Recently, I embarked on an extended Euro-trip. 

EXCITING, of course – but, with a catch. 

The flight to Dubai en-route to Europe departed from Brisbane at 2am. 

Tricky in any event, but even moreso with a two and four year old to contend with. 

I did the sleep math olympics trying to figure out how to cope. 

My realisation?

From a toddler perspective, I was likely screwed regardless of HOW I decided to approach things (especially since those awesome inflatable travel beds for kids on planes are banned on my Emirates flight – damn, right). 

And so, I started focusing on my own sleep. 

“If we get on the plane at 2am, they MIGHT go back to sleep for a few hours and it’s going to be smart to try and catch at least a couple of hours myself so I’m not zapped and losing my proverbial s$%# when we arrive in Dubai 14-hours later” – I thought. 

In other words? I started to focus on the things I thought I MIIIIIIGHT be able to semi-control. 

And so began my deep-dive into the world of getting sleep on planes.  

Plot twist: This turns into a content piece on how to create an irresistible, hell yes online course coaching or membership offer so bear with me. 

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The cliff notes? 

In the end, I bought a TRTL travel pillow (they should be paying me for this, but alas – they aren’t). 

It wasn’t the cheapest. 

But it DID win out in the end. 

The kicker? 

That the whole “travel-pillow-buying” process ALSO gave me a valuable business lesson to share in today’s podcast episode via the utter and utmost importance of designing an irresistible offer to stand out in a saturated market. 

You see, travel pillows and online courses have much more in common than you think. 

Both have the potential to solve very real problems, and when set up in the right way deliver considerable value. 

On the flip side?

Both the travel pillow and online course industry have hit saturation point. 

We’ve all bought the stock standard, $29.99 airport-shop travel pillows and we’ve been underwhelmed. 

And we’re all bought the shoddy courses, and felt that we didn’t get the value we’ve invested in them for. 

Although in both cases we may still have the “problem” we bought the thing for, both industries have failed in some way to deliver on solving it. 

As a result, we’ve been burned – and it’s led to a very interesting time. 

Here’s the result: 

We SAY we no longer want online courses. 

We SAY the crappy over-shoulder travel pillows don’t work. 

But ultimately? 

Even in saturated markets where people have previously been disappointed (and where in many instances that disappointment is being expressed as not wanting to invest in anything related to that INDUSTRY), there is actually still SO MUCH OPPORTUNITY. 

But! 

(And here’s the clincher). 

It requires a commitment to doing things differently. 

The PROBLEMS still exists and are there for the taking to be solved. 

However, a new objection has emerged.

Getting someone to invest these days requires overcoming the objection that they have already tried other solutions and they haven’t worked. 

The good news? 

Do this successfully, and not only will you continue to be a PLAYER in the industry but you will position yourself as the market leader. 

That’s what I am going to show you how to do in today’s piece. 

Using the mighty travel pillow as an example we can all relate to, let’s break down seven essential elements of an irresistible online course, group coaching, membership or other leveraged expertise-based offer.

Side note: We teach you the step-by-step for creating your own irresistible offer in much more detail inside our Create and Validate course in Lifestyle Business School.

The Seven Essential Elements to Building an Irresistible, Hell Yes Offer

I recommend using these points as a checklist when you are crafting your next offer, or assessing how to elevate the value of the one you already have. 

1) The Offer Solves a Specific, Urgent and Painful Problem

Newsflash: Your product is not your offer. 

Whether you sell an online course, coaching program or travel pillow, that’s NOT the thing people want.

Instead? They want their problem solved. 

The key, though? 

You can’t just solve any problem. 

For an offer to be valuable enough for someone to purchase, it needs to fulfill three criteria:

a) Specificity: The person needs to know exactly what problem it solves for them. 

b) Urgency: It needs to be something they are prioritising right now. 

c) Painful Enough: It needs to be sufficiently painful that the pain of someone parting with their hard-earned is less than the pain of not having the problem solved. 

Let’s paint a picture of an offer that wouldn’t fulfill these criteria relevant to my “travel sleep” conundrum: 

Introducing… 

The sleeper pillow – a great pillow for more sleep. 

Firstly, it’s not specific to my circumstances. I’m travelling, I need to sleep on a plane. 

Secondly, it’s not urgent (in this case, because it’s not specific – if this was an offer specific to sleeping on a plane, it WOULD be urgent if I was going overseas next week and wanted to sleep on a plane!)

And thirdly, painful. More sleep sounds nice, but it’s exactly that – a nice to have.

Of course, that’s a general example.

However, there are so many similar examples in the leveraged expertise-based space. 

The most obvious? 

Non-tangible offers around self-care, confidence, and feelings are difficult to sell without positioning them to solve a specific and tangible outcome. 

You can fight me on this, but it’s true – I have seen these offers struggle to sell over, and over because the course creator has refused to reposition their offer with a specific and tangible result. 

Now, let’s take the TRTL travel pillow, and some of those kids sleep devices. 

The problem is specific – they will help you sleep on a plane. 

The problem is urgent – if you’re heading away with a plane ticket in hand, you’re prioritising that spend NOW. 

And, the problem is painful – NOT having that solution means a sore neck, 14-hours of sitting upright and head nodding, kids screaming for hours due to overtiredness. 

Your online course, membership or leveraged expertise-based offer needs to fulfill those three criteria in the same way. 

In fact, it’s even MORE important for something intangible like a coaching, course or other offer given that you can’t touch or feel it. 

2) You Establish Belief That a Solution is POSSIBLE (Even When They Have Failed in the Past)

Once you have a specific, urgent and painful problem to solve, the next step is to ensure you can effectively show someone that it is possible to solve their problem with your offer. 

This is especially important in established markets, where it’s likely that someone has already tried to solve their problem using existing solutions and it hasn’t worked. 

Here’s how to do it: 

Make sure that your offer is positioned to solve a specific, urgent and painful problem for one person.

Example: Let’s say you have a podcasting course. 

Podcasting, of course, isn’t a problem. It’s instead a vehicle to solving a problem. 

So, you need to be clear on whose problem you are solving with podcasting.

By doing so,  you can understand what they may have been trying to do to solve the problem without success to date. 

Once you do that, can you then position your offer as a better way and that solving their problem is still possible but not in the ways they are already trying.

Example: Let’s say that you decide that you will serve course creators with your podcasting offer. 

You identify that their problem is that they are not able to sell their courses. 

Now, whenever someone is stuck in a problem, it’s usually because they aren’t using the right solution. 

Often, that is because they don’t know what it IS. 

As a result, they are usually trying to address the wrong root cause.

In marketing speak, this is called being problem aware (but not solution aware).

In this example, they might be trying to address the wrong root cause by using the “brute force” approach to generating leads to sell their courses, resulting in a lot of low quality Meta ads leads.

Once you have identified the wrong root cause preventing someone from solving their problem, your job then becomes to show them what they are doing wrong and then to position your vehicle as the better way.

In this example, here’s how you would do it. 

1. Communicate that when it comes to selling an online course, that quality leads are more important than quantity of leads (a perspective shift); and
2. That the best quality leads for course creators come from podcasting (a better way). 

By doing so, you are able to position your offer as the answer to their problem.

And, to show them that it is still possible for their problem to be solved.

Here’s why this matters.

If the course creator never experienced this perspective shift, they would never know that your solution (podcasting) was the better way. 

They might think that the problem was unsolvable. 

Or,they might not ever know that podcasting was the solution to their problem. 

For that reason, simply talking about podcasting would completely “miss” them. 

The same is true with my little travel sleep conundrum. 

I’d been burnt by buying crappy airport travel pillows in the past. 

And so, even though I wanted more sleep on the plane?

I wasn’t Googling “travel pillows”. 

Instead, I was googling “how to sleep in Economy on a plane”. 

TRTL showed me that a solution still exists to solve my sleep problem – but in a different way to the solutions I’ve tried in the past.  

That belief is the essence of an irresistible offer.

3) Clear Point of Difference

In 2024 and beyond, it’s no longer possible to create the same thing as everyone else and to stand out. 

Your offer needs ONE unique point of difference that sets it apart from everything else on the market. 

This is called your unique selling proposition.

It is the reason that someone will choose you over another offer. 

Side note: If you don’t have it, you will compete on price or experience. 

THE TRTL clearly has a savvy marketing department, because they have a clear point of difference that sets it apart. 

It makes an enemy out of the “traditional” travel pillow and instead showcases a complete new and different design.

The takeaway there? 

Find your category of one. 

This could be a hyper-niche.

Or, as a personal brand it could be a unique quirk that becomes your superpower.

It could be a totally unique methodology or process. 

Whatever it is, identify it and use it to stand out and differentiate you and your offer so that you are competing on something different than price or time in market. 

4) Clear and Logical Argument (Features Over Benefits)

It’s all well and good to talk about the features of your offer. 

The modules. 

The lessons. 

Or in the case of travel pillows, the fabric, structure and use instructions. 

But, ultimately? 

No-one cares, and those things are NOT going to sell your offer. 

Instead? 

You need to list all of the problems that someone is experiencing, and then LINK each feature of your solution as a benefit that will solve it. 

The TRTL pillow does this well. 

It identified that a stiff neck or aching muscles after a long flight or car ride is one of the key problems their clientele experienced after travelling. 

For that reason, it doesn’t simply talk about its curved structure.

Instead, it positions that feature as overcoming the problem of a stiff next by allowing you sleep in a more ergonomic position. 

And, it makes a clear and logical argument for why this approach works. 

This is a lesson we should all take and incorporate into the design of our course, membership, group coaching or other leveraged expertise-based offers. 

Here’s how to do it: 

List EVERY problem someone is experiencing when they are in the pain that your offer solves. 

Then, match every feature of your offer to solve that benefit. 

Side note: We teach this strategy inside of our Create and Validate course in Lifestyle Business School in detail, and it is one of the most powerful offer design strategies out there. 

5) Risk Reversal 

When someone is thinking about purchasing from you, they will be wondering whether they are making the right decision. 

Especially when you have a new offer. 

The way to ensure that this isn’t a problem, and is in fact a reason to buy? 

REVERSE THE RISK. 

TRTL does this with a clear promise: 

The 100-day “love it or return it” guarantee.

It knows that one of the big hesitations that people have to purchasing is not being sure it will work – especially given that they are buying it online. 

And so, they reverse that risk by encouraging someone to buy it and to test it out for themselves. 

In the online course and coaching world, risk reversal is such an important element of an irresistible offer.

And yet, there are so many offers out there that offer no refund, no risk reversal or even worse, super convoluted policies. 

It doesn’t serve you, or your customer. 

Especially in the early days of an offer, having a money back period or guarantee will help people to make a decision to purchase even without the offer having a track record. 

If you receive refunds,great! You can start to assess where you need to improve or offer or messaging based on whether you are above or at the refund benchmark. 

And, the truth is this:

The increased sales as a result of the refund policy will undoubtedly outweigh the “loss” in revenue from any you do receive. 

6) Trust and Authority

Social proof and testimonials are the very best way to further reduce risk and help someone to make a purchasing decision. 

TRTL does this in many ways. 

Firstly, by actively seeking and sharing social proof.

And secondly, by pursuing PR as a marketing strategy for the “social proof” that comes from being featured in other publications and the “transfer of trust” it provides. 

In making the decision to buy my TRTL, I can absolutely say that the testimonials were the thing that got me over the line. 

This is especially important with more intangible offers. 

As a case in point, I also realised that I relied so heavily on reviews when deciding on accommodation for my trip.

I would look at reviews, filter reviews from “families” and generally use reviews to assess the suitability of accommodation of someone in my position (a family with young children) in circumstances where I wasn’t able to “touch and feel” the accommodation. 

The same scenario is true for online courses and other leveraged expertise-based offers. 

Often, we will make decisions based on whether others in a similar position have achieved results. 

In case you want more on this, definitely check out this podcast episode where I share more about the different types of testimonials and how to get them and showcase them in your marketing. 

7) Repetition

Ahhh, the joys of remarketing. 

”There’s nothing better than being tracked around the web forever more after clicking on a website ONCE” – said no-one ever. 

But, my gosh, when it came to my decision to hit “purchase” on my travel pillow?

TRTLS REMARKETING WORKED LIKE A CHARM. 

We forget sometimes as business owners that just because WE are obsessed with and live and breathe our offers, it doesn’t mean that others do. 

By simply sending low cost remarketing ads to me after landing on the TRTL website, I was gently reminded of them, had multiple touchpoints and ultimately purchased. 

The lesson? 

To think about how many touchpoints you creating with your potential customers.

Most of mine listen to many podcasts, received lots of remarketing ads, go through more than one launch before making the decision to purchase. 

Building up an ecosystem is important, especially with higher priced offers. 

Side note: We show you, step by step, how to set yours up in our Traffic Playbook course in Lifestyle Business School.

And so, there you have it. 

3000 words on two things you never thought would be uttered in the same sentence: 

Travel Pillows, 2am Flights and how they inspired me to list out seven ways to create an irresistible online course, coaching or membership offer. 

Truly, though? 

Creating an irresistible offer is the THING thing that will give your online business the very best chance of success. 

It’s not your launch strategy. 

It’s not your funnel. 

It’s the OFFER. 

Create an irresistible one, and everything else will fall into place. 

In next week’s episode, we will be covering another element of offer design that is very rarely spoken about:

The role of both founder alignment and goal alignment in designing the right core offer for you. 

And if you want more on designing an irresistible online or leveraged offer? 

Check out this podcast episode, too. 

Or, join us in Lifestyle Business School. Our entire Create and Validate course is dedicated to helping you design and validate your first or next offer. 

Keep Listening!

Listen On: Apple Podcasts | Spotify