Developing an offer that sells

Welcome to the Thought Follower, the savvy Solopreneur's guide to building a business on LinkedIn.

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Let me start with a confession:

I don’t know the guy, but I think Alex Hormozi seems like kind of a jerk.

Love him or hate him, he’s undeniably a master at creating offers that sell.

So if we’re going to learn from anyone, we may as well learn from the best.

Hormozi’s book $100M Offers has plenty of great advice, but inside I found one simple tweak for my offers that’s helped me close more sales than anything else.

The Missing Piece in Offer Design

When designing an offer, there are plenty of levers to pull:

• Price

• Scope

• Speed

• Quality

It’s easy to get stuck tweaking these variables over and over, trying to find the perfect balance:

• Lower the price? Shrink the scope.

• Charge more? Improve the service.

• Deliver faster? Increase the price.

• Create a ‘lite’ version? Make it faster and cheaper.

It’s hard to get real feedback from prospects on what’s really missing, so we go round and round in circles.

But after reading Hormozi’s book, I realised this process misses one crucial factor:

Risk.

Risk is standing between you & ‘yes’

As Hormozi says:

“The single greatest objection for any product or service being sold is…risk. Risk that it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do for them. Therefore, reversing risk is an immediate way to make any offer more attractive.”

No matter how you mix price, speed, scope, and quality, your buyer is still facing risk.

So how do you reverse that risk?

The power of a Guarantee

A Guarantee is an excellent way to de-risk the buying decision. Even The Simpsons know it.

Here’s the guarantee for my Solopreneurs Breakthrough Club:

“If you show up to every session, do the work & implement the system,

I guarantee you’ll earn your investment back during our time together.

Otherwise, I’ll continue to work with you 1:1 until you do.”

How to create a winning guarantee

Start by identifying your client’s biggest fears and perceived risks.

What do they worry about most before saying yes? Flip that fear into a guarantee.

Many of my coaching clients are investing in themselves for the first time. Their fear? Not getting results, and losing money. My guarantee directly addresses that concern.

But there’s a secondary benefit too:

A strong guarantee doesn’t just help you sell, it keeps you accountable. It aligns your incentives with your client’s because you’re on the hook for the extra time & service if they don’t get results. This is called a service guarantee.

This is just one way to structure a guarantee - Hormozi covers several others in his books.

I chose a service guarantee for a simple reason.

A No-Risk Growth Lever for Solopreneurs

For solopreneurs, a service guarantee is especially useful because it removes buyer hesitation without putting your income at risk.

Instead of endless changes to price, scope, and delivery, adding a guarantee can make the sale easier and more natural.

This small tweak has increased my close rates significantly, without driving me crazy.

PS Are you interested in growing your Solo business alongside a group of like-minded peers? Check out my new Solopreneurs Breakthrough Club - a coaching cohort for Solopreneurs who want to grow without gimmicks.

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