So that's what today's episode is designed to do. It's designed to help you answer the question, “Is it time for me to create a new offer in my business?” The decision making framework I use when it comes to answering this question has four parts to it. In fact, you might want to envision a bullseye or a dartboard. So we've got a circle in the center, and then we have rings or circles coming out from it. So with that visual image in your mind, let's start with the innermost circle, the center of that bullseye, and that center of the bullseye is you – because you are the center of your business. So the first place we start is with you. And with asking the question, “How would creating this new offer serve me?” And I kind of alluded to this before, but I think whenever that creative inspiration hits, whenever you get the itch to create something new in your business, it's helpful to take a moment and just notice what's going on and where it might be coming from. For me, it's also about connecting with the energy of the moment and the energy of this new idea that I have. There have been times in my business where I have created an offer, because I felt almost like I was getting a divine download. It was so clear, in my mind, in my heart, and in my gut, that this offer was exactly what I needed and what my business needed. I didn't even have to question it, I just knew. But honestly, that is the exception and not the norm. In fact, I think there have been two times in my business where I've had that strong of a connection with an offer that I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was meant to bring it forth in the world. The other times it's been more of a seed of an idea, an inkling, a thought that “Well, you know, I could do this, I wonder what that would look like?” And it's with those where I really need to slow down and pay attention. And I have to ask myself, “What's really going on here?” Am I seeking some external creativity? Do I miss the buzz of those early days of building my business? When everything seemed fresh and new? Am I feeling a little bored with what's going on in my business? And am I looking for something new to liven things up a bit? Maybe I am craving the excitement that comes from a new idea. And all of these things are normal, we all experience them in our business from time to time where things feel a little dry, a little stale, a little boring. And then a new idea comes in to freshen everything up. So for me when that's the case, I find it very helpful to dig in a little more to how I'm feeling around my business, and noticing what energy is present. If there's an energy of boredom, or of lethargy, or just feeling stuck, then I really need to ask myself, “Am I looking at this new offer as a way to pull myself out of this funk and/or –  because it might be both; Is this something I feel really passionate about creating in my business?” To me, it's very much looking at it as will this project be an escape for me? Am I trying to run away from something in my business that maybe needs my attention? Or will this project enhance how I'm feeling about my business? So that's why I always start with asking myself the question, “How does this new offer serve me?” Is it helping me feel more connected to myself and my work? Is it an escape strategy, what's really going on here? Now, I want to be clear that there's nothing wrong with creating a new offer in your business if you're feeling bored. And I don't mean to suggest that you shouldn't do that. That may be just what you need to kind of rekindle the spark and feel really excited about your work again. My point is that it's important to be aware of that, and to choose your action from a place of intention. And to recognize, yeah, I've been feeling a little stuck, a little burned out, a little uninspired in my business lately. And so yeah, I have this new idea in mind that I think is going to breathe some life back into the work that I do. That is a perfectly acceptable reason to move forward with something. And it may also suggest that we need to take a look at what's going on outside of this new offer in your business, to see if there are some existing offers that need to be modified or if there's something else going on in your business that doesn't quite fit. Again, this is all about getting curious, exploring and being open to opportunity. 

So the first thing I ask myself if I'm considering a new offer is how it serves me. So that's that innermost circle, really exploring how this new offer how this new idea affects you. Then we move out to the next ring to the next circle. And that's where we ask the question, “How will this new offer serve my clients?” So when you are creating something new in your business, it really is about striking a balance between your needs and your intuition, all of the things that we talked about in that first circle, and listening to your audience, hearing what their needs are, and then finding a way to make both work. How can you create something that honors you and your values and that you feel excited about that also serves and supports your clients? Because the fact of the matter is, you are making an offer to them. So it needs to be attractive to them, it needs to be useful, they need to see it as a worthy investment of their time, their energy and their money. So we do need to ask the question, how does this offer serve my clients? If you have already spent a fair amount of time on market research, meaning you've already spoken to ideal clients, or people who represent your ideal clients, you've asked them questions about what it is they want, what it is they need, what they've already tried, you may be at a point where you already know your ideal clients so well, that you'll have a strong gut sense of whether this new idea will serve them or not. If you are unsure, then I would say go back to that market research piece. Talk to your ideal clients, ask those questions about what's missing for them, what they'd like to see more of. I recommend doing so from a place of openness, and not introducing your new idea immediately. We don't necessarily want to prime the pump too much. We really want to hear from them. What are you looking for? What do you need? How can I be of support to you? If that happens to align with that idea for an offer that you have, then we can kind of test the waters and say, “You know, it's interesting, I've been thinking of creating this new offer inside my business. And I'm curious to hear from you, how well do you think that might meet your needs?” So then we can start getting a little more specific data, we can test it out before we invest a lot of time and money into creating an offer that honestly, we're not quite sure if it's what our clients want. So taking a little time to ask those questions in advance, to do our market research, can really pay off dividends in the long run. It's also helpful to think about how your clients will perceive this new offer. Ideally, it's going to be something that they hear about, and they feel so connected to that they're like, “Yes! It's a no brainer, I want this! What do I do next?” And sometimes when we introduce new offers to our business, we can have the opposite effect. Clients may think, “Oh, this doesn't really sound like it's for me.” Or maybe they feel overwhelmed, because now you have multiple offers, and they don't see how they fit into your ecosystem or which offer would be best for them. And if it's an offer, that seems to be a huge pivot from what you've traditionally offered in your business, then we run the risk of confusing our clients. So we want to be really thoughtful around how this new idea or this new offer may be perceived and received by the clients we want to serve. 

And here's where we start to move into the third realm, that third ring in our bullseye, which is where we want to ask ourselves, “How does this new offer serve my business?” So one of the things I talk a lot about with my certification program students and with the Coach with Clarity Collective members, is this idea of having a spectrum of services in your business. And a spectrum of services is simply what I call the range of offers you have available. Now, when I'm working with my clients to help them build out their own spectrum of services, I generally recommend that they start at the ends and work their way in. So at one end of your spectrum, you're going to have all of your free content or your free offers. So in my business that looks like this podcast, it looks like my free opt ins, it looks like my quiz, which you can check out at coachingquiz.com. These are all the free ways that I serve my people, my community. And even though it is free content that I'm not being compensated for, because it serves my people, I include it on my spectrum of services. So that's at one end of the spectrum. At the other end of my spectrum of services tend to be the higher touch and higher priced offers. So that might be my one on one coaching package. It may be my certification program, but it tends to be both at a higher price point and also at a higher touch point. So when I'm working with my clients, I recommend that if they're first starting out, they really need to focus just on those two ends of the spectrum. How are you connecting with people and serving them through your free content? And then what is that high end, upper level offer that you want to make? And for most to coaches that looks like one on one private coaching. Once you have those two ends of the spectrum defined, then we can start building out the spectrum by designing other offers that fall at various points of the spectrum. And again, typically, I recommend working from the inside out. So you've got your free content, a step inside, might look like a $27 ebook, or maybe you're writing a book that you're going to have published, that's certainly something that would be one step up the spectrum of services. So these are now items that your clients pay for, but they're at still a fairly low price point. And while they're highly informative, and I have no doubt, your clients will receive a lot of valuable information from it, the touch point is low. They're likely not having a lot of direct contact with you and if they are, it's likely not in a one on one environment, it's probably more in a group environment, or maybe it's social media. But we're still moving up from that entirely free level. Likewise, when we go to the other end of the spectrum, before moving one step in from one on one private coaching, maybe that looks like a group coaching program, where people are still receiving support directly from you, but in a group context versus one on one. And then we can continue to move in the spectrum even more, maybe you want to develop a challenge, maybe you want to create a course, maybe you want a certification program, or a mastermind, these are all things that may fall at various points on your spectrum of services. But the whole idea behind creating a spectrum of services is so that number one, you have multiple entry points into your business for your clients. And they can choose what entry point they want, based on how much access they want to you how much information they want, what their financial readiness is. And the other point, point two is that all of the offers on your spectrum of services work together. You are essentially creating an ecosystem for your ideal client, so that no matter what point they come into, they're still getting a consistent message from you. They understand who you are, what you stand for, and what your business is about. And so really, it's the delivery, the access, that are changing from offer to offer, not the methodology and not your main message.

So now that we've done a little mini deep dive into the spectrum of services, the reason it's so important to ask, “How does this new offer serve my business?” is because we want to understand if and where it falls on your spectrum of services, how it would connect with and support what you're already offering, and would it compete or conflict with anything already on your spectrum of services. You remember earlier, when I talked about how sometimes when we create a new offer, it can actually confuse or overwhelm our ideal clients. Oftentimes, that happens when we haven't considered how this offer fits on our existing spectrum of services. And so if we create something that competes with something we're already offering, then we're adding friction, we're adding tension into our business. And friction in a business is rarely a good thing. Likewise, if our new offer doesn't really seem to fit on our spectrum at all, because it's not consistent with our message or with our methodology, then that's another thing to pay attention to as well. Now, in both cases, that doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't take action on your offer. If this new idea potentially competes with a service you're already offering, well, then we need to ask the question, “Does this need to replace my old offer? Is there a way that I can blend the two? How can I make this happen so that it doesn't feel like it's going to create friction in my business?” So the answer may not be to not take action on this new idea. But it may need a little more thought, planning, and strategy to ensure that it fits seamlessly on your spectrum of services. 

And if this new offer seems to have nothing to do with your existing spectrum of services, well that is a really interesting place to be. It might suggest that you are expanding who you serve and what you want to offer. And then the question becomes “What is this expansion suggesting?” Is there a place underneath the umbrella of my existing business for this new offer or am I creating something new? Could this be the seed of an entirely new business? So again, these are not necessarily problems or things to avoid, but they do invite us to go deeper and to really examine how does this new offer connect with and support my existing business? And if I can't readily see how it does, then I need to ask some more questions. I need to go even deeper and that will help me decide whether this is an idea or an offer that I want to take action on. Sometimes I find that I get an idea for new offer in my business, and it winds up pointing to some other issues in my business I need to address. So for example, let's say that you have a program in your business that has done really well in the past. That every time you've launched it, you've met or exceeded your goals, people seem to like it. And yet, over the last, let's say, 6 to 12 months, you've noticed that your sales has started to decline. Maybe you're converting fewer people into a group program or into your one on one work, maybe you have an opt in that's getting fewer signups, we're just starting to notice a decline in the interest from your clients. And so that might simply be a sign that your people are getting a little tired of hearing about the same offer over and over and over again. Or maybe your audience is growing, and it's simply no longer meeting their needs. So in either case, it's a good indication that maybe it's time for some things to shift in your business, it's time for you to better meet the needs of your clientele. And so yes, it is time for something new. And so you can see that when we're looking at “How will this serve my clients?” and “How will this serve my business?”, I've separated these two rings, because they are two different questions and two different perspectives. But they are very much connected. Because you can't have a business without clients and you can't have clients without a business. So even though I'm talking about them as separate concepts and separate questions, they're still very much linked. 

And the flip side of that is that if your existing offers are doing really well, if your business is thriving, if you're enjoying the work that you do, your clients are happy, you're not feeling bored, and things just feel kind of like, “Hey, yeah, you know, I've hit a good, good harmony point here. Things feel good.” then you might want to ask yourself, is creating a new offer really the best way for me to scratch this creative itch that's coming up for me right now. And to be quite honest with you, my friends, this is where I have found myself the last few months. Things are going pretty well in my business, I had a wonderful launch of the Coach with Clarity Collective in March of this year. I have a second cohort of my mastermind that is getting started as we speak. I'm working behind the scenes to bring my certification program up to the new accreditation standards for the International Coaching Federation. The podcast is growing and doing well. When I look at my spectrum of services on the whole things are where I want them to be. So why am I getting this idea for a new offer? Well, when I got curious, I realized that I was looking for a new form to express myself creatively. And for the last six years, so much of what I have done has been around my business. So then it makes sense that my default would be, “Oh, I'm getting a creative urge, what’s something new that I can create in my business?” But the fact of the matter is, I don't necessarily need to create something huge and brand new in my business right now. So maybe there are some other outlets I want to explore outside of my business. And I really credit working with my own coach on helping me have that realization. Because what I realized is that it has been a very long time, since I've done any sort of writing or creation that was not business related. And I have no regrets about that because I absolutely love my business and I love what I create for it. And yet, there are other avenues where creativity can be expressed in my life that have been fairly dormant for the last six years. And once I realized that, and I got quiet with myself and I had some reflection and some internal conversations, I realized I do have this urge to create something new, and it can happen outside of my business. And actually it's going to, I haven't really told many people that I'm doing this, but I've just enrolled in an online playwriting class this summer. And I'm going to return to my theater roots. Many of you know I was a theater major in college, I've done community theater since I was about seven or eight years old. When I was in college, I took a playwriting course and loved it. And yet I've not done any significant playwriting since then, so I'm feeling a little nervous. I'll be honest with you. It's been, I don't know, 20/22 years since I've written a play. And at the same time, I'm feeling really excited about it. It feels like a return to something that was once the center point of my life, and it's okay that it's not right now. And I'm feeling really excited to reconnect with some of those pieces of me that haven't been expressed for decades. I never would have gotten to that point, had I not asked myself the question, “Do I really need to create a new offer in my business right now?” And so for me about this one particular offer, the answer was “No, you don't. But if you want to create something new, let's find another way to do it.” So I'm sharing that experience with you in case it resonates. And in case it's relevant with you, perhaps your business doesn't need something new. It's doing really well on its own right now and so maybe there's another avenue you might want to explore for your own creative expression. 

Alright, so we've talked about asking how this new offer might potentially serve you. We've talked about how it might serve your clients, and we've looked at how it might serve your business. The last question I want you to ask yourself, is “How this new offer might serve your larger community and the world?” So this is a big question. I know that. But I think it's important to consider how this new offer aligns with your broader purpose, with your mission in life, and the potential impact on the wider community. Now, I want to be clear, that doesn't mean every single thing you have to create in your business has to change the world. That is a whole lot of pressure to put on an email opt in, or a webinar or a group coaching program. And yet at the same time, everything we do and everyone we deal with in our business is interconnected. And so that's why I think it's important to think about the potential ripple effects of whatever it is we create. And when we look at it through that lens, even a simple one hour webinar, or a one week workshop that serves one person powerfully, has the impact to change their lives. And the ripple effect from that will change the people around them, their community, and it goes outward, and so forth. So even one small offer has the potential to impact larger communities and even the world. 

So as you can see, I think there's a lot to consider, as we explore whether or not to bring a new offer into our businesses. And all of these questions and ideas overlap with each other. Yet, I still find it helpful to go back to that framework to that concept of the bullseye, and to think about yourself in the center. And then in the rings that extend from that center point will find your clients and then your business, and then your community and the world as a whole. And we want to ask ourselves, “How would creating this new offer effect each and every ring on this bullseye? How will it serve me? How will it serve my clients? How will it serve my business? And how will it serve my community?” And with that, I think it's time for this week's Clarity in Action moment. 

So this week's Clarity in Action moment is all about discerning whether bringing a new offer into your business is right for you. And so the action part is taking this framework of self, clients, business, world – and examining your new offer through those four rings on the bullseye. So asking yourself, “How will this new offer serve me? In what ways is it connected to my core values, my mission, my purpose?” And the flip side of that, of course is to also ask “In what ways this new offer might be pulling me away or distracting me from other things in my business that need my attention?” So that's number one, how does this serve you as the business owner and the entrepreneur? Then we want to ask “How will this serve my clients? Will it benefit them? Does this fit on my spectrum of services? Or will this new offer confuse them, overwhelm them, drive them away? What considerations do I need to keep in mind when it comes to how my clients will receive this new offer?” Then, number three, “How does this serve my business as a whole? Does it compete with anything I'm currently offering? Would it create any tension or friction inside my business?” And of course, we also need to ask, “Is your business the right place for you to create something new? Or might there be other avenues in your life that are better suited for creative expression right now?” And then the fourth and final question to ask yourself is “How this new offer will serve your broader community and the world? How does it connect to the impact you want to have? And how does it connect with your values?” And interestingly, that brings us right back to center, which is how this offer serves you because really, if it's serving the broader community and the world, ideally, it's serving you as well. All of these are interconnected. Now these are some pretty big questions to ask. I hope that you find this framework helpful. And of course you don't have do it alone. This is the kind of work I absolutely love to do with my private coaching clients. And I do have two spaces available in third quarter to work with one on one clients. So if you've been thinking about working with a business coach, if you are at the point where you are looking to increase your impact, your influence, and your income, then I would love to explore whether you and I might be the right fit for each other. Together, we'll take a look at what you're already offering and whether it makes sense to create something new. And of course, along with that comes looking at how we can grow your visibility, connect you with right fit clients, and help you build a sustainable, thriving coaching practice that lights you up. So if you'd like to explore working together one on one, then let's connect. You can send me an email info@coachwithclarity.com. You can find me on Instagram or TikTok, @CoachWithClarity. You can head to my website coachwithclarity.com, click on the contact form and send me a message. Whatever way works best for you and I'll follow up with more information about my one on one services. 

I hope that you find this four question framework to be helpful. I would love to hear more about what would serve you in your coaching practice. So much of what I create on this podcast is for you. It comes from your questions, your needs, your desires, and I want to make sure that this show stays relevant to you and to your work. So let me know if there's a particular topic or question or issue you'd like for me to explore on the show. Again, you can find me over on Instagram and TikTok @CoachWithClarity or you can email info@coachwithclarity.com to share your thoughts. 

Alright my friend, thank you so much for joining me for another episode of the Coach with Clarity Podcast. I've so enjoyed spending this time with you and I’d love to do it again next week. So if you are not already following or subscribed to the show, be sure to do so. It is as simple as clicking the follow or subscribe or plus sign button on whatever podcast player you're using right now. And when you follow the show that makes sure that you get every new episode in your feed automatically every Monday. So we will continue our conversation next week, but until then, my name is Lee Chaix McDonough reminding you to get out there and show the world what it means to be a Coach with Clarity.