TGC #38: Why your service business needs a $100-$300 offer

In 2019 I worked on a project-based project with a company from the UK to help them “re-build” a GTM strategy.

They were already having paying customers so we decided to do some customer interviews to help us build the foundation.

I asked one of their customers why and how they picked my client and not the other competitors.

Trust was the first thing they mentioned and all the conversation was around “we trusted they can help us reach our goals.”.

Then I asked how this trust was built, and what made them feel so confident.

At the beginning was all the content they were sharing, the work they did, and some references.

But then… they told me the real reason behind all this confidence.

“We reached out for a strategy session to dive into an issue we had to solve quickly, they were more than helpful and… here we are.”.

After the discussion, the first thing I did was to ask the team if they were doing strategy sessions or something similar because I didn’t know about that.

They told me no, but there were some requests and overall it worked very well because they signed those clients after.

Why did they sign the clients? Because they trusted them. Why did they trust them? Because of the strategy session.

Why did they want a strategy session? Because of their work. Why did they go for a strategy session first? Because the risk was lower.

This company's services were priced at about $8,000/month and you don’t make this kind of “purchase” impulsively.

They preferred to go first with a certain issue for a few hundred dollars and only then go “all-in”.

The content, the references, and all the other things weren’t enough to make someone sign an almost $100,000/year contract.

And this could and will happen even if we talk about some less expensive services because even if we like it or not, the “trust journey” exists.

This is exactly why as I mentioned in the subject your service business needs a $100 - $300 offer.

Especially if you’re selling services starting at $25,000/year — about $2,000/month in recurring revenue.

That’s how you can make the risk lower for the client because if they want just a “sample” of your work, they can get it 100 times cheaper.

And build the trust needed to sign it because you will have the opportunity to “talk” with someone very engaged.

Depending on your business, the $100 - $300 offer can be a strategy session, but also something else.

What’s important is to identify how you’re building trust and what’s translated, at each step — definitely related to your ideal customers.