Today we're going to dive into quite a big fear that comes up for a lot of my clients. And that is Especially when they're looking out in the world, looking at competitors, which is how could I possibly justify charging high ticket prices for my program?
When there are competitors out there who are selling their products and services. A lot cheaper than I am. Maybe they are offering cheap courses or digital downloads, or even their coaching program is pretty cheap, pretty accessible. How could I possibly in a world of 14 a month memberships and 97 courses, how could I possibly charge 1, 000, 2, 000, 3, 000 for a coaching program, especially when I'm starting out?
And this is a really valid question, especially because I know looking at competitors can be so triggering because our brains are wired to see all of the things that they have that we don't have. So we will look at them and we will see all of their strengths and are killing it and look at their audience numbers and they're doing this so well and I don't know how to do that yet.
And so if I'm comparing it to me, I feel like I'm not good enough compared to them and they're cheaper. Like, how is this ever going to add up? I get it. I get it. I get it. So let's break this down.
[00:02:13] The Power of Premium Pricing
Why do I recommend that you offer your core signature scalable coaching program at a really comfortable price point, a premium price point, right?
That 1, range, honestly, it comes back to deciding to. Within any market, there is a market positioning for everything. Think about shampoo. You've got 2 bargain bin shampoos, you've got 50 Olaplex, you've got everything in between, you've got scientifically driven, developed by dermatologists, and it's going to be 300 for your shampoo and conditioner set, and everything in between, right?
In every market, even though the outcome is, I'll clean your hair. There are different types of positioning within that market. Same thing for handbags. A handbag carries things. You can get a 10 handbag, you can get a 100, 000 handbag. Same thing for Badass Your Resume. When I had Badass Your Resume, as a course, it's now been folded up into Badass Your Brand, which is Resume, Cover Letter, and LinkedIn, but Badass Your Resume was 200 US.
And it was a course on how to write a resume. Do you know how many free tools there are out there to build your resume for you? And yet, people, thousands of people, have paid me 200 US dollars to learn how to write a resume.
[00:03:48] Understanding Market Positioning
My point is, within a market, there's going to be everything from free to cheap to premium to absolute crazy luxury.
You might as well choose to position yourself as a premium. Now you need to back it up and we'll talk about that, but you might as well choose to be premium because it's easier and more profitable. You need less people to be able to make good money. And honestly, this might surprise you, but it's actually a lot easier to sell.
So it was a lot easier for me to sell the career glow up, which was 2, 500 USD than it is to sell cheap self study courses. Because there was the human connection. I was there. They had access to me and also the Transformation was greater right instead of write your resume. It was get clear brand yourself and land the damn job, right?
So it was like Transformational it was Big value, high value. And there are always going to be people out there who want that accountability, who want that skin in the game, and they're ready to invest in themselves big time to get a big result. And so every sale that I made with the career glow up, it's 2, 500.
Boom boom. Whereas today, because I've completely changed my business model over at Badass Careers to free up my time to focus on Badass Empires, it's like the exact same grind. I'm putting out all of this marketing content. I'm needing to grow a huge audience. I'm needing to really do the content marketing deep and upfront.
But every time, instead of the 2, 500, payment notifications coming through, I'm getting 300, which is amazing. But I can tell you, it's actually, especially with the element of human connection, easier to sell higher priced programs than cheaper products. I know it seems illogical, but you have to trust me on this after five plus years.
Of trying everything, every data point, every funnel, every launch tactic. I promise you the conversion rate is about the same. And it's not just me saying that is known industry wide. So let's talk about why your competitors have cheaper prices than you. Why that might be, because it's one thing to look at the public facing information you have.
What the offer is, what the price point is, but you don't know anything really about this person's life, their business model, why they do what they do and so on and so forth. So let's examine why their prices are cheaper so that you can align yourself. Is that really something that I want or not?
[00:06:33] The Reality of Passive Income
The first reason I will call out for why people will have cheap prices and offer the same kind of promise or benefit that your work does is that they're chasing passive income. So a lot of people out there have been affected by that marketing of, work two hours a day and make 5 million a year.
And all you have to do is use chat GPT to create a 47 digital download that's written for you by AI or let me show you how to do affiliate marketing or whatever else they're selling. There's always a course behind it to learn how, right? Now, as sexy as that is, when it comes to passive income and selling something that doesn't require any client support, any coaching, any client delivery of course the prices are going to be cheap because you can only go so far all alone and by yourself.
Without the sounding board, without the accountability, without the support of a coach, whatever you're selling at a cheap price point can't really be deep and transformational to the point that it can be in coaching. And because they're wanting to. Avoid client work and avoid spending time coaching people and working with people.
They have to stay cheap and they have to stay transactional working at that level of information that basically people could Google anyway, and working at that level of. Here you go, here's my product, good luck and goodbye. And I think behind this desire to make money without talking to anyone, to make money without showing your face in your content, to make money without serving any clients.
Often it comes back to imposter syndrome. Honestly, everyone wants the big money, but they don't want to take that responsibility on. They don't want the responsibility or the accountability that comes with facing up to real human beings and assuring the quality of that offer, assuring that people have implemented it and gotten results.
And a lot of these avoidance tactics exist. I don't want to work with clients. I don't want to show my face. I don't want to show up. They exist to hide from people essentially. And these avoidance tactics that have you hiding from people, they will die long term because AI is coming to get you. The robots are coming to get you when it comes to information.
Information is transactional inherently.
[00:09:14] The Importance of Human Connection
The future of business, I truly believe this is trust and human connection. And that's why personal brands do so well. So without even going into the massive complexities of what it would take to make good money with cheap products. Building out high converting funnels, the huge social following the ads budget required the years of grinding on the marketing front to make a self study course business work like Badass Careers does.
All of that aside, I really do think that the reason people want that is because they're not actually willing to do the work, and the inner work as well, to have the confidence and the skills to show up and make sure that their stuff really works and they're really helping people. So I'm at a self study passive income quote unquote kind of world now over at Badass Careers, but that's after five years of solid work, trust building, ensuring results.
There's that toxic trait in the market of chasing passive income, not wanting to do the work on yourself, not really wanting to show up for people, and therefore your prices can only go so high. So that's one of the reasons you will see cheaper products out there. The second reason, and this is very closely related, is the creator has become too big.
And this is what has happened to me over at Badass Careers, essentially. When you see people with audiences of 50, 100k plus people in the audience, if you think about it, even if they wanted to, they couldn't coach all of those people in a lifetime, even if they tried. They just would not have the time.
It's just impossible. And that's why I always say to my clients, don't get jealous. If you see creators with, a hundred thousand followers, because those followers can't be looked after by that person. They can't be serviced by that person. They can't be coached by that person. They'll never, ever be able to keep up.
And. I use the analogy that a rising tide lifts all of the ships. Meaning if you have someone who is incredibly successful, they're like this rising tide, bringing visibility and education and problem awareness to your market, to your industry. But you're one of the ships, right? And you're floating on that big tide, that industry tide.
It's good for you too, that they get so big because they can warm up their audience, but when they want to work with someone like a real human being, a real coach, and they actually want to have. Time spent on them with them, they'll go to someone else. And this happens to me all the time over at Badass Careers.
They love my content. The content has them winning, but when they're ready to work with someone, they say, I love you, Rosie, but I really want to do private coaching. And that's just something I cannot and will not offer over there again. And this happens because as they get bigger, as they get more visibility, they have too much on, and I'm speaking from a personal perspective here, to be able to coach still.
I'm running businesses, I'm running a team. I'm creating content. I am the face of my brand, right? So I'm going to be creating that content, that marketing that's on me. I have a lot of product development, continuous improvement projects. I have so much on with the demand that we have that I had to step away from coaching.
And so that's also one of the reasons is that they don't have the capacity to charge higher prices. Because higher prices have that human connection and have that coaching element, typically. And then the third reason that you might see people out there with really low prices, at least compared to you, is that they're not making sales.
And they're not making sales which affects their confidence and ability to make sales. Because their business model isn't right. They don't have a brand in place. They don't have their messaging sorted. Like they're, it's inconsistent. It's not supportive. It's not financially supportive. And so they think that the answer is to lower their prices.
But of course, if you try to compete on price, this is just a race to the bottom. Can you imagine being a web designer trying to compete on price with the global market, with some dude on Fiverr who's offering to build your website for a hundred bucks? You can't win that game. You can't win the cheapest in town game, and you don't want to either, but that is a natural reflex for people.
I'm not making sales, so I'm going to discount. I'm not making sales, so I'm going to go cheap. You're not making sales because you haven't established the value of what you do in your community. There's a very big difference. In fact, if you're not making sales, it is almost never about the price because there are people at every single price point within your market.
It's not about that. It's about value creation, trust building, and positioning yourself as the authority and leader that they need to learn from. So when you look at it and you look at people's false assumptions about I want to make easy passive income, so I'm going to go cheap. Oh, but I'm going to have to spend 80 hours a week creating content to try to make it work.
Or when you think about, Oh I don't charge high prices because I can't, because I'm too big and I can't help people and I can't invest my time with them anymore. Or I can't charge high prices because. I don't feel worthy and I don't make any sales. Like you don't want to be necessarily any of those use cases.
Now, if it's because you got into big and you want to have a different business model and do the bad ass careers thing and eventually have self study courses and get your money elsewhere in terms of speaking gigs or writing a book or whatever it is, absolutely cool. But I'm just saying that when you're starting out.
Make sure that you're pricing for all the right reasons. And so there's nothing holding you back from having that premium pricing.
[00:15:28] Justifying High Ticket Prices
So a couple of things that are going to allow you to justify your high ticket prices. Firstly, clarity. You have to be able to explain in explicit detail the impact and the outcome of working together so that the value is obvious.
So some examples on big no nos. Huge lack of clarity, right? I help businesses save more money and get efficient. I help salespeople achieve success. I help you to leverage the feminine divine to quantum leap into your inner radiance. I help you to reclaim your self worth and live your best life. Very difficult for me to see cost of inaction on that.
Very difficult for me to grasp the value of your work compared to someone who's able to say, bite sized home based workouts to help high achieving entrepreneurs get into their ideal body with minimal stress. It's the difference between selling, get into your best shape ever and get a booty so tight it looks better and more natural than a Brazilian butt lift.
It's the difference between detox your life and end your stress induced migraines once and for all. It's the difference between lose weight or shed the final 10 pounds and keep it off without dipping into disordered eating. It's the difference between grow your business and make your first 1, 000 online selling print on demand candles on Etsy.
That clarity will help you to cut through the noise of the market, but also facilitates perceived value. Straight away, I understand the tangible value of working with you. Another lever for justifying your high ticket prices. Be willing to spend time with people. Stop acting like it's shit having clients.
It's shit having calls. Coaching is amazing. And I say this again, you can eventually scale up to a different Sort of business model once your audience can justify it, but let me tell you the work doesn't go away if I had higher price points because I was working with clients in a coaching capacity I wouldn't have to be posting so relentlessly on Instagram, for example, right?
So if you're not doing the high ticket if you're not doing the client work, you will be doing The content marketing so I understand people saying I want to get off calls for sure and I understand and I also moved in that direction in the meantime can we just. All agree that being able to get paid amazing money to have complete freedom to work when you want where you want and.
Be in the business of facilitating wins for people, getting paid to hold people accountable to achieving their biggest hopes and dreams, seeing people under your watch become more confident and resilient and self assured. Seeing them transform before your eyes can we agree that is so cool?
That is so fucking meaningful, that is such an incredible job can we all stop acting? Spending time with human beings? Isn't sexy? It is so cool. Plus, coaching is super scalable, right? Again, you can do private coaching, then group coaching, group course hybrid, and then package it up into self study courses.
I'm not going to sit here and say not to do that because it's exactly what I did with Badass Careers. But when I had my first million dollar year, I was still coaching and I would not have been able to hit that million dollar year without my group coaching program. There's just no way there's just zero way because I genuinely believe to make that kind of money with low ticket quote unquote passive products.
Like you best have at least minimum 500, 000 followers. So by the time I packaged up my self study course, I had seen it all, right? I had seen it all. I had worked with hundreds of people. I had the curriculum, the tools, the experience. I had what it took. To coach people from many different walks of life, and I served hundreds of people that way, and if I wanted to, I could keep Badass Careers going, I could have scaled to multiple seven figures revenue, keeping that coaching program, but no way could I do that or hit that kind of income with self study courses, without hundreds and hundreds of thousands of followers, just FYI.
So you've got to put that human contact in there so that you can justify those higher prices. So we want that human centered offer, a human centered offer that, works, or you're very much dedicated to testing and tweaking until works. And then you also want to make sure in order to charge those higher ticket prices, That you're playing at that transformational level.
So it's not just going to be a quick resume makeover or resume checklist, right? It's going to be the full personal branding, deep work, self marketing overhaul, and resume cover letter, LinkedIn and job search system, right? It's going to be a lot bigger. It's going to be that let's learn how to market yourself.
Let's get you that job. Let's have you succeeding on the job market and to play at that transformational level. I typically recommend. Programs that are at least 8 to 12 weeks long. So 8 to 12 weeks is probably the sweet spot. The career glow up, for example, was six months long. It was a huge program though, but even if you just did the first part, like a career clarity program, it's like 8 to 12 weeks long.
So it's when you can get. Deeper. For example, my client who helps women date from a much more empowered place because they feel so whole and secure and they feel really good single and they're happy single and a relationship is just a bonus, to justify her higher ticket pricing, she can't just sell them some course on setting up your dating profile and dressing for confidence.
Those might be aspects of her program. She needs to take them through these phases of how to heal from historic heartbreak, how to fall back in love with yourself, how to create happiness and fulfillment in your life as a single person, and give them an early stage dating toolkit. So they can identify, the green flags and they can date from a really empowered place.
So it's a very different level of program. And that requires You know, usually more time with people. And so you know that you had a more transformational level when people walk away with mindset shifts, they see themselves or the world differently somehow. And they have some sort of life skill that they can use forever or a collection of life skills that they can actually rinse and repeat and apply over and over again.
And as a bonus, it usually has a ripple effect on other areas of life too. For example. If my people know how to, get clear on who they are and what they want and pitch themselves and negotiate, they could use that skill set for starting a business. They could use that skill set for getting an internal promotion, not just changing careers.
They could use that skill set, I don't know, for buying a house. There are a lot of things that they could use that skill set for, and that, that confidence that they get can apply to many different areas as well. So clarity, human centered offer with human contact could even be just two calls per month.
It doesn't matter that some kind of human access and support and accountability, and then you want to make sure that you're playing at that transformational level as well. After that, honestly, pricing is just a decision. There will always be people in any industry, in any market who are time poor, but cash comfortable, who want this bad and are excited to make an investment.
And your program who are eager to learn from you because they like you and your style and your way, who are desperate to be held accountable to achieving their results and who are desperate to be seen and held, and they will be there willing and able to invest in your program. So that is why some people in your industry and your niche will be cheap and selling, low ticket transactional offers.
And that is why you do not have to follow suit. And you don't have to worry about their market positioning because. It's got nothing to do with you. You stay in your lane with your lifestyle goals, your revenue goals and your business model. And that's what you focus on pulling off.
[00:24:16] Conclusion and Call to Action
So I'd love to hear from you over on Instagram.
Send me a DM. Tell me what you took away from this episode. Tell me a little bit about your pricing and if you have any. Questions or struggles pertaining to your pricing model right now. And I'll see if I'm able to give you some quick advice over in the DMs, but otherwise, until next week, keep it up, badass, keep building that empire of yours, every step forward counts.
It's all about that messy action progress over perfection. Nothing gets built inside your head. It's all in the action you're taking. So keep showing up for yourself, keep showing up for future you, and I will chat to you next week on the podcast. Stay badass. A shit ton of income, crazy impact, a business that you adore.
Just by listening to this episode, you will one step closer to your very own badass empire. Now I wanna hear from you, tag me in your stories or send me a DM over on Instagram so I can learn what resonated with you most. Owen, if you are the kind of badass who is willing to help us out big time and take a few minutes to rate and review this podcast, make sure you send us a screenshot of that review at [email protected].
So I can send you a juicy freebie to say, thank you until next time. Keep showing up for your future and we'll keep smashing goals in the next episode.
