Ep 83: How to Design an Offer People Actually Finish with Lauren Dewey
The first time I changed my client experience and watched the money change with it, I was a photographer charging $75 for a session and handing families a CD of their images. The photos were delivered, but the client was left with a plastic disc sitting in a drawer. You cannot hang a CD on the wall, and most people never did anything with it.
Then I learned in-person selling. I sat with clients, showed them their images, let them compare print sizes, and helped them picture those photographs in their homes. My next client wrote me a check for $2,700. The money got my attention, but the deeper lesson stayed with me: people were far more connected to the work when I helped them understand it, see the possibilities, and decide what came next.
That lesson applies to almost every service business. Your clients are learning from you, even when you have never called your work curriculum.
Every Service Provider Is Teaching
A copywriter teaches a client how to make messaging decisions. A web designer asks a client to understand how their buyers move through a site. A systems strategist changes the way a business owner thinks about delivery, delegation, and capacity. Coaches and consultants ask clients to examine beliefs, try new behaviors, and make decisions with information they did not have before.
Client experience includes learning design. Sending the right information is only one piece. The client also needs to understand why it matters and apply it to their own business, with enough time to see what happened after they used it.
Lauren Dewey calls this "main character energy" in adult learning. The client needs to recognize what matters to them right now. When the material feels disconnected from the problem they came to solve, attention drops and the work becomes another tab they swear they will return to later.
Make the Next Step Obvious
Before I rebuilt the learning platform for Sold Out Services, the curriculum lived inside ThriveCart. I had modules, lessons, support tickets, and milestone submissions. I used emojis to mark required work and tried to arrange everything in the right order, yet people still skipped lessons, submitted work before they were ready, and came to calls asking what to do next.
I could have blamed them for failing to follow the directions. That would have been lazy. Their behavior was telling me the structure was asking them to make too many decisions.
The rebuilt dashboard answers the question in their own language: "Here's what to do next." The lesson appears when they need the lesson. After they finish it, the related form becomes the next step. Weekly check-ins and office hours show up when those are the priority. The path is visible at a glance, which means our live calls can go deeper because I am no longer repeating basic instructions.
A prerequisite also has a different job from content released on a timer. I do not want to micromanage capable adults, and I hate being held back inside a program when I am ready to work. I also know that some business decisions require evidence that takes time to collect. Inside SOS, clients may move through the material with more freedom, while each 90-day pillar still gets the time required for implementation and review.
Give Adults More Than One Way In
I have a personal vendetta against the two-hour replay that contains seven useful minutes. Every recorded lesson inside SOS stays under ten minutes, and most are closer to seven. A few slides are included when seeing the idea matters. Clients can watch the video, listen while they walk, download the transcript, or skim a written version with headers and key points.
Lauren connected this to Universal Design for Learning. The goal is to provide several ways to take in the same material. Fixed "learning style" categories do a poor job of describing how adults use information. People have preferences, schedules, access needs, and different levels of energy on any given day. A client may watch one lesson at a desk and listen to the next one in the school pickup line.
The information stays consistent while the method of access changes. That makes the service easier to use, and it keeps me from creating separate versions of every lesson for imaginary categories of learners.
Collect Data You Will Use
The new SOS platform also collects information throughout the year. I can see each client's starting monthly revenue and average client value, then compare those numbers with their current submissions. Weekly forms include questions tied to the lesson they completed, along with the recurring measures I care about.
That baseline matters. I cannot claim the program helped increase a number when I never recorded where the client began. I also cannot improve the program when my only evidence is whether people seemed happy on a call.
Quantitative data tells me what changed. Qualitative feedback tells me how the experience felt, where clients hesitated, and which parts helped the work land. I need both, and I want clients to see more of the anonymous group data as the program continues. Their submissions should help them assess their own choices and feed a client-facing view that is useful to them.
Cut What Does Not Serve the Result
Service providers have a hard time removing material because our expertise is wrapped up in it. We remember how long it took to learn something, so we assume every client needs the full history lesson. We keep manual tasks because we are good at them. We hold onto deliverables because removing one can feel too close to removing part of our value.
I used my DEAD Framework to simplify SOS: ditch, engineer, assign, or downsize. The program went from a seven-part methodology to four parts, and each lesson now has to earn its place. The results I care about are higher average client value and higher monthly recurring revenue. Everything I teach or request from a client has to support those outcomes.
Lauren asks a similar question in her work: What is the bare minimum the client needs to know? That question can bruise the ego, but it protects the client from a pile of content that exists because the expert enjoyed making it.
The same principle applies to delivery. My clients care far more about a process that moves and a clear assignment that tells them where to focus. I had to practice this with my own VA when she drafted a podcast carousel I had refused to hand off. I read it and had no notes. Letting her own that task stung for about thirty seconds, then I got to see what capable support looks like when I stop insisting that my fingerprints belong on everything.
Your client experience should help people use your expertise to make informed decisions, then keep moving after the call ends. That requires fewer assumptions from you and better evidence from them.
Listen to the full episode for Lauren's take on adult learning and lesson pacing, including the questions that reveal whether a client is ready to move forward. Active Sold Out Services clients by August 25, 2026 will also get access to our live workshop, where we will apply these ideas to specific service businesses and client workflows.
Chapters
00:01 Meeting Lauren and building through collaboration
03:04 The photography experience that changed how I sell
07:05 Why information has to be digested to create change
09:51 Should lessons be locked or immediately available?
18:41 Why I built a custom Sold Out Services platform
21:18 What changed when I stopped using a course platform
25:34 How stronger curriculum creates deeper client calls
27:07 Designing content for different learning preferences
29:47 Tracking client results with live data
35:22 How I decide what content belongs in the program
37:28 Killing my darlings and simplifying the methodology
40:57 Why experts struggle to remove themselves from delivery
45:52 The unexpected challenge of rebuilding Sold Out Services
50:25 Applying learning design to your service
Resources and Links
Universal Design for Learning Guidelines: Lauren referenced UDL as a way to provide several ways into the same material. CAST publishes the current guidelines and practice resources.
Airtable: Emylee uses Airtable as the database behind the custom Sold Out Services platform and its client data.
ThriveCart Learn: Mentioned as the prior course-style home for the SOS curriculum.
ClickUp: Lauren described it as the main home for her business tasks and information.
Trello: Emylee mentioned moving captured notes into Trello or Airtable.
Slack: Used for the SOS client community, requests, and program conversation.
Loom: Mentioned as the prior method for milestone feedback.
Riverside: Mentioned in Emylee's podcast production workflow.
About the Guest
Lauren Dewey is a learning specialist and curriculum developer who helps coaches and consultants turn their 1:1 methods into curriculum-based offers. Through Lauren Dewey Co., she applies adult learning theory, learning science, and curriculum design to business programs. She holds a Master's in Education and has spent nearly a decade in academic development.
Connect with Lauren Dewey
Website:Lauren Dewey Co.
Instagram:@laurendewey.co
LinkedIn:Lauren Dewey
Other relevant official profile:Workshopping on Substack
Ready to Restructure and Productize Your Service?
Inside Sold Out Services, I help service providers examine who each offer serves, what happens after someone buys, and where qualified clients are being left without a clear next step.
You do not need to create an entirely new business every time you reach capacity.
There may be more revenue, impact, and long-term client value hiding inside the client relationships you have already built.
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