Prioritize Winning Offerings

Double down on what wins. Cut what drains.

What this recipe is for

Deciding which products or services deserve more investment and which are distracting or unprofitable—so your limited time, marketing, and operations back the right bets.

What you’ll get

A ranked view of all offerings by profitability, growth potential, and effort

Clear cut/keep criteria

Actionable next moves: grow winners, fix or retire losers

A framework to simplify your portfolio without sacrificing revenue

Key inputs

Revenue and volume per offering

Gross and net margin per offering

Customer acquisition cost attribution (if available)

Repeat/attach rates (how often customers buy multiple offerings)

Operational complexity or delivery overhead

Strategic fit (brand alignment, future roadmap)

Core logic

Not all revenue is equal. Some offerings consume disproportionate resources for low profit or growth potential. Winners contribute strong margin, scale easily, and align with your strategic direction. Losers mask opportunity cost and create noise. Focus means reallocating attention and capital to highest-return offers while pruning the rest.

Step-by-step actions

Step 1: List and measure every offering

Create a simple table: revenue, margin, customer count, acquisition cost, delivery complexity, repeat behavior.

Step 2: Score each offering on three axes

Profitability: Real profit after direct costs.

Demand / Velocity: Sales volume trend and repeat.

Operational weight: How much effort or risk it takes to deliver.

Step 3: Map into quadrants (or priority buckets)

Stars: High profit, high demand, low complexity → double down.

Fixables: Low demand but high margin or vice versa → test tweaks (reposition, bundle, simplify).

Drains: Low profit, low demand, high effort → retire or de-prioritize.

Strategic bets: High complexity but high potential → validate with small tests before full commitment.

Step 4: Allocate resources accordingly

Invest marketing, pricing focus, and simplification effort into “Stars.”

Run rapid experiments on “Fixables” with clear success criteria.

Pause or sunset “Drains”; communicate transitions if needed.

Stage validation for “Strategic bets” before larger scale.

Step 5: Build a review cadence

Reassess quarterly: market shifts, cost changes, and internal process improvements can move offerings between buckets.

Decision thresholds / guardrails

“Drain” offerings consuming >20% of effort but delivering <10% of profit → Cut or simplify immediately.

“Star” offerings not getting proportional investment → Reallocate budget/time to amplify.

Fixables failing improvement tests within defined time (e.g., 30 days) → Stop optimizing; either cut or reposition.

Strategic bets without early signal of traction after pilot → Pause further investment and reassess assumptions.

Examples

E-commerce: A low-margin accessory sells steadily but ties up customer support—move it to “Drain” and replace with a higher-margin bundle.

Agency/service: A niche service has high effort and low repeat—sunset it and focus on the core package that drives referrals.

SaaS: A legacy feature brings users but costs maintenance; bundle it with a higher-tier offering or retire it to simplify the product.

Thinking checks

Which offerings earn the most profit per unit of effort?

Are we still supporting low-return products out of habit or “nice to have”?

Have we clearly defined what success looks like for “Fixables”?

Is resource allocation matched to the current priority map?

If the answer is no…

You’re spreading attention too thin—pick the top 1–2 “Star” offerings and double down.

Hidden costs in delivery are turning winners into losers—simplify or systematize.

Experiments on “Fixables” lack structure—define hypotheses, tests, and success criteria.

What to track (minimum)

Revenue and margin per offering

Effort/time spent per offering

Repeat rate or attachment across offerings

ROI on marketing/optimization spend by offering

Movement between priority buckets over time