Funnels & offers

Offer design, pricing, lead magnets, AOV, retention

Start with the playbook: funnels-and-offers — the rules that matter most, with links into these notes.

A six-email sequence that turns cold paid leads into buyers in 7 days (Alex Cattoni's workshop funnel)Alex Cattoni's evergreen post-opt-in sequence for a free workshop — deliver the promise with a 24-hour 20%-off low-ticket P.S., then bridge to the core course with problem, proof, objections and a real deadline — with open/click rates per email (57%/19% down to 36%/1.5%), 5.1% and 3.6% buyer rates from 7,354 Meta leads, and why the non-sales first email drove the most revenue.
Am I underpriced? Reading price from sales close rateHormozi's close-rate-to-price ladder for offers sold by a salesperson (80%+ close → 3–4x underpriced, 30–40% → priced right, <30% → fix avatar/sales motion first) and why matching a cheaper competitor cost him ~$50M.
CAC payback in 30 days and the 30-day cash collected ruleWhy Hormozi targets recovering acquisition cost within 30 days (one credit-card cycle), the rule that cash collected in month one should exceed COGS + CAC, and the offer tactics that pull cash forward.
Choosing the pain point and awareness level for a DTC offerStefan Georgi's 2026 workshop diagnoses — the "lying awake at night" test for bleeding-neck pain points (why brain fog fails), the fear-to-product magnitude mismatch, why solution-aware copy caps scale and starves affiliates, simple mechanisms over science, and modelling competitors' structure while differentiating on one feature.
Churn benchmarks, cohort churn and how retention multiplies LTVSkool platform retention benchmarks shared by Hormozi (80% monthly average, best groups 90%+, under 70% is a problem), how churn falls after day 90 and month 6, the LTV math (20%→10% churn doubles LTV; 80% vs 50% annual retention = 2.5x value) and the joins-vs-cancels check.
Do order bumps and upsells still pay on Meta? (AOV up, CAC up)Stefan Georgi's June 2026 thesis that raising front-end AOV with bumps, upsells and subscriptions roughly doubles CAC on Meta because the algorithm hunts pricier buyers — the $47-book case at 4–6x ROAS with no upsells — and how it reverses his own 2024 advice; move AOV tactics to the back end.
First-order profitable or go negative? How much you can pay to acquire a customerWhen it makes sense to pay a CAC above first-order gross profit (rebills, subscription LTV, financing), Stefan Georgi's rebill math from a peptide funnel, CTC's "market CAC" view of the Meta auction (IM8's ~$308 CAC), and why low-LTV brands must stay first-order profitable.
Funnel conversion, lead response and sales-capacity rules of thumbHormozi's quick checks for a lead-to-sale funnel — 10% close of Meta leads for in-person services, 2–5% of webinar opt-ins, 35% for salespeople, 1–2% for web pages — plus call leads within 60 seconds, keep sales calendars ~70% full, and the "rule of 100" for lead volume.
Funnel economics "dirty math" — day-zero gross profit and the four leversStefan Georgi's back-of-napkin funnel math for DTC, info and high-ticket offers (CPA, day-zero AOV, COGS, gross profit), the four levers (lower CPA, lower COGS, raise AOV, raise LTV), and his peptide-funnel case that went from −$146 to +$56 per customer with three changes.
Gross margin targets (80%+ for services) and why small gaps are hugeHormozi's 80% minimum gross margin for service businesses, the math showing 70% vs 80% vs 90% means $233 vs $400 vs $900 profit per customer, and why low margins usually signal a commoditized offer.
Growing LTV behind a low-ticket front end — ascension, WhatsApp communities, list monetisationWhat to do when a cheap front-end offer acquires customers but LTV won't move — Stefan Georgi's advice for a LatAm $9-ebook business (WhatsApp community, live sessions, a flagship done-with-you offer; LatAm challenge funnels selling $1–3K packages), seeding a dead community with 5–15 active members, and the back-end list monetisation options.
How many promotional emails to send — campaign cadence tied to the marketing calendarCTC's case that email is a promotional channel, not just retention — Spiral Bible (no LTV) went from 18 to 27 campaigns a month with every send tied to a calendar moment, 2.8x campaign revenue and 28% of revenue from email — plus the BFCM cadence (3/week → daily → 3/day → extension → shipping cutoff) and how story emails fit in.
Lead magnets — the three types and four delivery formatsWhy a "mini-offer" lead magnet beats a bare "book a call / get a quote" CTA for colder traffic, Hormozi's three types (reveal a problem, free trial, one step of many), four delivery formats (software, information, services, physical) and how to keep freebie-seekers out.
Lifting conversion by changing only the top of the page (SafeSleeve case)A homepage test in Ezra Firestone's brand SafeSleeve that changed only the hero section (benefit headline, the existing explainer video moved up, guarantee under the CTA, card-style device selector) and lifted site conversion rate 16% — why to optimise above the fold first and skip full redesigns.
Naming a lead magnet and writing the call to actionWhy the name and packaging of a lead magnet move opt-ins 2–10x more than its contents, Hormozi's naming formulas, how to test names cheaply (ad tests, story polls, texts), and the clear-CTA formula (clear, exact next action, reason to act now) with capacity-based scarcity.
Prepay discounts, annual plans, split payments, layaway and financingHow many customers take a prepay or annual offer (15–20% for buy-10-get-2, 30–40% with bonuses), how big the discount should be, and payment structures (half now/half in 30 days, payday-aligned splits, layaway, third-party financing at +35% sales) that pull cash forward.
Price testing DTC and info offers — when higher wins and when lower unlocks scaleStefan Georgi's price-test cases (skincare single bottle $59→$79 at the same conversion; a blood-sugar supplement cut from $69/59/49 to ~$39/34/29 that doubled-to-tripled conversions and enabled scale), adding a bigger package, testing a lower front end when ROAS is ~1.3, and CTC's warning about drifting price-per-unit.
Raising AOV by leading cold traffic with a bundle ("sell a system")Smart Marketer's Boom case — switching paid traffic from a best-converting single lipstick back to a $79 three-stick trio via pre-sell articles roughly doubled new-customer AOV ($38→$78) while new customers grew 33%, without touching the site; why picking offers on conversion rate alone misleads.
Referral offers and event-based lead gen for high-ticket servicesHormozi's plan for a $3M concierge-medicine practice — replace cash referral credits with a "bring a friend" treatment at every visit (BAMFAM), a quarterly giveaway in the newsletter, and weekly local events with a free scan watched alongside a VSL, or a $99 Meta-ad workshop, closed in person.
Retention tactics for memberships and recurring programmesWhat Skool communities taught Hormozi about keeping members — tag cancel reasons every 20 cancels, ask long-tenured members why they stay, cut content to cut overwhelm (one group went from 30% to 5% churn), a cheaper tier only if ideal customers say price, a fast first win within 24h, a weekly call, 10 regulars, and showing up daily.
Scaling a coaching or educational business — offers, channels, continuityHormozi's answers to four education/coaching owners ($2.5M–$6.6M) — dominate one market before going national, cut unprofitable low-ticket events for high-ticket camps, add ads as a one-time 3–5x lift on top of organic, expect warm sales motions to break on cold traffic, and price continuity separately from one-time skill transfer ("big head, long tail").
Storytelling emails that sell — the three "story bridges" (lesson, compare, metaphor)Alex Cattoni's fix for the "awkward pivot" from a personal story to the offer in an email — bridge with one sentence that states the lesson, draws a compare/contrast, or makes a metaphor — with her real emails as worked examples, and why to mix story and sales emails.
What LTV:CAC ratio do you need? (3:1 to 12:1 by human touchpoints)Hormozi's rule that the 3:1 LTV:CAC benchmark only fits fully automated businesses — add 3 points for each human step in attraction, conversion and delivery (6:1, 9:1, 12:1) — plus the two ways to get extreme ratios.
Which funnel to launch with — the "Occam's razor" structure per verticalStefan Georgi's 2026 rule that the simplest funnel that works wins — ads → product page for DTC, ads → landing page for info, VSL → book-a-call with a qualifying form for high ticket, a quiz → trial for subscription apps (expect to run negative), and a low-ticket test before launching high ticket to cold traffic.