Concept, Audience, Offer, Sales
The four stages everyone gets stuck in — and the LAPS rhythm that measures them
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 7
- Confidence
- 96%
Priestley's map of the entrepreneurial journey out of chaos. The first four stages are where everyone gets caught: Concept (validated, aligned, other people excited about it), Audience (waiting lists, dinner parties, scorecards, quizzes, discussion groups), Offer (a packaged-up thing the audience can actually buy), and Sales (predictably and reliably closing interested parties). To make sales repeatable rather than lucky, he installs the rhythm of LAPS — Leads, Appointments, Presentations, Sales — measured as a pipeline every single week. Getting these four right, he says, should get you into six figures of revenue on its own. Beyond that comes team building, then digitising everything of value to raise revenue per person before adding headcount.
Origin
Distilled from Priestley's accelerator, where roughly 4,500 companies have gone through the process and the stall points are visible at scale.
Core principles
- 01Concept, audience, offer, sales alone should reach six figures of revenue.
- 02An offer is only real when the audience can act on it and buy.
- 03Measure LAPS weekly — leads, appointments, presentations, sales.
- 04Stop calling yourself an entrepreneur and start calling yourself a salesperson.
- 05Digitise value to raise revenue per person before adding more people.
How to run it
- 1
Concept
Develop and validate the concept until it's good, you're aligned to it, you've run experiments, and other people are excited about it.
- 2
Audience
Engage an audience using waiting lists, dinner parties, scorecards, quizzes and discussion groups.
- 3
Offer
Construct a packaged-up offering so the audience has something concrete to act on and buy.
- 4
Sales
Talk to interested parties and close deals predictably and reliably, measuring the LAPS pipeline — leads, appointments, presentations, sales — every week.
Pro tip In the first couple of years you are the chief salesperson; if you can't sell it, nobody is going to sell it.
Watch out Being uncomfortable with selling is common and fatal — it's the actual job of an early-stage entrepreneur.
- 5
Build the core team of eight
Establish a key person of influence with a personal brand to embody the company, and build eight people around them across GM, marketing and sales, finance and admin, IT, media and operations.
Pro tip The key person of influence's job is to engage bigger and bigger audiences — stages, pitches, content, joint ventures.
- 6
Digitise everything of value
At about eight people, formalise IP, brand, culture, CRM, governance and online marketing and sales systems, converting relationships and knowledge into assets.
- 7
Raise revenue per person before adding people
Track revenue divided by headcount and add assets until it rises; only then add people, because assets multiplied by people is what compounds.
Pro tip Ten people at £100,000 each is £1M; get to £1.3M with the same ten and you've earned the right to hire.
Watch out Adding headcount before revenue per person is rising just multiplies an unimproved system.
In the wild
A ten-person business doing £1 million is at £100,000 per person; adding digital assets lifts it to £1.1M, £1.2M, £1.3M — £130,000 per person.
→ Once revenue per person is climbing, adding people multiplies a working system rather than diluting a broken one.
Priestley adores the first £2 million and becomes pathologically distracted past it; Glen Carlson, who now leads Dent Global, turned out to be phenomenal at the £2M-to-£20M jump and at weeding 15 great candidates down to one.
→ Recognising which stage you're built for lets you hand over rather than stall the business at your ceiling.
Common mistakes
Skipping audience to build an offer
Without an engaged audience there is nobody to act on the offer, so the offer stage produces a product nobody sees.
Refusing to be the salesperson
Lots of people are uncomfortable with selling, but in the first couple of years the founder is the chief salesperson and nobody else will do it.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founders stuck below six figures who can't tell which stage is actually blocking them.
Not ideal for
Capital-intensive ventures where the concept can't be validated without heavy build.
From the transcript
“The first four stages where everyone gets caught is called chaos, concept, audience, offer, sales.”
“for sales we establish something called a rhythm of laps, leads, appointments, presentations, and sales and we measure our pipeline every week”
“You got to stop calling yourself an entrepreneur and start calling yourself a salesperson.”
From the episode
The Money Making Expert: The Exact Formula For Turning $100 Into $100k Per Month! 10x Your Income Without Working Harder! The Waiting List Hack That Will Make You Millions!
Daniel Priestley