What Is an Offer?
As a Seon Buddhist, I have to ask the rhetorical and yet important question: what is an offer? You can keep your existing definitions for your life, but I want to define what an offer means in the context of this training I’m holding in May.
An offer, at the minimum, is an invitation to have someone experience their life in a path you direct.
- I plan on only baking baguettes. Then Ariel offers me an invitation to consider sourdough; that is an offer.
- I have ginger for cooking and yeast for baking. Then Amanda offers me an invitation to make a homemade ginger ale; that is an offer.
Just like this, offers are simple nudges, invitations, offerings to have people consider taking a new approach to how they live their life.
If that is at the minimum level, what is the maximum level? The maximum power of an offer is to actually change someone’s life in a path you direct.
- A client has trouble sleeping; I have them do the Buddhist practice of waking up at 5AM, doing 108 bows, and meditating. Through this process they realize that happiness is not dependent on their sleep.
- A person is having serious second thoughts about their nursing career; through Nicole’s work they find deep self compassion and gentle power to develop their nursing career without burning out.
- An artist is struggling with their creative block; Suzii challenges them on their ability to create from a self-critical perspective and they find themselves with multiple pieces even in the midst of their block.
These two extremes and everything in between is an offer. Sometimes an offer will be a gentle nudge. Sometimes an offer will be an invitation to buy something from you. Sometimes an offer will put your client in a very tough spot where they have to make a meaningful decision for themselves. Through this training, you will develop your ability to make offers of different depths that fit the circumstances the best.
What Isn’t an Offer?
An offer is not a request for other people to do something for you. An offer is complete when you’re done talking; by making it a request you are making your ability to offer depend on something you cannot control.
For example, it takes two people who want to get married for a marriage to happen. Half of a marriage depends on another person whom I cannot control. Loving someone is entirely in my control; so the difference between an offer and a request is like the difference between loving and marrying.
An offer is not driven by superiority dynamics. We do not offer to someone because we are better than them, or because our approach is better than their approach. Our approach can simply be more contextually helpful in a situation and we speak to those situations.
The reason why I invite people to do Buddhist practices is because it is an effective way of shedding light on where their suffering is. But when someone is having a great journey of finding their spiritual faith with Islam, I am not going to tell them my way is better so you should listen to me.
The reason why Michelle invites people to work with her to do digital marketing is because it gives people clarity on how to work with technology as a solopreneur. But when someone is thriving off of offline connections and in-person retreats, Michelle is not going to push them to go digital.
Defining Your Path
An offering is for people to enter the path of your business. When people sign up for coaching with me, they’re onboarding a pathway to the end of their suffering regardless of what they initially purchased.
- Signed up for my writings? If you just read my writings every day, you will understand the mechanics of suffering and how to eliminate them.
- Read my books? You will learn how to apply the removal of suffering in one specific domain so you can re-use it for other domains.
- Get something done with me? You now know how to move past your blockers instead of being blocked by them, and happiness works the same way; you are happy even with your sources of stress.
Offers without a clear path are confusing at worst and one-time at best. People will enter your orbit and leave simply because there is nothing that has them continuing the momentum of joining your orbit. Why should people stay in your path? What can they expect as they continue to stay in your path?
Defining your path is challenging because it requires you to think about what you actually want from your business. If what you actually want is money, what will you do with the client after you get the payment? You’ll feel lost, you’ll feel a tremendous amount of pressure to keep them satisfied so they don’t ask for a refund. If what you actually want is to feel good about yourself, what will you do after your client thanks you? What is the next step, next step, next step you want to continue to invite your client to?
Without your path defined, you cannot offer anything. This begs the question, Billy how do you define your path? I would answer first, asking how means you don’t want to (🤣), and secondly: that’s why I have an entire guide on how to create your offer. Or you could hop on a call with me to define it. The possibilities are endless!
This training takes place during the entire month of May. We’re going to aim for making 108 offerings. It is completely free for my existing students of July Biz Coach and just $30 for non-students! Sign up here to get the written guides later this week!