Services and Offerings Design

Your client has been coaching for 2-3 years and has a single signature package - typically 6 months, $4,000-$6,000. They convert some discovery calls but lose many prospective clients who want to work with them but won't commit at that price or duration upfront. They've never had a lower-access entry point.

Frame this as an architecture exercise, not a pricing conversation. 'Before we talk about what to charge, let's map what you actually offer at different levels of depth. Right now you have one door into your work. We're going to design two more.' The resistance here is often attachment to the signature offer as the only 'real' version of their coaching. Name it: 'An entry offer isn't a lesser version - it's a different scope with a different client at a different moment in their readiness.'

Watch how the client describes their Tier 1 offer. If they keep describing a shorter version of Tier 2 - same goals, same depth, just fewer sessions - they haven't designed a Tier 1 yet. A genuine entry offer has a scoped outcome that's complete on its own. Also watch whether their Tier 2 client profile and Tier 1 client profile are identical. If so, they've created a discount, not a tier.

Start with the Offering Suite Overview section, not the individual tiers. Ask: 'What would need to be true for a Tier 1 client to naturally want to move to Tier 2?' The progression logic is the hardest part to get right and the most important. Then move back to each tier and check whether the Key Outcome field describes a client transformation or a list of deliverables. The transformation framing is what makes an offer convert.

Your client has multiple services but prices them reactively - often discounting when prospects push back, bundling inconsistently, and defaulting to hourly rates for work that should be packaged. Their revenue is inconsistent despite a solid client roster. They describe themselves as 'not good at the business side.'

Introduce as a diagnostic before a redesign. 'We're not going to change your pricing today. We're going to map what you currently have so we can see what's actually happening.' Clients who've been pricing reactively often don't have a clear picture of their own suite. The act of completing the tiers is clarifying on its own before any changes are made. Resistance often shows as minimizing: 'It's more complicated than three tiers.' Stay with the structure anyway.

In the Price fields, watch for wide gaps between tiers that aren't justified by intensity differences - e.g., Tier 1 at $500 and Tier 2 at $8,000 with nothing in between. That gap is where prospective clients fall off. Also watch the Ideal Client field: if the same client description appears in Tier 2 and Tier 3, the premium tier isn't differentiated enough to command its price. Look at whether the Key Outcome for each tier names a concrete transformation or uses abstract coaching language.

Start with the Most Profitable Offer field in the Offering Suite Overview. Ask them to read it aloud, then ask: 'Is that where most of your marketing time goes?' The gap between highest-margin offer and most-promoted offer is usually the revenue leverage point. Then move to the Minimum Engagement Price and ask whether it reflects their actual cost of delivering the work or a number they chose to reduce pushback.

Your client has been coaching for several years in a broad niche and has recently narrowed their focus - for example, from 'leadership coaching' to 'first-time executives from individual contributor roles.' Their existing offer descriptions no longer match the specific client they now serve, and they're starting conversations with prospects who are confused about what they're buying.

Frame as a rewrite, not a rebuild. 'Your offers probably don't need to change structurally. The language does. We're going to go tier by tier and rewrite the client description and outcome fields for who you're actually serving now.' The resistance here is often sunk-cost attachment to existing copy that's been used for years. Acknowledge that the old language worked for the old niche, then move on.

Watch the Ideal Client field in each tier. If the client uses their old broad language ('leaders who want to grow') instead of their new specific language ('engineers moving into general management for the first time'), the pivot hasn't landed in their offer design yet. Also watch the Key Outcome field for vague transformation language - 'become a better leader' - versus outcomes specific enough that a prospective client would immediately recognize themselves in the description.

Start by reading the Tier 2 Ideal Client description aloud and asking: 'If you put this in front of three people in your new niche, how many would immediately say that's me?' The answer reveals whether the specificity is there. Then move to the Offering Suite Overview and work through the progression question - does a Tier 1 client in the new niche have a reason to move to Tier 2, or is that bridge broken after the pivot?

Your client is newly certified or in their final training year. They've coached in supervised settings but have no paying clients yet. They're working through this tool to build their initial suite before launching, and they're filling fields hypothetically rather than from actual client experience.

Name the limitation upfront and make it productive. 'You're going to fill this in based on who you think you want to serve and what you think will work - and some of that will be right and some won't, and that's fine. The goal right now is to have a structure you can actually offer, even if it changes in six months.' The risk with new coaches is over-engineering: designing a sophisticated three-tier suite before they've tested any of it. Tier 1 matters most here - something they can actually deliver and learn from.

Watch for Tier 1 entries that are too small to be meaningful ('a single clarity session') or so close to a free intro call that they won't convert. A Tier 1 that doesn't produce a real result for the client isn't an entry offer - it's marketing. Also watch for price fields left blank or filled in with round numbers ($1,000, $5,000, $10,000) without any reasoning behind them. Round numbers without rationale typically signal avoidance of the pricing decision.

Focus the debrief on Tier 1 exclusively. Ask: 'What does a client have at the end of Tier 1 that they didn't have at the beginning?' If they can't answer in concrete terms, the tier isn't designed yet. Defer the Tier 3 premium work until they've run at least a few Tier 1 or Tier 2 engagements. High-access premium offers require understanding of what clients actually need at depth - which comes from client experience.

Your client currently coaches 3-5 clients on the side while employed full-time. They want to make coaching their primary income within 12-18 months. They have a working set of offers but no clarity on how many clients at each tier they need to hit their income target, and their current suite was designed for low volume, not sustainability at scale.

Frame this as both a suite design and a capacity math exercise. 'We're going to design your tiers, but we're also going to look at what the math requires - how many clients at each tier to reach your number. That will tell us whether the suite as designed is actually viable or needs adjustment.' Some coaches resist the revenue framing because it feels transactional. Name it directly: 'This isn't about making coaching transactional. It's about building something that doesn't require you to burn out at 15 clients.'

In the Most Profitable Offer field, watch whether the client names their actual highest-margin offer or defaults to the one they're most emotionally attached to. These are often different. Also watch the Duration fields - a suite of all long-duration offers (12+ months each) at low volume may not hit the income target even with full capacity. The math has to work, and it usually requires at least one offer that turns over faster.

Start with the Offering Suite Overview and work through the revenue math together: take the prices from each tier and ask how many clients at each level they can realistically hold simultaneously. Compare that to their income target. The gap usually appears quickly and then the redesign conversation becomes specific. If the numbers work at full capacity, the question becomes how they build to that capacity - which is a marketing question, not an offer design question.