This episode explores why having a clear and distinct “signature” offering is crucial for your coaching practice. Whether you're an internal coach or running your own independent gig, clarity is key! Having a clear and distinct offering can make all the difference in attracting the right clients and maximizing your impact.
That’s why we discuss the importance of aligning your signature offer with both your strengths and your clients' needs. We also share tips on how to choose the right modality and service, and even how to frame your offering around the problems you solve. Plus, we sprinkle in some fun anecdotes and examples from our own experiences, to make it clear – while you can have multiple offerings, a standout signature offer makes you memorable and repeatable.
So, grab a notepad and pen, settle in, and let’s get you on the path to creating a signature offer that truly reflects your unique coaching style!
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Clarity is Kindness: When potential clients encounter a confusing array of services, they may feel overwhelmed and move on. A signature offer makes it easier for clients to understand what you do, which ultimately leads to increased interest and profit. Remember, if you confuse, you lose!
Lead with the Problem You Solve: While it’s tempting to focus solely on the positive aspects of your services, we emphasized the importance of addressing the problems your clients face. By framing your signature offer around a specific problem, you can create urgency and relevance. This doesn’t mean you can’t highlight the positive outcomes; it’s about meeting your clients where they are and guiding them toward a solution.
Aligning Passion with Profitability: Choosing your signature offer is about finding that sweet spot where your passion meets profitability. Don’t be afraid to pivot if your current offering isn’t fulfilling you or your clients!
Embrace Your Unique Delivery: Recognize that your signature offer should reflect your unique strengths and style. Make it memorable and distinct so that it stands out in the market.
Flexibility in Offerings: Just because you have a signature offer doesn’t mean you can’t have other services. It’s about creating a clear starting point while still allowing for additional offerings that can evolve over time based on client needs and your interests.
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Identify the Problem You Solve: When defining your signature offer, articulate the specific problem it addresses. This helps potential clients see the value in your service and why they should choose you.
Analyze Profitability: Review your past offerings to determine which services generated the most revenue. Use this data to inform your decision on what should be your signature offer moving forward.
Define Your Signature Offer: Just do it!
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Further Reading: Check out the book Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
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Lisa: I'm Lisa.
Brea: And I'm Brea.
Lisa: And today we're talking about Mambo No. 5.
Brea: Little bit of Monica. Oh my gosh, we are so funny. If people only knew how cool we were.
Lisa: I know. Okay, it's Signature Offers. A little bit about Why have a signature offer in your coaching practice? And a little bit of how. And you can see why this came up. A little bit of a hmm. Yeah. Let's talk why, though. What do you think, Brea? Why is it important to have a signature offer? Whether you're an internal coach or an independent coach, doesn't matter. Why do you need one of these?
Brea: Right. Signature offer. So this is your standard offering, the thing that you do. Why? Because it's clear and clarity is kindness. And if you confuse, you lose. So if it's clear, It's easy for you to communicate, then that equals profit, that equals interest from people, and it attracts the people that you want to work with. Hopefully, if it's your signature offer, you love delivering it. So it's good to have a firm place to start and to stand. Not to say that we can't have other offerings as well, but we've talked about personal branding and the importance of that. This is what you are known for delivering.
Lisa: Yes, I so agree with that as the number one. It's clear. And that's so important because when people are curious about what we do, if they come and they get a giant menu, it is confusing or overwhelming. You know, we have the urgent, important thing going on in our lives, like, oh, this is probably important people development, but it's just not urgent for this moment. So I'll come back and look at the menu later. That is what you do to the customer or potential customer, whether that's an internal customer or a prospect for your independent business. And even if it sounds desirable, they can just be like, I'm moving on. And that to me is why you need a signature offer so that when they're looking for that thing, it grabs them.
Brea: Can we talk more about how clarity is kindness?
Lisa: Yeah, I love that phrase.
Brea: I'm sure it's not mine. I'm sure I've picked it up from someone way smarter than me, like Brene Brown or something is what's coming to mind. It's true, and so I'm sharing it with all of you. I don't know. Everyone listening might not know this. Your brain, when it's working, when it's doing all its stuff, it's consuming calories. That's why when you're at a conference or you're in a class or you're reading a lot, you're learning a lot, you can stand up and physically you weren't doing anything. You were sitting on your behind, but you stand up and you're like, man, I'm exhausted. Because our brain actually consumes calories. And so because of our, you know, primal instinct and all that stuff, it's our nature to want to make things simple, to conserve the energy for when threat comes and we need to go out there and fight the dragons or whatever, you know. So the more simple, the more clear, the more easy to understand that we can make our offerings, the better. Because if the brain has to work too hard about something that it doesn't think is very important, like what you just said, Lisa, like there are other things that my brain is, you know, like working on right now, it will dismiss it. And you don't want to be that thing that gets dismissed.
Lisa: Oh, yes, exactly. And I say never fear everyone listening. You might be like, yeah, but I really love one-on-one coaching and I really love speeches and I really love workshops. The thing is, after you've done your favorite one or the big one or the one, let's, we'll talk in a minute about how to pick which one is the signature offer. They'll ask you, what's next? Where do we go from here? How else can I work with you? And then all of those other things can unfold. So it's not as if failing to mention all of the other ones up front means you'll never do them again. It just makes it clear and easy to digest the first go round.
Brea: Yeah, that's right. That's right.
Lisa: Let's talk about how you pick. So, hey, I know you have a menu. I have a menu. They're both fairly big. How do you decide what your signature would look like?
Brea: I mean, for me, it comes down to profitability. That's not a strength of mine, focusing on what makes the most money or what keeps me in business. And so it's really easy for me to just look back at the data and be like, OK, last year, where did most of my money come from? What are people buying? You know, that's a real easy way for me to say, OK, well, let's lean into that. Right. We find what works and we do more of that.
Lisa: And it really works for both of you. you like the service and they want to buy it. So it overlaps. That means it's a great one for both of you.
Brea: Sometimes, though, what is making me the most money is not actually what I like the most. So that's a good exercise to look at that and then decide, do I want to create a signature offering that is something that I like that maybe people haven't bought in the past or haven't bought as much? Kind of like I'm thinking of you, Lisa, like when you switch to fully virtual, you know, like it's a little scary to lean into that, but that's what you needed and what you wanted and so you went for it. But that would be my first approach to the signature offer is to figure out what is your signature offer now either on purpose or by accident and do you want it to still be your signature offer moving forward.
Lisa: Yeah, I love it. OK, so when I think of a signature offer, there's the service itself and what is the modality? So the modality, I think you pick something like, is my signature modality training, one-on-one coaching, in-person, virtual? book tours. I mean, it could be anything that you can imagine that you could get paid for that is the service, but what's that modality? And then the service itself. So if you do retreats, it's like one-on-one or a one-on-one retreat would be weird, but you could, I guess that's a VIP day, right? Hey, hey, so there you go. If I spoke as Brea, I do the most amazing, immersive, one-on-one VIP days. I mean, imagine if a person heard that and that was them, what they would feel like. So I like that modality plus service, but then I also like adding in, be ready with a problem you solve Because, like when I said, I help leaders build their teams after reorgs, that's kind of generic. That's not the service. That's a problem. So like, Ooh, I'm just going through a reorg, and it really stinks right now. How do you do that? Oh, I do that through half-day workshops with CliftonStrengths. And then boom, they've got your modality, your service, your problem, you've got it all in there.
Brea: Yep. And that's usually where Eileen, I think we've talked about that before with my story brand background. I'm a firm believer in leading with the problem, not in a negativity or to try to scare you into working with me type of way, but in a, this is actually where people's brains are. And so if you're going to communicate with them, you need to meet them where they are and where they are is usually working on a problem. And so, um, to align with that, I think is really smart. Yes. Yes.
Lisa: And I think it is important to mention it with our audience because let's be real about who we are. We're talking a lot about coaches, trainers, speakers. Most listeners are into strengths. So if you're out there, we're all alike in the way that we see potential. We try to focus on what's great. So to turn around and say, focus on a problem, it really does like we're going to get a little glitch in your brain. Like that's not what I want to do. I want to focus people on the positive. And if you layer in human psychology, I really love Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow, even though it's the most giant book and a little heavy to get through. But Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize winning behavioral economist, putting the stats behind what Brea just said, that people are two times more likely to act if they're moving away from a negative versus when they're moving toward a positive. So giving the feel good potential is nice. And you can also create more urgency and interest if you can help them solve a problem that's pressing and eating up their headspace. Yeah, and it is positive to serve them in that way because they can get that negative thing over with.
Brea: Yep, that's right. I have helped a lot of coaches with their marketing of their signature offer and even the creation of their signature offer that fits with them and many strengths coaches keep coming back to this point of like, I don't want to offer something that solves a problem. I want, you know, I want to work with people who want to really integrate strengths into their organization. I don't want to work with organizations or managers that are in the middle of a problem. I want to work with people who are thriving, you know, and they want to get more of that. So we want to bring strengths in. So that's fine. You don't have to have a negative Your solution doesn't have to be to go into the depths of the problem areas with people. You can have a really positive, proactive, strength-focused solution. and recognize that whoever's buying that does have a problem, even if it's not a problem like you would normally define it. Like, um, such as maybe their problem is they just have too much going on. They really want to provide excellent professional development for their team. They really want this, you know, offsite to, just rock their people. Their people have been working so hard and they want to reward them, they want to appreciate them, like all the positive things that give us all the, you know, all the tinglys as strengths coaches. That's what they want. They don't have time to do that themselves. Boom. There's your problem.
Lisa: Yes. Yes. And you know what you sparked for me? I had a, in a past role, I worked for another company and we had a signature offer of training that is two full days. And I was an executive in charge of this product. And you know what the number one feedback was from customers? It wasn't about the content. It was about the length. It was two days. We can't give people two days. What? Two days? Could you make this a half a day? Could you make this a half a day? Could you make this a half a day? I heard so many times, could you make this half day? That when I started Lead Through Strengths, I was like, absolutely, 100%, my signature offer is going to be a half day because I heard from so many big corporate people who were my audience, that that is the amount of time that was palatable for them to give. And I didn't want to fight all the objections of two days. Would I rather spend two days with them immersing in their awesomeness? Yeah, that sounds pretty fun. Yeah. yet I knew what needed to be signature. Once in a while they'll ask to extend it and they'll do the full day version, but it is actually really rare. It's just such a sweet spot of a time and that has stood the test of a decade. It's really incredible.
Brea: I have also found that and kind of gave into it. You know, I was like, okay, sure, well, we can accommodate, you know, I'll customize, I'll take some stuff out, we'll squeeze it in, you know, to half a day. But that doesn't satisfy me. I love the full day, two day or even, you know, some micro learnings once a month for a year or, you know, packaging it in smaller bites like that is what fuels me. So I've learned that I need to, I need to hold out for those customers and I need to be specific and market to those customers. And there, there are less of them, you know, like you said, a lot of people are looking for the half day. So that's that's my signature offer is look I can create this experience. I'll take care of everything. I'll find the venue. I'll find the food. Like you don't have to worry about a thing. You just sit back and I got this. All you have to do is show up and I promise to make you the person that hired me. I promise to make you the hero. I'm going to create this amazing experience for your team and you get to take all the credit and all the fruit from what comes from it in days to come. So for coaches that are listening, it's just so important to look at your own strengths and create a signature offer that fits with you and satisfies the need of your customer.
Lisa: Yes. I love everything you said. It made me think of Carol Wheeler. She's one of our fellow coaches in New Braunfels, Texas. Shout out, Texas. And she's got this physical space in New Braunfels, Texas, and she owns that market. If you're in New Braunfels and you're doing leadership training, strengths training, she's the person that you will think of or that colleagues will refer to because she owns that space. And that's a beautiful thing about signature offers too. It's, It's ownable because it is the more distinct, the more differentiated, the more other people can help you. So it's another good reason to have a signature offer because it makes you memorable and repeatable for other people. It makes it easy to share.
Brea: I mean, you know, I love words and the phrase signature offer is so on point because when we think about actual signature, yes, it's writing our name, it's writing these letters, but my signature of my name is so unique to me. No one else can deliver that in the same way. And I think, you know, if you want to really create a true signature offer, that's the impact that you can have. It's so unique in the way that you deliver it, that you own that space. I love that. What a great example. Yes.
Lisa: And I think for me, closing with some wisdom from Tyann Osborne, one of our fellow strengths coaches. is she always talks about how just because you have this signature offer doesn't take away the fact that you have the credibility of the other offers that you have and it doesn't mean that those go away. Getting really clear doesn't mean those other things disappear. It just makes that one thing stand out.
Brea: There you go.
Lisa: There you go. Then whoomp, there it is.
Brea: Whoomp, there it is. That reminds me of D2, Mighty Ducks. It's probably in a lot of movies and whatever, but that's where I think I first heard that song.
Lisa: I don't even know what that is. D2, Mighty Ducks. What?
Brea: The Mighty Ducks, you've never seen the Mighty Ducks. Wait, is that a hockey team? Yes.
Lisa: Okay, I don't know if I've ever seen it.
Brea: Oh my gosh, Lisa. Okay, well, Slumber Party at Lisa's house. We're watching Mighty Ducks and D2. It'll be a movie marathon. Oh my gosh. There's so much pop culture I'm behind on. Any other 90s kids out there? Your jaw is on the floor just like mine. I'm like, oh my gosh, The Sandlot, Mighty Ducks. I mean, just right back to my middle school years. I love it. Love it.
Lisa: Yeah, if you ever want to just have people's jaws drop at the things I do not know or understand, name celebrities and movies like that, and I'll just be like, I don't know. I mean, music, I have pretty broad taste. I can do that kind of pop culture. But movies and television shows, I've never been a watcher. And so I am just real behind on those kind of things.
Brea: Oh my gosh. Well, that's all right. We can catch you up to speed. We can catch up to speed. I won't do that. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Turtles in a half shell.
“Remember, hard work doesn’t have to feel hard. Aligned with your strengths, it actually feels easy, energizing, and fun!”
MEET YOUR CO-HOSTS
BREA ROPER
Communication | Woo | Activator | Futuristic | Connectedness
If you need a Strengths Hype Girl, for yourself or your team, connect with Brea at brearoper.com. She’s ready to deliver an inspirational keynote, empowering training, or transformational workshop. If you’re looking for an expert guide to support your internal Strengths efforts, reach out today!
LISA CUMMINGS
Strategic | Maximizer | Positivity | Individualization | Woo
To work with Lisa, check out team workshops and retreats at the Lead Through Strengths site. For 1:1 strengths or life coaching, check out the Get Coached link. For independent coaches, trainers, and speakers, get business tools support with our Tools for Coaches membership.
The Fine Print: This podcast is not sanctioned or endorsed by Gallup in any way. Opinions, views and interpretations of CliftonStrengths© are solely the beliefs of Lisa Cummings and Brea Roper.