Ep 160: How A Low-Risk Offer Can Cut Your Sales Cycle In Half

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What if your next client didn’t need convincing, just clarity? We walk through the gateway offer model that gets you paid to diagnose, builds trust across the buying committee, and turns the final decision into a simple next step. Instead of free discovery calls and bloated proposals, you’ll learn how to package interviews, a focused roadmap, and a short review session into a two-week container that proves value fast and removes risk for everyone.

We start by breaking down the hidden cost of the traditional sales process: thin discovery, speculative proposals, and a six to eight-week on-ramp where you figure things out on the client’s dime. Then we map the three-part gateway offer: stakeholder interviews that surface goals and constraints, a concise strategy or audit that prioritizes quick wins, and a review call designed for clarity, not pressure. You’ll hear how sending the plan 24 hours ahead sparks better questions, why using stakeholder quotes in your recommendations creates instant alignment, and how to draw out silent objections so you leave with consensus instead of confusion.

We also dig into pricing and positioning. A sub-$1,000 “why not” offer is easy to approve and creates momentum without setting off procurement alarms. You’ll learn how to present scope without scope creep, outline a 90-day plan that feels actionable, and introduce execution options that make yes the obvious next move. Concerned they’ll shop your strategy? We explain why it rarely happens when you co-create with stakeholders and demonstrate value in the room. Most buyers either hand you the keys or implement internally—both outcomes strengthen your pipeline and reputation.

Ready to cut your sales cycle and convert with confidence? Join the Gateway Offer mission to build your own irresistible offer, complete with live support, an AI assistant, and weekly micro tasks that take you from idea to closed deal. Subscribe, share this with a friend who hates selling, and tell us: what quick win would your buyers pay for tomorrow?

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Focus Of The Day
• 2:15 Defining Gateway Offers
• 5:43 The Flawed Traditional Sales Process
• 8:15 How Gateway Offers Build Trust
• 11:30 Five Reasons They Shorten Sales Cycles
• 19:01 Objections And Why They Rarely Shop Around

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:54

Learn lean, actionable, organic marketing strategies you can implement today. No fluff, just powerful growth tactics that work. Ready to scale smarter? Hit that subscribe button and start growing your business with Tiny Marketing. Hello, I am Sarah Noel Block, and this is Tiny Marketing. Today is gonna be a no video podcast because my hair is still wet. I just got out of the shower and I'm I'm still showing up though, so. You're welcome. Today I'm gonna talk about how Gateway offers shorten your sales cycle and skyrocket your conversions. Now, this topic is top of mind for me right now because if you listen to episode 138, I talked about a sales strategy that I built for a client and how you can apply it to your own indie consultancy. Um, that same person that I built that strategy for, she came back to me last week and told me that she sold seven gateway offers in one week and that they were converting like crazy. So that made me think, I need to really revisit this. So let's talk about why gateway offers shorten your sales cycles and help you close more sales way faster. Have you ever had a prospect say, we love what you do, but we're not ready yet? That's the exact moment a gateway offer changes everything. A gateway offer is a low-cost, high-value offer, usually less than$1,000, that allows you to take the pieces that you would normally do during a discovery call and the onboarding of your, you know, high-ticket execution. And it condenses it into one single project that you would do in a little capsule of time, minor two weeks. And it gives them a roadmap or a blueprint on how to solve their immediate problem that they're coming to you for. So today I'm going to break down why gateway offers are the single most powerful way to speed up your sales cycle and increase conversions without being pushy or salesy. Because you wouldn't know this by the amount of times that I talk about sales, but I hate selling. I hate it. So I have built my sales system around being able, like not having to sell basically. Um, I built my sales system around building relationships, being useful to people, and building in tiny yeses that get people to the bigger yes of the execution. By the end of this episode, you'll understand how to design the offer. It builds trust fast, gets your foot in the door, and makes saying yes to a bigger project almost automatic. I like to call it, well, why wouldn't I? Why wouldn't I? If your gateway offer is a why not price, saying yes to the execution of the bigger project is a why wouldn't I offer. So for anybody who's relatively new here, let's just talk about what a gateway offer is. We'll do it really quickly because I talk about this all the time. Anyone who is a regular listener is like, okay, I'm gonna hit that 15-second skip right now. But everyone else, stay put. A gateway offer is a low-risk, high value entry point that helps you build uh it helps a potential client experience a quick win before they commit to your full service. So that's like the cliff notes version of it. But truly what it's doing is it's taking all of that discovery and onboarding work that you would do during your free discovery call, your proposal, the first like six to eight weeks of your high ticket project, and condenses it into a two-week container where you're solving that problem. You're getting their yes, their confirmation that this is what I want to do moving forward with the project before you move into the high-ticket offer. So everything else runs more smoothly, also. So that's what a gateway offer is. Now, let's contrast that with what a typical sales process looks like for a service provider or a solo consultant. Generally, I'll say that most service providers have a 30-minute discovery call, which is free, where they learn a little bit about the business, they're asking a few questions, and then they walk away and they build out a proposal. This can take, I know some people who are it takes up to eight hours to build out the proposal. And you're doing all of this on 30 minutes of information, by the way. Okay. So you have that 30-minute discovery call, you build out a thorough proposal. And then if they move forward with execution, usually the first like six to eight weeks is more of like an on-ramp period where you're trying to figure out what works for them and get on the same page before you start building momentum and things get a little bit easier. So for you, that looks like probably two days of free work between the discovery call, any research that you have to do and building out the proposal. That's two days of free work that might not even convert. On their end, they're paying a high-ticket retainer, let's say eight,$10,000 for you to figure out what is actually going to work. What is the real solution? So they end up paying$20,000 for you to figure it out. Where a gateway offer, yeah, and well, let's just pause there for a second, that builds some tension in your relationship with your client. Obviously, there's some tension as you're trying to figure it out. Everybody does understand, hey, it takes time to build momentum. But when you use that particular process for selling, it takes longer to build that momentum. Okay, so end of that little rant. Um now, but a gateway offer. It gives them something like a roadmap or an audit or a strategy that they can say yes to right away because it's a why not price. And it also builds out the rapport with the client because you were talking to all stakeholders during it. It's generally done in a three-part process where it's a paid offer where you're interviewing all of the stakeholders in the company. You walk away, you build out that strategy, that audit, that roadmap, whatever your particular one looks like. Then you do a review session, which is usually around 30 minutes where you go through what the roadmap looks like. What would help them? What does action look like for solving the problem that they have? And that is a hell of a lot easier to say yes to than saying, okay, I'm going to commit to six months of working with you,$10,000 a month retainer. So$60,000 for uh, I really am crossing my fingers that they know what they're doing. So this proves that you know what you're doing. It builds the rapport with them ahead of time, and you're getting paid to do that before moving into execution. You move by the time you move into execution, you have already gotten their buy-in on your solution. So you are eliminating that six to eight weeks of stumbling that you generally have. And here's why this one shift can completely change how fast you close deals. It's the trust factor. Okay. So I'm gonna get into five reasons gayway offers reduce the sales cycle. One, you build trust with the whole team before anyone says yes to a high-ticket offer. All right, let's talk a little bit about it. In most B2B sales, it's not one person saying yes. We've all experienced this. It's a B2B community over here. It's a committee. We know that. There's a bunch of people who have to say yes to it. So a gateway offer lets you demonstrate your value to everyone who has to say yes right off the bat, not just the first contact. And it's with hardly any risk. For most B2Bs,$995 is nothing. It's a drop in the bucket. They're willing to risk a thousand bucks to find a solution to the problem. And you're building trust along the way. Everybody who needs to say yes is in that stakeholder interview right at the beginning. You're taking their insights. They feel heard. You're building a rapport with them. That's amazing. You walk away, you build the strategy using their insights. And then you come back together for the review call with the same group of people, and they're giving you their questions, their objections, what their thoughts are on the solution. And you're able to answer those objections right on the spot to the direct stakeholder. So you're no longer looking at playing telephone with a direct contact who's trying to sell you internally because everybody is right there with you. Number two, you give them a quick win right away. You're giving them a blueprint print or a roadmap. So people buy with more confidence. They see a tangible plan, they feel heard, their insights are taken into consideration, and then they stop wondering, can you really help us? And they start thinking, when can we start? Because you've already proven that you know what you're doing and you've already gotten their yes, their confirmation. Because if the strategy or the audit or whatever that you built in that second step of the gateway offer didn't match their expectations, you can address that and make those shifts on the review call so you can get them to the yes, to the confirmation that this is a solution they want to move forward with before ever moving forward on the high-ticket offer. Number three, you address objections on the spot in the review session. So the review call is not directly a sales call. It's a clarity session. And when they raise concerns, let's say, so let me back up one second. Um, you want to give them the strategy 24 hours before the review call. So they can review it and come up with their questions already before the review call. Okay, now we'll go back to the review call. So the review call is when those questions happen. They've already looked at it and they've had time to digest it. And when they come up with those concerns or those questions, you can address them right on the spot. You can handle them naturally, not defensively. You can make tweaks to the strategy as you're on that call. If they bring something up that is a legitimate concern, like, well, we wouldn't be able to keep that going internally because of X. Okay, let's make this switch. So you can make those moves right on the call. So you can get them to a yes. That's also the time where they'll come up with any objections. So this is the reason that I don't think this will work. You can answer that on the spot. And if no objections come up, if they're pretty quiet the whole time, what you'll want to do is pull those objections out of them. Get to the part where you're talking about, okay, this is what moving forward looks like. This is how we would execute it if you wanted to move forward with us. Ask them what are the pros and cons that you see from this moving forward section? And that will draw out the objections if they're being quiet. Number four, you can connect their words to the solution. I like to use exact quotes from the transcript from the interview and pull that in so they can see like this was the challenge that you talked about, and this is the solution, this is why. Connect the dots for them. You've listened to them deeply during the gateway offer interview, and then you can mirror their exact language when presenting your full offer. Number five, when you give you give them a why not reason to move forward. So at this point, they've seen your process, they've gotten to know you, they trust you, they have a plan. You have given them a plan. And the next step feels obvious. Saying no feels harder than saying yes, because they could look at your plan and say, we can do this internally. And maybe they will, and that's awesome for them. But 90% of the time, they will look at the plan and they'll say, Okay, I'm ready to move forward. What does execution look like? And they're going to choose. So the the pushback that I often get is, I um what if I do this strategy? They've only paid a thousand dollars for it. It's worth so much more. And then they get someone else to execute it, they shop it around. That's the biggest objection that I get about gateway offers. And the truth is, they don't. So that could be a fear of you or a fear for you. However, when you built the strategy and you've taken the time to get to know the stakeholders inside of the company, they're going to be at a point where they're going to be like, why wouldn't I have you do the X, a way to get out of the problem? Why would I shop around? So that might be a fear for you. And you know what? Who knows? Maybe you will come across someone who shops it around and gets someone else to do it for cheaper. Like they go to Fiverr Upwork or whatever to look for someone to do this for them. But that's their one, they're probably a red flag client that would have been awful to work with anyway. But two, that's not gonna happen most of the time. I have never had someone take my strategy and shop it around. They either work with me or they have their internal team do it. That has been my experience. So I'm not saying that it's impossible. I'm saying that it's possible, but they probably would be dicks to work with. Okay. So in the end, you're no longer chasing clients. They're inviting you to continue that relationship. And there are a ton of strategies. We go so much deeper than this, um, in in how to sell on that review session, how to move them to a yes on that review session. There are, you know, creating limitations. So it makes more sense for them to close within a certain amount of time. You can give them bonuses for closing within a certain amount of time. And we can get into all of that. So gateway offers work because they build trust, deliver a win, handle objections, connect language to solution, their language to the solution, and remove risk. Now, if you're ready to design your own gateway offer that opens doors to high-ticket clients, I've built something for you. And it is only available for now until Thursday. And then carts are closing. It'll open honestly, probably six months from now, it'll reopen. But that is the Gateway Offer mission. It's a hands-on, guided experience to help you build your irresistible offer and cut your sales cycles in half. You'll go from wondering how to get clients to say yes to having a proven system that naturally leads them from small offer to your full service. You'll get a private one-to-one kickoff session with me, your own gateway offer AI assistant, bite-sized trainings, weekly micro tasks. So you have like little steps that you need to complete over four weeks. Monday live sessions for accountability, and you can even book quick office hours, like one-to-one office hours on Mondays. Unlimited async consulting. So you can DM me anytime. Google Doc Reviews, I will get into your Google Doc, make revisions, make comments, and a private one-to-one wrap-up to lock it all in, make sure that you are ready and that you have sold a few and that you understand how to upsell people to your full offer. If you're ready to stop pushing for clients and start creating momentum with your dream clients, join me in the Gateway Offer mission. I'll help you build the offer that changes everything. So the link for that is in the show notes. The cart is only open until Thursday. Hold on, let me look at the calendar if you're listening listening to this late. So it is only open until October 30th. And then the cart is closing. It expires then. Thank you guys for tuning in to today's episode. If this sparked an idea for you, send me a message on LinkedIn. I'm there. You love all things tiny marketing. Head down to the show notes page and sign up for the wait list to join the Tiny Marketing Club, where you get to work one-on-one with me with trainings, feedback, and pop-up coaching that will help you scale your marketing as a B2B service business. So I'll see you over in the club.