skills/offer-and-pilot/SKILL.mdView on GitHub
Goal: a buyer in the wedge segment can understand the offer in one minute, see the price or how it is worked out, and take a first step that is small enough to say yes to and big enough to prove the value. The offer is written once and reused in every proposal.
The first offer is a guess like everything else. Price it, sell it five times, then adjust.
Before you start
This skill works on its own. If the person has their own marketing brain folder, read the offers, ideal customer and positioning files. If they do not have one, ask for whatever positioning or ICP notes exist; if there are none, ask who the customer is in one sentence and what the product does for them in one sentence, and work from that. Then ask what they have sold so far, at what price, and what the customer actually received.
Ask the founder:
- What does the customer pay today for the thing this replaces? That number anchors the price.
- What is the smallest version of this that would still change something for them?
- What have you discounted or given away to close a deal, and why?
Tools this skill uses when the person has them.
| Step | Tool | What for |
|---|---|---|
| Past deals | HubSpot or Pipedrive | What was sold, at what price, how long it took, what was discounted |
| Competitor pricing | Their websites, review sites, calls where prices were mentioned | The range the buyer already has in their head |
| Offer page and proposal | Google Docs, Canva for a one-page version | The written offer and the proposal template |
| Pricing table | Google Sheets | Tiers, the sizing measure and the worked examples |
| Signature | DocuSign, PandaDoc, or a signed PDF | The pilot agreement |
Steps
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Name the outcome. One sentence: what the customer has after buying that they did not have before. This is the headline of the offer, not the features.
-
Define what is included. List everything the customer gets, in three groups: the core (always), the setup (the first weeks), the support (ongoing). Be concrete: calls per month, response time, what is done for them versus with them. Then list what is not included, so proposals stop creeping.
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Pick the sizing measure. The one number that makes a bigger customer pay more and that the customer already knows: seats, locations, volume, orders, employees. Price scales on this, not on negotiation.
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Set the price. Three inputs: the cost of what it replaces (the anchor), the value delivered (time saved, revenue added, risk removed, in the customer’s numbers), and the company’s cost to deliver with margin. Price between the anchor and the value, not near the cost. For a service, say the monthly or project number. For software, say the per-measure number and the minimum. Round to numbers that are easy to say.
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Build tiers only if the wedge needs them. Two or three at most, by the sizing measure. Each tier has a name, who it is for, what changes, and the price. Larger companies that are not ready for the full offer get a small entry (one or two seats, one location) and a path to expand; do not turn them away.
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Design the pilot or first step. For a product with a trial: what the customer must do, how long, who checks in at the start and the middle, what success looks like in numbers, and what happens at the end. For a service: a fixed scope, a fixed price, 30 to 90 days, a named deliverable, and a review at the end with three options (stop, continue, expand). Paid pilots are better than free ones; a customer who pays shows up.
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Write the terms that matter. Term length, payment timing, what is needed from the customer, how either side ends it, what the customer keeps if it ends. One page. Everything else goes in the contract.
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Write the ask. The sentence the salesperson says at the end of the demo: the first step, the price, the start date, and the one thing the customer has to do next. If it takes more than one breath, the offer is not simple enough.
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Write the offer page and the proposal template. The offer page is the public version: outcome, who it is for, what is included, how pricing works, the first step, proof, the ask. The proposal template is the same page with a section for the customer’s situation, their numbers in the value line, and the signature block. Every proposal starts from this file and changes only the customer section.
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Test it on the next five conversations. Record what the buyer asked, what they pushed on, where they went quiet. Adjust the offer after five, not after one.
Rules
- Price on value and the replacement, never on hours worked or cost to deliver.
- One offer for the wedge. Variations for other segments are a paragraph, not a second offer.
- Everything in the offer is written down before it is said on a call. If a salesperson has to improvise what is included, the offer is not finished.
- Discounts have a reason and a name (annual prepay, case study rights, pilot pricing). Unnamed discounts are not allowed.
- Never invent competitor prices or customer numbers. Mark unknowns and ask.
- The customer must be able to repeat the offer to their boss in one minute.
Output
Return the offer page, the pricing table with the sizing measure and two worked examples, the pilot design, the terms page, the ask sentence, and the proposal template.
If the person has their own marketing brain folder, save to it:
1-context/offers.md: the offer page and the pricing table (replace the draft, note what changed)4-playbooks/asproposals.md: the proposal template and the rules for using it5-current/decisions-log.md: the date, the price set and the reason
If they do not have one, return the offer page and the proposal template as files. Do not set up a brain unless they ask.
Next: homepage-rewrite puts the offer on the site. discovery-and-demo ends every demo with the ask. scorecard-and-okrs tracks how many first steps are taken.