Amanda McVicker (00:00)
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of The OBM Educator. I'm excited to get into today's topic because it is a question that a lot of new OBMs have for. It's the what are my services? You think of retainer, or, you know, some version of that as kind of the main service that you offer, and that's true, but when you're starting out, it's a good idea to think about kind of the evolution that your potential client is going to go through, right? And that's they go through your product suite in those steps. Ideally, not always. We'll get into that, but it's nice to have something set up that easily guides them through the different transformations. And so that's what we're going to be talking about today.
And I will say, spoiler alert, I guess one of the things that we're going to be saying is strategy sessions. And yesterday, I actually had the strategy sessions as an OBM workshop, and it was so good. I had so much fun doing it. Strategy sessions are one of my favorite things to do, outside of like my retainers, and so it's going to be included in this perfect offer suite for new OBMs. And so if you want to catch the replay, I am going to still pop the link to grab it in the show notes so you can get it there. It's only going to be available as a free replay for a limited time, maybe like one or two weeks. So if you want to grab it for free, I would do that now, because it's not going to stay free forever, but it's really good. It's an hour long of, you know, going through everything that you would be doing on a strategy session, how to prepare for it, how to conduct one and then what you do afterwards, for like, maximum results. So grab that if you're interested. And yeah, let's get into today's topic.
Welcome to The OBM Educator. I'm your host. Amanda McVicker, a veteran OBM who serves six and seven figure entrepreneurs as well as educates new OBMs with the skills and confidence they need to start and grow their own successful online business management business follow along as I share valuable insights behind the scenes, sneak peeks and proven strategies to help you build a better OBM business.
So I think it was last week, maybe the week before in my newsletter, I did kind of a blog round up. So I have a blog on my website, amandamcvicker.com, I have, you know, a few posts up there, but one of my most popular ones, and the one that was most clicked when I shared this in the email, was the perfect offer suite for new OBMs. And so today I want to kind of, like, dig a little bit deeper into it, right? Let's start with like, what is an offer suite?
If you're coming into the online space, and you really don't know, like much about the terminology, you might be confused by the term offer suite, but really all it is is what you offer in your business, you know, a lot of businesses have multiple offers, like, if you like, meet a coach. You know they're gonna have, like, a course, and then a mastermind, and then one to one coaching, right? And in that offer suite, you can kind of see how it progresses, right? You buy the course, you get a taste of what it is to work with that person. Then you join the mastermind, which is getting a little bit more support, you're gonna have probably a bigger transformation. And then you go into the one to one, which is like the highest level of support, the highest transformation. You know, when you're talking about coaching and transformation and thing like that. And it usually it follows like low ticket price range, mid ticket, high ticket, you know? And it's a journey. It's a journey that the client, the customer, goes through.
For service providers, it's a little different, right? We are still providing a transformation, but it's not really talked of like that. You know, we don't, when we are marketing, we're not talking about, we're not explicitly saying transformation, right? We're talking about how we're going to get you from disorganized to, you know, on top of your business or whatever, that is still a transformation, but we talk about it differently than the way that a coach would talk about it.
And so when we create our offer suites, it's a good idea to kind of create something that like follows that journey. Sure you could just have a retainer and just leave it at that. If that's what you want to do. But what I have seen when I was making the transition from VA to OBM, and then over the years, about as I've helped others do the same, that having this specific offer suite that I'm about share really kind of eases in clients gives you the ability to test them out before going into the retainer, and it gives you time to practice. It gives you a little bit more experience.
You know, not it's like, not everyone's going to get to the retainer part, right? People are going to fall off. People aren't going to be good fits, but you still get the experience from the first couple pieces. And it also really does serve as a foundation of, like, the clear, defined products in your business, right? If someone's coming up to you to be like, I need this, this and this. Like, if you have these in place, you're not having to recreate the wheel. Every single time someone comes to you, you can say, oh, that falls into this. This is what we can do there. You can customize it for them, of course, but having these foundational pieces in your offer suite just allow it to be so much easier in pitching and also executing.
Okay, so the first one is the strategy session. So like I said, if you're interested in seeing listening to my strategy session workshop that I did yesterday, it's part of my, Think Like an OBM series. The link to get the replay is in the show notes. It's only going to be available for, I mean, probably only a couple weeks. So if you're interested in getting it, I would get it now. Anyway, the first thing in the offer suite would be a strategy session.
It's exactly what it sounds like, right? A 60 to 90 minute session where you're providing expertise to your client. You know, depending on what it is that you offer, you'll focus on, like, one to two main things, and then you're going to dig deep in to help them solve their problems. And so this would be kind of like maybe a general strategy session, where you're like focusing on systems, where you're looking to see, like, what systems would help your client in their business, or maybe you're focusing on a particular system, like a CRM or a project management system, but that that's what a strategy session would be, and why this is so helpful and important in your product suite is because if you are a new OBM, you probably have, like, one to two skills that you're really good at.
You know, whatever makes you think, like, I think I could be a good OBM. It's because of skills that you have. And so when you're looking at what to do a strategy session on look at those skills. If you're really good at setting up systems, and you know, being able to see what why processes work or don't work, that's a great place to start for a strategy call, because it's going to help you increase your confidence in providing strategy because you have the knowledge to, you know, back it up, and it's also going to give obviously, those clients experience working with you. Strategy sessions are really cool because not everyone is ready for a retainer client, not everyone is ready to hire an OBM, but that doesn't mean that they don't have the needs that an OBM helps with, right? A strategy session is going to give give them the opportunity to have your brains on a call so that they can get their questions answered, they can figure out what is the best way to do something, but it's not a commitment for them long term, and it also opens up the possibility for continuing working together right going through that customer journey, because after a strategy session, you know, maybe they're not ready to commit to a retainer, but they could commit to this next piece of the perfect offer suite, and that's the project package.
This is, like my favorite thing to recommend to new OBMs when they're starting their business. I definitely did not like coin the term, but I have been very vocal in talking about these for the last five years, because this is how, like, this is how I started my business, my OBM business, actually my VA business too.
But anyway, Project packages are pretty much exactly what they sound like, taking the time to, you know, do three hours, five hours or outcome based, but you're doing a project for a client like they're not committing to a full on retainer. Or they have something that needs to be done, if they're coming from your strategy session, it's usually something you said, like, this is probably what you should be doing, and they're gonna get a very specific outcome from it, right? So again, you can do, like, three hours, five hours, or, you know, like a Dubsado For an example, like a Dubsado workflow, where they'll get something out of it, a specific thing out of it. And what is great about these is that there is a limit to it, right?
There is a specific outcome that is going to be achieved, whether it's time a specific number of hours are going to be reached, or it's a specific deliverable that is going to be reached, which means that you get experience doing all of this without clients overstepping boundaries. And with this one, you kind of want to do it the pricing. Obviously, you want to get paid for the work that you're doing, but you kind of want to make the pricing like a no brainer. So like when I was first starting as a VA, I did these project packages, and I did three hours for $100 and so it's like 33 an hour. But my regular rate that I was doing, because I was working with event planners, was like 50 an hour. And so it was a reduced rate, but it was really enticing to the business owner to be like, Well, I mean, it's three hours, like, might as well.
And I got so many clients that way, like retainer clients. And what's great about this and the strategy session, but definitely this, because they're getting a taste of what it is like to work with you, is you can get a testimonial from them, you know, from the work that you actually did. And it also is an opportunity for them to work with you. You to work with them and decide if the next step is something that you guys want to take, and that next step is the OBM retainer, which, when you think of OBM offers and whatever it is that you're going to do, retainer is usually the first thing that you think out this could be like a month to month or a certain month long contract, but it's when you are consistently working with a client. So you can do hourly retainer or project retainer you could do pay as you go. I think I have another podcast episode on like the specific retainers that you could do, but this is where you can create your signature retainer and really dive into the OBM work.
And so all of these together really create a well rounded offer suite that really flows nicely from one thing to another. You know, someone can come in in the middle, someone can come in at the end, someone can come in at the beginning and stop. There's so much flexibility around it, but you have these options that a client, potential client, sees, and they're able to, like, make the decision of what works best for them. Instead of feeling like trapped, like, oh, they only have a retainer, or, Oh, they only have like this certain package, or something like that. They're able to choose what is best for where they are, and getting the experience to work with you before committing to something like a retainer is going to help them make the decision. Right?
We are in a world right now, and the online space is in a way that trust is kind of hard. It's really hard to trust someone. A lot of people might have been burned before by service providers or have heard stories. And so when you introduce these like smaller things, like a strategy session or a project package, you are giving the potential client an opportunity to feel what it's like to work with you in a very low risk way, while also getting benefit out of it. So when you're putting to this all this together, like Don't over complicate it, but try it out and see you know how these three offers feel in your marketing and putting it out there and talking about it, I think that you're going to find that they are a simple way to really kick off your business.
So I hope this was helpful for you. Again, if you want to catch the Strategy Session replay, the link is in the show notes, but only for a limited time, so grab that there, but otherwise I will talk with you guys next week. Bye.
Thanks for joining me for this episode of The OBM Educator. I hope what you heard today is helpful for you on your OBM journey. If you love today's episode, I would so appreciate you sharing it and leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform. Want to be a guest on the OBM Educator? Fill out the form in the show notes, and I'll be in touch. Join us next time on The OBM Educator.
