Chapter 21 Exercises: Live Events, Consulting, and High-Ticket Offers

Exercise 21.1 — Map Your Expertise Ladder

Objective: Identify your full range of potential offers from free to high-ticket.

Instructions:

Part A: Expertise Inventory Answer these questions in writing: 1. What can you teach or help someone accomplish that they couldn't figure out as easily on their own? 2. Who is the specific person who benefits most from your knowledge? Describe them in detail (not "my audience" — a specific type of person with specific challenges and goals). 3. What outcomes can you help that person achieve? List at least five concrete outcomes, stated specifically (not "understand finances better" but "build a six-month emergency fund within eight months while paying off credit card debt"). 4. What do you know that takes most people years to figure out? What shortcuts or frameworks have you developed from your own experience?

Part B: The Offer Ladder Using your expertise inventory, sketch a five-level offer ladder. For each level, complete: - Offer description (what it is) - Price point - Who it serves (what stage of buyer) - What the buyer gets (outcome statement) - What it requires of you (time, energy, systems)

Your ladder must span from free content at the bottom to at least one offer above $500 at the top. You don't need to have a specific, launchable product at every level — you're mapping potential, not committing to a product roadmap.

Part C: Analysis In 200–300 words, identify which level of your ladder you think would be both most valuable to your audience and most sustainable for you personally. What makes that level the right fit? What would need to be true for you to move to the next level?

Deliverable: A written expertise inventory, a completed five-level offer ladder, and a reflective analysis.

Exercise 21.2 — Design a Workshop

Objective: Build a complete workshop from concept to deliverable.

Instructions:

Choose a topic from your expertise that would make a good live workshop. The topic should be: - Specific enough to address in 90–120 minutes - Action-oriented (participants should leave having accomplished something, not just learned something) - Grounded in genuine expertise you have that your audience wants

Create a complete workshop plan with these sections:

Section 1: Workshop Card - Title (clear and outcome-forward, e.g., "Build Your First Content Calendar in Two Hours") - Target audience: Who specifically is this for? - Outcome statement: "By the end of this workshop, participants will have/will be able to..." - Duration - Price - Platform you'd use and why

Section 2: Detailed Agenda Write a time-stamped agenda for the full workshop. Include: - Hook and framing (what problem are you solving today?) - Each teaching module (15–20 minute segments) - Interaction moments (polls, chat questions, exercises) - Application segment with specific deliverable participants complete - Q&A

Section 3: Participant Workbook Outline Sketch the structure of a simple workbook or guide participants would receive. What sections would it contain? What would they fill in? A workbook transforms passive watching into active doing.

Section 4: Pricing Rationale Explain your price point. What outcome does the workshop deliver? What is that outcome worth in real terms to the participant? How does your price compare to alternatives (similar workshops, books, courses)? What does your pricing communicate about the workshop's positioning?

Section 5: Promotion Plan How would you fill the workshop? Write a four-week promotion timeline with specific content pieces and calls to action.

Deliverable: A complete workshop plan document of 800–1,200 words.

Exercise 21.3 — The Consulting Funnel Audit

Objective: Build and evaluate a complete consulting client acquisition funnel.

Instructions:

Map a realistic consulting funnel for your niche from first touch to signed client.

Step 1: Draw the funnel Create a visual or written representation of the funnel with five stages: 1. Content discovery (how do people find you?) 2. Email list subscription (how do they move from viewer to list subscriber?) 3. Offer awareness (how do list subscribers learn about your consulting?) 4. Discovery call (how do interested subscribers book a call?) 5. Conversion (how do callers become paying clients?)

For each stage, note: the action the prospect takes, what triggers that action, and approximately what percentage of the previous stage converts.

Step 2: Build a simple model Using the conversion estimates you set, build a basic numbers model: - If you have 2,000 email list subscribers, how many become consulting clients in a given month? - What would your monthly revenue be if your consulting package is $1,500? - What would it be if it's $3,000? - What email list size would you need to sustain 2 new clients/month at each price point?

Step 3: Identify the biggest gap Which stage has the weakest conversion? What specific change would most improve the funnel at that stage?

Step 4: Write your "Work With Me" page Write the actual copy for a Work With Me page on your website or link-in-bio. It should include: - Who you help (specific, not vague) - What you help them accomplish - What it looks like to work with you (format, frequency, duration) - What the investment is (or "starting at $X") - An invitation to apply/inquire with a link to a form or calendar

Deliverable: A funnel diagram (visual or written), the numbers model, a gap analysis, and the Work With Me copy.

Exercise 21.4 — Value-Based Pricing Practice

Objective: Practice pricing consulting engagements based on value delivered, not time spent.

Instructions:

This exercise presents four consulting scenarios. For each, you will set a price using value-based pricing logic, and defend that price.

Scenario 1: A freelance graphic designer asks you to consult on building a personal brand that helps them attract higher-value clients. Currently they earn $60/hour from small business clients. They want to raise their rate to $150/hour and attract larger clients. Your consultation is expected to take two sessions of 60 minutes each.

Scenario 2: A startup founder wants one 90-minute strategy session on their social media approach. They've been burning $2,000/month on ads with poor results and want to try organic content strategy. They plan to hire you only for this single session.

Scenario 3: A local restaurant owner wants a three-month retainer to guide their Instagram and TikTok presence. They have a loyal customer base but limited online reach. They estimate that growing their online audience would add $5,000–$10,000/month in revenue through new customers and increased loyalty.

Scenario 4: A career coach with 40,000 Instagram followers wants a monthly retainer to guide their course creation strategy. They currently have no courses but believe they could generate $150,000 annually if they build and launch properly. They want a six-month engagement.

For each scenario, write: - What outcome would a successful engagement produce? - What is that outcome worth to the client in dollar terms? - What should you charge, as a percentage of the value created? - What would you charge if you were billing hourly at $150/hour instead? - Which price is higher? Which is fairer? Defend your reasoning in 100–150 words.

Deliverable: Four scenario analyses with explicit value-based pricing reasoning.

Exercise 21.5 — The Group Coaching Program Design

Objective: Design a group coaching program that you could realistically launch.

Instructions:

Using your expertise from Exercise 21.1, design a six-week group coaching program.

Required components:

  1. Program title and one-sentence outcome statement

  2. Target participant profile: Who is this for? What do they currently struggle with? What do they want to achieve? Why is a group format better than 1:1 for this outcome?

  3. Week-by-week curriculum outline: For each of the six weeks, specify: - The theme or focus area - Key teaching content (2–3 bullet points) - The weekly assignment or exercise - What participants will have completed by end of week

  4. Community and accountability structure: Will there be a private group (Discord, Slack, Circle)? Daily check-ins? Peer accountability partners? How will you maintain engagement between calls?

  5. Pricing and cohort size: How many participants will you accept (min and max)? What is the price? Calculate total revenue at min cohort, max cohort, and your target cohort size.

  6. Waitlist launch plan: Write the waitlist announcement post you would share on your primary platform. It should convey the transformation, the structure, the investment, and the call to action (join the waitlist) in 150–200 words.

  7. The equity question: At the price you've set, who can and cannot afford this program in your audience? How will you address that gap, if at all? Be specific — not "I'll offer scholarships" but "I'll offer two scholarship spots per cohort funded by X."

Deliverable: A complete six-week program design document of 800–1,200 words.

Exercise 21.6 — Speaker Kit Development

Objective: Build the core components of a speaker kit.

Instructions:

A speaker kit is the package of materials event organizers use to evaluate and book speakers. Build the following components:

Component 1: Speaker Bio (150–200 words) Write in third person. Focus on your expertise and what you help audiences accomplish. Avoid listing credentials for their own sake; focus on outcomes. End with one human detail that makes you memorable.

Component 2: Three Talk Titles with Descriptions For each talk: - Title: Clear and outcome-communicating (not vague, not clickbait) - Audience fit: Who is this talk for? What size and type of event? - 100-word description written for an event organizer - Five specific audience takeaways (bullet points) - Format options (keynote 30 min, keynote 45 min, interactive workshop 90 min)

Component 3: Speaking Evidence You may not have professional speaking footage yet. That's normal. For this exercise: - Identify three pieces of existing content that could function as evidence of your speaking ability (YouTube videos, podcast appearances, live session recordings) - OR write a brief description of the type of speaking footage you'd create in the next 60 days as your starter evidence

Component 4: Testimonial Draft Write a draft testimonial from a hypothetical event organizer who invited you to speak at their event. What would they say about the audience response, the quality of your content, and the value you delivered? This is an exercise in articulating what the ideal speaking outcome looks like from an organizer's perspective — you're not fabricating a real testimonial.

Component 5: Booking Inquiry Response Write a template response to an event organizer who has reached out about a speaking opportunity. It should express genuine interest, ask the right qualifying questions (event size, audience, format, dates, budget), and move the conversation toward a concrete next step.

Deliverable: A complete speaker kit document with all five components.

Exercise 21.7 — The Scalability Tension Analysis

Objective: Think clearly about the trade-off between consulting revenue and content production capacity.

Instructions:

Marcus Webb's case is the reference point for this exercise.

Part A: Map the trade-off Assume you are producing content on a regular schedule and building a consulting practice simultaneously. Create a time budget: - How many hours per week do you have available for creator work (total, not just content creation)? - What activities compete for those hours? List every significant one: filming, editing, email, community management, social media engagement, research, client work, etc. - Estimate realistic hours for each activity, assuming you have: zero clients, two 1:1 clients, four 1:1 clients, and four 1:1 clients plus one group coaching cohort. - At each level, what gets sacrificed? How does content quality or quantity change?

Part B: The revenue trade-off Calculate: - Monthly revenue from consulting at each scenario above (using a pricing assumption) - Content output (videos/posts per month) at each scenario - How does the revenue-per-hour change as you scale consulting? Does consulting feel more or less efficient as it grows?

Part C: The strategic recommendation Based on your analysis, at what consulting load does the trade-off with content production become unsustainable for you specifically? What mechanisms would you use (rate increase, group leverage, team delegation) to extend that threshold?

Write a 300–400 word strategy recommendation for how you'd manage the consulting-content trade-off at each stage of your creator business.

Deliverable: A time budget table, a revenue trade-off analysis, and a written strategic recommendation.