What an offer name actually does
An offer name does three jobs. It makes the offer easy to refer to in conversation ("the launch package," "the monthly retainer," "the introductory block"). It signals the shape of the work ("package" suggests a fixed scope, "retainer" suggests an ongoing relationship, "audit" suggests a one-off diagnostic). And it makes the offer searchable - both internally on your own website and externally when customers describe it to friends.
A good offer name is short, plain and shape-suggesting. A bad offer name is long, clever or vague. "The Launch Site" is a good name. "The Lift-Off Brand Ignition System" is not. "Monthly Books for Tradespeople" is a good name. "Numerix Pro" is not. The test is whether a real customer could repeat the name a week later without checking.
The four naming patterns that work
Pattern one: shape plus customer
"Monthly Books for Tradespeople." "The Over-Fifty Starter Block." "The Landlord Maintenance Plan." The shape word ("books," "block," "plan") tells the customer how the work is organised. The customer word makes the right reader recognise themselves. This pattern is the workhorse for service businesses.
Pattern two: shape plus outcome
"The Three-Week Launch Site." "The Tax-Calm Bookkeeping Retainer." "The Confident Return Personal Training Block." The shape word still anchors the format. The outcome word adds the why. Use this pattern when the outcome is more memorable than the customer segment.
Pattern three: just the shape word
"The Launch Package." "The Monthly Retainer." "The Starter Block." Plain and obvious. Works fine when the rest of the offer page does the customer-and-outcome work. Often the right choice for a first offer, because nothing on the page is fighting for attention.
Pattern four: a numbered or sized version
"The Five-Page Website." "The Six-Session Block." "The 100-Transaction Retainer." Numbers signal scope without needing a paragraph of explanation. Particularly useful when you have or plan to have tiers ("the five-page," "the ten-page," "the twenty-page").
Avoid clever metaphors, made-up portmanteaus and jargon that needs translating. "Synergy" is banned. "Stack" is banned. Anything that requires a glossary is banned. The companion eBook Messaging That Sells goes deeper into this for the wider business message - the same rules apply to offer names.
Pricing the first offer
Most new owners underprice their first offer. The reasons are predictable: they look at the lowest price in the market and try to undercut it; they underestimate the time the work actually takes; they feel like beginners and price like beginners; they worry that nobody will buy at a higher price. The result is an offer that wins more sales than it should and pays the owner less than it should.
The companion eBook Pricing for Small Businesses goes deep on the maths. For the first offer, three rules are usually enough.
Rule one: price for the outcome, not the time
If the offer saves a customer a thousand pounds in tax, you don't price it at twenty pounds an hour. The price reflects the value to the customer, not the activity log. "How long it takes me" is a useful internal calculation. It is not a useful external price-setting tool. The customer doesn't care how long it takes. They care what changes.
Rule two: charge a price you can sustain
Run the simplest possible version of the maths. At your proposed price, how many customers do you need per month to cover your costs and pay yourself a reasonable income? If the answer is "more than I can realistically deliver," the price is too low. A price that means you can't pay yourself isn't "affordable" - it's quietly fatal. Adjust upward until the maths works at a delivery eBook you can actually sustain.
Rule three: when in doubt, set the price ten to twenty per cent above your gut feeling
Owners almost always undershoot their gut. The slight discomfort of saying a higher number out loud is usually the most reliable signal that you're in roughly the right zone. If you're winning every quote without any pushback, the price is probably too low. If you're losing every quote on price alone, the price is probably too high. A healthy first-offer pricing position is winning roughly half to two-thirds of the quotes you give, with occasional polite pushback you can hold the line on.
- Outcome: does the price reflect the value to the customer, not the hours on your timesheet?
- Sustainability: at this price, could you cover costs and pay yourself a living wage at a volume you can deliver?
- Gut: did you set the price ten to twenty per cent above your first instinct?
- Visibility: is the single number visible on the page, in plain text, with no 'from' or 'starting at'?
How to display the price
A single number, in plain sight, with the unit ("per month," "per project," "per session") attached. Not "prices on enquiry." Not "from £X" without naming what the X is. Not a long list of bullet points where the customer has to add things up themselves. "One hundred and twenty pounds per month, billed monthly, no minimum term beyond the first three months." One sentence.
If you have multiple tiers (which most first offers shouldn't, but some do), keep it to two or three. The companion eBook Packaging Products and Services covers when tiers help and when they get in the way. For a first offer, a single price is almost always the right answer.
When and how to raise the price later
First-offer prices age. As you build proof, sharpen the offer and learn what customers actually pay for the value, the price should rise. Two practical moves.
First, raise the price for new customers before raising it for existing ones. New customers have no anchor to your old price. Existing customers do. A common pattern is to raise the new-customer price by ten to twenty per cent every six to twelve months and review existing customer prices once a year, with at least sixty days' notice. Second, package the rise with something visible. A small scope change, an extra piece of value, a clearer guarantee. The customer doesn't have to feel they're paying more for the same thing.
The companion eBook Pricing for Small Businesses walks through the conversation in detail, including the script for telling existing customers about a rise without losing them.
The single next step
The page closes with one specific, low-friction action. Not "get in touch." Not three different options. One. "Book a free fifteen-minute fit call here." "Reply to this email and I'll send a sample report." "Tap the button to book your first session." The next step has to match the size of the offer. A six-hundred-pound personal training block can ask for a fit call. A two-thousand-pound website project can ask for a scoping call. A twelve-thousand-pound annual retainer should not be asking the customer to add it to a basket - it should be a structured conversation.
A recurring principle: make the offer clear
The name, the price and the next step are the final clarity test for the offer. A clear name. A clear number. A clear action. If any of the three is vague, the offer page leaks customers at the last step. The companion eBook Calls to Action and Conversion Paths goes much deeper into the next-step design once the offer itself is steady.
What to do this week
Add a working name to your offer document. Add a working price. Add a single next-step sentence. Read the whole page from top to bottom out loud. Time how long it takes. If it takes more than ninety seconds to read, the page is too long - cut, don't add. Then send the page to two real or potential customers with one question: "If this was on a website, would you book the next-step call - and if not, what would stop you?" The answer is the test that sets up the final chapter.
In the final chapter we'll cover how to test and improve the offer in the wild, using real customer reactions rather than your own opinion.
