Transcript

 
Sigrun:
You’re listening to the Sigrun Show, episode number 417. In this episode, I talked to Allie Bjerk about how to build a big business from a tiny offer. Welcome to the Sigrun Show. I’m your host Sigrun, creator of SOMBA, the MBA program for online entrepreneurs. With each episode, I’ll share with you inspiring case studies and interviews to help you achieve your dreams and turn your passion into profits. Thank you for spending time with me today.
Building an online business takes time. I share with you proven strategies to help you get there faster. You’ll also learn how to master your mindset, up-level your marketing and succeed with Masterminds.
Today I speak with Allie Bjerk, who teaches her clients how to create more income and impact with a tiny digital product offer. She has helped hundreds of entrepreneurs to scale their business quickly, empowering them to make their wildest business dreams come true. In this episode, we talk about how to build a big business from a tiny offer.
If you are already earning money in your online business, but you are not yet at five figures or multiple five figures per month, then Momentum, my group coaching program, might be right for you. In this 12 month group coaching program, you get the accountability and support you need to take your business to consistent five figures and multiple five figures a month. Go to the show notes at sigrun.com/417 where you find out more about our Momentum group coaching program and you find all the links to Allie Bjerk.
I’m so excited to be here with Allie Bjerk and talk about how to build a big business from a tiny offer. Welcome on the show, Allie.
Allie:
Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here.
Sigrun:
Well, I had seen your ads before. A request came through and I’m like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”. I said to my assistant, “Yes, I know her name. I’ve seen her ads. I want to know more.” So I’m glad you’re on the show to tell my audience about tiny offers because we haven’t covered this topic yet. But before we dive into that, I would love to know your story. How come you’re doing what you’re doing? How far do we need to go back?
Allie:
Oh gosh, probably I’d say at least 10 years. I mean, it’s been a journey. I’ll try to keep this story short, but it could be a very long one if I were to get into all the details.
Sigrun:
Okay, so let’s go back 10 years. What were you doing?
Allie:
Okay. So I went to for graphic design and marketing. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with that, but I loved design and I loved people and figuring out why people did the things that they did. And fast forward a few years, graduated from college, got a very typical corporate marketing job doing design and actually SEO, which is a whole different story, but really delved into the world of learning and trying to educate myself as much as possible on SEO, which meant I was buying a lot of courses and just trying to be the very best I could be at my job. So I was kind of introduced to this whole online business world and education world early on, but didn’t think it was possible for me to ever be in the position to teach people, which in hindsight was all mindset.
So after my son was born, and I always have to subtract his age or figure out how old he is and then subtract a year, because that’s when everything really started. He was born and my priorities shifted rapidly in that I started calculating how much it was costing me to send him to daycare versus how much I was being paid and realizing that there wasn’t a lot left over. I was miserable dropping him off at daycare. And my priorities really shifted into wanting to be more present in my life and have more time and more freedom and all of those things that when you’re wired as an entrepreneur and you’re just unemployable, that became very, very apparent, that I was miserable working for anyone else.
So I came up with my escape plan and I realized, “I only need two clients doing social media management monthly. I just need to make $2,500 a month and I could leave.” It seems so challenging at the time, but I went for it and I started putting the word out there that this is something people could sign up for. And I actually filled my client roster within like one month. And I was amazed at how easy it was to jump in.
So little by little, I kept wanting to be the best I could be at whatever my specialty was at the time. So I wanted to be the best social media manager I could be, which meant that to get people more views, I had to learn a little bit about ads, so I jumped into Facebook ads. With ads, I realized sometimes the ads wouldn’t work if they didn’t have a good sales funnel, if they didn’t have a process behind it. So then I jumped into sales funnels and it’s like I just kept expanding my knowledge base little by little over eight years now. But I always was doing it for other people, and I had that fear of missing out like, “I know how to do funnels. I know how to create products. I’m doing it behind the scenes.” But it took a, like a moment of being tired of client to client, always waiting for that next referral to come in. And I wasn’t getting clients on a consistent basis and I wanted more predictability.
And I finally had this back against the wall moment where I had to launch my own product or I was going to have to close my business, basically. So I launched this tiny offer because I hadn’t been focusing on growing my email list because it wasn’t a priority. I hadn’t built a huge social media following. So I created this tiny offer because I knew that was a way where I could run ads, get visibility really, really quickly, and then be able to start growing my business in a way that I had wanted to but I had previously held back from doing, just because of my own beliefs about making money with my brain instead of with my time and with my services.
Sigrun:
So how did you come up with the tiny offer? Was it something you saw someone else do? Was it something from your clients? Why a small offer versus bigger offer?
Allie:
Yeah, because I knew I had set up so many different sales funnels for people and I knew the runway that that took. I knew that it took belief building and weeks of setting up different trust building experiences to sell that higher ticket offer. And I didn’t have the time. I didn’t have the audience to really sell something that was higher ticket and sell it quickly so that I could … basically what had happened to put my back against the wall is that a client did a charge back. And I don’t know if anyone’s ever experienced that, but the work had been done for months. And all of a sudden I got a notification from Stripe that was saying she was going to withdraw her payment and my account was about to go negative. So I had to do something quickly or things were going to get really bad because I was living client to client. I didn’t have a big savings account for my business at that time. It would’ve meant I had to take money from our personal accounts to front it. And I wasn’t willing to do that.
So the idea was if I can get visibility on something that people can make that quick decision of impulse where with $27 or $37 with these tiny offers, they don’t have to go check with their spouse if they can buy it. They don’t have to check their bank account. It’s just that immediate trigger of like, “Oh, this looks awesome. This is something I could really use in my business. I’m going to go for it and purchase it.” So what I initially launched was a visibility calendar. I was calling myself a visibility strategist at that time because everything, ads funnels, all the things are ultimately about visibility. And I realized that of everyone that I had worked with people who, even when they said like, “Oh, I just need a funnel. Oh, I just need ads.” What it always came down to was at some level they were holding back on their visibility because they’re like, “Oh, I just don’t know what to say. If someone would just tell me what to say every single day, I would do live streams. I would actually show up.” Even if there’s all this other stuff happening behind the scenes, I knew if I could help them know what to say every single day with social media prompts and this calendar that I ultimately ended up launching, it would be a mass market product that everybody could use.
So that’s what I ended up launching. And I think I did 10,000 in sales in the first two weeks. And I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is working. This is amazing.” I remember being, I was at my dad’s birthday party and my phone kept lining up with sales notifications. And it was like $300 in one day. And I was mind blown. “Wow. This is actually working. Strangers are giving me money and they’re buying this product and it’s going to really help them.” So it totally shifted my beliefs in what kind of business model I could have. But over the course of gosh, I think like the next eight or nine months, it sold like $300,000 in that timeframe. So it completely, that was like monopoly money to me at that point. Of course I was paying for Facebook ads, but the profit that came on the back end of those Facebook ads made it completely worth it, where it became an investment instead of the expense that I had previously thought Facebook ads were.
Sigrun:
Yeah, a lot of people look at Facebook ads as some bad cost in their business, but it’s actually, like you said, it’s a slot machine and you’re constantly winning.
Allie:
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And that’s what I really love about tiny offers is even when I had set up ads for webinars or things like that for clients previously, or even when I run my own webinar ads now, there’s a big waiting period where you’ve got to trust that it’s going to pay off at the end. And if you’re just launching for the very first time, you can spend a lot of money in the seven to 10 day runway before a webinar that if you don’t know your webinar’s going to convert, that can be a little painful.
Sigrun:
Stressful. Yeah.
Allie:
Yeah, that too.
Sigrun:
So how long did it take you to create that first offer? Because when I see ads for these offers, not just from you, it seems to be a whole trend. They seem to be like, wow, that’s quite a lot of work that goes into it. I hope, at least, because it should be like massive value for a low price. That’s that’s a perception I have.
Allie:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So with what what I have launched, I think it took me a couple months to get all of the content put together. I had a lot of it put together on the backend for what I had done for clients and pieces that I’d put together for them. But after I had the idea and I knew I had to put it together very quickly, I was able to launch what I call a minimal viable product, which was enough to sell, enough to get them a result, but it didn’t take months and months and months to create. So I took what I had as my current framework and the work that I was doing with service-based clients and just repackaged it and I was able to launch it.
Sigrun:
So how long did it actually take you to create the offer?
Allie:
I would say I had the idea and I had the ads running within two weeks because I had a lot of the materials already created.
Sigrun:
But I guess most people have, at least those who have been in business for a little bit, they have content that can create relatively quickly in one or two weeks.
Allie:
Yeah, exactly. So it was a matter of just, I was actually on an airplane when I created the entire 365 days of ideas because I had two or three hours to just sit down and crank it out and that’s all it took. Once the actual calendar was created, then I was able to think through what else would people need? So they have these social media prompts, if they’re looking at the sales and they’re thinking, “Yeah, but that so wouldn’t work for me because of X, Y, Z.” It’s like, what other trainings can I create for them so that they can get results and they can actually show up with this calendar? So that’s where some of those bonus items were created.
Sigrun:
So you started to launch tiny offer and you said, yeah, you started to make $300 a day. But how much were you actually spending on ads to get those $300? Is it like a zero-sum game and then you have to make money on the backend of it or are you making a profit or even a loss?
Allie:
Yeah, in those early days with this calendar, when it was one of the very few 365 day calendars out there, I was making four or five X back what I was spending on Facebook ads. So even if I was spending $30 a day and I was making $150 back, that was a pretty good return. Now the same calendar has been running for 18 months now and I’m still making about 1.5 return. But a lot of the return comes in, I basically break even with the initial $27 offer. I think I spend about $24 per acquisition, so like $3 a profit that after, I do offer a money back guarantee and some people will just take refunds on digital products because that’s what people do.
So basically if I only had the initial offer, it would be a breakeven zero sum, just a lead generation funnel. But with the order bump that I have added to the cart where there’s just a little single check box where they can add on another training and then on the second page on the confirmation page, there’s another training offered for $77. So the profit comes in from that order bump and the one-time offer that comes after the initial sale of that first product.
Sigrun:
So you would recommend to anyone thinking of this, this isn’t about just one offer.
Allie:
Yes, I call it a product suite because it thinks through, if you’re a little bit clairvoyant of what your audience needs, what problems can you solve? It’s like that pain solving and then agitating cycle. So if you solve a pain point with that first piece, what are they going to need next? What’s that next pain point? So for me, it was a live stream calendar, the order bump that I had was how to repurpose your live stream. So how do you get even more traction from the thing that you’re already doing? And then the upsell is how to sell from your live streams, how to create sales funnels, and have an application for someone who wants to learn more about working with you after the live stream. So you can see it’s a whole ascension thing from that main offer. Because I had done enough work. I knew my audience well enough to know, “Okay, what do they think they need? They think they need a calendar to show up every day. What they really need that I know as the expert is they need some way to actually get leads from their visibility instead of just throwing rocks or throwing spaghetti at the wall with visibility.”
Sigrun:
So you identified the problem that they think they have.
Allie:
Yes. That’s the key.
Sigrun:
That’s the key. That’s the key for the first step. And then anything that improves that first offer and then the upsell on the thank you page is basically what they ultimately need, but they realize it once they’re at the thank you page that they need this as well.
Allie:
Yes, exactly. I call it the competency gap because when you’re an expert, I mean the example I usually give is around fitness. Because as a fitness professional, people need sleep, they need to eat correctly, they need to exercise. There’s so much more behind being healthy and wellness. But people are like, at least Americans, I don’t know if it’s the same where you are, but like they want the quick fix. They want the 21 day quick fix or they want to look great at their high school reunion in two weeks or something. So understanding that, how can you get their attention with the thing that they’re actually seeking? And oftentimes it is the time-saver, the easy button like the calendar or any other offers that I’ve had a hand in helping create. The ones that are successful are always the thing that simplifies life or getting a result for your buyer.
Because the other advantage of doing it that way that I found is then you’re attracting a different type of buyer, too. It’s not just someone who is wanting to collect tiny offers or small products. When you do save them time, you attract someone who has that mindset of, “Okay, I’m saving time. Where else can I save time by working with this provider? Maybe I can save time by joining a mastermind. Maybe there’s a high ticket course or a high ticket coaching program I can join.” Because you already know they’re a person who has the mindset of, “I’m going to be efficient and I’m going to save time,” and hopefully they’ll continue ascending your value ladder because they have that mindset.
Sigrun:
So what happened? You started then within a couple of weeks, you were like, “Hey, this is working. This is awesome.” What happened next?
Allie:
Yeah. So what happened next is I just continued selling that tiny offer and enough people had started asking me like, “Hey, what’s your process? How do you differentiate what you’re doing or how are you attracting so many different buyers? How are you attracting buyers who want to ascend?” The way I did it was a little different than other people who are launching these low ticket offers. So I was asked about it enough that I ended up creating a coaching program to help other people create these tiny offers. That’s kind of how it happens in business. When you’re really successful with something, it becomes the next thing people ask you to teach, at least when you’re in the info product space. So I ended up launching a coaching program about creating tiny offers and that’s where I’ve been specializing for the last year.
Sigrun:
But it is fairly new. You say the first tiny offer you launched, it’s been running 18 months. That’s not such a long time, but your business has exploded in a short amount of time.
Allie:
Yeah and a lot of that is because of the type of visibility that I’ve had. I mean, you said you’ve seen my ads. We’ve never met before yet here we are because my ads were in your newsfeed all the time. But I wasn’t actually in front you. I wasn’t putting any effort any time. Once the product was created and the ads were running, then I can kind of step away and focus on other things or focus on service and connection with actual people instead of creating social media content all the time.
Sigrun:
That brings me to the point, you are not having to do, let’s say organic social media so much, or not at all?
Allie:
Not really at all. I mean, I’ve started to now because I have other goals and I want more visibility for the next level of speaking and book writing and stuff that this offer has opened up for me. But those first initial 12 or 18 months, I was off playing with my kids and my phone is just pinging with sales and people are like, “Oh, I see your ads all the time.” I’m like, “That’s awesome because I’ve not been at my computer all the time.” So it really helped me create the level of visibility I wanted without like, “Oh, I need to write another blog post. Oh, I need a call to action. Oh, I need a freebie,” that spiral that so many of us go on when it comes to visibility. I knew I had a system that worked and I just kept … it’s like, you can either put in time or money and I just kept putting money into this machine instead of my time in creating all this different content.
Sigrun:
And now this has led to you on a different path. You mentioned speaking and writing books. Do you have a goal or a vision for where you’re going?
Allie:
At the core of everything that I’ve done or that I’ve taught or that I’ve helped other people create in their businesses is this level of empowerment and confidence and just acceptance of who we are and really owning our own selves inside of our marketing. And it’s like, as soon as people can hit that level of, “I’m just going to show up, I’m going to be me. I know I’m getting leads.” As soon as people overcome some of those ideas of like, “Oh, I have to be someone else’s brand, or I can’t be authentic to myself.” Their businesses explode every single time because they’re attracting higher quality leads and they’re more connected with their leads.
So a lot of what I intend to do, or what I would love to do is helping people overcome some of those mindset issues that I struggled with where I sat behind the scenes for eight years because I was afraid to make the jump. I was afraid to lead. I was hiding behind everyone else’s businesses. But I learned a lot in the process behind, just like, this sounds cheesy, but like radical self-love. And once you are finally, you’re so happy and unshakable with who you are that you just show up and your business can’t help but respond accordingly.
Sigrun:
Very true. Very true. Yeah. So what if someone is listening saying, “Well, I want to now create my tiny offer and can she teach us?” So I know we’re not going to replace a whole coaching program here in a few minutes, but can you give us like simple steps for someone listening who says, “I want to create this product suite.” What do they need to think about?
Allie:
Yeah, absolutely. So the first question I always ask people is what is your ultimate goal? So if you could have any dream business that you wanted with your dream clients, what would that look like? Is it a coaching program? Is it a course? And then working their way backwards from who those people are. So clarity is always the biggest thing that I’ve seen people struggle with, so really finding that clarity on what you want and actually owning what you want and knowing that you can create any kind of business you want, as long as you have that clarity and you run full bore towards that. So figure out what it is that you want and then reverse engineer for who is that person, what are their pain points, what does that journey look like for them if they’re starting at point a, what do they need to get to point Z? Point Z being like your ultimate result that you can provide? So just brain dumping. They need to be visible. They need to be confident. They need to have a sales funnel. They need all the things that your people would have.
And then identifying that one factor of what is the thing where they think they need to start, or what is the thing that they’re waking up in the middle of the night or the first thing on their mind of like, “Oh, dang it. I just need to be more visible or I just wish I could eat right or I just wish that I could talk to my husband more,” or something. What is the thing that they’re struggling with and whatever your niche is, and then building a product around that that feels like it’s the easy button for them.
Sigrun:
And how do you decide the three steps. You say it’s something that they know they need and then something that improves the product. Is that kind of the correct way to see it?
Allie:
Yeah. Yep, exactly. So if the order bump, that single check box that they add on from the order form, if that’s something that will help them get results faster from the main product, that’s usually how I define that. So if you’re in the nutrition space and you’re launching like a 21 day challenge for eating right, maybe the ad-on is a workout plan that will help them get results faster. So two things that are complimentary to each other, instead of giving them more of the same. Like if I had sold a calendar and then my order bump was another calendar, people probably wouldn’t have been very excited about it. But because it was making the best case scenario of what they already purchased and helping them just skyrocket even faster with the results that they’re driving themselves towards, that’s what helps it sell.
Sigrun:
And on the thank you page, the upsell offer is something that they realize afterwards, you use this word of sales, how do you take, like they become aware of a new problem.
Allie:
Yep, exactly, so the solving and agitating cycle. So you’ve solved one problem. And then a lot of this comes through copywriting. I think when you’re marketing your own business, copywriting is by far the best skill that you can master just to really be able to communicate what you can do for the client and help them understand. So using direct response sales copy on the sales pages, both the main offer and the upsell to connect with them. And I mean, so many of us buy for emotional reasons. I mean, I think everyone buys for emotional reasons. That if you can connect with them emotionally through the story and the journey that you’re bringing them through on these sales pages, that’s what will help them see what the upsell can do for them after they’ve purchased that initial tiny offer.
Sigrun:
So do people need any special technology for this? It seems like it wouldn’t be enough to just have PayPal and Stripe. You have to have a system that actually can do this.
Allie:
Yeah, that’s a great question. So there’s a few different options for people. Click Funnels is one of the main funnel softwares that I’ve seen advertising that I’ve used for tiny offers. But I’ve also used WordPress and Thrive Cart. And you can replicate the same system with SamCart, or there are different WordPress plugins like CartFlows that as long as you have a sales page builder checkout cart that has the ability to add order bumps and upsells, and then a learning management system and an email service provider, those are the four main things that you need. So someone can see the product, connect with the product on a sales page. They can check out on a cart and then they can get their product delivered via email and then a membership area or a course platform to deliver the thing that you’re selling. So if you can take them through those four steps, you can do it with a lot of different technologies.
Sigrun:
Yeah. And how quickly would someone then upgrade to the actual program that you originally wanted to sell? What would be the timeframe that you recommend
Allie:
For the tiny offer lab program?
Sigrun:
No. So if people create a tiny offer, but what they ultimately want to sell is group coaching or an online course, what’s the timeframe that you suggest that they nurture?
Allie:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think it depends on what they have created already. For people who already have an evergreen webinar that they’ve put together, you can always do a second upsell and put that evergreen webinar right on a second confirmation page. Because if someone’s pain point is that hot that they’ve gone through your main offer, their order bump, the misconception that a lot of people have with sales funnels is that it’s this long drawn out process and everyone has to go through the same thing and all the emails. But if you know people are coming in and they’re ready to solve their pain point and they’re efficient and they want the solution right now, they may just skyrocket through your whole value ladder because they’re ready and they’ve seen you and they’ve connected with you and now they’re just like, “Please help me. I resonate with your messaging and I want to go all the way with what services you have available.” So that’s one option.
Another option is to bring them in with the tiny offer and then send them usually two weeks of emails. So kind of a welcoming sequence for a week, and then dropping into a storytelling and building sequence into an offer that you already have, or if you’re a one-on-one person, inviting them to book a free call or connection call, making sure that they trust you that any objections that they have have been overcome, that they’ve seen the results that you’ve gotten from other people. So bringing them through that sequence of emails with FAQ’s and testimonials and stories is really the first step before ascending or even offering something else.
Sigrun:
What about the flow of tiny offers we have right now? Does that not, are you not worried that people get tired of them or do we have to up our game? Like maybe what was okay as a tiny offer 18 months ago, is that now good enough? What are your thoughts on it?
Allie:
That’s a great question too. Because it is such a low ticket offer, people will buy all the tiny offers the way they used to download all the freebies. It’s a new way to Uplevel our game and you can get a taste of their teaching style, get a taste of a little bit more intimate of a product than just a PDF that we used to get from freebies. So there are many of them, largely thanks to my students who are all absolutely amazing. But there’s a huge market for it too. If you look at people, if we’re in the digital marketing space, if you look at Facebook’s audience size when you set an interest towards digital marketing, it’s over I think two or 3 million people. So I’ve sold 15,000 of my tiny offers. That’s like 0.005. That’s like half of a percent of the entire audience available.
So it’s also a mindset thing of abundance and believing that there’s enough room for all of us. And with the tiny offer price, it’s not like people are choosing, “Okay, I have my $10,000 this year. I have to choose one coaching program. It has to be the perfect coaching program.” People can buy all of them. And I just think this is really the beginning of people shifting into leading with a tiny digital product instead of a freebie, because it just attracts a little different audience who’s invested in ready to actually do the work.
Sigrun:
I love that. I love that. I love that you ended with a mindset angle … always. I can see that in your future, in your vision, speaking and writing books on this. But thank you for sharing your journey with us, Allie. It’s really inspirational. And I am sure our listeners will all grow up and want to create their tiny offers now.
Allie:
Thank you. It’s been my pleasure.
Sigrun:
Are you already earning money with your online business, but not yet at five figures? Then our group coaching program Momentum might be just the thing for you. Go to the show notes at sigrun.com/417 to find out more about Momentum. And there you will, of course, also find all the links to Allie Bjerk. Thank you for listening to the Sigrun Show. Did you enjoy this episode? Let me know that you listened by tagging me in your Instastory or Instagram posts using my handle Sigruncom and the hashtag SigrunShow. See you in the next episode.