Pricing Strategy: High-ticket Offers vs. Low Ticket Offers & The Benefits of Each
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Listen to Previous Episodes with Gwen Tinsley:
109: The Psychology of Selling ft. My Personal Sales Coach, Gwen Tinsley
Have you ever considered the profound impact that choosing between high-ticket and low-ticket business models could have on your entrepreneurial journey? From the elevated profit margins and personalized client relationships of high-ticket models like one-on-one coaching to the broad scalability and accessibility of low-ticket offerings such as digital courses, Victoria dissects the advantages and challenges each model presents. Drawing from her own experiences with BrandWell, she illuminates how aligning your business approach with your personal lifestyle and market demands can play a pivotal role in your success.
Discover how low-ticket offers can serve as a gateway for clients to engage with higher-value services, despite the inherent challenges of maintaining personal connection and brand development. With real-world examples, including the inspiring journey of Sarah Blakely and Spanx, Victoria delves into the nuances of strategically pricing your offerings and committing to client success, regardless of the ticket size.
Lastly, she reflects on the importance of being true to oneself when deciding between high and low-ticket strategies. Aligning your business model with your personality and lifestyle can be key, especially as life stages shift and priorities evolve. Whether you favor the personal fulfillment of high-touch client interactions or crave the flexibility and reach of low-ticket scalability, this episode offers valuable insights to guide you through these strategic choices. Tune in to gain fresh perspectives on shaping a business model that resonates with your unique entrepreneurial spirit.
High-Ticket or Low-Ticket Offers, What’s the Difference? [01:03]
High-ticket equals higher price tag, lower-ticket equals lower price tag. Whether you choose the high-ticket route or the low-ticket route, the choice can not only impact your revenue, but also how you spend your time, how you connect with your clients, and it can shape your entire brand.
High-ticket often means high touch. This is where you charge a premium price and you deliver a lot of value through a personalized and usually a very hands-on experience. Think, one-on-one coaching, custom web design, interior design, boutique bookkeeping services, etc. This is a done-for-you experience or a comprehensive, high-end group program. This type of offer tends to be very customized, very detailed, and very relationship driven.
Low-ticket offers are usually low touch. This is something that you’d sell higher volumes of. With this option, you charge a lower price point and you focus on reaching as many people as possible, it’s all about accessibility and scalability. This could look like a digital course, a membership, a downloadable product, or even just a low cost service that, for the most part, could be automated. The goal with low-ticket offers is to bring in large volume of customers with less one-on-one interactions. (higher volume, lower touch)
Pros of High-Ticket Offers [03:49]
The obvious pro of having a High-Ticket offer would be higher revenue per client, which means you typically have much better profit margins. This is why a lot of people want to switch from low-ticket to high-ticket. With high-ticket offers you need fewer clients to reach your revenue goals, so this approach can give you a little bit more control over time, since you’re not chasing volume. Another pro about High-Ticket offers, one that Victoria personally loves, is that it’s usually associated with deep impact and strong relationships. High touch services allow you to go deeper and to just build more meaningful connections with people. Another thing that Victoria loves about the High-Ticket route is the way you get to position your brand. With a premium price point, you can position yourself as a high value provider and this, of course, has so many benefits like enhancing your credibility, impacting the way that you’re perceived by your audience, and probably the most important factor is that clients will want to invest more. They are often committed more to the process, which often leads to better results.
Things to Consider with High-Ticket Offers [08:01]
Having a High-Ticket offer has it’s drawbacks and here are a few things to consider before deciding you want to have high-ticket offers. The first thing is the amount of time and energy that it will require of you. High touch means that you’re personally involved and if not you, then usually a team that you’ll have to hire, train, and pay for. This is time consuming and you will spend more hours per client when you do this route and it can be draining if you have a full roster. This is why a lot of companies with high-ticket offers end up with waitlists, because there comes a point where you’re capped and you’re faced with the choice of either hiring, raising your prices, or putting people on a waitlist. So high-ticket, high touch, offers require a lot more time and energy, even if you build out a team. Another drawback, that not everyone considers when deciding to have a high-ticket offer, is the fact that it’s harder to sell. Selling at a higher price point is, of course, harder than selling at a lesser price point. High ticket sales require more trust building. They require better branding, better marketing in order to close the sale. If you’re new to sales or uncomfortable with high-ticket pricing, this is going to be a challenge for you. But just because it requires more touch points and it’s a little harder, it doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to close as many sales, it just means that it’s going to take more effort and more intentionality. Gwen Tinsley, Victoria’s sales coach, has been on this podcast a few times and we have linked the episodes above, but if you’re currently in this boat of wanting to raise your prices but you’re terrified to sell at this new price point, you need to listen to them. There are ways to get over this hump and make selling feel easy again and again. Of course, having a strong brand and a good website will help you as well. The third drawback or thing to consider with high-ticket offers is that it’s usually harder to scale high-ticket offers than low-ticket offers. You’re limited by your own time. Scaling pretty much always requires hiring a big team, which introduces additional expenses and complexities, so that is something to consider as well.
Pros of Low-Ticket Offers [12:50]
Low-Ticket offers are low touch offers and can be sold in larger quantities. The biggest perk of the low-ticket, high volume model is that you can serve hundreds or thousands of people without needing to directly interact with each customer. This is why you see a lot of people who have high-ticket offers also going to create a low-ticket offer. Once they’ve made it with their high-ticket offer, and they’re looking for a scalability component, it usually involves creating a low ticket offer too. The second pro of having a low-ticket offer is that it’s a lower barrier to entry for clients. Low-ticket prices mean that more people can afford your stuff so it’s easier to reach a wider audience. If you want to create a big impact and reach as many people as possible, low-ticket is the way to go. This is part of why Victoria created The Branding Business School. It allowed her to have a lower-ticket offer in her product suite, made it possible for her to serve more people and give more people advice on building strong brands, and it was also a stepping stone into one of her higher-ticket offers in the future. Low-ticket offers can be great in the fact that it allows you to meet people a little earlier on in their journey and almost prep them for your high-ticket offer, or even make them better clients for your high-ticket offer. The third pro to low-ticket offers is that it’s simply less dependent on you. If the offer is more automated, it allows you to take a bit of a step back and have more flexibility in your business, and this model can be ideal if you are balancing other priorities and don’t want to always be “on” with your clients.
Things to Consider with Low-Ticket Offers [17:18]
Lower-Ticket means that you’re going to need to have higher volume in order to be successful, because your profit margin is likely a lot smaller. This is where paid advertising comes into play because you have to get a lot of customers and it can be hard to get your offer in front of that many people organically. Low touch offers mean that you have less interaction with your customers and that can make it a little bit harder to connect with your audience and really understand their specific needs and therefore create a top tier brand. Without having the interaction with your customers it can be harder to understand their problems and how you can help them solve them, and therefore it will dilute your brand. This can make it harder branching into the higher ticket space without first getting that solid understanding of your target audience. Another thing to consider is that low-ticket offers typically come with lower commitment clients. Clients who pay less may not be as invested in completing the program or implementing what they’ve learned, and this leads to lower success rates. To spend money and not see a result from it is frustrating, and that’s why The Branding Business School, while it is the lowest ticket offer BrandWell has to offer, it’s still bordering on the high-ticket side compared to other courses out there. Victoria knew that if she offered the course for $49.99, a lot of people would buy it, but few would take it. She didn’t want people to invest in BrandWell to not get results, she wanted them to get a win and ideally, a quick win. Which is why The Branding Business School is also strategically created to only give you the information you need and nothing else. The course can be completed in one to two weeks, because many won’t commit themselves to a self-paced course that takes them six months to complete. There is so much strategy that goes into pricing, even a low-ticket offer, and Victoria encourages you to use a lot of strategy as well when pricing your offers because it does impact the results.
How Your Season of Life Factors into High or Low-Ticket Offers [24:13]
Ask yourself, where am I at right now? Am I juggling a lot? Am I a new parent? A caretaker? Am I managing multiple priorities? If this is the case, you may want a model that gives you a bit more flexibility, and that usually comes with a low-touch, high-volume model. If you’re in a crazy busy season of life, or if you’re a side hustler, you may want to start creating low-ticket offers that you create once, but you can sell over and over again to help build higher ticket offers off of. On the other hand, if you’re in a season where you can dedicate a ton of time and really show up for your clients, and you’re excited about creating those experiences for them, then a high-ticket offer is the way to go.
For Victoria, she started BrandWell in a season of life where she was able to dedicate time and energy into curating the experiences for her clients. Now, she has an incredible team that allows her to still do this high touch experience for her clients, but at the same time, she is in a crazy busy season of life. Victoria has a two year old, a four year old, 10 people on her team, she owns a home, she’s married, and there’s just a lot of things or people that need her and at times it can feel overwhelming. Of course, there’s absolutely nothing that she would change about it all, but this just goes to show that being mindful of the season that you’re in when deciding between these business models. Don’t let external pressures from various content you’re seeing, sway you into something that’s not right for you in this particular season. If you’re in a season that’s better suited for a low-ticket offer, you can still have a high-ticket offer someday, and if you’re in a season with a high-ticket offer, you can always create lower ticket offers in the future!
Factor in Your Personality when Deciding Between High or Low-Ticket Offers [28:46]
If you thrive on personal interaction and connection, if you love to build relationships and work closely with clients, high ticket work is going to feel really fulfilling to you. Whereas low-ticket offers are mass produced or one and done, and that may not fill up your cup in the way that it needs to be filled for you.One of Victoria’s favorite things about her job is curating an experience for her clients and it’s easier and more affordable to do this when the profit margin is there and you have some money built into the process to really create that exceptional experience. It’s harder to create these exceptional, memorable experiences with low-ticket offers because there’s simply not enough time or profit margin.
Answer the Following Questions to Know How to Price Your Offers [32:41]
Before getting to the questions, remember that there is no one size fits all answer. Some entrepreneurs thrive with a mix of both a high-ticket option for those seeking premium support and a low-ticket offer to serve a wider audience. It’s all about finding what’s best for you, both now and in the future. No decision is final, you can always evolve your business as your life and preferences change. So, when it comes down to deciding which route to take, ask yourself these three questions:
What kind of impact do you want to make? If you’re looking for deep transformation, you’re going to lean towards high-ticket. If you’re focused on accessibility and reaching as many people as possible, you’re going to lean towards low-ticket.
What feels sustainable to you right now? High touch models can be incredibly rewarding, but they’re also incredibly demanding. Think about what kind of time and energy you can realistically commit to your clients and business. And if not, are you willing to hire a team?
How do you want to feel in your business? Are you energized by helping more clients at once, or do you find satisfaction going really deep with just a few?
Key Quotes
“If I outsource everything to the point where I don't feel connection anymore, I lose fulfillment in my job and that's a good reminder for me that my personality is better suited for a high ticket offer.”
Victoria Marcouillier
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