Alyson Lex 0:00
On today's episode, we're answering the question, How do I create bonuses that will actually help me sell my course as well as positively impact the quality of my content?

The big question is this as entrepreneurs, coaches and business owners, how do we consistently sell our products, programs and services without making our customers feel like we're only in it for the almighty dollar? How do we serve the way we know we're meant to serve and still run a profitable business? How do we put good into the world while we put dollars into our pockets? How do we change the lives of our community while also bettering the life we lead?

Jennie Wright 0:39
It's not a zero sum game. It's not an either or scenario. It is possible to thrive while serving your clients to the best of your ability. This podcast will show you how. I'm Jenny right.

Alyson Lex 0:52
I'm Alison Lex, and welcome to the System To Thrive.

Jennie Wright 0:54
Are you thinking about launching an online course? Are you looking To add value to it and hopefully increase your sales as a result, then today is a really good episode for you to listen to, because Alison lacs is going to explain to us what the heck of bonus averages and how you can apply

Alyson Lex 1:12
it in your businesses. So we've all seen them those courses and launches with like hundreds of bonuses that it ignites a bit of FOMO in us because we want all of the things and you know, you felt it to Jenny. Oh, heck yeah. I have FOMO all the time with all this, excuse me all this information that is out there. But when we create our own course, that can really help us get stuck about what we can offer. Do we just throw in everything we've ever created? Or how do we add those bonuses that create value and sales? And

I think really what we need to do is first start off with why bonuses are so freakin important.

Jennie Wright 1:14
Oh yeah, because bonuses can help make the sale they can help. Close the sale because it might be that additional thing that that person really, really wants. And is the thing that makes like, it's the clincher. It's up. Yeah, I gotta have that. That's that thing that you really, really want, which is why, knowing what what to use in your bonuses is so important, because if you, you know, you kind of throw stuff together and we'll talk about that shortly. Sometimes people buy just because they want the bonus. I have certainly done that. And so have you we've actually done it together. You're like, ooh, oh, yes, we want this little we want this thing because the bonus is that like, it's so good.

Alyson Lex 2:33
Yeah, of course. I want that bonus, heck, yeah.

Jennie Wright 2:38
And it does help increase the overall value of what you're delivering. And it does, it does sort of pop up the feathers a little bit with what the course is. It just adds a little bit more to it creates a little bit more and more robustness. And quite honestly, people love bonuses. It helps them provide more information to add to their success and they Know that they're getting something that's going to help get them to the next level and it's really, it's very sexy. It's very alluring. It's incredibly intriguing. And we love it. We can't help it. Our brains are wired this way.

Alyson Lex 3:14
People love free stuff.

It really is that would have that's what it boils down to. We love free stuff. I got an email today from some e commerce storm on 80 million lists, but it was like a coupon and a freebie. And it was an office supply store which I'm addicted to office supplies. Oh my goodness. So you know I opened it and the freebie was a free pack of Crayola markers. When you have a like a 50 or $60 purchase which Crayola markers are like $1 99 yeah back, so to buy to spend $60 to get this free pack of Crayola markers was crazy. But I considered it. Okay, and that is the power of the bonus. So but unfortunately, what people typically do, and the email that I got is a really great example of that is just kind of throw in whatever crap, they can just toss in there. And what that does is it tends to make it look through them together. So if you teach on a wider variety of things, throwing it all in there makes it less attractive to your ideal client. And yeah, also falsely inflate the value. I'm going to include this video that's worth $822. And it's, you know, a min and a half long, and you could have gotten it in a blog post, you know what I mean? So where was a blog post or it was something post right? So you really want to make sure that if you're looking at bonuses, But it's you're not thinking how much it's really worth.

Jennie Wright 5:04
I go through this all the time, can I tell you that we actually use this technique in summit constantly. Now, this is a little bit different than a course. But it does apply because in summits, we're trying to sell these VIP packages, which is the upgrade, you know, you register for something for free, but then you upgrade to the VIP or all access pass to get all of the interviews plus bonuses. And I regularly pushback on clients simply because they're like, oh, I'll just throw in the, you know, the PDF that I did three years ago on a topic, completely different topic. And I'm going to throw in the video and I'm going to pull up, you know, I'm going to do this and I'm gonna do that. And it starts listening to me, you know, people say it looks like a garage sale, like, you know, like a table with all the crap on it. All the different things. Yeah. Right. It just it just looks haphazard.

And people don't buy those packages because they don't see it. congruency, they don't see the elevation or the path that those bonuses are going to create to help them get to their end result. So it leaves your people hanging. When you do this in courses or you know in the example I just shared with summit's it leaves them hanging there like and now they're not into it, and it's a bunch of stuff in that they'll never use. Okay, so, you know, congrats, now they've got 30 things that will never get used never get downloaded. And it tarnishes your reputation for later. It really does. So you're going to get people who are going to go Well the last time they offered this stuff, it was a bunch of poppycock crap. And I didn't even and it didn't i didn't even use it. Right didn't even use it didn't open it didn't use it. I opened something it looked like it was made five years ago. You know, and it looks like crap. And basically it's like buying property or sale. We just talked about this because it's so freaking treat cheap. that you actually have no use for it. It's a five minute video that offers no value. It's that PDF that you know, is maybe three pages long, triple spaced with tons of images.

Alyson Lex 7:11
I've seen those. I've gotten those as a bonus,

Jennie Wright 7:14
I have to I've gotten a one pager. I literally got sucked in by a Facebook ad last week. It was a gorgeous Facebook ad. And it was like get my XYZ download. I'm like, ooh, Yes, please. And I went for the download and it was a one freaking page PDF. useless to me completely useless to me. And it was just honestly, the font was like 64 points for the title. And then the body copy, which honestly was three freaking sentences was probably in 24 point. Yeah, I was like, you've got to be kidding me. Like we I mean not to shame anybody because I'll never say a name. But Dang it, like come on the ground.

Okay, so here's what to do instead and why it's important, we want you to create an include bonuses that are going to help your ideal client or the downloader to actually achieve the goal that you want them to get from the thing. So spend the time in planning it, and creating it. This is not something that you're going to write in five minutes ago today, ah, you know, like, ding it's done and go for it, spend a little more time, work your way backwards from the actual goal that you want people to achieve as a result of downloading your thing and create it that way. That's a better way to do it. And Alison's going to explain some some other ways as well, I'm sure. And you know, if they want to launch a new lead magnet or a course and it helps them do that, great Your bonuses, your bonuses should help them get there too, right. So whatever it is that the actual main courses, the course or the lead magnet, whatever the goal of that particular thing is the bonus should be a compliment. It should feel natural, it should feel in flow. It shouldn't feel like You know you you ordered steak and steak and vege at a steak house and they threw in some, you know, they threw in some Korean noodles on top of it. Cotton Candy, cotton candy. Sure, whatever, right? Like something that you're just like what?

Alyson Lex 9:14
This doesn't look right. So I love that metaphor. And it works really well because I talked about the bonus sandwich so it's a food metaphor, though. Yeah, steak, green beans, cotton candy. Wrong way.

Bonus sandwich right way. Okay. The meat is your course of your bonus sandwich. Actually the filling, right your turkey, your lettuce, your cheese, your whatever that is your course. Whatever your course is on the bonuses or the bread, whatever kind of bread you want. rye pumpernickel white bread wheat. Now I'm making me hungry. Oh, yeah. Those are the bonuses. They go on top what your people need to Do to be ready for the content in your course. And on the bottom, what to do after they're done with your course.

Jennie Wright 10:08
Oh, go a little deeper there that is so freakin good.

Alyson Lex 10:11
You're literally sandwiching your material, your core course material in between, get ready and succeed after

Java draw it really,

really that simple.

Unknown Speaker 10:26
But it's so cool.

Alyson Lex 10:29
And what it does is it not only helps your people get value, it not only helps your sales because now they can see a more of a more of a journey for themselves. And especially that after part like oh, they're not just gonna leave me hanging after the course is over. They're going to give me something to support me afterward. But it also helps you know what to create because all you have to do do is think, what do they need to be ready for me? And what do they need to succeed after we're done together? Now, sometimes you might have a Dagwood my husband loves Dagwood sandwiches and if you don't know what a Dagwood is, it's bread filling, bread filling bread. Okay, I'm telling you about the Dagwood one because now I'm hungry. But because it doesn't mean that you're only stuck with two bonuses. You could throw in that middle bread. Hey, what's going to help them get through the middle hump of my course. This is really good. If you have a longer term group coaching program or a self study course with a lot of modules. What can I do in the middle to help you keep going? This reminds me so much of what

Jennie Wright 11:50
you have helped me with with with my course.

Alyson Lex 11:54
I was actually thinking about that and I want to share that as a share some examples. Yeah. Because I know that sometimes a concept like this can be overwhelming. And I really want people to like everybody who's listening to understand it completely.

Okay, so let's pretend that you're a dating coach. You help women, maybe divorced women or women who have exited long term relationships, meet new partners online. Okay, so I'm a dating coach and I help recently divorced or recently broken up women meet new partners online. So my first bonus, the top the Get ready for me is maybe how to know you're ready to date, journal pace, right, get them ready for my course. And maybe my bottom bonus, my six after you've succeeded, how to rock your first date. I'm assuming success here. I'm getting dates.

Unknown Speaker 12:56
That's amazing. Okay,

Alyson Lex 12:58
so I'm getting I'm ready. They know they're ready. They take my stuff. Now we're assuming success. How to rock that first date. Let's pretend I'm a health coach that I help new moms lose the baby weight. That is the thing. So before Well, maybe they haven't had the baby yet. So good habits to start before you give birth. Sure. Yeah. Right. That could be a good starter bonus. Absolutely. And they take my course. Now, after workouts you can do while holding your infant, right? So we've helped them lose weight. A little, you know, we're helping them learn how to lose the baby weight and now we're going to give them something to support them afterward to achieve that successful. Business. I'm a social media strategist helping clients grow their reach online. which everybody wants that social media is huge. Yep. Before we start working together or before you take my course what You need to narrow down your niche and where to find them. So you know what platform you're focusing on? Mm hmm. That's my before bonus, I'm going to teach you that after. Well, you've, you know, you're using social media. Let's keep you consistent with a social media scheduler, I'm going to teach you my best practices for scheduling your social posts,

Jennie Wright 14:21
assuming success and

Alyson Lex 14:22
assuming success. I'm giving you the example of what I do. I'm a service provider. I'm a copywriter. Right. So before we work together, we have a brainstorming session, I will map out that whole plan and funnel for you. And I know we talked about this. It's actually part of my proposal process. We talked about it in what episode was that for a while? Yeah, absolutely. Or we talked about it there. But that's a bonus guys. And then another thing that I do is I will actually work with my clients implementation team after I've delivered the copy to help them get that copy on mine. As a bonus, I help them implement before they work with me, we map it out after they work with me, we get it online, I work with their team. And that helps,

Jennie Wright 15:10
that helps you be more successful because they actually see it in play.

Alyson Lex 15:14
And it helps me actually make sure they implement. Yeah, for sure. That's good. with Jen with your course, with the challenge course, you created an entire tech library of videos I did that allowed them to implement all of the strategies that you were teaching in the course, the tech library was not part of that course. Yeah. But they needed that information to be successful. Could they have found it on their own? What course they could have probably taught themselves or worked with support, or, you know, dug through all the knowledge bases or whatever. But you created a library of videos that gave them step by step tailored to the information that they got in your course that helped them be successful. And before before they started your course, you gave them some mindset work to get them ready. Yeah, ready, help them succeed.

That's all it is. get them ready, give them your stuff, help them succeed. Bonus sandwich.

Jennie Wright 16:14
love it so much. I love the bonus language and it does really add value. So it just makes sense that when you're trying to deliver your content, and people don't really think about this, do they? But it does add so much value to it, it does really make it seem that much better because they're getting the pre care almost the the, you know, the mindset or whatever it is. And then the post care the Hey, you know what, we're going to take care of you afterwards too. And you The weird thing is, before we start talking about this episode is I never heard it called a bonus sandwich. But I've seen you do this in action for years. I've seen you do it just an action and I've never made the association. So when you said bonus sandwich and I was like, what's this? Right and you explained it to me. I was like Oh, man, this is so cool. There's so many people who do not know what this is. How freaking awesome is this? Right?

Alyson Lex 17:07
I don't know where I got the term bonus sandwich. I may have made it up. I may have heard it somewhere. I don't want to take credit for it. But if you want to give me credit,

Unknown Speaker 17:17
yeah, well, you know,

Alyson Lex 17:17
I haven't seen it anywhere else. So I don't like to take credit for things if I don't know that I came up with it.

Jennie Wright 17:24
Alright, so if you're like, Wow, this is so amazing. And I want to do this. Here's a couple of different ways that you can actually find or create your own bonuses.

And if you've got stuff that you've already done, and you're kind of eyeing it going on, might

be able to use this but it's a little older. Think about also maybe doing a revamp on it.

There's nothing wrong with doing the revamp, come on, just refresh, the content might be need to be refreshed or might need to be re recorded those kinds of things, right. So take a look at your existing materials, things that you already have in your arsenal in your tool belt that you can repurpose and reuse for this particular purpose, it won't take a ton of work, but you do want to make it as good as you possibly can. So if you if you have a video that you already created, but it was a Facebook Live that you did and the videos kind of grainy because you know, it's a couple of years old, or just a lot of interruptions and arms and arms because it was live and you're interacting with people, you could take that exact content, go to otter AI, and get it transcribed and then go re and replay we've recorded with a more professional look and feel right, that wouldn't be a good idea. You could create something brand spankin new that follows Alison's guidelines on creating the you know, the bonus sandwich in terms of the bread before and afterwards. You could also and this is a really good one, you could also see what experts are out there or people that you currently know that you could either pay them to help do this, or, you know, get them to help generate your leads for this in terms of helping you create this for you. So there's there's lots of methods in where To get these bonuses, you know, there's one of my clients do a summit. I always tell them that they've got this content and it's probably reusable for at least a couple years that they could take the expert interviews and use them as an onboarding gift. And of course, so I didn't even know I was naturally making a bonus sandwich but teta I was because sometimes an interview from a summit is a really good addition. Almost like the you know how to get yourself ready thing before starting a course. So that would be really interesting, right?

Alyson Lex 19:32
I've done actually the course that you created the tech library for I contributed bonuses to you contributed so many bonuses. I've recorded and they were short, I recorded a bunch of little videos that help them with very specific tasks. And actually we even polled the group of people taking Hey, what questions do you have that are going to help you be successful? And I recorded a bunch of videos for them to answer those questions. I was a guest expert.

Jennie Wright 19:58
I thought you were going to do three you Did like 12?

Alyson Lex 20:02
Or there were a lot of questions. There

Jennie Wright 20:04
were a lot of videos in there and they were awesome. But what it

Alyson Lex 20:09
what it did for me as a guest expert was to help those people get to know me. And they got to know me on a deeper level. And a couple of them have some become clients. All right, at least for me, it was valuable for me. And I also have that content now that I can repurpose. So it was hugely valuable,

Jennie Wright 20:27
valuable for the course it helped me It helped edify what I was doing. It helps doing

Alyson Lex 20:31
it again. Oh, yeah, I have I was somebody reached out to me earlier this month and said, Hey, I'm putting together a course can do have a any kind of content that you can contribute on how to write a sales page. Well, sure. And so I have a presentation that I've been that I've delivered years ago. I gave it a refresh. I've given it an update, record. And now it's a bonus for her course. And she's allowing me to pitch at the end. And so I'm able to not pitch and say, Hey, you know, I understand this a lot. If you want help with your copy, just go here. Perfect. So there, dude, I just really wanted to talk about the guest expert side of things. Because you're really familiar with the course creator side of things as far as bringing guest experts in, but I've been that guest expert myth is a really great way to win win for both people.

Jennie Wright 21:26
I've done it once it was years ago, it was probably about four or five years ago, I'm still in this person's platform. And up until I think he took the platform down. Probably he sold the platform to somebody else and I believe that person wiped it out pretty much and, and so I'm no longer on there. But up until about maybe nine months ago, I was still getting people connecting with me saying that they had seen me on this particular person's platform for like five years. That's really, really good. So if you're excited by the idea of creating a bonus sandwich, we have something that is going to help make that happen for you, we're creating a resource, we've got a resource for you. It's a worksheet that you're going to be able to download. If you go to System To thrive.com, forward slash eight, that's the numeral eight. And if you go there, and click on the link and go and download it, we're giving you a worksheet that will help you devise your own bonus sandwich. We're going to help you figure out the goals that you want people to accomplish. We're going to help you list up the resources or the trainings that you want people to be able to do. We're going to show you how to be you know, to know if you're actually prepared, and your people are prepared for what the course is going to teach them, which is a great segue into creating your first bonus, which is that pre that before the get them ready party, and we're also going to run you through whether or not you like your content will create success after and how to get them there. So what's missing from your course and what can you create as your extra piece of bread at the That extra bonus? And whether or not your sandwich items are in your zone of genius? Or who can you ask as an additional provider or expert to help you create that bonus for your course. So if that sounds interesting to you, it sounds interesting to me, head on over to System To thrive.com, forward slash eight. Again, that's the numeral eight. And go and download the worksheet now so you can get started on your bonus language. So I hope that everybody's enjoyed today's episode, I learned a lot, I realized now that I'd actually been doing this subconsciously, which is really, really good. But I also learned a lot from Allison on the why, and the how, and I think everybody should take this and sort of run with it. I think you can apply it in so many places, and it's going to elevate and augment what you're doing. So, thanks for listening, everybody. We will be back with another big question next time. Thanks again for watching or listening to this podcast. We hope we've answered some of your big questions today. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast anywhere you're listening and leave

us a review.

Alyson Lex 24:04
Also, make sure you've checked out the thrive collaborative podcast community, our Facebook group for listeners and entrepreneurs. Find us on Facebook or online at System To Thrive calm.