Technical
The Consulting Offer That Closed Most of My Business This Year
I tried five consulting offers this year. One closed roughly 60 percent of qualified conversations. The others closed less. The winning offer is worth breaking down because it changed my business.
The Offer
A two-week fixed-price technical audit plus a roadmap. Outputs are a prioritized list of issues, an estimated fix cost per issue, and a detailed six-month roadmap. Price: 9,500 USD. Timeline: two weeks from kickoff.
The client knows exactly what they are buying, exactly what it costs, and exactly when they will have it. Buying decision is low-risk.
Why It Worked
Clarity. Every other offer asked the client to trust me with an open-ended engagement. This offer asks them to trust me with two weeks. Much smaller ask.
Right-sized value. A 9.5k audit is rounding error for the kind of mid-market clients I work with. The roadmap pays for itself in rework avoided.
Self-qualifying. Clients who cannot afford 9.5k cannot afford the follow-on build. The offer does gentle pre-qualification.
Pipeline generator. The audit always surfaces more work. Conversion from audit to follow-on engagement: 70 percent.
What The Audit Includes
Stack review. Architecture diagram. Security pass (fast). Performance pass (fast). Code quality walkthrough. Dependency audit. Team workflow audit. Hosting and cost audit.
For each issue: severity, rough fix cost, recommended owner. Roadmap ties issues into a sequence with milestones.
What I Stopped Offering
Open-ended consulting retainers. Hourly rates with vague deliverables. Free discovery calls that exceed an hour. Tire-kicker proposals. Each of these was a time sink disproportionate to its close rate.
The Script That Closes
At the end of the first call: I can have a two-week audit landing in your inbox in 14 days from kickoff for 9,500 USD. It tells you exactly what to fix, in what order, and what it will cost. Would that be useful.
Yes becomes a kickoff. No becomes a polite end to the call.
Reading
Jonathan Starks pricing content was the closest influence on this offer. Alan Weiss Value-Based Fees is the book behind it.
A crisp offer beats a persuasive consultant.
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