Are You Selling a Solution or a Transformation? Discover the 2 Offer Types Every Online Business Owner Needs

As an online business owner, you know that having the right offers and/or packages is key to creating a sustainable and thriving business. Yet many coaches, service providers, consultants, and creators find themselves constantly jumping from one offer idea to the next, unsure of what actually will fit their audience’s wants and needs.

Maybe you have a 1:1 package or service, but it’s ‘too expensive’ for some of your prospective clients, which leaves you wondering if you should offer something more accessible. Or perhaps you’ve been told that you need to have a whole suite of offers, but you’re not quite sure what types of offers are going to be “best” in order to reach your goals and resonate with your dream clients.

Ultimately, you know you need offers. But what offers? How many? At what price points? etc.

The great news is that you get to answer these and other questions based on what is right and necessary in your business, with the work that you do and the audience that you serve and support. But before you can answer any of these offer-building questions, you need to answer one contextual question.

That is: are you selling a solution or a transformation? 

You have to know the answer to this question if you want to successfully sell any offer you create. That’s because there are two moments in a customer’s Transformational Journey when they are actively ready to buy. These are:

• Phase 2: when they are seeking a single solution to what they perceive as being a single problem. We call this person our Solution-Oriented Client.
• Phase 4: when they are seeking a broad and holistic solution to what they now understand is a more core problem. We call this person our Transformation-Ready Client.

• Related Post: Who is your Purchase-Ready Client? Deep dive on the Solution-Oriented Client vs. Transformation-Ready Client

If there are two times in a customer’s Transformational Journey when they are actively seeking out a solution and are therefore ready to buy, it makes sense that we want to design offers that meet them precisely in those purchase-ready moments, right?

That’s why there are two core types of offers: 

• Single Solution Offers for our Solution-Oriented Clients
• Full Transformation Offers for our Transformation-Ready Clients

Once you know which type of offer you’re building—a Single Solution Offer or a Full Transformation Offer—you can then make all of the decisions you need to about how to deliver the offer, price it, talk about it, sell it, and more. (You also want to have both of these types of offers in your Offer Suite, but more on that in a sec.)

Let’s take a closer look at both of these types of offers so that you can make informed decisions about whatever offers, packages, or programs you’re designing and preparing to sell.

This page may include affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I may earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. 

The Two Types of Offers

Single Solution Offers

Single Solution Offers provide a single, specific solution for what your client perceives as being a single, specific problem. These offers are designed to meet your Solution-Oriented Client in the moment when they’re ready to buy.

Because they are providing a single, specific solution for a single, specific problem, Single Solution Offers are typically delivered in a shorter time frame, have less inclusions, and are lower in price point. Of course, what “shorter,” “less,” and “lower” look like is going to be relative to the business model you’re building and niche you’re operating within. They may also require less hands-on and/or individualized support from the business owner.

Common examples of Single Solution Offers:

• Digital Products (e.g. Not Another List of Content Prompts by WholeCo Media; Collab Relationship Management System in a Box by Alicia Lozano; Copywriting Templates at the Copy Template Shop)
• Courses (e.g. The Aligned Niche, The Storyteller’s Start, Right Fit Filter — all by WholeCo Media)
• Shorter/Smaller Done-With-You Offers (e.g. Offer Ecosystem by WholeCo Media, a 3-month consulting offer — now retired)
• Shorter/Smaller Done-For-You Offers (e.g. One Page Website by Lauren Wood)
• Memberships which solve a repeating problem (e.g. Make it Happen Method by Jennie + Meredyth)
• Shorter timeframe Group Program (e.g. Held by Alison Crosthwait)
• Single 1:1 Coaching session, or smaller package of sessions (e.g. The Shift by Stephanie Wood)
• A Retreat

Full Transformation Offers

Full Transformation Offers provide a holistic solution to fully solve a core problem. These offers are designed to meet your Transformation-Ready Client in the moment when they’re ready to buy.

Because they are holistically and fully solving a core problem—which likely has lots of surface manifestations and/or ‘symptoms’—Full Transformation Offers are typically delivered over a longer time frame, have more inclusions, and are higher in price point. Of course, what “longer,” “more,” and “higher” mean is all relative to the business model you’re building and the niche you’re operating in. These offers may also require more hands-on and/or individualized support from the business owner.

Common examples of Full Transformation Offers:

• Longer, often 6- or 9-months, 1:1 Coaching Package (e.g. The Journey by Stephanie Wood)
• Longer time frame Group Program (e.g. Expand by Alison Crosthwait; EXPAND by WholeCo Media; note that Alison’s Expand program is entirely different from our EXPAND program here at WholeCo Media, despite sharing the same name)
• Longer/larger courses/memberships, particularly if they have some sort of recurring support component (e.g. Joy Academy by Ronja Sakata)
• Comprehensive Done-with-You or Done-for-You Offers (e.g. Website Copywriting by Megan Taylor)
• A Retreat (or bundle of retreats) with post-retreat integration support

Which type of offer are you building?

Now that you understand the two types of offers, you can choose which one to build first. Eventually, it will likely benefit you to have both types of offers in your offer suite, though depending on where you’re at in your business, that isn’t something you necessarily need to do right now. Any offer that you build for your business needs to have five foundations in order to make it irresistible for your clients, effective at delivering results, and sustainable for you to sell and deliver. Learn what these five foundations are and how to build them here.

Do you already have offers in your business, but now you’re wanting to set them up to sell better and be more effective and sustainable? Start by listing out each of your offers and determining: is this intended to be a Single Solution Offer or a Full Transformation Offer? If there are any that you’re confused on, then it’s likely that your audience is confused as well, which causes friction in their buyers journey. In this case, it’s up to you to make a decision, and then ensure that every offer is set up to reliably deliver the result or transformation you say that it will. Doing so will also help you differentiate between your offers, so that your audience can better understand which offer is right for them.

An Invitation to Go Deeper

Offer-building—everything from choosing the type of offer, to building the foundations, and designing your offer suite—is a huge part of what we do inside our most popular course, The Aligned Niche. 

Normally a self-paced course, we’re running our annual 6-week live cohort starting April 16, 2025. If you’re reading this before February 28 at 6pm PT, then you sign up and save $250 on your total investment. 

With the live cohort, you’ll receive:

• (6) 90-minute live group coaching sessions, scheduled weekly and facilitated by me, Carly
• (3) months access to our client-wide Business Coaching & Monthly Focus sessions (so that you have support after The Aligned Niche, too!)
• An intimate community of online business owners dedicated to Sustainably Successful business practices
• Additional guidance and accountability to ensure you complete the program with the results you joined ready to create!

Register to join us for this live round, today!

(p.s. Do you already have access to the self-paced course, but want to upgrade to the live round? You get an extra discount to do just that! Use the chat in the bottom right corner of your screen to let us know that you’d like to upgrade and we’ll send you all the deets.)

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