A Simple Method for Increasing Offer Value: Active and Passive Additions

You can add a lot of things to an offer to make it more attractive to your buyer. 

Here’s the thing: 

Not all additions should be treated equally. 

Some can break your business. 

In this article, we’ll talk about the additions you can make and how to apply them for maximum effect. 

Adding Appeal to Our Offers

Alright. Let’s assume we know the big problem we’re trying to solve for our customers. 

We know the dream outcome they’re trying to achieve, and we can get them a result. 

Now, how do we package this? 

In $100 Million Dollar Offers, Hormozi models this with a Rubix Cube. 

Your offer is the entire cube, but we can break apart each piece to show its value. 

The question is, “What do we include to increase the value?”

Step 1: Identify the Symptoms

Most of your customers aren’t fully acquainted with the problem. They see the symptoms brought on because of the problem. 

If you can identify those symptoms, you can provide a fix. 

These symptoms may not have the most significant impact on the outcome of your offer, but they feel valuable to the audience because you’re addressing something tangible. 

It’s like going to the doctor and being prescribed rest. 

Yes, that might be what you need to improve in the long run, but you want something for the symptoms now. 

So they prescribe something for your symptoms so your healing process is more bearable. 

When we identify the symptoms, we look to add things to the offer that make it feel more valuable immediately. 

This is especially valuable if you’re selling to startups where patience is in short supply. 

Step 2: Pick the Symptoms to Address

In a separate article, I outlined the PRISM Model for finding a problem that deserves a business. 

We can use the same model to decide which symptoms will provide the most bang for your buck. 

The pieces of the PRISM Model include:

Painful: How bad does the problem hurt? 

Recurring: How frequently do they experience it? 

Impactful: How many parts of their lives are touched by this problem? 

Solvable: How easily can we solve this problem? 

Marketable: Do enough people have this problem that we can build a business on it? 

If we view symptoms through the same lens, we can choose the right ones to address in our offer. 

A symptom won’t score high on each, but the combination should make it worth exploring. 

For example, if something isn't very painful but shows up in their lives every day, it balances out. 

If it weren't painful or recurring, there would never be urgency to resolve it. 

For the solvable question, ask if you can reduce the customer's required effort and sacrifice. The more you can lower those, the more valuable your offer becomes. 

Run all the symptoms through this lens from your list and decide which to target. 

Step 3: Active and Passive Additions

At the start of this article, I mentioned that some additions can destroy your business. Here's how to ensure this doesn't happen. 

There are two types of additions for an offer: Active and Passive. 

Active additions require man hours or capital. You’re actively doing something to provide a result. 

Passive additions involve leveraged assets. For example, you've built a resource like a guide or video series once and can now add it to every following offer. 

Both are valuable and have their place. 

Active additions are more valuable because people know time is going into it. 

However, if you add too many active additions, your profit margins will be cut. I've seen many agencies struggle with this when trying to build great offers. 

Passive additions can provide value but can have lower consumption rates and don't manage the symptoms. 

For example, you could provide a guide for developing blog ideas, addressing a symptom of not knowing what to write when working on the company blog. 

If the person doesn't read or implement the complete guide, they don't get the result. You’re leaving a lot in their hands. 

Compare that to creating a GPT prompt where they plug in some key topics, and the output is knowing exactly what to write and when to publish it. That's far more likely to be consumed. 

The other issue with passive assets is that many marketers over-inflate the value. 

You’ve all seen the value stack with ($1,999 value!) at the end of each line. 

People aren’t idiots. They know you’re not selling this $200 course with $20k of value. 

They’re trying to hype up the perceived value and ultimately screw it up. 

If you apply everything they offer, you might see that return in your business. But that doesn’t mean that’s what it’s valued. They’re going for some sticker shock, and it often hurts offers. 

Some of the greatest business books ever written are $20 on Amazon. Your eBook is not valued at $500. 

(sorry for the minor rant) 

Once you’ve selected the additions, we can go into the final step. 

Step 4: Validate Profitability

Do not miss this step. 

I will continue saying, “When recurring revenue outpaces recurring expenses, businesses win.” 

And while it’s true, if you’re not keeping any of that revenue in your pocket, life sucks. 

So, the final step is calculating the actual cost of goods/services sold. 

Do the math and determine your profit margin if everything is delivered on time and on budget.

You can expect your first few rounds of selling the offer to cost you more internally. This is especially true if you have more active additions. 

But as your team gets reps, they’ll gain experience and know what portions can be productized, making you more efficient. 

Making Sexy Offers

A lot more goes into making great offers, but this is the down-and-dirty for increasing value. 

Try buffing up one of your current offers with this method and A/B test them against each other. 

If you want me to provide some quick feedback on your offer, schedule a time with me, and we can chat through it.