Making the Offer & My Costa Rica Countdown KDS: 074

Making the offer doesn’t have to be difficult.

I spent way too long making this a much bigger deal than it needs to be. In this episode I want to talk about making the offer, what offers look like, and how to simplify the process.

But first…

HOLY MOLY!

As of the time of this writing, I am literally two weeks away from moving to Costa Rica! 🌴

I made this decision three months ago and it’s been go-time ever since. Getting out of Boise was a lot of work, which took me through the end of March. I’ve been down in Northern California for 6 weeks since leaving Boise and the time has flown by.

After selling, donating, and dumping as much stuff as possible in Boise (I literally got rid of as much as I possibly could), I’ve still got a storage unit here by my Dad’s house (where I’ve been staying). I’ve got a handful of my daughter’s stuff in my storage unit and am still condensing and getting rid of more of my own things (I’d be content to only hold on to photos and all my scrapbook stuff… eventually I’ll pick that up again).

I went down to the Bay Area twice so I could see people and take care of a few things and it’s like all of the sudden here I am.

Two weeks from moving out of the country.

The closer this gets the more emotions I’m experiencing.

The majority of what I’m feeling is pure excitement! I feel like a little kid counting down to Christmas. I’ve been pretty goofy about it… when I check out at a store and someone asks me how I’m doing I respond with “great! I’m moving to Costa Rica in a few weeks!” 🤣

It’s a little bit nutty but I don’t care.

Not only is this a huge move for me it signals the beginning of an entirely new chapter in my life.

As strange as 2020 was, it was exactly what I needed.

I needed a year to myself after losing my Mom, to heal, rest, and have some quiet.

I moved to Idaho as a first step to seeing if I could live out of California (born and raised and all my family are here, not to mention lifelong friends). I was open to Idaho being “home”, but it was only meant to be a temporary move. Realizing I wasn’t cut out for the cold and was craving a new experience (it felt a little like “different city, same story”), I made kind of a last minute decision to move to Costa Rica.

My lease was set to renew in 5 weeks and I knew Idaho wasn’t where I’d be putting down roots and it just felt like “why NOT?”

Within a week I had given notice and found my place in Costa Rica. 😊

Fast forward to today (May 17th), and I’m finalizing all the details for my move (there are a lot of moving parts).

All I have left to do is:

• Get the dog’s health certificates (they have appt.s on the 28th)
• Buy my medical travel insurance (required because of Covid)
• Transfer my car registration back to California after getting a smog check
• Buy my return flight the day before I leave (and will refund within 24 hours… you have to show you’re going to leave the country at 90 days. I’ll be doing a border run to Nicaragua… at least until they pass the Digital Nomad visa – fingers crossed!)

Probably not that exciting to hear about, but it helps me to repeat it, so thanks for that.

I will be sharing my journey living and working in Costa Rica on a new site, called “PuraVidaJourney.com” (if you’re not familiar with that saying, Pura Vida in Costa Rica means pure life or simple life). I’ll have a newsletter that sends updates and am *thinking* about doing a podcast where I interview other digital nomads/entrepreneurs living in Costa Rica (this sounds fun as well as being a great way to meet like-minded people, although I don’t want to only connect with other entrepreneurs).

Making Offers

Man… if only I had understood this sooner.

Most people don’t fail online because they don’t have the skillset or something valuable to offer (i.e, having a solution to someone’s problem)… they fail because they’re not making enough offers AND/OR they’re not making the right offers.

This seems like a bit of a catch-22.

You have to put the offer out there to see if it’s the right offer… and if it’s not the right offer, how do you know?

I have fallen in love with testing things (as a paid offer), getting feedback and validation, then fine-tuning it as a higher-priced offer.

I did this recently with two offers.

The first was the Content Promotion Code for the Content Creators Planner.

Jodi and I have known for a long time that we need a little higher priced offer on the backend of our funnel and simply to offer customers. Content Promotion is something most people struggle with (yours truly included). I know exactly how to do it, it’s simply a matter of taking the time to do it.

The idea behind the Content Promotion Code is to show people how to create a 30-day campaign for ONE piece of content and get results (as opposed to pushing out so much new content all the time but not promoting it enough, so nothing ever really gains any traction).

We have a structure for this and could have gone deep into a course, but I wanted to do a live workshop where we went through the framework with people so we could get feedback and see where they wanted more or less help as well as some clarity.

We offered the workshop for $97 (you can still purchase the 90-minute workshop on the site) and are going to be turning it into a 5-module course (and the price will go up).

We’re also going to give everyone who took the one-off workshop the 5-module course for free (in exchange for feedback and a simple way of saying Thank You).

All we did to promote this was send a handful of emails to our list (I emailed my Kim Doyal list as well).

It wasn’t a huge launch by any means, but it generated a nice chunk of revenue and validated our idea… people need help with the promotional side of content marketing just as much as they need help with the strategy and framework for creating it.

The second was a recent offer I’ve made to my list (and will be emailing the Content Creators Planner list this week as well to fill the final spots).

It’s called “Email Insiders VIP.”

Since making the decision to pivot my focus on my personal brand to email marketing and newsletters (still in a deep love affair with both), I’ve been trying to understand where people struggle and what their challenges are.

I’ve heard from day one when I started my business in 2008 that “the money is in the list”…

So I signed up with an email service provider (think my first was 1ShoppingCart…boy, they dropped the ball on that one), set up an opt-in and started building my list.

The problem was that I didn’t really know what to email them, how often or anything else after that.

So I basically half-assed my email marketing out of fear of doing it wrong or heaven forbid, “offending” anyone who had signed up to hear from me.

Crazy.

We’re literally our own worst enemies when it comes to growing our businesses.

I try not to think of all the money I left on the table by not emailing more often and most importantly, emailing offers.

When you haven’t been emailing and decide to focus on it (and you really should, because your email list is an asset. You build a list, a relationship, and then offer them things that will solve their problems. It’s really not rocket science).

The BEST way to find out how you can help your audience is to ASK them.

Novel idea, I know.

You can also create content and share what you’re doing with your audience… you’d be surprised how many people let you know that what you’re doing resonates with them or they send you questions.

One of my favorite calls to action in an email is simply to say “hit reply and tell me…”

Here’s what I did with Email Insiders VIP:

I simply came up with a private group coaching offer, only two months, and only 10 people. They all get a one-on-one onboarding with me, two group calls a month (with training from me), and one Q&A call. As well as unlimited access to me via Voxer to ask questions.

My goal with this pilot program (I like that more than beta), is to completely over-deliver. I want people to get results, make connections, feel great about email marketing and START doing the work (you can only plan for so long before you have to pull the trigger).

I’m going to ask them for as much feedback as possible, will probably take extra calls and do email reviews as well.

I set this up so I could personally work with people and go deeper.

So far I’ve sent 3 emails and have almost filled all 10 spots (have a couple of calls this week and more emails to send).

This has given me massive validation. I know email marketing is a pain point because I’ve been there (and where I was in my business a four or five years back is where many of my clients are today).

I had heard over and over again to put offers out there before you had a product (obviously with both of these offers I had them outlined and mapped out but more importantly, I have the skillset to make the offer. But that’s for another conversation entirely), but I was hesitant to do it.

Getting your mindset right before you make an offer to your audience is probably the most important thing you can do.

As long as you’re coming from a place of integrity and a true desire to help people get results, most people will love being a part of a pilot or beta program.

All of this being said, you do need to have a few things in place:

• Know your audience & the problems they have
• Know how to solve those problems
• Have a relationship with your audience
• Be willing to be open and transparent about the process
• Be committed to getting people results, not selling your offer

Both of these offers have given me massive proof that the pivot in my business (focusing on email for KimDoyal & content marketing with Content Creators Planner) was spot on.

And I’m excited about where this is going to lead me.