Ethical High Ticket Coaching

My thoughts on “HIGH TICKET” both selling and buying, and a few considerations that you may not have heard elsewhere in order to do this with integrity.

Transcript

Hey SuperCoach Society! It’s Kylie Ryan. I’ve got a few thoughts that I want to bring through on high ticket programs.

There’s been a lot of ideas that have been floating through my mind around this based on different conversations that I’ve had – and I want to share some insights on selling and buying high ticket programs.

It seems like every single business coach and sales coach out there is talking about, “High ticket, high ticket, high ticket. High ticket is the fastest way to make more money, and get more value, and get better clients, and get wealthier clients.” That type of thing.

To give you some context around my experience with high ticket…

I’ve sold programs from $97 to $30,000 3-month programs to $10,000 a month ongoing private retainer clients. In my time as a business owner, I’ve bought programs from $1000 to $5000 to $25,000. So I’m familiar with both selling and buying high ticket and low ticket.

I find that people who are new to coaching can get some interesting ideas about high ticket based on the kind of sales-based coaches that are out there talking about “you’ve got to sell high ticket and you’ve got to create premium pricing and premium positioning”.

Yes, and you’ve also got to deliver a premium service and an amazing, incredible result.

And so, when we’re talking about high ticket programs, it immediately cuts out a whole class of people and a whole group of people.

I find that lots of transformational coaches and healers want to help people and want to help people that maybe couldn’t afford a high ticket program. And so there’s this kind of weird disconnect of like, “Oh, how do I get wealthier clients?” or “How do I make good money and can deliver a great service?”

So there’s all these kinds of different elements at play.

Here’s some thoughts that might be useful for you.

High ticket is easier to sell when you pitch it and position it correctly and it is matched with the right audience.

The high ticket programs that I’ve sold in the past have been to higher six and seven-figure entrepreneurs and business owners even though I was selling what in sales is called soft products, which is like personal transformation products or things that don’t directly relate to income.

Hard products are things like business coaching or sales coaching where inside the pitch they can say, “Buy this thing for $10,000 and next month you’re going to make $30,000.” So a “make money” offer is called a hard product offer.

I’ve found that high ticket programs are actually easier to sell when you match it to the right audience and you get in front of and you speak to the person who is in financial flow.

If someone is in financial flow and they have money and they’re spending money on things, and you have an offer that delivers a really great service and valuable service to them, it is a much easier enrollment conversation than someone who is struggling with finances and might really desperately want and need your program but doesn’t have the money to afford it.

And so there’s this interesting piece that I find is not talked about at the moment around “sell high ticket” – and that is the match of the cost of the program, the investment of the program, to the person’s capacity. Their capacity, I like to consider it like their annual income, or their annual revenue if they’re a business owner.

I like to think about as a gauge and a guide like 5 to maybe 10 percent of annual income or revenue if you are offering a high ticket program. When you stay under that 10 percent of annual income or revenue, then you’re not overly stressing that person’s nervous system.

The thing I learnt from John Demartini a while back at one of his seminars (and it’s a great little kind of rule of thumb) was that people can handle 10 percent change or fluctuation in any direction, up or down, without having too much nervous system response.

So if you are selling a $5000 program for instance to someone who was employed in some kind of corporate role and they were earning $50,000 to $80,000 a year, or $50,000 to $100,000 a year, that would be a good match of a high ticket program and a high ticket client.

And if that offer is good and it’s valuable and the person sees value in it, they will be able to say yes easily, because it’s within their range and their capacity to actually buy that and invest in that.

And so, my $30,000 programs and my $10,000 a month programs, I only sell them to seven-figure entrepreneurs because it’s like a drop in the ocean for them and it’s an easy yes for them.

I have to have something obviously hugely valuable to offer them – but in order to sell high ticket, it’s more about the match to the audience than your personal self worth. And I think this is a piece that is often missed when we’re talking about high ticket sales.

Here’s the other end of the scale as a buyer of a high ticket program.

There have been times where I’ve bought high ticket programs and it’s been like maybe 40 percent of my income in order to buy that high ticket program.

What I would recommend and be super wary of… because there are plenty of people who will push your trigger buttons and will try to get you to buy a high ticket program when it’s not in your best interest to buy it. Please take the wisdom from my experience of making these choices.

There were times in the past when I was going through transition in business and didn’t know what I was doing and wasn’t making that much, and so I was kind of under financial pressure in business even though my husband and I and my children were kind of fine, we’re not on the bread line.

Even though kind of personally I was stable, my business wasn’t making that much money. And so, there was a level of stress when I bought these high ticket programs that were business-based programs.

What happens in those kinds of sales where someone is being encouraged, coerced, enrolled in a high ticket program that is more than 10 percent of their annual revenue, the person tends to go into a gambler archetype.

It’s like you go into kind of the victim-rescuer-aggressor cycle. You’re feeling victimized because you’re kind of financially under pressure, and look at and see the program or the person running the program as a potential savior and a rescuer.

And so then in order to get out of that victim state, you gamble like buying things on credit.

When you’re buying things and maxing out your credit card, that is not a good decision. I don’t care what any sales trainer tells you about how you can, “Oh, you can make it back next week, you can make it back in a month.”

Yes, some people can – but the vast majority of people, when they buy things on credit and max out their credit cards in order to buy some high ticket program, it puts their nervous system under a level of stress that makes it very difficult to get the results that have been promised.

And so, even if the coach or the trainer has the very best skills and the very best strategies, if you as the person that is buying the program are buying from a gambler mindset of like, “Ooh, I just need to roll the dice and buy this $10,000 program and then I’ll be able to make $30,000 in the next month or whatever,” that’s not going to yield the results that you want 90 percent of the time.

A lot of people that are spiritual healers, that are focused on transformation, that are focused on kind of holistic change, tend to have a fair few unconscious belief systems that actually get in the way of you just being able to implement the strategies and tactics that these types of sales-focused courses encourage you to do.

When you’re selling high ticket or when you’re buying high ticket, really think about:

Is this under 10 percent of my annual revenue? Or is this under 10 percent of my potential client’s (the avatar, the type of person that you’re working with) revenue so that they can make an informed decision?

“Some people do make their investment back, sometimes even 10x the amount in a short period of time – but they haven’t stepped into the identity of what it means to be a wealthy business owner, and then they self-sabotage.”

Exactly. That’s a huge point, Bianca.

They might be able to implement all of the strategies – but if they haven’t done the inner work necessary in order to maintain inner self-image then they won’t be able to maintain that and will self-sabotage.

It’s perfect. Thanks, B. You’ve been by my side in these trials and tribulations of business initiations. I’ve got to get you on. We’ve got to have a co-conversation around sales.

That’s the insight that I think is really useful to be aware of with high ticket.

I’m not saying don’t sell high ticket. I’m not saying you must sell high ticket. I actually think it’s really useful to have a mix of offers if you want to work with different types of people. Because by having some high ticket clients that I’m able to serve at a really high level, it gives me the capacity and the stability in my business to then be able to offer lower ticket offers to people who are just starting out or who may be in a different financial position.

So I think it’s something to be aware of that you can have a huge range – you can have high ticket offers and you can have low ticket offers – and to get clear in your mind about what are the income-producing and profit-producing programs or offers in your business, and what are the philanthropy or giving back type of offers or things that you’re doing in your business.

Conflating profit-producing and philanthropic activities together can be challenging, because in order to run a successful business you do need to take into account tax, and business costs, and software costs, and staffing costs, and all of the different things, and paying yourself for your time and expertise.

You do need to take those things into account.

If you’re going to run a successful coaching business and have longevity in the industry, you need to make a profit. It’s okay to make a profit and it’s okay to sell high ticket. And it doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person, it doesn’t mean that you’re unspiritual.

All of these kind of back of the mind type of beliefs that can get in the way of spiritual people being able to make money or being able to sell high ticket, we can deal with those.

It’s really about a message and offer to market match and an inner positioning to outer positioning.

A lot of times, in order to be able to even show up and make an offer that is a high ticket offer, there’s a lot of internal work that you need to do within yourself to go, “Hey, I have value to offer here.” And obviously you need to be able to back that up and deliver that value.

Be really mindful if someone is telling you that you need to put it all on your credit card.

And I would suggest that when you want to make an investment in your business – and that is a really good thing to do – to get mentorship and support and guidance to help you go faster and to help you overcome obstacles or issues that you might come across, to be able to make that decision from a clear place of like, “Yeah, I’m really excited to move forward here and I know I’m going to get great value. And this decision, this investment, is not putting my business or my nervous system under that ‘I’m terrified, this has got to work out or else’ type of feeling.” 

Particularly these days when there is a lot of uncertainty in the market place and just in the world.

I hope that’s been helpful.

Let me know any comments below, any questions or thoughts that you have around this.

Has there been times that you sold high ticket and found it to be a  great experience?

Has there been times when you bought high ticket and had a great experience?

Has there been times when you bought high ticket and had a not great experience?

Let’s get clear about that so that we can be really clear in when high ticket is appropriate and being able to match the “high ticketness” to the appropriate client and their capacity to invest.

Kylie x

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