Oh, isn’t this the popular element of value? Is yours one of those offers that make money for clients? Take care when making this claim.
What is It?
This is perhaps the most popular claim made by marketers. After all, if you don’t make money out of your marketing, what is the point? What I want to suggest is we need to take care making this claim.
Let’s be clear, no-one can offer a 100% guarantee their offer makes money for their clients. Nowhere near.
There are a number of reasons, mostly outside the control of either business owners or clients.
Approaches work when applied in the right circumstances. Many marketers sell on their authority. They have experience and made a good living because they stumbled upon something that works for them. They made a £100K profit in a single product launch. They’ve had many clients and know the many pitfalls en route. So, they claim they can help you make money. This is one common approach to offering this element of value.
Alternatively, think of something like Facebook ads. You pay them for access to their database. Everyone gets the same service. Success depends on the ad you put up. So there is risk involved. But Facebook and similar organisations sell access. They leave it to you to work out how to use that access but they can claim to help you make money.
Value to the Client
Note I am not criticising either approach but be cautious about making this claim. The customer receives insights that may help them make money at some stage in their business development. Those insights can be valuable but they don’t always make money.
Let’s say you try a Facebook ad and no-one clicks on it. You can work on that and improve your ad until people start to click on it. You learn from experience.
The same applies to training and coaching. You may in time use the insights you glean to make money but this is not always a direct result of the service you receive.
The difference is analogous to brand and direct marketing. With Facebook you have means to monitor your investment. You can apply yourself to working out what works.
With a coach the results can be harder to pin down. It is more like brand marketing, where you slowly see an improvement in learning over time.
How to Get There
The challenge to the coach is how to manage expectations. If you stand on stage and promise the audience will make money as a result of listening to you, what is the best way to say this?
Some audience members may not have capacity to make the promised results. Their business may not be developed to a stage where they can take full advantage of your offer.
If you cannot, like Facebook, provide feedback so the customer can see how much they are earning, then be cautious about making big claims.
Your Offer
People expect any marketing service or business coach to help them make money. You can help your clients understand financial implications for their business. You can help them find options to make the money they need.
Help them design a strategy and work on its strengths and weaknesses. Help them reflect on experience, identify where they are going wrong and put it right.
But in the end you cannot help them make money. They are the business-owner and ultimately that’s their responsibility.
This is the twentieth of 31 posts about elements of value. Make sure you don’t miss any by signing up for the offer below. The posts in this sequence can be accessed below:
- Social impact: Self-transcendence
- Life Changing: Provide Hope, Self-Actualisation, Motivation, Heirloom, Affiliation and Belonging
- Emotional: Reduces Anxiety, Rewards Me, Nostalgia, Design / Aesthetics, Badge Value, Wellness, Therapeutic Value, Fun / Entertainment, Attractiveness, Provides Access
- Functional: Saves Time, Simplifies, Makes Money
Next: Reduces Risk + 10 more
