Service businesses with delayed LTV can improve immediate cash flow by offering bundled, one-time services (e.g., setup, moving, supplies) at signup. Customers are less sensitive to these initial costs than to higher recurring fees.

The company initially used a one-time payment plan, resulting in low customer lifetime value. Switching to a recurring subscription model, even for a product with natural churn, massively increased revenue and LTV by capturing more value over time from each customer.

For businesses where employee time is a real cost (e.g., doctors, consultants), a free offer can lead to costly no-shows. A small, discounted offer ensures prospects have "skin in the game," dramatically increasing show-up rates to 85-90% and protecting valuable appointment slots.

The business creates two offers: a high-ticket annual prepay ("anchor") and a standard quarterly payment ("core"). Even if only 20% of customers take the anchor, it significantly increases the average cash collected per sale across all customers. This strategy makes the entire acquisition model more profitable without changing the core product.

Businesses often fail by selling a generic category instead of specific experiences. A restaurant doesn't just sell "food"; it sells a bar experience, a tasting menu, and private events. By explicitly defining and selling these offerings upfront, businesses can match customers to value and significantly boost revenue.

Instead of absorbing labor and commission costs, a service business can bundle them into customer-facing "bin" and "initiation" fees. This shifts the financial burden of acquisition to the new customer, allowing the business to collect enough cash upfront to cover all costs and become immediately cash-flow positive on each new sale.

This model focuses on rapid cash conversion by making gross profit from a new customer in the first 30 days exceed twice the cost of acquiring and serving them. This self-funding loop eliminates cash flow as a growth constraint, allowing for aggressive scaling.

This attraction offer replaces free trials. Customers pay a significant amount upfront for a service. If they achieve a predefined goal, they get their money back, often as store credit for future services. This model dramatically improves initial cash flow and incentivizes customer success.

Leveraging its positive cash flow from pre-sold tickets, Alinea offered to prepay its beef supplier for a four-month bulk order. Because this eliminated the supplier's spoilage risk, he dropped the price by nearly 50%. Businesses with float can use prepayments as a powerful negotiating tool to drastically cut COGS.