Level 2 · Overworked · Defined Strategy
Playbook 2.2
Core Offer
Your core offer is the one thing you do better than anyone else for the one group of people who need it most.
What This Is
What It Looks Like
Urgent gaps — no reliable process
When this is broken
You offer too many things to too many different types of people. When someone asks what you do, you struggle to give a clear answer in one sentence. Your website lists fifteen services because you are afraid to say no to anything. Clients are confused about what they are buying, and you are exhausted delivering work that feels scattered and unprofitable.
Partial / inconsistent — works sometimes
When this is OK
You have a main service but you still say yes to adjacent projects that dilute your focus. Your core offer makes money but your pricing feels arbitrary. You know roughly who your ideal client is but you still take on work from anyone who can pay. Your marketing message is clearer than it was but still feels generic.
Reliable system — repeatable results
When this is working
You have one primary offer that serves one specific type of client with one clear transformation. When people ask what you do, you can explain it in fifteen seconds and they immediately understand who needs it. Your pricing reflects the value you deliver, not the hours you work. Every piece of marketing, every sales conversation, and every delivery process is aligned around this single focus.
Things to Think About
- If you could only keep one service, which would sustain the entire business? That is your core offer. Everything else is either a distraction or something to build on top of this foundation. Most businesses fail not because they do not do enough things, but because they do not do one thing exceptionally well.
- Can your ideal client describe the outcome you deliver better than you can? If they understand the transformation more clearly than you do, you have found product-market fit. If you are still explaining what you do while they are explaining why they need it, you are on the right track.
- Does your offer solve a painful problem or fulfill a deep desire? The best offers address something that keeps your client awake at night or gets them excited about the future. Painkiller or vitamin. Emergency or aspiration. Either works, but lukewarm problems create lukewarm businesses.
- Can you charge enough for this one thing to build the business you want? Your core offer must be profitable enough to sustain everything else. If you need to sell a thousand of something to make a living, you either need to raise your prices or pick a different thing to focus on.
- What would you remove rather than add to make your offer more compelling? The strongest offers are defined as much by what they exclude as what they include. Less complexity, more power. Less confusion, more confidence.
The Actions Inside This Playbook
When you open this playbook in the Profit System, you will find:
When you open this playbook in the Profit System, you will find:
---Action 1: Offer Audit
List everything you currently offer and ruthlessly evaluate what stays, what goes, and what becomes your primary focus. Most businesses need to subtract before they can multiply.
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What to Do
List everything you currently sell, then ruthlessly evaluate what stays, what goes, and what becomes your primary focus. Most businesses need to subtract before they can multiply.
Why It Matters
Alex Hormozi's core insight is that a "Grand Slam Offer" — one offer, one market, one channel — beats a scattered portfolio every time. Most business owners doing £200K–£5M have accumulated services over the years like barnacles on a hull. Each one made sense at the time. Together, they create confusion for clients, complexity in delivery, and exhaustion for the owner. The audit reveals what is actually driving the business and what is just consuming energy.
How to Use This
Be honest. This is not about what you could sell or what you used to sell — it is about what you should sell going forward.
List Everything
- [ ] Write down every product, service, or offering you currently sell — Include everything: main services, add-ons, one-off projects, consulting, retainers, products. If someone has paid you for it in the last 12 months, it goes on the list.
- [ ] For each one, note: annual revenue, rough profit margin, and hours per delivery — Exact numbers are not needed. Rough is fine. You are looking for patterns, not precision.
- [ ] ⚡ Quick Win · Circle the one that generates the most profit per hour of effort — Not the highest revenue. The best return on your time and energy. This is your starting point for a core offer.
Evaluate Each Offering
For every item on your list, answer these questions:
- [ ] Does it serve your ideal client? — If this offering attracts clients you do not want, it is pulling your business off course regardless of the revenue it generates.
- [ ] Could you explain it in one sentence? — If you need a paragraph to explain what it is, your clients are confused too. Confusion kills sales.
- [ ] Does it lead to repeat business or referrals? — Offerings that generate one-time transactions are worth less than offerings that create ongoing relationships. The best core offer naturally creates a "what's next?"
- [ ] Would you be excited to sell 10x more of this? — If the thought of scaling this offering fills you with dread, it should not be your core offer — no matter how profitable it is today.
- [ ] Is it difficult for competitors to replicate? — April Dunford's positioning principle: if a competitor can offer the exact same thing, you have no competitive advantage. Your core offer should leverage something distinctive about you.
Make the Cut
- [ ] Categorise each offering: Core, Support, or Cut — Core: this is (or could become) your primary offer. Support: this adds value alongside the core offer. Cut: this needs to go.
- [ ] For "Cut" items, decide: stop immediately, wind down over 90 days, or refer to someone else — Not everything needs to die today. But everything in the Cut category needs an exit plan.
- [ ] ⚡ Quick Win · Identify one offering you can stop this month — The one that causes the most hassle relative to the revenue it generates. Dropping it frees up energy for what matters.
- [ ] For "Support" items, check they genuinely support the core — Support offerings should make the core offer more valuable, not distract from it. If a support offering could exist independently, it is probably a separate business — not a support.
Expected Outcome
- A clear picture of everything you sell and what each one actually contributes
- One identified core offer (or strong candidate) to build around
- A list of offerings to cut or wind down — with a plan for each
- Reduced complexity in your business that will make marketing, sales, and delivery simpler
- The foundation for your Value Definition and Pricing work
Coach Notes
Most clients resist cutting offerings because each one represents a revenue stream they are afraid to lose. Help them calculate the true cost — not just the revenue an offering generates, but the time, complexity, and opportunity cost it creates. Often the maths reveals that cutting a £30K/year service frees up enough capacity to win £100K of core offer work.
The client who says "but I do loads of different things" is exactly the client who needs this most. Breadth is not a strategy — it is a symptom of not having chosen.
Do this action before Value Definition and Pricing. You need to know what you are keeping before you refine how you position and price it.
Action 2: Value Definition
Define the specific transformation your core offer delivers using your client's language, not yours. What does their life or business look like before and after working with you?
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What to Do
Define the specific transformation your core offer delivers — in your client's language, not yours. Then stress-test it using Hormozi's Value Equation to make sure it is genuinely compelling, not just well-described.
Why It Matters
Most business owners describe their offer in terms of what they do ("we provide marketing consultancy") rather than what the client gets ("you will have a marketing system that generates 20 qualified leads per month without you doing any of the work"). The first is a service description. The second is a value proposition. Clients pay for the second.
Alex Hormozi's Value Equation makes this concrete:
Value = (Dream Outcome × Perceived Likelihood) ÷ (Time Delay × Effort Required)
To increase value: make the dream outcome bigger, increase their confidence it will work, reduce how long it takes, and reduce how much effort they need to put in. Your value definition should hit all four.
How to Use This
Work through each step using your core offer (identified in the Offer Audit). If you have not done the Offer Audit yet, do that first.
Step 1: Define the Transformation
- [ ] Describe your client's "Before" state in their words — What does their life or business look like before working with you? What are they frustrated by, worried about, or stuck on? Use the exact language they would use with a friend, not marketing speak.
- [ ] Describe the "After" state in their words — What does their life or business look like after working with you? What has changed? What do they have now that they did not have before? Be specific — "they feel better" is not a transformation. "They have a reliable pipeline of 15+ leads per month and have stopped doing cold outreach" is.
- [ ] ⚡ Quick Win · Ask 3 past clients: "What changed for you after working with us?" — Their answers will be better than anything you write yourself. Use their exact words.
Step 2: Apply the Value Equation
- [ ] Dream Outcome — Is the end result something they desperately want? — Rate it honestly. "Slightly improved marketing" is weak. "A marketing system that fills your calendar without you lifting a finger" is a dream outcome. If your outcome is not exciting enough, you may be solving the wrong problem or describing it too timidly.
- [ ] Perceived Likelihood — Do they believe it will actually work for them? — This is about credibility and proof. Do you have case studies, testimonials, data, or a guarantee? What evidence reduces their risk? List your 3 strongest proof points.
- [ ] Time Delay — How quickly do they see results? — The faster the result, the more valuable the offer. Can you deliver a quick win in the first week? The first month? If results take 6 months with nothing visible in between, you have a time delay problem. Identify your earliest visible result.
- [ ] Effort Required — How much work do they have to do? — Less effort from the client = more valuable offer. What can you do for them instead of teaching them to do it? Where can you reduce their workload? The best offers feel easy to the buyer.
Step 3: Write Your Value Statement
- [ ] Combine everything into one statement: "I help [specific person] go from [Before] to [After] in [timeframe] by [how you do it differently]" — Keep it under 30 words. This is what you say when someone asks "what do you do?"
- [ ] Test it with someone who does not know your business — Do they immediately understand who it is for and what they get? If they say "oh, I know someone who needs that" — you have nailed it.
- [ ] Compare it to your top 3 competitors' messaging — Is yours more specific? More compelling? More credible? If your statement could be swapped onto a competitor's website without anyone noticing, it is not distinctive enough.
Expected Outcome
- A clear Before/After transformation described in your client's own language
- A value proposition stress-tested against all four elements of the Value Equation
- A value statement under 30 words that you can use in every conversation, on every page, and in every pitch
- Clarity on where your offer is strong (dream outcome, speed, proof) and where it needs improvement
Coach Notes
The most common mistake is describing features instead of transformation. Push the client past "we offer X" to "after working with us, you will have Y." The transformation is always about the client's life, not your deliverable.
If the Value Equation reveals a weakness (e.g., time delay is long, effort required is high), that is valuable product design insight — not just a marketing problem. Help them think about how to restructure their delivery to address the weakness, not just describe it differently.
Pair this with the Offer Audit (do that first) and the Pricing Reality Check (do that after).
Action 3: Market Validation
Test whether your ideal clients actually want what you are offering at the price you want to charge. Better to learn this now than after you have built everything.
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What to Do
Price your core offer based on the value it delivers, not the cost to deliver it or what competitors charge. Then validate that price against real market feedback before committing to it.
Why It Matters
Most business owners price by looking at competitors and going slightly lower, or by calculating their costs and adding a margin. Both approaches cap your income and position you as a commodity. Value-based pricing starts from a different question: "What is the result worth to my client?" If you help a business owner find £50K in unrealised revenue, charging £5K for that is a bargain — regardless of how many hours it took you.
Hormozi's Value Equation applies directly here: the more clearly you can define the dream outcome, prove it works, deliver it fast, and make it easy — the more you can charge.
How to Use This
Work through the calculator, then validate with real prospects. Do not skip the validation — your price needs to survive contact with actual buyers.
The Value-Based Price Calculator
- [ ] What is the measurable result your client gets? — Revenue gained, costs saved, time freed, risk reduced. Put a number on it. If you helped your last 3 clients, what was the average financial impact? Even a rough estimate works.
- [ ] What multiple feels fair? — A common rule of thumb: charge 10-20% of the value you create. If your work generates £50K in value, £5K-£10K is the range. If it generates £200K, you can charge £20K-£40K. Where does your offer land?
- [ ] What are you currently charging? — Write down your actual price. Now compare it to the value-based calculation above. Most business owners discover they are charging 50-80% less than the value would justify.
- [ ] What would you need to charge to build the business you want? — Calculate backwards: desired annual income ÷ number of clients you can serve per year = minimum price per client. If this number is higher than your current price, you have a pricing problem.
The Competitor Sanity Check
- [ ] List your 3 closest competitors and their pricing — Not to copy them, but to understand the market's reference points. Your price needs to make sense relative to alternatives.
- [ ] Identify what you offer that they do not — This is what justifies a premium. Speed? Depth? Hands-on delivery? Guarantee? Better results? If you cannot name the difference, you cannot charge more.
- [ ] Position your price as an investment, not a cost — "It costs £5K" versus "For £5K, you get a system that generates £50K in additional revenue." Same number. Completely different conversation.
The Validation Test
- [ ] ⚡ Quick Win · Present your new price to your next 3 prospects — Do not discount. Do not apologise. State the price with confidence and observe the reaction. If all 3 say yes immediately, you are still too cheap.
- [ ] Track the responses — Immediate yes (too cheap), yes after thinking (about right), or no with price as the reason (either too expensive or value not communicated clearly). You want a mix — some easy yeses and some pushback means you are in the right zone.
- [ ] Adjust based on feedback, not fear — If 2 out of 3 say yes, your price is working. If all 3 say no, check your value communication before dropping the price — the problem is usually how you explain the value, not the number itself.
Expected Outcome
- A price based on value delivered, not hours worked or competitor pricing
- Confidence in stating your price because you can explain the ROI
- Real market validation from actual prospect conversations
- Clarity on whether your pricing problem is the number or the communication
- A price that supports the business you want to build, not just the business you happen to have
Coach Notes
Pricing is emotional territory. Most clients have deep-rooted beliefs about what they are "worth" that have nothing to do with business economics. The value calculator helps make it logical rather than emotional.
If a client cannot articulate the measurable result they create, go back to Value Definition before pricing. You cannot price what you cannot quantify.
Watch for the client who drops their price at the first sign of resistance. That is a confidence problem, not a pricing problem. Role-play the pricing conversation in the session — let them practice stating their price without flinching.
The "test it on your next 3 prospects" step is critical. Theory means nothing without market contact. Hold them accountable to actually doing it and reporting back.
Action 4: Pricing Framework
Price your offer based on the value delivered, not the cost to deliver it. Include the calculation method so you can defend your price and feel confident asking for it.
Quick Wins
- This week: Write down every service, product, or offering you currently provide. Circle the one that generates the most profit per hour of effort. That is your starting point.
- This week: Ask three recent clients to describe in their own words what problem you solved for them. Use their language, not your marketing copy.
- This week: Calculate how many of your core offer you need to sell each month to reach your revenue targets. If the number feels impossible, your pricing needs work.