My First Two Offers Failed! What I Did Wrong & How to Learn From My Mistakes

Hey Friend!

I hope you are ready to learn from my mistakes because we are going to evaluate some past offers that flopped by walking down memory lane together right now.

Would you like to see success quickly and learn how to serve your audience well?

Are you in a season of struggling to make your online business profitable? Possibly even creating offers that are falling flat with your audience?

I love to share ways that you can learn from my mistakes, which is why we are using these failed offers and the four lessons I learned as a growth tool for you to apply to your business.

There was a time when offers fell flat, and things felt HARD. Moments when I worked so hard and poured everything I had into creating offers that failed, did not sell or did not get my students the results they deserved.

So, right now, we are going to do exactly that. I will share what my first two offers were, why they failed, and what I did wrong, along with giving you some tactical advice on how to learn from my mistakes.

So, are you ready to learn from my mistakes in my first two failed offers and avoid making these mistakes for yourself? Let’s dive in!

Learn From My Mistakes: Break It Down

My journey as an entrepreneur began in network marketing, transitioning into this current business around 2016. However, it did not begin with the incredibly lucrative, successful offers that I have today.

While my signature group coaching program, Podcast to Profit, is now in its fourth iteration and is getting incredible results for my students, it was not one of my original offers.

My First Failed Offer Was Not Created For My Audience’s Needs

Before we can examine the four lessons that will help you learn from my mistakes, I need to share my failed offers and what was wrong with them.

I began with a $9 e-book about using attraction marketing to grow your marketing message and sales. This was such a buzzword back in 2015-2017, so naturally, I thought this was the offer to create.

Cue the hours of hard work. I poured time, effort, heart, and soul into creating this product, using Canva to build it out, and I even enlisted my Dad’s help to proofread this e-book for me; bless him.

After launching that e-book on the podcast, in my Facebook community, and on Pinterest, I sold a whopping 15 books. The math on this doesn’t have to be hard. It is easy to see that, sadly, this offer cost me way more to create than I made from it, especially after factoring in time, energy, and sanity.

That e-book was an absolute flop. While hindsight is always 20/20, there are a few things I want you to highlight, and I encourage you to think about as you learn from my mistakes.

How can this apply to you so that you can avoid doing the same thing?

The two main things I want to highlight for you as we learn from my mistakes are…

1. I created something based on what I THOUGHT everyone wanted – attraction marketing was hot at the time.
2. Decided it was going to be a strategic move to price this as a tiny offer – but your audience is too small when you are first starting out.

Instead of performing market research and finding clarity in what I needed to create, or instead of polling my audience and sitting with people to dive into the details, I took to Canva. I started creating without having clarity about what I was even creating.

The problem with low-priced offers is that your audience is very small. A low-priced, itty-bitty offer is not going to move the needle in your new business. Typically, these people who purchase are also NOT the same people who are willing to come along with you and purchase your higher-ticket offer in the future.

It is a different buyer mindset. With these low-priced offers, you don’t make enough money to actually make a difference in the company you are trying to build from the ground up.

My Second Failed Offer That Did Not Produce Results For My Students

The final reflection on what you can learn from my mistakes comes from reflecting on an offer that did not produce the results my students needed at that time.

This second failed offer was called Funnel Fusion. It was a live coaching experience, and some people did purchase it.

I taught them how to create a basic funnel by building out a freebie, creating a duct-taped together landing page, and nurturing the lead through email.

To be clear, nobody in my audience was asking me, “How do I build a funnel, Stef?” It was just another current buzzword I was trying to utilize.

Creating offers that stick and sell is not about doing more and testing and testing till you die of burnout.

NO. It is doing the work upfront to actually know what your person wants and then coming up with your strategic offer based on what they are desperately asking you for.

This all needs to come from a very clear messaging perspective, built out with the help of a coach or mentor to help you build everything right the first time.

Much like the 1:1 coaching support my students receive in my signature group coaching program, Podcast to Profit.

You will notice how following the trends of other online coaches and business owners distracted me from going deep with my audience and figuring out what they needed. This offer was evidence of following another buzzword trend.

What Happens When Your Offers Do Not Provide Results

The failed offer wasn’t because I was not selling it right, and it wasn’t making me any money.

It failed, fell flat, and combusted because it was not producing results. If your people are not getting results, you will not have…

• Testimonies – real testimonies from real people of how your offer has changed their life for the better…an incredible marketing tool.

• No word of mouth – which is still the strongest and most POWERFUL method of advertising to this day. Over social, ads, organic, anything.

You have to have a product that produces results. This particular offer did not, so this offer was a huge flop and failure.

Learn From My Mistakes: 4 Lessons

From the tiny offer to this larger offer that did sell, many mistakes were made, and now they can come together in this blog post to help you learn from my mistakes.

I had some issues in those first years of online business that I now know we can take and think about. Such as how to create an online business for this coming year that is…

• Simple – we don’t need 100 things

• Profitable – we don’t want to undervalue our products by doing tiny offers

• Creating value in the marketplace – that is going to be highly desired

We must not make stuff just because we believe it will sell but rather create offers that we believe will change the life and the outcome of the person we have been called to serve and help.

What product and solution actually realistically gets them an outcome and gets them where they want to go?

Do not create something just to create something. Learning from our mistakes is key and has helped me build the business I have today.

#1 Understand Your Audience

This is critically important. You must do market research and audit your analytics to determine what your customers desire and want from you.

#2 Investing in a Coach

I highly recommend finding someone who can help you build a streamlined, strategic, and sustainable offer.

Ready to take that next step with me as your coach and grow immensely over the next six months? Join my signature group coaching program, Podcast to Profit, today

#3 Create A Value Packed Offer

What is the offer that is going to get your audience where they need to go and want to go? How can you help them change their lives?

#4 Start With A Beta Offer

Let people try your first offer at a beta level. It could be free or of lesser value. You will not throw this offer away, but you will learn from it.

Then, you will need to take that information and tweak the offer to better provide results for your audience as time goes on. Changing your offer is inevitable, but you will need to tweak it. All programs need revising over time.

Learn From My Mistakes: The Order You Need to Focus On When Getting Started

I want you to think about where you are on this journey. If you have never had an offer before, this is how I want you to begin. Let’s do this in the right order.

• Long-form – start creating long-form content like a podcast

• Nurture – your groups and your email list as you build your audience and build community

• Building out that offer – let’s begin to make some profit from that long-form content. Now, that is a singular offer. Not several different offers.

Students in my group coaching program, Podcast to Profit, coach at least five people first because this gives them the data that shows them what their people need.

Those five people give you the data you need to KNOW with certainty what the offer should be. Coaching in this way is like getting paid to do market research, which is a #winwin.

Learn From My Mistakes: What to Focus On Further Along

Maybe you are further along in your online business journey, possibly with some offers already.

Either way…It is OK. Let’s just stop. Pause. Ask yourself, “Where am I right now, and what is the next best step forward right now?”

Sometimes, we need to…

• Streamline – I have been there
• Retire offers – I have had to do that, too

Take a minute to evaluate and reread these four lessons you can learn from my flopped offers. Then, start with the next thing your person needs right now.

Learn From My Mistakes: Evaluating an Offer That Flopped

I hope that, after reading this blog post where we evaluated lessons to be learned from my own personal offers that flopped, you will know you are totally NOT alone if you are feeling like you are trudging through the messy middle right now.

After reading about what I did wrong, why some of those things did not work out for me, and what worked for me to fix those problems, maybe you now have some new food for thought.

To recap, I want you to take away four main lessons from this blog post as you continue on this journey.

1. You need to understand your audience
2. Invest in a coach who will help you build things the right way
3. Create a value-packed offer with that coach
4. Start by selling that offer in a beta round.

If you do these things and learn from my mistakes instead of creating trending offers that don’t serve your audience, you will find success in your calling.

Use these four lessons to help you stand on those truths as you begin to build something you can be proud of.

Let’s glorify God through our work and serve the people He has called us to help and serve.

I pray this blesses you.

APPLE PODCAST | SPOTIFY | YOUTUBE

---

---

LISTEN TO RELATED EPISODES:

Huge Podcasting Mistakes to Avoid When You’re Getting Started

Why Your Podcast Isn’t Making Sales: 3 Surprising Oversights

How to Audit Your Sales Funnel When You Got No Sales

---

WATCH RELATED EPISODES:

“I Sold Dozens of Online Courses — Without a Single Sales Call”

How to Become a Full-Time Podcaster + Bonus PODCAST CHECKLIST

QUIT Focusing On The Wrong Things! ONLY 4 Things You Need to Grow in 2025

---