general, let’s focus on where the problem usually lies.
We as business owners understand our business because we designed it. We know the offers inside out. We know how everything fits together. we know who can get the best result from offer X, but also who is better suited to offer Y. The problem is that our customers don’t necessarily know that. And that gap is where the friction
happens. So imagine someone landed on your website, your sales page, your offer page for the first time with zero context. Would they instantly get it? Would they trust you and your expertise? And would they hit that buy button?
we all have a certain element of founders bias where we’re assuming people know more than they usually know. So while it’s obvious to us what we do, we are not experiencing our businesses and our offers from our customer perspective. So we’re experiencing it as the person who already
knows everything about it, knows the features, knows the outcomes, knows the benefits and knows why it’s so important in the bigger picture of your customer’s business and their progress. So our customers actually are missing vital pieces of the puzzle. They don’t know your process.
They don’t know how you deliver the offer. They don’t know whether it actually aligns with what they want. They don’t know your lingo that you’re possibly using on your offer page. They don’t know where it fits into the bigger picture, what specific outcome it is going to be delivering. What they’re scanning for is a few things.
Is this for me? Is this offer actually what I need? They’re asking themselves, can I trust you? They’re looking for certain signals to make sure that you are perfectly positioned to get them those results. And they’re also weighing up whether this investment is worth it in the bigger picture of the expenses coming up in their business. And right now,
businesses are doing it tough. So everyone is more discerning with how they’re spending their hard earned dollars. So if they have to work to understand your offer and to see how it fits into their grand plan, then they usually won’t act. And unfortunately, we often fall into a very common
traps that we’re over explaining things that actually don’t matter, right? We’re focusing on the intricate details of every feature where someone might already be sold if you’re just positioning the outcome in the perfect way that really speaks to them on a deeper level. We are under explaining things that actually do matter. As I said, the transformation, the what’s in it for them, the so what, what, why should I care about your offer?
you’re also using industry lingo that’s super unfamiliar to your audience. we’re talking the way we’re talking rather than mirroring the language and the words our customers are using. and we’re also assuming emotional buy-in that we often haven’t earned yet.
basically we’re answering questions our customers aren’t asking, and we’re skipping the ones they actually need the answers to. So if I were my listener, I would start by asking myself a few hard hitting questions. I would start by checking where am I relying on familiarity?
Where am I assuming brand loyalty that potentially hasn’t been earned yet? where am I assuming trust in my expertise? And what only makes sense because you’re the business owner, you are across your offers What only makes sense to you? So basically if someone had no idea who you were, would your business
your offer, you as the expert, still hold up. And that is where intentional customer journeys enter the picture. I keep talking about them, but it is so, so, so important. Customer experiences combined with powerful messaging that taps into the language and the mindset your audience uses and is stuck in. Don’t rely on
context and prior knowledge, they create clarity, trust and momentum right from the start. So from that first click, every touch point taps into the customer mindset and creates intentional experiences that nudge them a step closer to being ready to buy. And the strongest customer journeys create
that general sense of understanding as your audience moves through it. And when you intentionally design a customer journey and customer experiences, your audience just gets it when it comes to making that decision, because you’ve primed them in the lead up to touching down on that sales page and coming to that decision making point on their customer journey. So for the listener here, your action step.
from this episode. Instead of asking yourself, does my offer still make sense? Shall I retire it? I would rather flip the coin and ask yourself, would this offer still work if my customer didn’t know who I was? A very powerful question and the answer to it alone is going to give you a really good indication whether
it’s the messaging and the positioning of your offer that needs to shift or whether the structure and the deliverables might have to change because often
Your offer isn’t redundant. often it’s the way your customer experiences it and fixing that up is going to turn your offer into something that is highly relevant because it makes sense and people just get it.
So if you enjoyed this bite-sized episode then I would love you to hit subscribe, follow in all the places and if you also have a listener question that you would love me to take a closer look at on a future episode then please
submit it via the link in the show notes. Thanks so much for tuning in and I will be back in your airports next week.
