Offer Creation

---
name: offer-creation
description: "Toolkit for designing, positioning, pricing and testing one focused high-value AI-automation offer for a specific business-owner segment. Use when you are packaging services into an offer, naming the outcome/scope/price/guarantee, deciding what to charge, positioning against 'hire a VA / use Zapier / do nothing', writing an offer page or proposal, or testing willingness to pay before you build. Distills: Hormozi, Osterwalder, Pigneur, Bernarda, Smith, Dunford, Ramanujam, Tacke, Joyner, Enns, Moesta, Engle, Christensen, Hall, Dillon, Duncan, Bland, Kim, Mauborgne."
---

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# Offer Creation and Offer Making
**Books**: 10 | **Generated**: 2026-10-06 | **Source**: distilled from the authors' published frameworks (no book text reproduced)

## How to Use This Skill
- **Without arguments** — load the core frameworks below
- **With a topic/situation** — e.g. `pricing a retainer`, `prospect says "we'll just use Zapier"`, `offer page`; read the relevant book file(s) and playbook before answering
- **With a book number** — `book 03`; load that book file
- **Browse** — "what books do you have?" → show the Book Index

When a question goes beyond the Core Frameworks, READ the relevant `books/NN-*.md` and `playbooks.md` before answering. Do not answer from the summary alone.

## Core Frameworks & Mental Models

### 1. Find the job and the segment before you design anything
- **Jobs to Be Done** (Christensen, Hall, Dillon, Duncan) — a customer "hires" a product to make progress in a specific circumstance; every job has functional, social and emotional dimensions → Use when writing the first line of any offer: name the progress, not the automation. Prefer "circumstance + progress" over "persona + feature" because the same owner hires different solutions in different circumstances.
- **Four Forces of Progress** (Moesta & Engle) — Push of the situation + Pull of the new solution must exceed Anxiety of the new solution + Habit of the present → Use when a prospect stalls: find which force is weak, then change the offer (guarantee, pilot, done-for-you onboarding) to lower anxiety and break habit rather than piling on more pull.
- **Buying Timeline** (Moesta & Engle) — First Thought → Passive Looking → Active Looking → Deciding → Onboarding → Ongoing Use → Use when choosing what to say in outreach vs on a call: passive lookers need their struggling moment mirrored back; active lookers need trade-offs and proof.
- **Value Proposition Canvas** (Osterwalder, Pigneur, Bernarda, Smith) — Customer Profile (jobs, pains, gains, ranked) ↔ Value Map (products & services, pain relievers, gain creators); "fit" when the map hits the top-ranked items → Use when auditing a draft offer: strike every deliverable that does not relieve a ranked pain or create a ranked gain.
- **Starving Crowd** (Hormozi) — pick a market with massive pain, purchasing power, easy targeting and growth → Use when choosing the industry for the first offer; prefer a niche where the owner already pays for the problem (payroll, VA, agency fees, lost leads) over one that is merely curious about AI.

### 2. Position so the alternatives look weak
- **Positioning Components** (Dunford) — Competitive Alternatives → Unique Attributes → Value (and proof) → Best-fit Customers → Market Category → optional Relevant Trend, worked in that order → Use when positioning against "hire a VA / use Zapier / do nothing": the alternatives are what the buyer would actually do, not other AI agencies.
- **Market frame styles** (Dunford) — Head-to-head, Big Fish Small Pond, Create a New Game → Prefer Big Fish Small Pond ("AI intake automation for dental groups") over Create a New Game because a sub-segment already has a budget line and a vocabulary.
- **Four Actions Framework / ERRC Grid** (Kim & Mauborgne) — Eliminate, Reduce, Raise, Create against the industry's factors of competition; draw it on a **Strategy Canvas** → Use when your offer reads like every other "AI agency": eliminate hourly billing and open-ended scoping, raise speed-to-live and client ownership, create an outcome guarantee.
- **Value Innovation** (Kim & Mauborgne) — differentiation AND lower cost at once; a good strategy has focus, divergence and a compelling tagline → Use as the final test: if your value curve tracks the competitors', you are competing on price.

### 3. Build the offer itself
- **Value Equation** (Hormozi) — Value = (Dream Outcome × Perceived Likelihood of Achievement) ÷ (Time Delay × Effort & Sacrifice) → Use to raise value without discounting: shrink the denominator first (done-for-you setup, live in 14 days, zero owner time) because that is where AI services beat a VA.
- **Grand Slam Offer build** (Hormozi) — list every problem on the way to the dream outcome → turn each into a solution → pick delivery vehicles → trim to high-value/low-cost → stack → Use once you have job and segment and need the deliverable list; never start from "what can n8n do".
- **MAGIC naming** (Hormozi) — Make a Magnetic reason why, Announce the avatar, Give them a goal, Indicate a time interval, Complete with a container word → Use for the offer headline.
- **Enhancers** (Hormozi) — Scarcity, Urgency, Bonuses, Guarantees (unconditional, conditional, anti-guarantee, implied) → Prefer adding a bonus over dropping the price; prefer a conditional guarantee tied to a measurable outcome you control.
- **Big Four Questions + Touchstone** (Joyner) — the buyer silently asks "What are you trying to sell me? How much? Why should I believe you? What's in it for me?" and gives you about three seconds; the Touchstone is one sentence that answers them → Use for the first line of a landing page, cold message or proposal cover.
- **Diagnose Before You Prescribe / Do Not Solve Problems Before You Are Paid** (Enns) — sell a paid diagnostic before any build → Use when a prospect wants a "free scoping call" that is really free consulting.

### 4. Price and test before you build
- **Willingness-to-Pay talk early** (Ramanujam & Tacke) — ask price questions during discovery, not after the build: direct WTP questions, purchase-probability questions, acceptable/expensive/prohibitive ranges → Use before writing a single workflow: "If this took intake fully off your desk, what monthly figure feels acceptable? Expensive? Prohibitive?"
- **Four monetization failures** (Ramanujam & Tacke) — Feature Shock, Minivation, Hidden Gem, Undead → Use as the post-mortem taxonomy when an offer flops; most agency offers are Minivations (under-ambitious, underpriced).
- **Leaders, Fillers, Killers** (Ramanujam & Tacke) — bundle around a leader; drop killers that lower WTP for the whole bundle → Use when deciding whether a chatbot belongs in an ops-automation offer.
- **Good-Better-Best / anchoring** (Ramanujam & Tacke; Enns on multiple options) — present three options; most buyers pick the middle → Use on every proposal; put the option you want sold in the middle.
- **Evidence strength ladder** (Bland & Osterwalder) — what people say < what they click < what they pre-pay; test Desirability → Feasibility → Viability → Use to pick the next test: interviews first, then a landing page or mock sale, then a presale or letter of intent before building.
- **Test Card / Learning Card** (Bland & Osterwalder; Osterwalder et al.) — hypothesis, test, metric, success criterion; then observation, learning, decision → Use to keep offer tests honest.

## Book Index
| # | Book | Author | Best for | File |
|---|------|--------|----------|------|
| 01 | $100M Offers | Alex Hormozi | Building and enhancing the offer itself | [books/01-100m-offers.md](books/01-100m-offers.md) |
| 02 | Value Proposition Design | Osterwalder, Pigneur, Bernarda, Smith | Mapping jobs/pains/gains to deliverables | [books/02-value-proposition-design.md](books/02-value-proposition-design.md) |
| 03 | Obviously Awesome | April Dunford | Positioning against real alternatives | [books/03-obviously-awesome.md](books/03-obviously-awesome.md) |
| 04 | Monetizing Innovation | Ramanujam, Tacke | Pricing and WTP before building | [books/04-monetizing-innovation.md](books/04-monetizing-innovation.md) |
| 05 | The Irresistible Offer | Mark Joyner | The one-sentence offer and believability | [books/05-the-irresistible-offer.md](books/05-the-irresistible-offer.md) |
| 06 | The Win Without Pitching Manifesto | Blair Enns | Selling expertise, paid diagnostics, value pricing | [books/06-win-without-pitching.md](books/06-win-without-pitching.md) |
| 07 | Demand-Side Sales 101 | Moesta, Engle | Why buyers hesitate; the buying timeline | [books/07-demand-side-sales-101.md](books/07-demand-side-sales-101.md) |
| 08 | Competing Against Luck | Christensen, Hall, Dillon, Duncan | Discovering the job to be done | [books/08-competing-against-luck.md](books/08-competing-against-luck.md) |
| 09 | Testing Business Ideas | Bland, Osterwalder | Choosing and sequencing offer experiments | [books/09-testing-business-ideas.md](books/09-testing-business-ideas.md) |
| 10 | Blue Ocean Strategy | Kim, Mauborgne | Escaping the "AI agency" commodity curve | [books/10-blue-ocean-strategy.md](books/10-blue-ocean-strategy.md) |

## Situation Index
- **Choosing which industry to build the first offer for** → books 01, 08, 03; playbook "Design one offer for one industry"
- **Have a vague service list, need a packaged offer** → books 01, 02; playbook "Design one offer for one industry"
- **Prospect says "we'll just hire a VA" or "we can do this in Zapier"** → books 03, 07, 10; playbook "Position against VA / Zapier / do nothing"
- **Prospect says "we're fine for now" (do nothing)** → books 07, 08; playbook "Position against VA / Zapier / do nothing"
- **Deciding the price for a build + retainer** → books 04, 06, 01; playbook "Price the offer and run the WTP talk"
- **Prospect wants a free scoping call / free audit** → book 06; playbook "Price the offer and run the WTP talk"
- **Writing the offer headline / hero section** → books 01 (MAGIC), 05 (Touchstone); playbook "Write the offer page and proposal"
- **Writing the proposal with options** → books 04, 06, 01; playbook "Write the offer page and proposal"
- **Deciding what guarantee to give** → books 01, 05; playbook "Design one offer for one industry" (step 6)
- **Offer launched, nobody buying** → books 04 (four failures), 09; playbook "Diagnose a flopped offer"
- **Want to validate before building the workflows** → books 09, 04; playbook "Test willingness to pay before building"
- **Everything you offer looks like every other AI agency** → books 10, 03; playbook "Position against VA / Zapier / do nothing"
- **Prospect is interested but not moving** → book 07 (Four Forces); sibling skill client-eagerness-playbook
- **Deciding what to cut from a bloated scope** → books 02 (fit), 04 (killers), 10 (Eliminate / Reduce)
- **Writing LinkedIn posts about the offer** → books 05 (Touchstone), 07 (struggling moments); sibling skill copywriting

## Supporting Files
- [playbooks.md](playbooks.md) — step-by-step workflows for real tasks (start here for "how do I…")
- [cheatsheet.md](cheatsheet.md) — decision rules and thresholds on one page
- [patterns.md](patterns.md) — every technique, deduplicated across books
- [glossary.md](glossary.md) — terms with book references

## Scope & Limits
Distilled from the frameworks these books are known for, not from the book text. Where books disagree, the book files say so. Treat proprietary sales-research claims as practitioner evidence, not replicated science. Combine with the sibling skills: human-psychology, human-behavior, marketing-psychology, sales-psychology, copywriting, offer-creation, client-eagerness-playbook.

**To apply these methods to your real pipeline**, use the workflow skills: `setup` (workspace), `lead-magnets`, `outreach`, `deals`, `pitch`. They cite this skill's book files as their method library.