Offer
The specific exchange you are proposing: this result, for this person, at this price, on these terms.
An offer is the exact trade you are proposing — a named result, for a named person, at a stated price, with stated terms. It is not your product and it is not your positioning. Two businesses can sell the identical service with completely different offers, and the offer is usually what decides which one gets bought.
The reason it does more work than the product is that a buyer is not comparing quality, which they cannot assess before purchase. They are assessing risk: what exactly do I get, when, what does it cost me if it goes badly, and what do I have to do. Every ambiguity left in the offer is a risk the buyer prices in, and they price it higher than you would.
So the strongest changes are almost never to the work. Naming the deliverable, fixing the price instead of estimating it, shortening the term, and stating what happens if it fails will each move conversion more than another feature will.
Worked: "consulting, $150 an hour" and "a 30-day pricing review with a written recommendation, $4,500, half back if you do not implement it" can be the same fortnight of work. The second closes more often and at a higher figure, because the buyer can see the edge of it.
Also known as
- package
- engagement model
- proposition
Relevant for
- Founders
- Buyers cannot judge quality before they buy, so they price ambiguity instead — every vague term in the offer costs you more than the feature you were going to add.
- Creators
- An audience does not buy access to you, it buys a named outcome; "my course" is a product, "a finished newsletter by week four" is an offer.
- Business owners
- Quote a fixed scope with a fixed price instead of an hourly estimate — the hourly rate makes the client's cost your problem to justify all over again every month.