015: Building Offers That Actually Sell (Without Feeling Salesy)

So many of us want to create something meaningful, but we get stuck on the offer itself: what it is, who it’s for, and why it matters. 

In this conversation, we talk about how to build an offer that fits the way we’re designed and meets a real need in someone’s life. 

When the offer is strong and honest, sharing it feels natural - not salesy or pressured - because the value is already clear.

In this episode, we talk about:

• What makes an offer meaningful, helpful, and worth sharing
• How to build something that reflects your strengths and season
• The difference between what we hope to offer and what people are actually trying to solve
• Why selling feels lighter when the offer itself does the heavy lifting
• A simple way to shape your next offer in just a few minutes

Get Your Free Action Guide: The Offer Builder Mini-Map

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Transcript

Becky Brown  0:01 
If you're a Christian woman, building a business and want it to be purposeful and profitable, we've got you covered. I'm Becky.

Laurie Graham  0:08 
And I'm Laurie. We have both built successful businesses that we love without losing our faith, humor or our sanity. This is Smart Soulful Business.

Becky Brown  0:17 
Real conversations to help your business fit your life and not the other way around.

Laurie Graham  0:27 
Hey, hey, welcome back to Smart Soulful Business with Becky and Laurie

Becky Brown  0:31 
Together, we help Christian women build businesses that are soulful, strategic and successful without losing what matters most.

Laurie Graham 0:38 
I'm excited someday to talk more about what 'soulful' means and why we picked that. But for today, everybody, we are going to be talking about something that a lot of us feel stuck on. And bear with me for one minute, because we're going to talk about how to build an offer people want. Now, I don't think most of us feel like we get stuck on building an offer. I think we feel like, we get stuck on selling, right? Yeah, but we're gonna link this to why, the freedom we feel in selling, or the stress or the pressure, or the disconnect, like, oh my gosh, we feel pushy. It really goes back to a foundational base in what we're offering people. So that's what we're gonna talk about. We don't need to pretend to be anybody else. We don't need to fake it till we make it. Like some people tell us, we don't need to do something that's salesy by the end of this episode, Becky and I are giving a just a way to shape an offer that matches who you are right now, who we all are right now, and what meets a real need and is something that you feel great about sharing, not pressure-filled, not weird, not awkward, but building an offer that you're excited to share, and that's not in a like, a frosting way, like, oh my gosh, let's pretend we're like, this is really what Becky and I have learned so much of. So let's jump in a bit. So when Becky and I look back at the businesses we built, whether it was from Becky's little blog or my little workshop, you know, building it into multiple streams of income. When Becky and I were talking about this, we realized that none of this started with a perfect launch or with a sales funnel, right, Becky?

Laurie Graham  2:15 
That is not how we started. It was messy. It was a real idea. It was a deep call that we both had to serve an audience, or to make money, or to, you know, meet some family needs. Or like, there was a deep need there of the and both and like, this is for me. This is for my family. This is for, you know, what I feel called to, and we genuinely want to help people. So most of the time, when we're building businesses, we skip some of this, and we get to building an offer or pricing or marketing before we've even shaped for real, like intentionally, what we want to offer. And then we wonder why it feels awkward or forced or uncertain. So Becky. I'm going to start with you, thinking about your first steps when you were first getting started, what was the hardest part of trusting your gut and letting your offer, like what you're really going to sell, letting that emerge before trying to polish it up or fit everybody's systems on the how-tos?

Becky Brown  3:12 
Yeah, well, I am going to remind you all first that I was an accidental entrepreneur. I didn't know that I was going to be building a business out of my website. I didn't know that it was gonna turn into a business. I didn't know that it was going to be my offer. So it started. My business started with me writing what I wanted to write. It started with me doing it for fun and a hobby. And that turned out to be a really big strength, because I was just writing for me in the beginning, and then it slowly turned into me paying attention to the people who were reading, and why did certain things stand out to them more than others? Why did that catch on? And so I just kind of accidentally stumbled on what they needed by writing, what I wanted to write. So for a long time, my only offer was blog posts. Because, you know, first I was writing for free, and then when I started paying for services, I eventually got ad income, and that was my main gig for a long time, yeah, before I ever created a product to sell. And so I'm just going to start there, because it's kind of the same concept, whether you're creating blog posts or a product or whatever you're selling, it's paying attention to what's resonating with your people. And so I just started learning about what stood out to them and why. So for me specifically, I happened to stumble upon things that weren't being talked about yet. So my quinoa bites, when I was into recipes, quinoa bites weren't a thing, but people were really into quinoa at the time. And so the bite-sized quinoa making it ahead, for lunches, for your kids, for your whatever that meal prep, it just that's went viral on Pinterest. And so I leaned into that. So I created cheesy quinoa bites, and pizza quinoa bites, and like chicken cordon bleu quinoa. I just went. I leaned in and paid on attention to what was standing out to people. And the same with my Christian weight loss content. People out there at the time, there was not a lot out there connecting God to the world of weight loss. And so when I saw that my audience was asking a ton of questions, I was getting emails, I was getting blog comments, people were asking for more and more and more, I paid attention. And eventually, that genre that the Christian weight loss areas where I ended up eventually writing a weight loss devotional, a Christian weight loss devotional that's done really well for me over the years. So it all came from trying things out, writing what was natural to me, what felt important to me, and paying attention to what stood out to them.

Laurie Graham  5:51 
Okay, I love that you link that to your Christian weight loss devotional book, because that is an offer that you did not intend to build that ended up bringing in, let's say, passive income. Like you don't even promote it a whole lot. I know it's out there on Pinterest and some different places, but it's not like you're doing launches around the Christian weight loss devotional book that you wrote and I, as we talk about offers today, like, I love that our stories are so different, and they're also different from what's being taught out there. Like, what's being taught is we need to have a master plan and a big strategy so that we are moving forward with a sales funnel. And neither one of us started with a big strategy. Yeah, I started out of a need. I feel like you're a little more altruistic. You were writing to help people in as a hobby. And I, like, lost my income.

Becky Brown  6:41 
To help people. I was writing for me, I was writing for me, and it just happened to be like, Oh yeah, that they liked that.

Laurie Graham  6:46 
Okay, yeah. And I lost an income, and I'm like, I have to replace my income. And, like, there's always a catalyst right to, like, building what we're building. But the strategy didn't come immediately. Now I have a pretty big strategy now, like, Oh yeah, you do absolutely know where people find me. I have a sales funnel. I'm building it. I'm changing and I'm making but I did not start with that. And so wherever you're listening from right now, like, whether you're on your treadmill, or brushing your teeth, or you're at work on a break, or maybe not even on a break listening to us, like whatever, you're coming in with, this dream of building something. I think it's really good to take that stress off, that you might not have the big strategy, and paying attention along the way is good. And I would, I don't like to say supposed to or should, but I think this is supposed to be messy at the beginning. I think we learn the most. I think we grow the most, and I think sometimes we have this pressure that we did something wrong, or we're behind, or we can't start something without a strategy. And that's one of those things I want to throw out today, like, yeah, you can totally start without a strategy, like finding this offer. Do you agree with that Becky?

Becky Brown  7:59 
I do, and I think what you're getting at here is that our expectations of what this should look like might be a big part of what's holding you back from actually moving forward. And yeah, I would say the farther I got into business and the more business advice I was getting that it kind of got in my way along the way, because then I had other voices in my head guiding it, you know, more than my own. So let's talk about what actually makes a strong offer, which is the stuff that happens before any of the pricing or the marketing, or the, you know, launches comes into play, which we will get to those things. So through building a blog or launching a workshop and offering different services over the years, Laurie and I have just learned this the hard way, really, by making all the mistakes first, that what makes a strong offer or a strong offer needs to grow out of who you really are. It comes from authenticity and the real people that you want to serve, not rote business advice and who, what you should be doing, how you should be writing, who you should be writing to. It's more about attunement to who you are and who your people are and what they need. And it's less about what's trendy and more about what you actually enjoy doing that it comes out of a place of passion and care and service and what somebody actually needs. So Laurie, when you first, when you think about that first workshop that you offered after you lost your job, what did you realize? What did you learn about what people actually wanted, and how did that shape the offer you ended up creating?

Laurie Graham  9:47 
The biggest thing I learned was that I could help people. Like that people wanted help, that people wanted inspiration, that they wanted hope, that I could help people that I could speak into this space. So before that, it's not like I've ever had nine to five jobs. I've rarely had a nine-to-five jobs. You know, in college, I worked retail, and I worked restaurant work and then I got into ministry. I've never had this nine-to-five job, right? But I've always had a space that was set up for me. I wasn't creating my own space, like, let me say that, because even in ministry, it's so different. And I know you're helping people, but you're not going into a new space, you know what I mean? And so for me, it was kind of that thing that what I had, or what, what I was excited to talk about, like, was going to help people. And in my niche, honestly, I would have looked at myself and said, That's a stupid business idea. I know I just said the word stupid, but I would have like, and I think other people, I still have people saying, Yeah, but how do you make money? Like, because I talked to mostly volunteers in small churches. Small churches don't have money like, they don't. This is not a, this is not a marketable strategy. Well, it's becoming but when I started like, publishers didn't do anything for small churches. You got to be kidding, because the big churches had money. And so I literally was speaking into a market that didn't exist, that people rolled their eyes at, like, how in the world could you make money doing that? And what I, what I, what I discovered was, oh my gosh, like yeah, and I could help people. Like, I mean, that was really the first thing was like, people wanted it. Do I mean, like, and then the stories of transformation started coming out. And so my first little Facebook, you know, no overhead workshop, right? A live workshop during the day, turned into so many other things. And what shaped the continuing offers, the new offers, the way my business has grown, has been mostly my audience, what they need, but it's also been changes in me. I'm not sure how much you know, you and I will speak into the season that we're in, but I've been doing a lot of big changes lately. I'm speaking more into things I care about, which are a little more controversial in the church world. And you know, a little bit more of, you know, Jesus-style, ministry versus this business style, modern church culture. And I've always been passionate about those, but I wasn't confident enough to speak them. And so my offers, my message, everything's changing. Yeah, yeah. Do you want to speak into this at all?

Becky Brown  12:21 
Yeah, no. I just completely agree, and I do want to do a completely separate episode at some point on how our seasons. I mean, I think that just speaks to, again, the authenticity that we're talking about behind our author is, you know, in this world that is shifting more and more and more to AI, people want people. People crave connection with real people and real experiences. And so maybe not everybody is in the same season as you in your life, which is what I talk myself out of. Well, they're not going through that. So why would I write about that? But those things that I've written about have been the things that have resonated most when I talk about, you know, the the more niche topics on my website, those are the things that people come and they email and they talk most about, and they that resonate most with them. And those are the my most important core offers.

Laurie Graham  13:16 
Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah. And that's the truth is, sometimes we think what we're going through, or what we're passionate about, or what what we've seen in our lives, won't resonate with anyone else. And the reality is, is that nothing any of us have been through is completely unique. There's always commonality with humanity, and this is, I believe, why God created us to be together and have empathy and compassion. And when we think we're this special snowflake that has these ideas that nobody will care about, or nobody will wonder about or nobody will buy. I think we isolate ourselves. But if we can describe like in simple words, what we care about, what we love, or let's say, what we're offering, what we do, things get stronger when it's really aligned with who we are and our word choice and our hearts and sometimes also our life rhythms, of course, but when we think about like, smart and soulful, these words that you and I picked, and we picked them so intentionally, Becky and are so careful with our words all the time. Smart, well, I shouldn't say all the time, because I did say stupid on this episode, so but Smart and Soulful when we created this or talked about it and looked at our lives with how it resonates, Smart and Soulful does not require reinventing ourselves or becoming before we're ready to even be that person in the future that we want to be. It just requires paying attention and honesty. And I think once we have that kind of foundation clear, like, what do we do? What do we want to do? What are we looking at? Who can we help? You know, these kind of questions. The next question becomes like, how do we wrap it together? What would that offer look like in real life, like these things that we're already excited about, already know, things that we're equipped with, whether it's gift mix or experience. Or usually a mix of both, what would an offer like that look like in real life? For me, as silly as it is, it was a workshop that said, how to create a Small Church Ministry that you love.

Laurie Graham  15:14 
How much simpler can you get them that right? Like, how to create a small you know what I mean? And and we can get into Smart Soulful stuff, too. But sometimes what what we've both seen, and I think you can see it out in the marketplace anywhere, sometimes the offers that we see get over complicated, and it actually causes everything to crumble, like when you overthink it, when you over complicate it, when there's too many features, too many things you're offering, too many bells, too many whistles, unrealistic promises like this is going to be so great, but it's really, really heavy, and it's not freeing. We're going to talk about simplicity here, versus over complicated. But when we build an offer that's actually sized for our capacity, our hearts, our I don't know, just who we are being right, something deliverable that's also sustainable. It becomes a real gift, instead of like a hardship or a burden or, you know, let's do the hard thing the easier way, right? So Becky, when we think about over complicated versus simplifying. Looking back, where do you see us, or maybe other women that I know, because you follow a lot of other entrepreneurs, kind of over engineering our offers, and how could, or how did simplifying this even change the way that you saw people respond?

Becky Brown  16:28 
Yeah, you know, I think that one of the most important thing that I've learned over the years in in this area is that your audience can feel how you feel about what you're doing.

Laurie Graham  16:43 
Oh my gosh. That is so true. Oh, I have so many stories just pinged off in my head right now that your audience feels how you feel, yeah, about feeling your energy.

Becky Brown  16:55 
So when you are overcomplicating things and you're feeling frantic and fractured and stressed, and oh my gosh, I have to be everywhere all at once, and I'm over on Instagram and Facebook and YouTube, and I'm doing I'm writing website content, and I got three emails out today because I have a last chance email when you feel that way about showing up, even if you're not on a live video where they can see you, typically, your audience feels it. Now, I didn't used to believe that this took me multiple launches of like, No, there's no way, because this was actually something I learned about pre-scheduling content, which I'm a huge fan of, but your audience can feel that too, when it's pre-scheduled versus live. And so you know, weigh the pros and cons of that for where you are. I'm not saying you should be there live for your audience, every step of the way. But what I am saying is they feel more than you think they can feel. And so if you have created this huge, not, not even like, okay, let's we're trying to get back to not even the launch part of things. Let's just go back to the offer. If you have created an offer that feels kind of forced, like I'm doing this, because somebody told me to do this, and this is the way to do it, and I don't even know if people are going to like this, and it just feels awkward and inauthentic. Your people are going to feel that. And so I would encourage you to just stop where you are in your offer and just evaluate that. How is this resonating with me? How do I think that this will hit my audience? Yeah, it just stop and pay attention to how it's resonating with you. Because if you don't feel good about what you're offering, which Laurie and I talk about often, how are we feeling? Because sometimes we change things to the point where it's good changes, good changes, good changes, and then it becomes something where it's like, Ooh, I don't even know that. I like what this has become now. And so just evaluate where that is for you, because your audience can feel it so simplifying things to the point where you can show up well and feel good about what you're offering. Not 100% confidence. There is always a level of insecurity with me in every offer, every blog post that I write, you know, there is a level of, ooh, how is this going to land? I think a level of that is okay, but you should overall feel pretty good about what you're offering.

Laurie Graham  19:14 
Yeah, yeah. Can I say something here absolutely so early on, you had challenges, and I think we're talking maybe more about this, and in the next week's episode too. So I don't want to go too far into it, but, um, you were doing these five day challenges, and it was free in by email, but people could pay for the cute little workbook, the digital download, so that they'd have something. And early on, of course, I was copying everything you did, and I'm like, okay, so I need a five day challenge. And I remember feeling, really, I'm gonna say the word stupid again, because I can't think of another word to say right now, but I felt really stupid about this offer that I did, and honestly, I'm wondering if I need to bring it back and you and I tried to wordsmith it forever. Like, what five day challenge would you do in a church? Like, what five day challenge? And volunteer in a ministry, but I created a five day challenge to do small church better, and that's what I called it, because I couldn't think of what to do. Like it's not about building a ministry, it and we that's what I called it, a five day challenge to do small church better. You cannot get simpler than that. And I am going to tell you, people resonated so much with that I changed it because I felt insecure and I hated the name of it, and I changed it into this awesome study. It's free. It's called Untapped, and it's about discovering the potential in your small church. Is that not a better title? Can I just tell you people don't care about it at all? It's a better product. It is amazing and and they wanted five days to do small church better. Yeah? Like, yeah, when you talked about simplifying, I'm like, Oh my gosh, I wonder if I need to go back.

Becky Brown  20:47 
Now, I will go back just a little bit and say that there is an edge here of sometimes you have to give people what they think they need before you can give them what they actually need, because you and I know that we've created. Both of us know that we have created some incredible things that we know if we could just get people to it, that it would be so impactful and so helpful for them. But sometimes they'll read a title like Untapped, and they don't know that they need it. And so sometimes it is about creating stepping stones for your author, a customer for your offer, a customer journey, to get people to, like, tell them what you what they think they need, and lead them to what you know they need. And so sometimes that is part of your offer. So hopefully you are hearing in everything that we're saying today, this isn't a one off conversation. We are building a customer journey together, and it's about tuning into yourself. It's about tuning into your audience. So now that you have the idea, next week, we are going to be talking about how to take that offer, and then we're going to be focusing on how you can actually make real revenue on it without having a huge, massive audience. So today we started with just the offers. That is the foundation, that is the core piece. But we know that having an offer doesn't pay the bills by itself. That's not a viable business. That's why we are combining Smart and Soulful. So your offer starts with a whole lot of soul and just a little bit of the smart business piece. We're going to shift into more of the smart business piece. But that's why this episode begins a four part mini series, so that we can give you this soulful step-by-step path from idea all the way to revenue. And we want this to feel doable and real and hopeful for you, wherever you are at any stage of building your business. So Laurie, what's one surprise that we discovered in our own business journey about how early income really comes in and why it doesn't really depend on follower count?

Laurie Graham  22:59 
You know you say, what's one surprise? I'm surprised all the time, like I'm surprised today about things. You know, my audience surprises me. My reaction surprised me. Where the revenue comes or the success of a product or offer. It always surprises me, because sometimes I think this is going to be great, and it's just kind of so so right? So early on, one of the things that surprised me and still continues to is early income. It just feels different. Early income isn't about the best offer. It's early income comes from simple offers and real relationships. Early income does not come with fancy funnels at all. You do not need to wait for a huge audience to start anything that is not about an early offer. And I think the other thing that you mentioned about revenue that it doesn't depend on follower count, yeah, my email list, my audience is growing, you know, like rock star all the time, or in my in my reference point, right? I'm yeah, you know, not on the whatever list, but for Yeah, for me, for me, it feels like it, right? My revenue has not gone up with my audience growth. Like it proportionally, it's gone up, but not proportionally. It's like, wait, I have this many on my email list. Why? Why it's not equal? And I think that is really good to understand, because this entrepreneurial journey, and I'll say it's a faith journey also, right? Like, especially when we're walking with Jesus at the same time, it's not, it's not as predictable as I would like it to be, for sure, right? Like, okay, A plus B equals C, not always. You know, this conference grows every year except last year. You know, like, you know, like, there's always these exceptions, but I think one of the things that I love about you and me, and also what we're doing with including other women on this journey, is that we're walking this out together. We're not doing it alone. And if we can keep like, our journey full of peace and purpose and steady, I've said more often lately, which makes me laugh, because I so hate cliches. Slow and steady wins the race. Slow and steady. You know, the turtle, tortoise, and the hare. Like, I'm like, I have that in my mind a lot, you know. But that that doing it together, knowing we don't need a huge audience and a huge audience does not always make the difference. So true, you know, if we can keep like peace and purpose going, it's gonna go well, you know, before we wrap up today, let's do a just a really quick recap and set give you an Action Step that that you can actually take this week. Today, we walked, we talked a little bit. You we you were part of a conversation on what makes an offer honest as well as helpful, as well as, I'll say, aligned with who we are. You know, coming from our gifts, our experiences, meeting an actual need, not just developing something and putting it out there, but, you know, getting to know your audience, listening well, and I believe, also staying small enough to deliver something with the integrity that you want to deliver it like not over complicating it when you're through integrity in there. Yeah, that's a good word. We should use it more often. When our offers line up with who we are and don't need a lot of hype, it simplifies it, and it becomes an invitation instead of a push. So I think that's really, really important this week, what we created for you to download to be the Action Step, there's a it's called the Offer Builder, Mini Map, and it really just has some really great questions to lead you through some truths that we talked about, your gifts, the problem you see, little bit about your audience, the simplest promise that we can confidently make, and it just keeps it really realistic and also aligned with who we are. So grab the free Action Guide. It's called the Offer Builder Mini Map. We have an action guide with every single one of our podcasts, because Becky and I are not about being talking heads. We don't want you to listen. We don't want you just to learn. We want you to do and so we take it and we what do you talk about creating and consuming, right? We consume so we can create. Yes, right? We weren't made just to create on our own. We're a community, but we consume so we can create. So we want you to do, do, do. So thanks for coming with us today on our Smart Soulful Business journey. If this conversation resonated, please share this with a friend who's building something real and meaningful to Becky and I truly believe we are speaking into a space with a real, different voice, making things lighter heartfelt. We want to enjoy what we do with ease. We don't want to copy what's out there in the marketplace. We want to have heart and faith and be real. So come join us too in the Soulful Strategy Community, we had a new member join this week, so excited to be in there. We're so excited to be walking out this journey together so you don't have to build it alone. Go team.