Stash Wealth wanted our $30,000 brand and website package. We'd pitched it months before, and it was a hefty price tag for a new business. So I went back to them with a different offer: the same project for $5,000, in two days instead of four months, if they were willing to basically trust us and make decisions on the spot.
They gave us an emphatic yes. By 6pm on day two, they were amazed that the entire project was done.
That wasn't a VIP day, even though our Brandups started out as VIP days. A VIP day sells access to an expert for a day. You're still selling your time, which puts a ceiling on what you can charge. An Intensive sells a defined outcome, with the work concentrated into a short period. In my system they are two different offers with two different jobs. The Intensive is the main offer. The VIP day stays in my back pocket.
Our first Brandups were VIP days
At first, our Brandups functioned like VIP days. We were essentially hired for a day of focused work. I told the clients upfront that they would get as much as we could design in one day, and that the faster they made decisions and approved work, the more they'd get out of the day.
We set expectations somewhere in the middle, a logo and a homepage, but most clients got much more. That promise of extra deliverables meant that most of our first clients had no changes to any of the work because they all wanted as much as they could get.
That was our $3,000 1-Day Brandup.
What changed
When we started offering Brandups to prospects who had originally received a proposal for a $30,000 full branding project, which was much more than we could deliver in a 1-day VIP-style engagement, we began to shift how we saw it. These were more robust projects, and we didn't want to give them less than they needed.
Stash Wealth was our first Brandup with this new thinking. I knew I wasn't going to feel comfortable ending the Brandup on day two without completely finishing it. It couldn't really be an abbreviated version of the big project we originally pitched; it needed to be our best work to prove the model, just delivered in two days instead of four months.
We couldn't leave it to chance.
Steve had always done some prep work beforehand for our VIP days, but those VIP days were meant to be only a day of work. For this Brandup, we prepared more heavily. I wrote all the website copy ahead of time, and Steve followed his full process, as he would for any "normal" client.
It worked, and that $5,000 was where we started, not where we stayed.
The difference, side by side
Here is what changed between the two.
What the client buys. VIP day: a single focused day, and what can be executed in it. Intensive: the whole project, finished.
Where the work happens. VIP day: on the day. Intensive: often, substantially before the live client session (more on that below).
What comes first. An Intensive always starts with the Lead Product, which defines what success actually looks like for the client.
How it's priced. A VIP day or day rate is still a time-for-money model, and there's a hard cap on what you can charge for it. Intensives start with value-based package pricing, not deliverables.
When it's offered. The Intensive is what you sell. The VIP day is offered only after a client has said no to the full package because of budget.
How preparation works
In many Intensives, substantial work happens before the live client session. Sometimes nearly all the production work is completed beforehand, and the session is used to present, collaborate, make decisions and finalize.
For coaches and consultants, some preparation may consist of repeatable frameworks, materials or exercises that are developed once and reused across clients.
This is not a universal requirement that every Intensive must have the same preparation schedule. It's a feature of deliberately designing the delivery process.
Where a VIP day still fits
When a client doesn't move forward after the Lead Product, consider it a "not right now" instead of a "no." We can bring some of them back to life with a back-pocket offer.
The VIP day is a tool for the client who genuinely wanted to work with you, went through the Lead Product, saw the value, and couldn't get to the number. Instead of letting that relationship go cold, you can come back with something smaller, more bounded, and within their reach.
It's a single focused day with you: boundaried, specific, and priced below your smallest package.
This is not an offer on your website. You never lead with it. Most of the time you don't mention it at all. Wait until they've officially said no due to budget. Then come back a few days or weeks later, in a conversation, and offer what you can execute in one day at a price they can afford.
It can also be useful for re-engaging old qualified leads.
It's not a discount. It's not a consolation prize. It's a genuine way to help someone move from A to B at a budget they can actually afford, while keeping the relationship alive for a bigger engagement down the road.
Not every lost client is a VIP day candidate. Use your judgment.
An Intensive doesn't have to be one day
The purpose of the Intensive is not to do it faster; it's to do it more intensively to shorten the timeline. The quality of the output should be the same or better than what you would do in a traditional process.
For other businesses, the structure of an Intensive can vary. It might be a few Intensives spread out over a week or two. It might even be a few Intensives that deliver phases of the project, with a month or months in between.
Start here
If a VIP day is the first thing on your website, ask whether it's really your main offer or your back-pocket one. Then decide what the main offer is, and what a client has in their hands at the end of it.
How the model works is on the Intensives page.
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