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An offer written as a promise names who it is for, what will be different, what is included and where it stops; a promise without a boundary is paid for later in refunds.
Paper packet. Every task here also exists on screen, where it is checked automatically; answers written on paper are not assessed by Nydus. When you are back at a device, enter your answers there.
You will write an offer as a promise with a customer, an outcome, what is included and a boundary, strike out lines the business cannot keep, and cost what a promise without a boundary gives away.
You can name a segment, the job its customers are trying to do and the alternatives they have. An offer is the business's answer to all three, and the clearest way to write it is as a promise: a sentence a customer can read, decide by, and hold the business to.
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Offer promise | A sentence saying who the offer is for, what changes, what is included and where it stops. |
| Outcome | What will be different for the customer afterwards. |
| Inclusion | What the price covers. |
| Boundary | Where the promise stops: the limit that lets it be kept. |
| Checkable | Able to be confirmed afterwards by the customer. |
| Guarantee | A promise with money attached if it is broken. |
Most small-business offers are written as praise for the business: 'quality cleaning you can trust', 'the best repairs in town'. A customer cannot tell from them whether the offer is for them, and cannot tell afterwards whether they got it. A promise does both jobs.
Take Bright Home Cleaning's move-out offer: for tenants moving out, a clean to property-manager inspection standard, kitchen and bathroom included, booked at least five days ahead. Each part answers a question. Who is it for? Tenants moving out — so a family wanting a weekly clean knows it is a different service. What will be different? The apartment passes inspection — which is the job from lesson 3. What is included? Kitchen and bathroom — so nobody expects the garden shed. Where does it stop? Five days' notice — the limit that lets the business actually keep the promise in a busy month.
The boundary is the part owners leave out, because it feels like putting customers off. It puts off exactly the customers the business would fail.
Another way: table
Neighborhood Kitchen's promise, part by part.
| Part | The words |
|---|---|
| Who | Office teams of 8 to 20 |
| What changes | A hot shared lunch, delivered by 12:15 |
| Included | Plates, cutlery and a vegetarian option |
| Where it stops | Weekdays, within two miles, ordered by 4 pm the day before |
Another way: steps
Neighborhood Kitchen once printed 'lunch by noon or it's free' with no limit on distance. Offices across the river ordered, the traffic did what traffic does, and in a typical week four orders of about 90 dollars each arrived late and were refunded: 360 dollars a week given away by a promise that could not be kept. Adding 'within two miles' cost a few distant orders and cut the late orders to about one a week, 90 dollars: a saving of 270 dollars a week.
So, when drafting, go through the promise line by line and ask of each: does the business control this, every single time? 'Parts up to 40 dollars included' — yes. 'Every repair finished in 24 hours' — no, not when a part has to be ordered. 'Your deposit back, guaranteed' — no: the landlord decides, and a cleaner cannot fix a broken door. Cut what cannot be kept, or bound it until it can. Where a promise becomes a guarantee with money attached, state consumer-protection rules may govern how it must be honored; check the rules for your state.
Start from the segment and the job. The 'who' and the 'what changes' come straight from the earlier lessons: the situation and the progress the customer wants.
List what is included. Everything the price covers, in plain words, so nobody expects more.
Write the boundary. Time, distance, size, notice: whatever limit lets the business keep the promise in its busiest week.
Test each line. Does the business control it, every time? If not, cut it or bound it.
Cost the gaps. For any guarantee, multiply how often it would be broken by what each break gives away.
Check the answer. Read the promise as a customer and ask two questions: is this for me, and could I tell afterwards whether it was kept? If either answer is unclear, a part is missing. And read it as the owner on the worst Friday of the year: could we keep it then?
A boundary looks like a restriction on the customer, but it works for them. A tenant reading 'booked at least five days ahead' knows to book early, and the one who calls with two days' notice hears an honest no instead of a rushed clean that fails the inspection. A café owner reading 'orders of forty sets or more' knows Maya is not set up for small orders and looks elsewhere before wasting a visit.
Promises that can be kept are also the ones customers repeat to friends. 'They said Friday and it was Friday' is the most valuable sentence a small business can have said about it.
An outcome is checkable when the customer can see afterwards whether it happened. 'Passes the inspection', 'ready Friday evening', 'a photo after each walk' all are. 'A sparkling home', 'peace of mind' and 'loving care' are not; they may be true, but nobody can tell.
Where the outcome is a feeling, attach it to something visible. 'Peace of mind' becomes 'the same cleaner every week, with a text when they arrive and leave'. The feeling is still there; now it rests on something the customer can see.
A guarantee puts money behind a promise: 'free if late', 'refund if not satisfied'. It can be a strong reason to buy, because it moves the risk from the customer to the business. It is also a cost, paid every time the promise breaks. Before printing one, estimate how often it will be invoked: late orders a week, failed inspections a month, refunds a quarter. Multiply by what each costs, and compare with the extra sales the guarantee is likely to bring. A guarantee that costs more than it earns is a price cut in disguise.
Before a promise goes on the website, run it past three readers. A customer in the segment: is it for them, and would they know afterwards whether it was kept? The person who does the work: can they keep it on the busiest day of the year? And someone outside the business: does any word sound like a guarantee the business has not meant?
Then keep score. For the first month, record every time the promise was kept and every time it was not. That record becomes the proof in the next lesson, and it shows quickly whether the boundary was drawn in the right place. A promise kept 99 times in 100 may be drawn too cautiously and could be widened; one kept 80 times in 100 needs a tighter boundary or a change in the work.
An offer promise is the headline, but customers meet smaller promises at every step: the time a quote will arrive, the window for a technician, the date a refund will reach their account. Each is a promise in the same sense, and each can be written with the same four parts.
'We'll get back to you soon' becomes 'a written quote by noon the next working day, for jobs inside the city limits'. 'Refunds processed quickly' becomes 'refunds sent within five working days of the return reaching us'. Each rewritten line tells the customer what to expect and gives the business something it can measure.
Small promises kept add up to a reputation for keeping promises, which is what makes the headline believable. Small promises broken, such as a quote that arrives three days late, quietly undo it, however good the main service is. List every promise a customer meets from first call to final payment, and check each against the question from this lesson: does the business control it, every time?
Write promises in the words customers use, not in the business's jargon. 'A clean to inspection standard' means something to a tenant; 'a level-three deep clean' means nothing until it is explained. Short sentences, numbers instead of adjectives, and the boundary in the same sentence as the promise all help. If a customer has to read the promise twice to know whether it covers them, rewrite it until once is enough. A promise that is misunderstood will be broken in the customer's eyes even when the business keeps it to the letter.
A small moving company in Denver advertised 'on time, every time, or your move is free'. In its first summer it gave away 11 moves, at an average of 640 dollars each: over 7,000 dollars, more than the company's profit for the season. Almost every late start came from the same cause: a previous move that morning running long because a customer was not packed.
The owner rewrote the promise in four parts. Who: households moving within the metro area. What changes: their belongings moved without damage, with the crew arriving in a stated two-hour window. Included: blankets, wrapping and the truck. Where it stops: homes fully packed by the night before, and a 100-dollar credit, not a free move, if the crew misses the window.
The next summer the crew missed the window 6 times, costing 600 dollars in credits instead of thousands in free moves. Customers knew to finish packing, which shortened the moves that used to run long. Reviews mentioning 'on time' went up, because the promise was now one the company could keep.
The Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general regularly act against advertising claims that businesses cannot back up, and some states have specific rules for written guarantees. The habit in this lesson keeps an owner on the right side of that line without needing to know every rule: promise only what the business controls, state the limits, and keep the promise checkable.
Claim the best result for everyone. 'The best clean in the city' cannot be checked and is for nobody in particular.
Boundaries put customers off. They put off the customers the business would fail, and protect the ones it serves.
Promise what the customer wants most. Promise what the business controls; a deposit decision belongs to the landlord.
A friendly tone is a promise. 'Friendly, reliable repairs' commits to nothing a customer could check.
Read Dev's first draft.
$\text{fast, friendly bike repairs}$
Nothing checkable, and no customer named.
Name the segment.
$\text{for commuters}$
Who it is for.
Name the outcome.
$\text{your bike ready for Monday}$
The job from lesson 3.
Add what is included.
$\text{parts up to 40 dollars in the quote}$
So nobody expects a new frame.
Add the boundary.
$\text{dropped off by Thursday noon, ready Friday evening}$
Now he can keep it every week.
Count late orders a week without a boundary.
$4$
Across the river, in traffic.
Find the weekly refunds.
$4 \times 90 = 360$
Each late order refunded in full.
Count late orders after 'within two miles'.
$1$
On average.
Find the new weekly refunds.
$1 \times 90 = 90$
Still some, now rare.
Find the weekly saving.
$360 - 90 = 270$
What the boundary saves.
Weigh the orders lost.
$2 \text{ distant orders a week}$
Customers the kitchen could not reliably serve.
Read the draft guarantee.
$\text{your full deposit back, guaranteed}$
The landlord decides the deposit, not the cleaner.
Name what the business does control.
$\text{the cleaning, to a checklist}$
The part of the outcome in its hands.
Rewrite the guarantee around it.
$\text{a free re-clean if the inspection flags our work}$
Keepable every time.
Estimate how often it is invoked.
$2 \text{ of } 40 \text{ move-outs a month}$
From past inspection reports.
Cost a re-clean.
$2 \text{ hours} \times 20 = 40$
Cleaner's time at 20 dollars an hour.
Find the monthly cost.
$2 \times 40 = 80$
Small against the bookings the guarantee wins.
Check the promise as a customer.
$\text{for me? checkable? yes}$
And keepable on the worst week.
Name who it is for.
$\text{shoppers who want the week's vegetables in one stop}$
The segment.
Write what is included and where it stops.
$\text{seven vegetables for two, collected by ten, ordered by Thursday}$
Contents and boundary.
Check that Monica controls each part.
Neighborhood Kitchen has four drafts for the line at the top of its offer. Which one is a promise the business can keep and a customer can check?
Complete the worked solution: a caterer promised 'lunch by noon or it's free'. Without a distance limit, $5$ orders a week arrived late, each refunded at $70$ dollars. After adding 'within two miles', $2$ orders a week were late on average. Find the weekly refunds before and after, and what the boundary saves.
Find the weekly refunds before the boundary.
$(\text{late orders}) \times (\text{refund}) =$ f
What the unbounded promise cost.
Find the weekly refunds after it.
$(\text{late orders}) \times (\text{refund}) =$ s
The same refund, fewer late orders.
Find what the boundary saves each week.
$(\text{before}) - (\text{after}) =$ d
Money no longer given away.
Say what the boundary cost.
$\text{a few distant orders}$
Customers the kitchen could not serve on time anyway.
Maya's promise to cafés reads: 'For cafés opening within three months: tableware that survives commercial dishwashers, $3$ place settings a table, delivered two weeks before opening, orders of forty sets or more.' Match each phrase to the part of the promise it is.
| Who it is for | What will be different | What is included | Where it stops | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| For cafés opening within three months | ||||
| Tableware that survives commercial dishwashers | ||||
| $3$ place settings a table | ||||
| Orders of forty sets or more |
Northside Repairs' new leaflet has four lines. Mark every line that promises something the shop cannot keep every time.
This task has no paper form; do it on a device.
Bright Home Cleaning wrote three drafts, each missing one part of a promise. Match each draft to the part it is missing.
| Who it is for | What will be different | Where it stops | |
|---|---|---|---|
| A deep clean of your kitchen and bathroom, booked five days ahead | |||
| For tenants moving out, booked five days ahead | |||
| For tenants moving out: a clean to inspection standard |
Neighborhood Kitchen promised 'lunch by noon or it's free', with no limit on distance. In a typical week $5$ orders to far-off offices arrive late, each worth $93$ dollars. How many dollars a week does the promise cost in refunds?
Answer:
A heating and air-conditioning company in Phoenix promised 'a technician within four hours or the call-out is free'. In July, $4$ calls a week missed the four hours, each with a $102$-dollar call-out fee given away. Over a four-week month, how many dollars did the promise give away?
Answer:
A dog walker serves owners who work in offices. Which line is the best promise for the offer?
Lesson test: one question per skill, one attempt each, no hints. Your answers are checked when you submit.
A sandwich shop promised 'delivered in 30 minutes or it's free'. Without a delivery area, $6$ orders a week arrived late, each refunded at $104$ dollars. After adding 'within one mile', $1$ were late a week. How many dollars a week does the boundary save in refunds?
Answer:
You can turn 'quality you can trust' into a promise a customer could check, and say what leaving out the boundary costs. Tell someone why a boundary protects customers too. Next: the proof that makes a promise believable.
19. Your turn: Monica's weekly vegetable bag, step 3
$\text{yes: she packs and sets the cutoff}$
A promise she can keep every Saturday.