In this episode, marketing mentor Laura Robinson explains the concept of 'First Date Offers'. These are short, chargeable, bite-sized experiences designed to attract potential clients and give them a taster of your high-priced services. Laura recommends creating a First Date Offer that's fun and comfortable for you to deliver, ensuring you avoid too broad a scope, follow up promptly, and limit its availability to create an urgent need. She also notes these offers are a low-risk way to differentiate your business in your industry and help you attract customers. Laura illustrates her concept with examples from multiple industries, including architecture.

Today's Guest...

Laura Robinson is a marketing mentor for expertise-based businesses. She has been working in marketing and copywriting for more than 14 years. In that time, she has helped hundreds of business owners create and sell online offers, and to make their online marketing more effective. She’s delivered masterclasses for Enterprise Nation, Membership Academy, and Andrew & Pete’s Atomic Community. She has also shared her expertise as a speaker at Erin Wong’s Momentum Day, and Atomicon, one of Europe’s largest business conferences.

Episode Highlights...

00:00 Introduction to the Episode

00:31 About the Host and the Show

00:54 Introducing the Guest: Laura Robinson

01:58 Laura's Unique Experience as a Marine Mammal Medic

03:37 Introduction to First Date Offers

03:49 The Concept and Creation of First Date Offers

05:17 Explaining Voxer and its Benefits

06:53 The Impact of First Date Offers on Business

08:28 Laura's Experience with Home Renovation and Architects

11:54 Brainstorming First Date Offers for Architecture Practices

20:22 Pricing and Pitfalls of First Date Offers

27:28 Summarising the Concept of First Date Offers

30:25 Laura's Favorite Place and Conclusion

Key Takeaways...

👉 First Date Offers are small, chargeable, one-to-one experiences that you can offer potential clients. It has to be enjoyable for you, quick to deliver, provide value to your customers, and can lead to selling higher-priced services.

👉 First Date Offers act as a sample of what it is like to work with you and can lead to hiring you for more extensive services. It is recommended that the delivery method of this offer should mirror your standard mode of communication with clients.

👉 Pricing for your First Date Offers should be determined in such a way that there is no resentment from your side for delivering the service. Think creatively about how you make it easy for people to say yes to work with you. 

👉 First Date Offers can help you filter the types of clients you'd like to work with more.

👉 For your First Date Offers to be successful, it's crucial to stay within a narrow scope. Trying to offer too much within this set time can leave all parties feeling dissatisfied.

👉 Follow up after the First Date Offer is essential because it helps you to stay in touch with the client who might become a higher-paying customer in the future.

👉 In terms of availability, these offers should be limited in order to generate some sense of urgency in the customers.

👉 The First Date Offer shouldn't be about buying a certain amount of time but about getting a particular problem solved or a question answered. It's not reliant on the time taken but about delivering value to the client.

👉 Ensure the First Date Offer is something that appeals to the type of client you want to attract. This can help you shape your business to only work with clients who you feel you would enjoy working with.

Links Mentioned In The Episode...

If you're running a business that needs to fit around your other life challenges, priorities, and adventures...sign up for Laura’s free Comfy Business Newsletter at http://worditude.co.uk/newsletter

Laura’s Website > http://worditude.co.uk/

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In The Next Episode...

Next time Jon chats with Architect and Architectural Technologist, Ann Vanner, about her experience of returning to practice.

How would you like to have a chargeable bite sized

one-to-one experience that you can offer your potential clients?

That is quick and fun for you to deliver and helps to sell

your higher price services.

That's exactly what we're going to help you with today in this episode

of architecture business club.

The weekly podcast for solo and small firm architecture practice owners,

just like you who want to build a profitable future proof architecture

business that fits around their life.

I'm the host John Clayton.

If you want to get notified when a releasing your episode and

get access to free resources and exclusive offers, then go to Mr.

John clayton.co.uk forward slash ABC.

And sign up to my free weekly email newsletter.

Now let's discuss first date offers.

In this episode, I'm joined by Laura Robinson.

Laura is a marketing mentor for expertise based businesses.

She's been working in marketing and copywriting for more than 14 years.

And in that time, she's helped hundreds of business owners create

and sell online offers and to make their online marketing more effective.

She's delivered masterclasses for Enterprise Nation, Membership Academy,

and Andrew and Pete's Atomic community.

And she's also shared her expertise as a speaker Bye.

At Erin Wong's Momentum Day and Atomicon, one of Europe's

largest business conferences.

If you're running a business that needs to fit around your other life

challenges, priorities, and adventures, sign up for Laura's free, comfy

business newsletter at weirditude.

co.

uk forward slash newsletter.

Laura, welcome to Architecture Business Club.

Hello.

Thank you for having me.

It's great to have you here today.

I'm a big fan of yours, uh, as you know, hopefully.

Before we just dive into the topic, we're going to talk about though.

I've got to ask you about this.

You're a volunteer marine mammal medic.

Um, could you tell me a little bit about that?

I can.

It sounds like the name feels like it makes it sound like a lot

more hands on than it really is.

I volunteer with a charity called the British Divers Marine Life

Rescue, even though there's absolutely no diving involved.

It's kind of a legacy name.

And, uh, we work all over the UK coastline.

And if there's any marine mammals that are in distress and they need help

out of the water, so they're, they're.

Then out of the water for some reason, um, I can get called

and go and help with that.

So the people who volunteer up in Scotland, they typically

get like whales and dolphins.

Uh, where I am in East Anglia, I have only been called out to seals.

Um, and that's usually during the pupping season when, uh, seal pups are weaned from

their mums quite early, a few weeks old.

And the vast majority of them go off to fish successfully and gain body weight

and go and live independent, happy lives.

But some of them aren't so lucky and they might sustain injuries, storm damage.

They just fail to thrive, really.

Um, and so we get called out to pick them up and take them to a wildlife

hospital where they get fed up until they're a good body weight and

then released back into the wild.

Oh, that sounds awesome.

Have you ever been tempted to take one home?

Absolutely not.

They are so beautiful to look at, but they really smell and they're very bitey.

It's the same.

They, uh, they have a good public image that they don't really

deserve if you get up close to them.

Yeah, fair enough.

Okay.

So best viewed from a distance.

Definitely.

Yeah, we don't want to get as close as I do.

Okay.

Well, um, we're going to talk about something called first date offers.

So this is something that the listeners probably aren't familiar with.

This is a concept that, that you've created.

Could you tell me what is a first date offer and, and how

did you come up with the idea?

It was an accidental invention.

I don't mind doing discovery calls.

You know, you have like a, just a free chat with someone who might be interested

in buying your higher price service.

I don't mind doing them, but they tend to be a bit ambiguous.

They go on for a while.

You give away the whole farm.

Not made any money.

And sometimes the, um, potential client feels a bit awkward about

booking in for a free chat as if it's a trap or they're just going to be

sold to, or they just don't want to take your time for free because that

feels, um, like unfair out of balance.

I also see people selling these things like power hours or

like one hour consultations, pick my brain type sessions.

And I am not a fan of those at all.

They are definitely way too ambiguous.

They go on forever.

They eat into your calendar.

So you end up with like these.

Messy slots of time that your brain is devoted to this one

particular person, then you have to switch back to somebody else.

Um, so I wanted something that was kind of in the middle where I could

get to know someone, but they were paying for it and they were getting

something of value from the session.

And it was a good taster of what it was like to work with me as

I've had that in the back of my mind for probably at least a year.

I think knowing that there was this middle ground that I just

didn't know what it looked like.

And then I released a course that was called Marketing Game Plan and I thought,

Oh, it would be fun to offer a 20 minute one to one Voxer chat with people who

had a particular marketing dilemma that they wanted to talk over with me.

Do you wanna just explain what a Voxer chat is to the listeners?

So Voxer is an, uh, it's a walkie talkie base app.

So a bit like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger where you

are able to leave voice notes.

But on those platforms, when you leave the voice note, the person at the other

end can't hear it until you finished, and then they listen and then they respond.

And so you end up with this weird kind of lag and it's not like

a telephone conversation and it feels awkward and it takes forever.

With Voxer, it's real time.

So they can hear when you're listening, when you're leaving a message, the person

on the other end can hear real time, but they can also choose whether they play it

back and listen again, or they think, Oh, I don't want to listen to that right now.

They carry on with what they're doing.

They come back.

So for my very easily distracted brain, it's my preferred method of

communication because I find it very hard to concentrate when someone's

talking to me, they'll spark off an idea.

And I'm, my brain's going like, Oh, this is great.

Let's think about this thing.

But they've carried on talking.

I don't know.

I didn't listen to the second half of what you said because I was

thinking about the first thing, but with Voxer, I can do that.

I can write notes.

I can go off with whatever the first thing was, and then I can re listen

to the message and pick up the second or third or fourth points before

I get back to them with a more.

Comprehensive message.

So it's a slower flow of conversation than say a zoom chat, but faster than

voice messaging on the other apps.

So I could go on about it forever.

Cause I absolutely love that form of communication.

well that's probably, we could probably do a whole

episode in the future about using Voxer because I love Voxer as well.

So that's, you were using Voxer for that initial offer, that 20 minute

conversation that you talked about.

So let's just swing it back around to that then.

So I'd only made it available to people who'd bought the

course and it was very focused on.

Do you like any kind of marketing?

You're stuck with a marketing dilemma.

You don't, you just don't know what to do next.

You need to make a decision about a thing.

And I just loved it.

Like it, it made me come alive.

I was in a bit of a funk at the time because it was January,

February time this year.

And I'm not good like January, February, not my good times of year at all.

And I realized when I get to talk to people just for a

short period of time, it, it.

It reinvigorates me.

It gives me ideas.

It gives me inspiration.

I love the reaction that you get from a 20 minute intense session at

the end that the recipient or the client on the other end is just.

Totally blown away by what we can achieve in 20 minutes.

And so then that helps like pump me up as well.

So I thought, Oh, I've got something here.

And it turned out that some of those people wanted to go on and buy my

higher priced one to one services.

So I hadn't created it intentionally to fit this gap between a

discovery call and a power hour.

I just made it off the back of this course, but then I realized, Oh, this is,

this is something like I love doing it.

I'm definitely going to do this again.

And it does feel that.

Void in like my offers quite nicely.

That sounds, sounds absolutely fantastic.

It's funny how sometimes these great ideas do just happen accidentally, don't they?

But it's, it's a really good idea.

What I'd like to talk about actually is before we kind of dig more into

first day offers I want to try and focus on how small firm architecture

practices and, uh, sole practitioners working in architecture, how they

can use this concept before we do that, though, I know that you've

had an experience of doing your own.

Home renovation projects.

And I'd like to hear a little bit about the experience that you had working

with the, the architectural firm.

Could you tell me about those first interactions that you had

with the architectural firms when you contacted perhaps one or two

companies when you decided to, to renovate and extend your home?

Yeah, it feels like ages ago now.

When, and the whole process of even getting everyone in place and the

mortgage and the permission and the architect and the builder, I don't

even know how logistically we made that happen, but it took a couple of

years to get everything lined up and my experience with, I contacted a couple

of architects and they came around and they obviously didn't really want to.

Do the job that they were humoring me because I'd asked for them to come.

And initially we were looking at a loft conversion and whether

that would be possible or not.

And it wasn't, um, the architect we settled with was our builder.

The builder we chose is someone that his dad had done my parents extension.

So we live in quite a small village kind of town.

Everybody knows everybody.

And, um, So that was, for me, I wanted it to be someone that I really trusted

and I was going to be leaving my house empty for a good few weeks at a time.

You know, I was coming back every day, but I just wanted to be comfortable

that it was someone that when we moved back into the house, we felt

like it had been a good experience.

We'd enjoyed the process, like that was my top priority.

So I wanted it to be this particular group of builders above anything else.

And so we chose them first and then we went with the architect that they were.

Most familiar with working with, um, because they had

such a great relationship.

It made everything much easier.

And what happened then once, once you decided you were going to use

that architect, what actually happened?

Did they, I'm just sort of thinking about what those first interactions were

compared, uh, so we can try and relate these two things together, really.

So I'm just wondering, like, what actually happened when you picked up

the phone and, and contacted them?

Did they come out and visit?

Did you go to their office?

Did you, they send you a fee proposal via email?

What was the first things that happened when you got in

So I don't, I still don't even know what the fee was

because when you've decided that you're going to do the thing, it

almost becomes irrelevant, doesn't it?

I mean, not totally irrelevant, but in the end there were

just numbers floating around.

I was like, but all together, well, we have enough money.

Yes.

Okay.

Then let's just get on with it.

Um, so I don't know, and I wouldn't know like what the fees were

compared to other people either.

We just decided, I think it was very much like a relationship based project.

So.

We knew we were going with this person she came to the house and

did all the measurements and stuff.

And we chatted about what we, what I really enjoyed was talking about what

we wanted to achieve by doing it.

So, she wasn't, you know, because I had an idea if we're going to put this

extension on the back and these bedrooms are going to go here and she was.

Taking me up a level and saying, okay, you don't need to decide that.

Like, you don't need to decide where the bedrooms go or where

the walls are going to be.

You tell me what it is that you want to achieve when you move back into the house.

So that was a really helpful experience to kind of hand it over a bit.

And then she came back to me with two or three floor plans.

One of which would have been the most amazing master suite

at the back of the house.

With views of the sea.

And the other one was the one where the kids got the best bedrooms at

the back of the house with the best light and the views of the sea.

And I think we can probably, everybody knows which one I went for.

The kids are very happy.

Absolutely.

Um, brilliant.

Thanks so much for sharing that.

So let's, let's talk again about the, the concept of first day offers there.

And, and what I'm really interested to dig into is maybe we could do a

little bit of brainstorming and think about the first day off for that.

architectural practices could use.

So to think about, you know, how could we apply something like what you did?

Just to remind everyone, the, the first day offer that you had, it

was how, what was the price point?

Was it 47 pounds?

It's 47 pounds and it's a 20 minute chat.

To solve one particular marketing dilemma.

And so the concept, the overall concept of the first day offer that I, so far,

we've applied it to a lot of different industries, including I figured one out

with a doula the other day, we're doing photographers, um, cake bakers, like

things that you, you just like, I don't know how this would work, but so far I'm

doing okay with figuring out examples.

Um, the concept is that it's a short one to one interaction where.

The they pay for it, and they get something of value the other side of it.

And potentially, they might go on to buy a higher priced offer from you.

And the interaction is a sample of the experience of working with you.

So it does also need to mirror in some way.

Like, if they went to work.

with you longer term, how would you be interacting with them?

Would you be coming to their house?

Would it be via zoom?

Is it a lot over some other platform that you use to communicate with your

clients so that they can really start to see that reality of having you in their

life and what that bigger project might look like, but equally, everyone's happy.

Like if you just do that.

Bite size offer, that first date offer and the client walks away, you're okay

with that because you got paid, you got something from the experience,

they got something of value from the experience and everyone's happy.

It's not where one person's beholden to the other.

Okay.

So, so this is, it's a bite size, one to one offer that leaves both

the customer and you as the service provider, both feeling really happy

about it and enjoying delivering it.

Even if this is something that doesn't, I mean, ideally I could see how this

could easily encourage people to then go on and buy the higher ticket solution,

whatever that package is, but, but it's something that can stand alone.

You can, it can be a standalone product or service as well.

So it's something of value in its own right.

And I thought that was a really good point you made about it mirroring

the way that you work normally.

So maybe if you, uh, let's just say you're a, an architect that does mainly in person

meetings, then it would make sense that maybe there was a short in person element

to this offer, or if you were using.

Video calls like zoom or teams, something like that, that maybe

the first day offer could include that like a little taster session.

So to have it mirror the way that the, the bigger higher ticket

offers work makes a lot of sense.

Because often those are barriers to people working with

you that you don't even realize exist.

Like they might be totally convinced on your expertise and that you're going to

be able to help them and you can get them to this great outcome that they want.

But if they can't picture like, but what's this going to look like in my life?

Like after I've said yes, and I've handed over whatever money or deposit you want.

They just can't imagine what that might be like.

That's a huge barrier to saying yes to it, because nobody wants to jump

across this like invisible bridge and trust that it's there for them.

So if you can do something to help make that bridge more real, they can imagine

what that experience is going to be like.

It breaks down a lot of barriers to them saying yes to working with you more.

Okay.

So, I mean, some initial, I did have a few initial thoughts, and I'd

love to get your feedback on these.

So one idea was maybe sending an initial appraisal of a property or a building plot

or a building's development potential.

So something like that.

Another idea was maybe to, to give feedback on a customer's own.

Sketch design.

Often people will be on Pinterest collating all sorts of ideas and, and

sketching out their own floor plans.

So I wondered about maybe giving feedback on that, on their design idea, maybe

via a short video, perhaps it could be a little video screen recording.

Um, or maybe.

At one thing that a lot of people's minds is particularly homeowners

is whether to move or improve.

They might be thinking, you know, we, we need an extra extra bedroom.

Like what's the best thing to do?

Do we, do we move or improve what we've got?

So it could be a telephone consultation or a Voxer call using

Voxer to help them decide on that.

aNd the other idea I had was.

Helping them maybe figure out the next three steps to, to get started on a

renovation or a property development.

So do you think, I mean, there's four different ideas there.

Do you think any of those would have legs?

I mean, for an architecture business owner,

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Now, back to the show.

I think all of those have, um, have legs,

like they've all got potential.

You wouldn't, uh, you wouldn't do them all.

You'd just like pick, pick an idea or come up with your own.

That is, that's the one that you kind of stick to.

And you trot, trot out every now and then when you want to generate some clients.

But what I wanted to say about all those different ideas is, I love that most of

them, probably all of them, were things that you could do in your own time.

So you actually did it, although it's great to have some element of one

to one interaction so they can get to know you, you also don't want to,

um, you know, block out your diary with having to do this all the time.

So if you have to do some one to one elements to it, I I batch mine,

so they're only available for a couple of weeks, every few months

so that I can get them done and then clear out my diary in this space.

Or for some people it's, you don't want to batch it because you know, in your line of

work, there's a very short window of time when someone's wants to hire an architect.

And if your availability doesn't line up with that, then it

causes all sorts of problems.

So you probably will want your first day offers to be available all the time.

In which case the method of delivery needs to be really flexible for you, that it can

fit around your existing work schedule.

where you said, like, record a video feedback of Leflore Pan

and what's possible for them.

You can do that at 8 o'clock at night or 6 o'clock in the morning,

2 o'clock in the afternoon, whatever you've got time for it.

And it doesn't matter what the client's doing, because then it's asynchronous.

They're not having to be present at the same time.

So I love those ideas.

Um, and I also wanted to point out how.

they would attract very different types of client.

And you need to think about, is that someone I want to work with?

Because I'm guessing for some of you, some architects, you absolutely love

the client that's there with their little, this is me with my grid of

paper, drawing it out quite accurately.

I was very proud of myself and going, but what would happen

if we moved this over here?

And is it very expensive to move this wall because it would have this great impact?

Like you might want to.

Really work with someone like that and there'll be other architects listening

going, no, like you, I will charge three times as much if someone's going

to present a piece of graph paper with me with a sketch of the house.

Like, absolutely not.

So

move away from the graph paper.

so you can use your first day offer to position yourself as

I really want to attract these people.

And I definitely.

Don't want to be working with those people.

And so you'll naturally, um, find that the hot, the people that go on to work

with you and your bigger offers, you've almost created your own filter to make

sure that only certain people get through the gate because you've only attracted

the ones you really enjoy working with.

Oh, I love that.

That's brilliant.

So one thing, it encouraged the idea of doing something that's asynchronous.

So that you've got the flexibility to fit it in to suit your own,

your own time, your own calendar.

So something like, um, feedback that's delivered via a video, via

a voxer message, even maybe like a report or something that gets emailed.

It could even just be a simple report of, um, a sketch plan or

something that gets emailed off.

Something along those lines would be far.

Easier to deliver.

And also as well in terms of price point, like there'd be far less

time to do that than to try and arrange a time to go out and visit

somebody in person with travel time.

And, you know, inevitably getting around there and saying, right,

it's a 30 minute consultation.

And then it's like an hour and a quarter later because you can't get away.

And that does happen.

That sounds like we've got some really like solid ideas there that could work

for, for some practice owners, but how the heck do we decide what to charge for it?

I don't know, I wish there was like a magic number I could

go and every first day offer is charged at 97 and everyone like pays the same.

I think it's going to vary massively with your, um, like for the industry.

So you can charge a lot more because eventually the thing that they're

going to buy is even a higher price than, than what I can charge.

So it needs to be a balance between, it's a really easy

thing for people to say yes to.

Like it's not.

They don't have to think about what's a bit of an investment

like this is a bit hard.

Am I saying yes now or do I wait a month?

It does need to be low so that there's very little friction there because

you've got that potential for them to be a lead for a higher paying thing.

But there has to be absolutely no resentment from you.

For delivering it for that fee now for me, I was, it was easy for me to charge

a very small amount compared to what it would be to work with me longer term

because it's not available at the time.

So it's very small batches.

I release a batch of 10.

They go pretty quickly.

So it's done entirely on my own terms.

It's not trading off.

So people who buy my higher price things don't think, oh, yeah, but

if I bought 10 of this low price thing, you know, I would have paid.

It doesn't work like that because you just can't buy lots

of these lower price things.

They're in a very limited number for very limited periods of time.

But I also get so much more out of it than the money.

So when I'm judging, is there any resentment for me only

charging this small fee?

Absolutely not because I get so much from it, not just the leads that it

generates, but from the experience.

Just really being able to understand what's going on in those

potential clients minds, what are they struggling with every day?

What's the thing that's holding them back?

Even if they don't go on to work with me longer term, I'm using that

knowledge to create content, to come up with marketing ideas, to refine

the paid products that people can buy.

When I'm deciding the price, there's so much more when I'm deciding the price,

I'm looking at the value exchange.

What are they getting out of it?

And do I feel good about what I'm getting out of it?

But it's not just money.

There's so much more on like my side of the equation.

Got it.

Got it.

Now that's given me a really good, I'm already thinking now thinking

like, what, what could I do with these ideas and how much would I charge?

But now that's given me a really good kind of yardstick to work to that.

I want to just to like interrupt you, but it's really

important that it's not that this is why it works so much better

than like a one hour consultation.

When you do something that's ambiguous like that, and you're just.

Giving away an hour of your time, people start to do the maths of,

well, if I bought three of these, would you be able to do this?

And it might not be as much of an issue in your profession, but maybe

it is you're trying to create this.

The first day offer is something that's so standalone.

It's not comparable to the higher price things.

It's not a, you couldn't buy 10 of them and make your big thing.

Cause that's just not how it works.

It's something that's, uh, you know, it's an individual

discrete standalone offer that.

They can't, you know, it's not a component of your bigger thing.

You can't make it up by buying lots of those or having, I'll

have one of those a month.

And then I don't need to buy you a long term package.

It just doesn't work like that.

Okay.

So rather than it, rather than it being framed like you're buying.

30 minutes of my time.

It's like you're getting this transformation.

This is the thing you buy this thing.

We solve this problem and at the end, once you've received it, your life

is so many times better because we've fixed this thing is struggling with.

It's not about the fact that it might only take you 30 minutes to actually do it.

Exactly.

And the example in, in the course that I've got about it, the example I use

is, if you had a gardener come and knock on your door, like a gardener can

see that the garden's a bit of a tip.

You obviously need some help with that.

They could knock on your door and say, you can hire me for

this much money every week.

That's quite a hard thing to say, yes, you're like, I don't know who you are

and I don't know what you're going to do.

And I don't really want to commit to that, or they could say, you

can hire me for an hour and see what I can achieve in an hour.

And you might say yes, but again, it doesn't really like give you this feeling

of what it's going to be like to have someone for long term, or they could offer

you a package that takes them an hour to deliver, but we don't need to know that.

And they come in and they describe, this is what I would do to your

garden to make it somewhere that would be really enjoyable for you.

And this is what that would look like.

And you pay for it because.

You could go away and implement that plan yourself if you wanted, but for the

most part, you're going to say, yeah, no, that's way too much work for me to do.

So yes, if you'd like to come back every week for this amount of money and work

towards this vision of my garden that you've created, that would be wonderful.

Okay, that, that makes a lot of sense.

Are there any, are there any pitfalls that you've come across or your

other clients that have developed their own first night offers?

Is there any, any pitfalls to avoid or any, any problems that you've

found that people have had to kind of work around in creating these offers?

Being too big in scope.

It's 20 minutes, people are going to work with me for 20 minutes.

We're going to tackle one project or one.

Question one dilemma, one problem that's very narrow.

As soon as I've worked with people who have then said, Oh, but you know, I

don't mind it being an hour or like, I'm happy to offer my clients longer.

And then they find that everyone leaves unhappy.

Cause you sort of start pulling other threads and asking other questions

and looking in other places, but you can't ever really make that

much progress in those things and wrap it up in a way that feels.

Comfortable and like, everybody's happy and you've, you know, tie a

nice bow around it and that's done.

So I think making it too broad in scope actually ends up with

everyone feeling a bit dissatisfied.

Um, not having, I mean, this is definitely a mistake I make.

I do not have good enough follow up processes.

So I, I love doing them, but I find them quite energetically draining.

And so then when it's done.

In my head, I'm like, I must follow up with this person and say, if we

were to work together longer term, we would work on this, this and this.

And here's how you do that.

Or here's how you find out more about that.

And that will sit on my to do list for about three days.

And then I feel really embarrassed.

Like, Oh, I have to go back to them now and say, do you remember

that conversation we just had?

So I'm getting better at doing it straight away afterwards, but, um,

really I should leave more time in my diary to recover and then batch.

The replies and get back to people.

But yeah, that's my own personal bit that I fall down with.

And also having them like it, you do need to have some restriction on

the availability just because when something's available all the time

and it's a low price, it's people just don't, they're like, Oh yeah,

but maybe I'll buy it next week.

Maybe I'll buy it next week.

Like, unless they have some internal urgency for why they need to get it.

They'll always defer the decision and, um, it doesn't mean that you.

You know, I sell lots of my things like evergreen where you can buy it

anytime, but for this 1 thing you want it to have to be such an easy.

Yes.

And have such momentum to it.

Ideally, there is some degree of, um, limits to the availability

or when, uh, the timing of it.

Okay, so, so to try and find a way of creating some scarcity,

uh, so that there's some urgency for the customers to, to book it in.

And there will be, because you don't want to do

endless numbers of these every week.

So you're going to just invent your own scarcity.

To

That's been absolutely brilliant, Nora.

Do you want to try and sum it up?

What would you say are the three main things that you want

people to take away from this conversation about first day offers?

Do you want to try and sum things up for us?

I love

be honest, the one main thing is, think really creatively

about how you make it easy for people to say yes to work with you.

Because just, The, you'll have seen in your industry

the same as in every industry.

There's a default way that people do things and that's how we do it.

And that's how we charge and that's how we structure offers

and that's what everyone expects.

And it like, there's literally no reason why it has to be that way.

And if there's a way that works better for you, there will be a subset of clients

that look at your way of doing it and go.

Oh, that is, that's perfect.

That's exactly what I want.

I chose the, you know, the primary driver for me choosing my architect

is that I didn't really have to have anything to do with it.

She was lovely, but I didn't have to be around and fill the appointments and I

could just leave her in the builder and they would sort it out between them.

Other people don't want that.

Other people want to be really hands on and know I'm your direct point of contact.

And so you get to choose who are the people I most want to work with.

Okay.

Well, I will set up a first date offer that really appeals

to that group of people.

And then your business is going to be shaped to the other side of that, that

you're only going to be working with people that you love to work with.

So I see it as a really.

A great opportunity to be very creative in the way that you package what

you do and how you sort of target the people you want to work with.

And it's very low risk because if you try it, so if we go back to our example of I

love working with people who have graph paper and they draw their house and you

create an offer that's based around that and you try it out and it doesn't work

or you try it out and those people go on to be clients and you have a couple

of nightmare projects and you think.

I'm never doing that again.

You just take away the first day offer or create another one.

You haven't completely rebranded your business or made massive

changes that you can't go back on.

You've just run a little experiment that made a bit of

money and learn something from it.

that.

It sounds like a fantastic way to, to differentiate yourself

from the norm from particularly for architecture practice owners.

And there are this, you know, quite a few kinds of common ways that

conventions that people, the way that they work normally, there's a lot of

similarities from practice to practice.

So actually having something like this, creating a first date offer.

Would be a really cool way for them to differentiate

themselves in their marketplace.

So, um, hugely valuable.

So thanks so much for sharing about this, Laura.

Was there anything else you wanted to add that we haven't covered?

I think so.

I think, I mean, just my mantra is it has to be comfortable

and enjoyable for you to do it.

So whatever your first date offer looks like, if it's fun for you to deliver

it, that's a really good place to start.

Don't do something, don't do it because we've said it's a good idea to do it.

Like if you, if you listen to this and think, well, no, I don't, I don't want

to have that blocking up my calendar.

That sounds like a nightmare.

Like it's not the thing that you, it's not the new in thing

that you absolutely must do.

It's just something to try out if it feels fun and comfortable for you to do it.

Cool.

Brilliant.

There's one other question that I wanted to ask and it's nothing

to do with First State Offers.

I love travel and discovering new places and I just wanted to tell you to tell me

one of your favorite places and what you love about it and it can be near or far.

Got a feeling I might know what you're gonna say, but fire away

Is it that, you know, I'm just going to say my local beach.

Is that what you're expecting?

So I

if that's fine

I live one mile from the coast, which is lovely.

I can see the sea from the back of our house where our new extension is.

And, um, I just, I love being there.

I love.

I love walking by the sea and the sound that the waves make, but I also love

the fact that some days it's still and calm, like a pond and other days it's

so fierce and cold and unappealing and you wouldn't ever imagine going in it.

And it's just still the same sea.

I feel like that that's such, um, for me, it feels like such a metaphor for life.

Like I'm in the same place, but it's such a different experience

each time you go down there.

So, yeah, that's my favorite place.

And it's a very lovely beach to come and visit as well.

I'll have to visit one day.

I Love the I love the coast.

I used to live by the coast and we now live about a 45 minute drive

away and I, I didn't appreciate how much I loved living by the coast

until not living by the coast.

And now whenever we go back, I just absolutely love it

for all those same reasons.

It's lovely.

Plus it usually involves like fish and chips and ice cream as well.

So that's obviously a bonus.

Um, so Laura, thanks so much for coming on the show.

Really appreciate you coming on and sharing your expertise.

Where can people go online to find out more about you?

So my website is worditude.

co.

uk, um, that's, and on Facebook, if you just put forward slash

worditude, you'll find me.

I couldn't use my real name because there are so many Laura Robinsons

working online that I would never have been able to differentiate myself.

So I made up a word and I used that instead.

Okay.

And you want to remind everyone how to sign up for your

comfy business newsletter.

So that's at worditude.

co.

uk forward slash newsletter.

And I send two emails out, usually two emails out every week.

Uh, one on a Tuesday is much more story based about my very

comfortable business and life.

And hopefully there's some things in there that you can

learn or just enjoy reading it.

And then on Thursdays, I send the Comfy Business Link Buffet, which is just a

bunch of stuff that either I've created, or I found, or other people have created.

Um, That might be useful or helpful when you're running your business.

Oh, that's awesome.

Thanks so much, Laura.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

Next time, I'll be chatting with architects and architectural

technologist and Vanna about her experience of returning to practice.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Architecture Business Club.

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