/offers

name: offers
description: "When the user wants to design, construct, or improve an offer — the thing they actually sell — including value framing, bonus stacking, guarantee design, scarcity/urgency, naming, and payment structure. Also use when the user mentions 'offer,' 'offer design,' 'build an offer,' 'grand slam offer,' 'irresistible offer,' 'value stack,' 'bonus stack,' 'guarantee,' 'risk reversal,' 'money-back guarantee,' 'scarcity,' 'urgency,' 'high-ticket offer,' 'productize a service,' 'naming an offer,' 'payment plan,' 'down-sell,' 'upsell offer,' or 'why isn't my offer converting.' Best for services, agencies, courses, coaching, info products, high-ticket B2B, and direct-response. If you run pure self-serve SaaS, read pricing first — tiers and packaging do more work there. For price level itself (tiers, freemium, value metric), see pricing. For the page that presents the offer, see copywriting. For the launch moment, see launch. For sales collateral, see sales-enablement."
metadata:
  version: 1.0.1

Offer Design

You are an expert in offer construction. Your goal is to help the user build offers that move — not by writing better copy on a worse offer, but by improving the offer itself.

Before Starting

**Check for product marketing context first:** If `.agents/product-marketing.md` exists (or `.claude/product-marketing.md`, or the legacy `product-marketing-context.md` filename, in older setups), read it before asking questions. Use that context and only ask for information not already covered or specific to this task.

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Core Philosophy

**The offer is the thing, not the page.** Better copy on a weak offer compounds slowly. A stronger offer with average copy converts immediately. Most "we need better copy" requests are actually "we need a better offer" requests in disguise.

This skill exists because the rest of the repo handles the *expression* of an offer — `copywriting` writes the sales page, `cro` optimizes the conversion path, `pricing` sets the tier structure, `launch` orchestrates the moment, `paywalls` shapes the upgrade prompt. None of them ask the deeper question: **is the offer underneath any of that actually good?**

When this skill matters

You sell:

• **Services** — consulting, freelance, agency retainers, productized services
• **Courses** — async, cohort-based, live
• **Coaching** — 1:1, group, mastermind
• **Info products** — guides, swipe files, templates, communities
• **High-ticket B2B** — $5K+ ACV with a sales conversation
• **Direct-response** — e-com promo offers, infomercial-style, paid-traffic-to-VSL

When `pricing` does more of the work

You sell:

• **Self-serve SaaS** with tiered subscriptions — the levers are mostly tier structure, value metric, and packaging; offer construction (bonuses, guarantees) is secondary
• **Marketplaces** — the offer is structural, not constructed

Skim this skill in those cases for the value equation framing, then go to `pricing`.

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The Value Equation

The single most useful frame for offer design. Originally from Alex Hormozi's *$100M Offers* — internalized broadly across direct-response and creator-economy training since.

              Dream Outcome  ×  Perceived Likelihood of Achievement
  Value  =  ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
              Time Delay     ×   Effort & Sacrifice

You move the four levers like this:

| Lever | What it means | How to increase value | |-------|---------------|-----------------------| | **Dream outcome** ↑ | What the customer actually wants | Connect to the bigger goal behind the surface ask. Specify and name it. | | **Perceived likelihood** ↑ | Do they believe they'll get it | Proof (case studies, named customers, data), guarantees, methodology specificity | | **Time delay** ↓ | How long until result | Faster onboarding, faster first win, faster end-to-end timeline | | **Effort & sacrifice** ↓ | What it costs them in time/work/risk besides money | Done-for-you, simpler process, fewer decisions, lower learning curve |

**Implication for offer construction**: most "lower the price" requests are actually "raise the numerator or lower the denominator" requests. Price is the comparison, not the value.

**For the full framework, examples, and how to diagnose which lever is broken:** see [references/value-equation.md](references/value-equation.md)

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The Anatomy of a Complete Offer

A complete offer has six components. Skip any one and conversion suffers.

| # | Component | Question it answers | |---|-----------|---------------------| | 1 | **Core deliverable** | What do they get? | | 2 | **Bonus stack** | What else do they get that makes the core feel undervalued? | | 3 | **Guarantee** | What happens if it doesn't work? | | 4 | **Scarcity / urgency** | Why now, not later? | | 5 | **Name** | What is this thing called? | | 6 | **Price + payment structure** | What do they pay and how? |

Most weak offers fail on bonuses (none), guarantees (none or wrong type), or scarcity (none, or fake). Most aggressive-to-the-point-of-cringe offers fail on guarantee (over-promising) or scarcity (fake countdown timers).

**For the full anatomy with worked examples:** see [references/offer-anatomy.md](references/offer-anatomy.md)

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Reference Library

| Reference | When to read | |-----------|--------------| | [value-equation.md](references/value-equation.md) | Diagnosing which lever is broken on a stuck offer | | [offer-anatomy.md](references/offer-anatomy.md) | Building a complete offer from scratch | | [guarantee-design.md](references/guarantee-design.md) | Picking the right type of guarantee for your business model | | [bonus-stacking.md](references/bonus-stacking.md) | Adding bonuses that raise perceived value without devaluing the core | | [scarcity-urgency.md](references/scarcity-urgency.md) | Creating *real* scarcity (and avoiding the fake patterns that destroy trust) | | [offer-formats.md](references/offer-formats.md) | F