Offers

Corey HainesCommunityCreated by Corey Haines

Skill
Guidelines
Business and productivity
MIT
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From the author

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.

— the description by Corey Haines

AutoGineer summary

Written by AutoGineer from the skill’s own files, not by the author

This skill provides a structured approach to offer design, emphasizing that conversion issues are often rooted in the offer itself rather than the copy. It utilizes the Value Equation—Dream Outcome, Perceived Likelihood, Time Delay, and Effort & Sacrifice—to diagnose and improve the core components of an offer. The framework guides users through auditing their current offer, identifying the weakest lever, and systematically adding components like bonuses, guarantees, and scarcity to increase perceived value and conversion rates.

What it does

Diagnoses the binding constraints of an existing offer using the Value Equation.
Provides a six-part anatomy for building complete, high-converting offers.
Offers strategies for designing effective guarantees and risk-reversal mechanisms.
Guides the creation of bonus stacks that address specific customer objections.
Helps structure pricing and payment plans to maximize conversion.
Identifies when to use offer-design tactics versus pricing or copywriting strategies.

When to use it

When an existing offer is failing to convert despite having decent traffic.
When you need to build a new offer for services, courses, coaching, or high-ticket B2B.
When you want to increase the perceived value of your product without simply lowering the price.
When you need to address specific customer objections through strategic bonus stacking.
When you are transitioning from selling time to selling productized services or outcomes.

Advantages

Focuses on the structural integrity of the offer rather than just surface-level copy.
Provides a clear, actionable diagnostic loop to identify the biggest lever for improvement.
Uses a proven, logic-based framework to increase value perception.
Helps avoid common pitfalls like manipulative scarcity or over-promising guarantees.
Standardizes the components of an offer to ensure nothing critical is missing.

Usage examples

“My agency retainer isn't converting. How do I improve the offer?”: The agent will guide you through identifying your business type, scoring your current offer against the Value Equation, and pinpointing which of the six offer components is missing or weak.
“How can I add bonuses to my course without making it look like cheap padding?”: The agent will help you design a bonus stack where each item specifically targets a known customer objection, such as lack of time or fear of getting stuck.
“I want to offer a guarantee for my coaching program but I'm afraid of refunds.”: The agent will help you design a conditional guarantee that provides risk reversal for the client while protecting your business model and reputation.
“Why is my high-ticket B2B offer not getting any bites?”: The agent will audit your offer's anatomy, likely focusing on whether your dream outcome is clearly defined and if your perceived likelihood of achievement is supported by sufficient proof.

Install

Download the skill as a ZIP:
https://mp-staging.autogineer.com/agent-skills/coreyhaines31/offers/download
Unzip it into the cross-client skills folder of your project:
```
mkdir -p .agents/skills && unzip offers.zip -d .agents/skills
```

Documentation by Corey Haines

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.

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.

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

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

Reference Library

Reference	When to read
value-equation.md	Diagnosing which lever is broken on a stuck offer
offer-anatomy.md	Building a complete offer from scratch
guarantee-design.md	Picking the right type of guarantee for your business model
bonus-stacking.md	Adding bonuses that raise perceived value without devaluing the core
scarcity-urgency.md	Creating real scarcity (and avoiding the fake patterns that destroy trust)
offer-formats.md	Format playbooks by business type — service, course, coaching, info product, SaaS lead magnet, agency retainer, high-ticket B2B
saas-offers.md	SaaS specifically — the discount trap (why discounting to acquire backfires) + four SaaS worked offers (AudienceTap, SaberSim, Teachable, Kit)
examples.md	Anonymized worked examples — before/after for each business type

The Diagnostic Loop

When the user says "my offer isn't converting" or "I want to improve my offer":

Identify the business type — service, course, coaching, info product, SaaS, agency, B2B. The right playbook is type-specific.
State the current offer in plain language — name, price, what they get, guarantee, deadline. Write it down even if it lives in scattered places now.
Run the value equation — score each of the four levers 1–10. The lowest is the binding constraint.
Audit the anatomy — which of the six components is missing or weak?
Pick one lever to fix this iteration — don't rebuild everything. The biggest lever is usually the one currently scoring lowest.
Draft the changed component — new bonus, new guarantee, new scarcity, new name, new payment plan
Project the lift, honestly — plan on 10–40% relative lift from one component change. Multiply the lifts, don't add them: +20% then +30% = 1.20 × 1.30 = 1.56 (2% → 3.12%, +1.12 percentage points). Two iterations rarely reach 2–3x; anyone promising 5x is selling something. Confirm the combined offer with a test (see ab-testing).

When NOT to Use Offer-Design Tactics

Some offer patterns work but cost more than they're worth:

Manipulative scarcity — fake countdown timers, "only 3 spots left" lies. Short-term lift, long-term trust collapse. Don't.
Over-promising guarantees — "double your revenue or refund + $1,000." Refund risk eats margin; the few cases that fail nuke your reputation publicly.
Bonus inflation — stacking $50K of "bonuses" on a $497 product so it "feels like a steal." Sophisticated buyers see this. Treat bonuses as additive, not exaggerated.
Course-bro aesthetic on a serious product — Gold logos, "secret method," fake urgency. Pattern-matches to scam. Wrong room.
Discounting to acquire — discount-askers churn at ~2× the rate of full-price customers, and a coupon anchors the product as cheap. Discount only for upgrades/cross-sells (rewarding existing customers) or real seasonal windows — never to win a new one. Raise value with an offer instead. See saas-offers.md.

The repo voice: opinionated, but honest. Building offers well doesn't mean building offers loud.

Banned Vocabulary

When drafting offer language (sales pages, emails, headlines), avoid:

"Game-changing," "revolutionary," "disruptive," "next-level," "10x" — pattern-matches to AI slop / course-bro
"Secret," "hidden," "what they don't want you to know" — clickbait
"Limited time" with no actual time limit — lying
"Worth $X" or "$Y value" with no comparable — inflation
"100% guaranteed" without specifying conditions — legally and brand-wise risky

Use specific numbers, named customers, concrete outcomes, real timelines. Specificity beats superlatives.

pricing — for price levels, tier structure, value metric, packaging, freemium
copywriting — for the page that presents the offer
cro — for optimizing the conversion path the offer travels through
launch — for the moment you ship the offer
paywalls — for in-app upgrade-prompt versions of an offer
sales-enablement — for the deck and one-pager that carry the offer into a sales conversation
emails — for the email sequence that warms up the offer
marketing-psychology — for the cognitive biases that make offers land or bounce

Files

ATTRIBUTION.mdAdded by AutoGineer873 B
LICENSELicence file added by AutoGineer1.0 KiB
SKILL.md9.9 KiB
evals/evals.json3.1 KiB
references/bonus-stacking.md7.6 KiB
references/examples.md10.0 KiB
references/guarantee-design.md8.0 KiB
references/offer-anatomy.md8.6 KiB
references/offer-formats.md10.4 KiB
references/saas-offers.md7.7 KiB
references/scarcity-urgency.md6.9 KiB
references/value-equation.md7.7 KiB

references/scarcity-urgency.md

Scarcity & Urgency

The reason to buy now, not later.

This is the most misused offer lever in the industry. Done right, it's a meaningful conversion lift and a respect-the-buyer's-time gesture. Done wrong (fake countdown timers, lies about inventory), it converts once and torches trust permanently.

The repo voice: only ship real scarcity. If the scarcity is fake, take it off the page.

Scarcity vs urgency

	What it limits	Examples
Scarcity	Quantity	Cohort size, seats, inventory, batch, capacity
Urgency	Time	Cohort deadline, season, bonus expiry, price increase

Both work via the same mechanism — they convert "I'll think about it" into "decide now." The difference is what enforces the decision: a limit on how many, or a limit on when.

Honest scarcity formats

The bar: the constraint has to be real. Here are the formats that work without lying.

Capacity-based scarcity

You can only deliver to N customers at a time. The next slot opens when one finishes.

"We take 2 fractional CMO engagements per quarter. Next slot opens September 15."

Works for: services, agencies, coaching, consulting, anything labor-bound.

Cohort scarcity

The class starts on a date. After the date, the door closes until the next cohort.

"Cohort 7 starts October 1. Doors close September 28. Next cohort: January."

Works for: courses, programs, group coaching, anything synchronous.

Founding-member pricing

The first N buyers get a different price. After that, the price goes up.

"Founding pricing — $497/mo for the first 50 members. After we hit 50, the price moves to $797/mo."

Works for: SaaS, communities, memberships. Critical: actually raise the price when you hit 50. Otherwise it was a lie.

Inventory-based scarcity

You have N units. When they're gone, they're gone.

"We're only producing 100 of the print edition. Sold out, no reprints."

Works for: physical products, limited-run digital, bespoke services.

Seasonal scarcity

Demand or capacity is seasonal.

"Tax-prep service for Q1 2026 closes January 15. After that, we focus on existing clients only until April."

Works for: tax, retail Q4, events, education enrollment, anything calendar-bound.

Bonus expiry

A bonus is available only until X date. The core offer stays the same; the added value expires.

"Order by Friday and the 1:1 onboarding session is included. After Friday, the offer is the same but onboarding is +$497."

Works for: anything with a launch window. Critical: actually remove the bonus when the date hits.

Price-increase scheduling

The price goes up on a date. Communicate it transparently.

"On November 1, the program moves from $1,997 to $2,497. Anyone enrolled before November 1 keeps the $1,997 price for life."

Works for: courses, SaaS, communities. Builds credibility because the buyer can verify it later.

Fake scarcity to avoid

Pattern-match and rip these off your page:

Countdown timers that reset

The timer hits 0:00 and refreshes. The buyer comes back tomorrow, same timer, same urgency. Every buyer who notices loses trust.

If you use a countdown, it ends on a real date. After that date, the discount or bonus actually ends — verifiably.

"Only 3 spots left"

Especially on digital products where there's no capacity constraint. Especially when the number stays at "3" for weeks.

Use this only when the constraint is real (cohort, capacity, inventory) AND when the number reflects reality.

Manufactured FOMO

"127 people are looking at this page right now."

These can be honest on some platforms (Booking.com etc.) when they reflect actual traffic. They're dishonest when fabricated. Buyers increasingly assume fabrication.

Bonus "stacking" that's always available

"This bonus expires at midnight!" — but every page on the site says the same thing at midnight every night.

The bonus has to actually expire, or the line is a lie.

"Last chance" emails for things that aren't actually last chance

Repeated "FINAL HOURS" emails that send weekly. Every recipient who notices unsubscribes or stops opening.

Use "last chance" once. If you use it multiple times, you've taught your list that "last chance" is meaningless.

Why fake scarcity is uniquely costly

Buyers compare notes. The internet is small.

One Reddit post about a fake countdown becomes the top Google result for your brand
One screenshot of "only 3 left" staying at 3 for a month becomes a viral thread
One "last chance" email that wasn't goes into a "marketing fails" newsletter

Real scarcity converts ~the same as fake scarcity at the moment of purchase. The difference shows up at month 6, when fake-scarcity offers are facing trust collapse and real-scarcity offers are still compounding.

If you have to fake it, you don't have an offer-design problem — you have a value-equation problem. Go back to value-equation.md.

When scarcity isn't needed

Some offers don't need scarcity:

Subscription products that customers can cancel anytime — the natural friction is low enough
Low-priced impulse products ($5–30) — the deliberation is short; scarcity feels forced
Premium / luxury brands — scarcity is implicit in the positioning; explicit scarcity reads as low-status
High-trust audiences who already know they'll buy — scarcity is unnecessary friction

Don't force scarcity into offers that don't need it. The forced version is worse than no scarcity.

The diagnostic

For an existing offer with weak or no scarcity:

Is there a real constraint? Capacity, cohort, inventory, season, batch. Find the real one.
What's the honest version of that constraint? Write it in plain English.
Can the buyer verify it? If you say "founding pricing for the first 50 members," can the buyer see the count?
Are you willing to actually enforce it? When the constraint hits, do you have the discipline to actually close the door / raise the price / remove the bonus?
Where on the page does the scarcity appear? It should be next to the buy button, not buried.

If you can't find a real constraint, don't ship scarcity. The "trick" of fake scarcity is one of the most expensive shortcuts in marketing. The honest version is usually cheaper than people think — every business has some real constraint (capacity, calendar, batch, attention).

Pairing with the rest of the offer

Scarcity is the final lever. It only works if the rest of the offer is strong.

Strong offer + real scarcity = the buyer decides now
Weak offer + scarcity = the buyer decides not to buy, faster

If conversions are bad, scarcity is rarely the first thing to fix. Run the diagnostic from value-equation.md first.

The order is:

Strong dream outcome
Specific perceived likelihood (proof + methodology + guarantee)
Compressed time delay
Reduced effort & sacrifice
Then scarcity to get the decision now

Scarcity is the close, not the offer.

Requirements and compatibility

Works with: Claude Code, Claude apps, OpenAI Codex, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Kiro, OpenCode, Goose, Amp, Roo Code, JetBrains Junie, Factory Droid, Devin (ex-Windsurf), Mistral Vibe, OpenHands, Letta

“Works with” means the tool reads the open Agent Skills format; a skill written for one tool may use features others lack.

Security

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Attribution and licence

Created by

Corey Haines

Publisher

Corey Haines (Community)

Source

coreyhaines31/marketingskills · skills/offers · commit 96798cf

Licence

MIT License (redistribution allowed)

LICENSE (added by AutoGineer from LICENSE)
ATTRIBUTION.md (written by AutoGineer)

Synced

2026-11-08

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Download ZIP

The ZIP holds the skill’s files, its licence files and an ATTRIBUTION.md. Download offers.zip