How I Cut 47 Offers Down to 2, and How I Help Experts Do the Same

I had this dream awhile back.

My glasses were like four times the size of my face. Absolutely, ridiculously huge. Like those glasses people wear on New Year's Eve in Times Square. Only bigger.

I asked my wife what she thought it meant.

"Oh, this one's easy," she said. "You're focusing on too many things."

I sat there, stunned.

She was totally right.

At the time, our business had 47 different possible combinations of offers.

Selling one offer is hard enough. Forty-seven is a fool's errand. And completely unsustainable.

If you already know that's you, grab the free sprint.

You don't start with 47 on purpose

You start with one thing that works. Then you add a version. Then another. Then another door for people who aren't ready for the first one.

Before long you have a menu. And when someone asks what you do, you hand over the menu.

More options feel like you're being helpful. What they do is make it harder to say the one sentence that would let a stranger buy.

I learned this from the inside

I'm Justin Wise. I help experts get paid for what they know, not just what they do.

I learned that from the inside of a business that could do too many things.

Work was coming in. Clients were seeing results. I still couldn't tell you, cleanly, what we sold, who we should be selling to, or how we produced those results. Not in a way that held still long enough to say it twice.

I cut the list from 47 down to 2

It wasn't long after that dream that I cut our offer list from 47 down to 2.

At first, it was a little bumpy.

A few clients got mad we were culling the list.

What happened next

Delivery got easier. Clients saw better results. And we sold more. Lots more.

I finally had a grasp on what we sold, who we needed to be selling to, and how to produce killer results.

The better we got at showing results, the more valuable the offer became.

I learned something I still come back to: the answer to "how do I sell more" never comes from doing more.

If you have something that already works and you just can't say it in one sentence, grab the free sprint.

Same thing happened with a client

We took her primary offer, one with tons of moving parts, and broke it down into the basics.

Fit everything onto one page.

Then I had her focus on the problems her offer solved, not its features.

We also raised what she charged by $2,000.

She didn't change anything about the offer itself. Just the way she talked about it to potential clients.

Again: the answer to "how do I sell more" never comes from doing more.

The biggest mistake

The biggest mistake is adding another door when the first one isn't clear.

Another offer. Another program. Another way in. Another version "for people who aren't ready yet."

You think you're covering more ground. You're making it harder for anyone to know what to buy.

A stranger needs one problem named, and one next step.

How it works

When I work with someone on this now, we do three things.

One offer. The one you'd be proud to be known for.

One way to talk about it. A sentence a stranger could repeat.

One path from "I think I get it" to "when can we start?"

We build it together. Then you run it.

Start with the free sprint. You'll see what you already have, and whether this is the right next conversation.

What you walk away with

From the sprint, you get a clearer look at the offer you already have.

If we keep going after that, you walk away with one offer you can say out loud, one way to talk about it, and one path people can say yes to. Then you run it.

I call that further work Simple Start. The sprint tells you if it's even the right next move.

Is this for you?

This is for you if you've been at this long enough that people already pay you, and you still can't say what you sell in one sentence.

Or you've built so many versions of the thing that you freeze when someone asks which one to buy.

You already have something that works. You just can't hand it to a stranger.

Who this is not for

This is not for you if you're still looking for your first clients.

It's not for you if what you want is another tactic, another funnel, or someone to run the business for you.

And it's not for you if you already know what you sell, already have one path, and you just want more people to find you. That's a different conversation.

Your next step

If this sounded like your business, the next step is the free sprint.

You'll see what you already have. You'll see whether this is the right next conversation.

Grab the free sprint