The 3 Essential Offers That Turn Strangers Into Clients
If you knew exactly how many people would join your next program before you even promoted it, how much less stressful would your business feel?
In our experience helping countless coaches, healers, hypnotists, and other service providers, most have never clearly documented the steps that turn a stranger into a paying client.
Without that clarity, client flow will always feel random. Worse — if you haven’t written it down, you have no way to model what’s going to happen in your business.
Everything in business can be boiled down to a simple mathematical model.
If you know:
How many people are joining your list,
How many take a small step with you, and
How many say “yes” to your core offer...
…then you can predict your revenue and client load months in advance.
We’ve helped hundreds of people fix this with a simple framework we call The Offer Staircase.
The Offer Staircase: Your Blueprint for Predictable Clients
The Offer Staircase is a series of offers you present to your audience in a specific sequence, each step moving them closer to becoming a paying client.
It starts with a lead magnet — your first intentional offer, something they can say “yes” to in exchange for value. From there, each step increases their level of commitment until they reach your core offer.
Let’s break it down.
Step 1 – Lead Generation
This is your first offer: a free resource in exchange for their contact information.
Why start here? Because owning your list is essential. It’s far cheaper to promote to your own audience than to keep paying for cold traffic.
Examples:
A downloadable guide or checklist
A short mini-course
A template or script
A quiz or survey
Whatever format you choose, the goal is simple — get them on your list so you can nurture the relationship.
If they’re not even willing to give you their contact information, you don’t have much hope of selling anything. But once they say yes to this very first step in the Offer Staircase, you have an opportunity to add value and build trust.
If you need help creating a lead magnet use this free lead magnet training.
And yes - that’s a lead magnet to teach you about lead magnets.
How very meta.
Step 2 – Micro-Commitment
Once someone is on your list, your next offer requires a small investment of time or money. When someone invests even a little bit of time or money with you, it starts to change the relationship.
Here are some examples:
A free live webinar (time investment)
A 20-minute discovery call (time investment)
A $27 workshop or resource (money investment)
When they take this next small step, they are making a micro-commitment towards doing business with you. But they won’t progress further unless this investment results in some kind of “a ha” moment. They need to become excited about going to the next level.
Step 3 – Core Offer
Your core offer is the main thing that you sell. It’s usually the offer that brings in the bulk of your revenue. This is where you want your leads to end up. And most of them won’t buy your core offer before the warm-up steps that came before this.
Examples of core offers:
A 1:1 coaching program
A group coaching cohort
A flagship course or membership
The earlier steps make this feel like a natural progression, not a risky leap.
Step 4 – Premium Ascend
If you’re already established, consider that roughly 10% of your clients are willing to invest more for a deeper or more personalized experience.
That could mean:
A VIP tier with extra access
A high-touch mastermind
A private retreat or intensive
If you’re just starting, focus on Steps 1–3. Build a strong staircase before adding premium tiers. But if you’ve been in business for a while and you have nothing else to offer your main customers, put some thought towards this next step.
So How Do People Even Get On the Staircase?
They have to know you exist first.
That’s where awareness comes in — and it’s a completely different topic. Everyone has their own way of creating awareness:
Paid ads
Social media posts
Referrals
Speaking at live events
Guesting on podcasts
Awareness is what drives traffic to the first step of your staircase, but it’s not part of the staircase itself. The staircase begins with your first intentional offer — the lead magnet.
The “Hot Seat” Case Study That Turned a Scramble Into a System
In a recent mastermind session, one of our members came with a group weight-loss program — an 8-week cohort she wanted to fill consistently.
She had great results with clients, but no clear process for bringing in new people until just before the cohort began. Everything felt like a last-minute scramble.
As we talked, we discovered she already had a fantastic survey that helped potential clients self-assess their current situation — a perfect fit for her audience. She just wasn’t using it strategically.
We showed her how to make that survey her Step 1 (Lead Generation) offer:
Promote it year-round via social media, email, and partnerships.
Collect each participant’s email address through the survey so they join her list automatically.
Then we helped her design Step 2 (Micro-Commitment):
Invite survey participants to a free live presentation — either a Facebook group livestream or a short Zoom webinar.
Use that presentation to teach, inspire, and give attendees the “a ha” moment they’d need to be ready for the next step.
Finally, Step 3 (Core Offer):
At the end of the live presentation, invite them to join the next cohort.
Emphasize urgency with the program start date and limited spots available.
Use her in-house email list to help fill each cohort.
The result?
She now has an evergreen process: new leads enter all year, experience her teaching in a live setting, and naturally move into her program. No more starting from zero every time she wants to fill a cohort.
Get the Mini-Report That Makes This Even Easier
If you’d like to see exactly how to design your own Offer Staircase we’ve put together a free mini-report that walks you through the process step-by-step.
It’s a super easy 10-minute read that just might change your business forever.\
