Black Friday for coaches and consultants: how to sell without discounting

What sitting it out actually protected

For years I thought Black Friday was for candles, creams and 70% off flash sales. It wasn't for someone whose whole business is built on the value of what they know. So I sat it out.

What did that protect? My price, yes. Nobody got a discount. But I didn't get a single new conversation that week either. And January arrived the way it always did, with a quiet diary, a slow start, and me trying to warm up an audience I'd left alone for six weeks.

That was my receipt, and it wasn't a good one.

Your buyers aren't saying no

Think about the people who were genuinely interested in working with you this year. How many of them actually said no? Probably not many. What they said was more like this.

That isn't rejection. It's a decision waiting for a reason to happen. Research in the book The JOLT Effect found that somewhere between 40% and 60% of deals are lost to no decision at all, rather than to a competitor.

The discount was never the point

We've been treating Black Friday as a pricing question. What do I cut? How much do I knock off? Can I afford to? People reach for the discount because it's the most obvious thing to change.

The real opportunity is the deadline. You don't have to invent it or justify it, and nobody thinks you made it up. A deadline doesn't need a discount to work. It needs something worth deciding on.

Step out of that week and you aren't protecting your expertise. You're handing every "not yet" in your pipeline over to January and hoping they remember you. Most won't, and that isn't because you weren't good enough. Someone else gave them a reason to decide first.

So the question changes. You stop asking "what can I sell cheaper?" and start asking "what's the easiest first step someone could take to start working with me?" That's a pipeline question, and you can answer it without touching your rates.

Price Cutter or Pipeline Builder

Same day, same buyer, completely different results.

Watch the full breakdownBlack Friday for Coaches and Consultants: How to Sell Without Discounting

Your Black Friday offer is a door opener, not the whole house

You're not putting your signature offer on sale. You're creating a way in, something smaller, faster and low risk that lets someone experience how you work before they commit to the bigger thing. Buyers don't always choose the best expert. They choose the safest choice, and a door opener makes choosing you feel safe.

The three-question test

Think about what you were planning to put out this Black Friday, even if it's just an idea, and answer these honestly.

"20% off my three-month programme" fails all three. A 90-minute pipeline audit with a written 30-day plan, which leads straight into a longer programme, passes all three. If yours didn't pass, you don't have a door opener yet. You have a discount, and that's fixable.

Four ways to make it compelling without touching your price

1. Add a bonus. Not something random from your digital shelf. Find something that makes your main offer work even better.
2. Bundle. Put two things together that make more sense as a pair, like an audit plus a resource that helps them act on it.
3. Reward fast action. A better price or extra bonuses for people who decide by a specific date.
4. Position it as the first step. Make it really clear where this leads. People will happily pay for the first step when they can see the path after it.

The experts who do well in November start in October

The mistake I see time and again is waking up on the Monday of Black Friday week and asking "what can I sell?" By then it's too late. Nobody buys from you the first time they see an offer, especially when you're an expert selling to other professionals. They need to have heard you talk about the problem, seen some proof, and had a few reminders.

So start now. Talk about the problem your door opener solves, share proof that you solve it, then open the offer for Black Friday week and follow up afterwards. The people on your "not yet" list should hear about it before anyone else.

The prompts

Copy these into ChatGPT, Claude or another AI tool. Swap anything in [square brackets] for your own details.

Below are messages, emails and notes from conversations with potential clients this year. Find every person who was genuinely interested but delayed, using phrases like "in the new year", "after Christmas", "once things calm down", "when the budget frees up" or "not the right time".

For each one, list:
- their name
- what they were interested in
- the reason they gave for waiting, in their words
- roughly when they said it

Leave out people who simply stopped replying. Don't guess at anything that isn't in the material.

[Paste messages and notes here, with anything confidential removed]

I'm a [what you do] and I help [who you help] with [what you help with]. My main offer is [your main offer and roughly what it costs].

Suggest five door-opener offers I could run for Black Friday without discounting my main offer. Each one should:
- be something people can say yes to without a call first
- solve one specific problem in a single session or within two weeks
- lead naturally into my main offer

For each idea, give it a plain name, say what's included, and explain how it leads into my main offer. Don't suggest discounts.

Here's my Black Friday offer idea: [describe it]. My main offer is [describe it].

Be honest and answer three questions about it:
1. Could someone say yes without needing a call first? Why or why not?
2. Does it solve one specific problem fast?
3. When they finish, is my main offer the obvious next step?

If it fails any of them, suggest the smallest change that would make it pass.

My Black Friday door-opener offer is [describe it], priced at [price]. I don't want to discount it.

Give me two ideas for each of these:
- a bonus that makes the offer work better (not unrelated extras)
- a bundle of two things that make sense as a pair
- a fast-action reward for people who decide by a specific date
- a way to show clearly that this is the first step towards [your main offer]

Keep every idea realistic for me to deliver in late November as a [solo expert / small team].

Questions people ask

What to do next

Write your "not yet" list today and run your idea through the three-question test. Then pick whichever of these fits.

Contacting your “not yet” list? Watch this firstWhat to Say When a Lead Goes Quiet