The BIG Idea You Are Probably Missing

I see a lot of sales pitches and read a ton of marketing messages in my line of work and I feel like so often there is one main reason that our offers are not converting. So, it doesn’t matter whether your offer is for a free lead magnet or a paid product, if you fix this one issue then you will be so much more successful. I’ll tell you what that is, right after this.So, in one of my masterminds recently, we’ve been discussing our offers. People have been throwing their offers and offer ideas out to the group for feedback, and very often it seems like the offer is sort of a word salad.I get that it’s sometimes hard to articulate what you do and how you help people. It’s something I hear often with my clients. Many times they have had a business going for several years and it’s been ok, but they still talk in really generic terms about how they help people.The more I immerse myself in marketing, marketing language, marketing copy, and surround myself with world class marketers, the easier this flaw is to spot.So what is this falw I’m referring to?In business and in marketing, you need to build around one BIG idea.And to be honest, when you first start your business, you may have a BIG idea at the time, but soon the marketplace is flooded with everyone else doing the same thing and you have to change your BIG idea.When I started Team Podcast, I started it because I could not find the company that I wanted to hire to work on my podcast.At that time, in 2012, there were no one-stop-shops where you could get all the post production done on your podcast for one price.There was a company, called Podfly, that was sort of working in that direction, but I couldn’t stand the parameters they put around the length of your audio files and how many “um” removals would be included in your package before you got an extra charge.So when I started, my one BIG idea was doing all the post production on a podcast for one price per episode, and not nickel and dime-ing my customers with every little thing that other companies were doing.Fast forward to nearly 10 years later and almost every podcast production company has that model now. So, even though I was ahead of the curve at the time, my BIG idea from 10 years ago is no longer a BIG idea.I’ve told you about how I got a virtual punch in the gut from a client that led me down the path of marketing and monetizing podcasts, so now my BIG idea isn’t just that we will produce podcasts like everyone else is doing, but we will also work with podcasters to help monetize their podcasts.It takes a completely different skill set to learn the marketing skills to monetize a podcast, and I’ve spent the last almost 4 years now investing heavily in earning my marketing chops. The result is that now I won’t launch another podcast that isn’t going to be monetized. And I know how and when I will pull the levers of monetization.Why is it so important to have a BIG idea?There are several reasons, but let me highlight the most important ones:The marketplace is more crowded than ever! With social media, online access and 24 hour TV consumption, your ideal customers are bombarded with more ads per day than ever before. Your BIG idea will help you stand out in the crowded marketplace.Your customers have a shorter attention span than ever. Face it, we live in an instant gratification age. Consumers no longer have the attention span to make it through a long sales cycle, or for it to take months for them to get their problems solved.Improvement offers no longer capture your customers. Your customers are looking for transformation and if you can’t provide it, someone else will.Generalists are out and specialists are in. You’ve heard that “riches are in the niches” and every business has to niche down to survive in this market. Pick one sub-niche of your niche...