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Open a blank page and list every offer you sell. Include the ones you stopped talking about but never turned off. Now answer one question for each: did I choose to keep selling this on purpose this year?
If the answer is "no" for most of them, you do not have a catalog. You have sediment. Offers pile up the way receipts pile up in a drawer, and the only way to clear them is a day on the calendar.
Why review offers at all?
Because markets, delivery and your own capacity change while the price tag stays the same. An offer that was a great deal two years ago may now be slow to deliver, thin on margin or aimed at a buyer who has moved on.
Harvard Business Review's article on reinventing your business model argues that established companies often fail to capture business model innovation because they do not understand their current model.1 Its famous example is Apple's iPod and iTunes: launched in 2003, the combination became a product of nearly $10 billion within three years, about half of Apple's revenue.1 The point is not that you should build the next iPod. It is that you cannot redesign what you cannot see. The review makes your current model visible.
You cannot improve an offer you have not scored.
How do you score an offer?
Use three columns. Be blunt, and use numbers where you have them.
Margin: what do you actually keep?
Take the revenue the offer brought in this year and subtract the real cost to deliver it: tools, contractors, refunds, payment fees, and a fair value for your own hours. What is left is margin. If you cannot compute your own hours for an offer, estimate honestly. Offers that look profitable until you count your time are the most common trap.
Client results: does it work?
List what clients got. Outcomes achieved, completion rates, refund requests, testimonials you can substantiate, and how many came back. If you do not track results, that is your first finding.
Demand: do people still want it?
Count the signals: inquiries, close rate, waitlist, referrals, and whether buyers ask for the offer by name. Compare this year to last. Demand rising, flat or falling is a different decision each time.
| Score it | Ask yourself |
|---|---|
| Margin: high, medium, low | After my time and costs, would I start this today at this price? |
| Results: strong, mixed, weak | Do clients leave with what I promised? |
| Demand: rising, flat, falling | Do buyers still ask for this by name? |
| Fit: central or side offer | Does it make my best offer easier to sell, or harder? |
| Effort: light or heavy | Does it drain the time I need for better work? |
When should you retire an offer?
Retire when margin is thin, results are weak and demand is soft, or when the promise has gone blurry (the offer audit will tell you). Or when it competes with a better offer you sell, so buyers pick the wrong one.
Retiring is not failure. It is capacity you give back to your best work.
How to do it well:
- Honor current clients. Finish what they paid for, on the terms they bought.
- Announce the change with a clear end date and a pointer to what replaces it.
- Keep the lessons. Write down why it did not work. The reason is worth more than the revenue.
When should you rebuild an offer?
Rebuild when demand is there but the delivery is not working, which is often a case for productizing the service. Buyers want the outcome. Something about what you include, how you deliver or who you serve keeps results or margin low.
Ask four questions:
- Is the promise right, but the delivery too heavy for the price?
- Are we serving the wrong buyer, so results suffer?
- Is there a part clients love, and a part they skip?
- Would a smaller, sharper version outperform the big one?
Change one thing and test it. The Good-Better-Best idea from HBR's Rafi Mohammed is useful here: his argument is that discounting for bargain hunters while giving top buyers nothing more to buy leaves money on the table, and that tiers fix it.2 I walked through the design in Good-Better-Best Pricing for Coaches. Rebuilding often means creating a clearer top tier that serves your best buyers better, rather than discounting the middle.
When should you raise the price?
Raise when demand is strong, results are consistent and your margin or capacity is under pressure. (Raising Prices Without Losing Your Best Clients covers the how.) Signals:
- You close most qualified conversations.
- You have a waitlist or turn people away.
- Clients regularly say it was a bargain.
- Your margin is thin because delivery costs rose.
A price increase is also a signal. It tells the market what you believe the result is worth. If you cannot raise the price on an offer that works, ask what you are afraid of.
Codie Sanchez asked the question bluntly in a video posted on June 2, 2025:
When was the last time you raised your prices? Our guess, well, nine out of 10 small businesses undercharge.
Treat "nine out of 10" as her guess, not a statistic. The question is what earns a place in an annual review.
VideoBigDeal by Codie Sanchez
It's Boring, But It Will Make Even Beginners More Money
Sanchez lays out five reasons premium buyers pay more, a useful lens before you raise a price.
How to raise without losing goodwill
- Decide the new price based on value and margin, not on a round number.
- Set an effective date at least a few weeks away, so people can decide before the change.
- Tell existing clients first, personally, and say what they keep. Many businesses honor current terms for the current term.
- Update every page and sequence so no one sees the old price by accident.
- Track the next 60 days: close rate, refunds and inquiry quality.
What mistakes ruin an offer review?
Three show up again and again.
Scoring on revenue. A big-revenue offer can be your worst business if it eats your time and your margin. Always score what you keep.
Keeping offers out of sentiment. The first program you built is allowed to retire. So is the one a client loved but nobody else bought. Ask whether it would earn a place today if it were a new idea.
Reviewing without a decision. If the review ends with notes instead of retire, rebuild or raise, it was a diary entry. Every row needs a verb and a date.
A good review leaves you with fewer offers, clearer prices and one or two moves to make in the first quarter. That is plenty.
What does a review day look like?
Block half a day. Print or open a sheet with one row per offer and columns for margin, results, demand and decision.
- Gather the data for the last twelve months before you sit down.
- Score each offer honestly in the three columns.
- Write the decision for each: retire, rebuild or raise.
- Pick the single biggest move and give it an owner and a date.
- Schedule a 90-day check to see whether the decision worked.
Every offer in your catalog is either earning its place or taking someone else's.
Do this review in December while the year is fresh and before January's urgency hides it. The business you start the new year with should be one you chose, not one you inherited from your past self. The offers and funnels I build for experts start from exactly this kind of review.
Keep building.Ekai
Questions people ask
What is an annual offer review?
An annual offer review is a scheduled look at every offer you sell, scored on margin, client results and demand, ending in a decision for each: retire it, rebuild it or raise the price. Doing it once a year stops old offers from lingering by default.
How do I know when to raise my prices?
Raise when demand is strong, client results are consistent and your margin or capacity is under pressure. If you sell out, have a waitlist or are working at a thin margin on a proven offer, the market is telling you to charge more.
When should I retire an offer?
Retire an offer when margin is thin, results are weak and demand is soft, or when it competes with a better offer you sell. Honor existing clients, announce the change, and point new buyers to the offer that replaces it.
What does it mean to rebuild an offer?
Rebuilding keeps the demand and rewrites the delivery or packaging. If people want the outcome but results or margin are weak, change what is included, how it is delivered or who it is for before touching the price.
Sources
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