Business Owners: Spice Up Your Offer

Simon Anthony from The Business Hub joined me on Phil In The Morning this week, and he arrived with something I genuinely wish every business owner in Cheshire could hear.

It’s a model called SPICE, and it’s all about the moment things go quiet.

Because that’s the bit he sees again and again. Business dips, panic sets in, and the owner reaches straight for the discount button. “20% off. That’ll do it.” And as Simon puts it, that’s about as much thought as goes into it.

Why most offers start in the wrong place

Before we even got to the acronym, Simon made me slow down. There are three things to sort out before you design an offer at all.

First, what’s the actual outcome? More people through the door is one thing. Getting your existing customers to spend a bit more is a completely different thing — and it needs a completely different offer.

Second, who are you targeting? Simon’s a big believer in segmenting, because no business has just one type of customer. You’ve got regulars, occasional walk-ins, and lapsed customers who haven’t been near you in months.

He worked with a client recently who had a thousand lapsed clients sitting in their contacts, with every detail still on file. A thousand. And here’s the line that stopped me: it’s ten times easier — and ten times cheaper — to win back a lapsed customer than to go and find a brand new one.

Third, how are you going to get their attention? We’ve talked about noise on the show before, and Simon reckons it’s only getting louder.

He also made a point about why businesses end up here in the first place. Most owners only market when they’re quiet. There’s no rhythmic undertone of marketing ticking along in the background — it’s feast or famine, switch it on, switch it off.

S is for Specific

You can only really promote one thing at a time. Simon sees offers all the time that are 10% off this, a fiver off that, buy three get two of the other. It’s confusing, and confusion kills a sale.

He’s not a fan of straight percentage discounts either — that’s just giving money away.

He’d much rather you bundled. He was in a coffee shop recently where you could get a coffee and a sausage butty for a fiver. Simple, specific, and nobody’s losing their shirt on it.

He also pointed to a restaurant in the Warrington area that built its whole model on 30% off Sunday to Friday. Over the years the menu price crept up, so now if you go on a Saturday it feels wildly expensive. People work these things out.

P is for Profitable

This one surprised me, because a lot of Simon’s clients assume a discount has to cost them money.
His example was a takeaway with an average spend of £27 that wanted to get past £30. They didn’t knock a penny off anything.

They went to the cash and carry, bought three pallets of fizzy drinks at 50p a unit, and promoted it everywhere: spend £30 or more, get a free drink.

Average spend went to £32. A £5 lift for 50p. That’s the difference between being busy and being profitable — and if you’re just busy and losing money, what’s the point?

I is for Irresistible

Simon’s verdict on most offers? Dull as dishwater. Ruthless, but he’s not wrong.

It has to be so tempting that the customer would be foolish not to take it. My test is a simple one: “so what?” If I don’t want the thing in the first place, and you’re offering me something else I don’t want, why on earth would I spend money with you? Adding extra value for the same price works brilliantly here — it costs you very little, but the perceived value to the customer is high.

C is for Clear

Crystal clear. Zero ambiguity. Nothing stops people buying like confusion, and if they’ve got to jump through hoops to claim it, they’ll just get bored and wander off.

Clarity also means a proper call to action. What do I actually do next? Click a link, ring up, hand over a voucher? Damien from Good Morning Cheshire told me about a personal trainer at his gym offering extra free sessions. Damien was ready to buy. The trainer said “oh, I’m sure you’ll be fine,” and walked off. No card, no booking, no next step. That sale just evaporated.

E is for Expiring

If there’s no reason to act now, life gets in the way. Simon meant to leave a business a review the other day — genuinely meant to. Then he was outside answering emails, taking calls, bumping into friends, and days later it still hadn’t happened.

Your customers are exactly the same. Give them a deadline.

Specific. Profitable. Irresistible. Clear. Expiring. Write it down, stick it on the wall, and run your next offer through it before you spend a penny.

You can find Simon Anthony at The Business Hub, and catch Phil In The Morning weekdays 10am–1pm on Cheshire’s MIX56.