I haven’t sold a private jet… Yet… But all the principles taught here would DEFINITELY apply!
I really like selling high-ticket items…
There’s a ton of money to be made in selling low-ticket items to mass markets. When you can “move the mass millions” — a phrase from Rosser Reeves’ definition of a Unique Selling Proposition — the world is your oyster.
However, you can make a lot of money, faster and easier, by selling really expensive things.
Really simple math…
You have to get 20,000 customers to buy a $50 product to make $1 million in revenue.
For a $50,000 product, you only need 20 customers.
For a $500,000 product, you only need two.
Of course, you have to work a bit harder to find the 20 or 2 customers who can spend $50,000 or $500,000. And you have to work a bit harder to deliver value on par with the investment made.
But do you think it’s 1,000 times harder to sell and deliver a $50,000 product than it is a $50 product? (Hint: no.)
Do you think it’s even 10 times harder to sell a $500,000 product than a $50,000 product. (Hint: again, no.)
If you want to generate $1 million in revenue, it’s very smart to think of how you can do it in bigger chunks, rather than smaller.
(Quick aside: this is why many consultants and information marketers have products that are at $100, $1,000, and $10,000 or similar stacked price points. Because a certain number will go from $100 to $1,000 to $10,000 — and that’s where the big money is made. The $100 product isn’t made to be profitable — it simply helps them scale rapidly and offset some of the cost of finding $10,000 clients.)
“Okay, great,” you think. “I’m ready to sell high-ticket items. But… How?”
Well, let’s dive in.
Establishing VALUE the first step to selling high-ticket items…
The number one thing you have to figure out — if you want to high-ticket, high-profit products and services — is how to align the investment with the value the client hopes to get out of it.
— First, you need to find the clients who are willing and able to spend that money.
— Second, you have to know what value they need to get from their investment to feel it was worth it.
— And third, you need to align your offer to deliver that value.
Since many high-ticket purchases are made for business or financial reasons, there’s an obvious avenue to explore in terms of how to justify value.
If your offering creates ROI for your clients and customers, it’s easy.
Here you use the “buying money at a discount” argument. For example, You’re going to pay at least $20,000 if you want me to write copy for you. That, plus the royalty on sales generated.
I don’t recall a time where the client has used my copy and not had it generate at least that much. And when I have a hit, we’re talking $100,000s or even $1,000,000 or more in return.
If I gave you $100,000 for every $20,000 you gave me, you’d no doubt do it all day. If I gave you $1,000,000 for every $20,000, you’d mortgage your house if you needed to in order to get the money.
This is the kind of justification available with ROI products, and definitely helps justify much higher pricing than if you don’t have it.
Secondly, some high-ticket items are ego-driven. The person who buys a Ferrari doesn’t do so because it’s a great investment. Nor do they do it because they need it for transportation.
The same thing applies to any luxury items. It makes them feel better. And it makes them feel better because they’re the type of person who can afford that.
That’s total ego.
So, whatever your high-ticket item, get clear on where the customer derives value. It may be ROI-driven. It could also come from ego. Or, both.
Understanding the drivers of value is the first step toward making the high-ticket sale.
Setting BUYING CRITERIA is your second-step to high-ticket bliss…
Once you’ve established the value measurement your customer uses, you need to identify all the criteria that can be used to judge value. Both the criteria they already have in place, and criteria you can put in place that give your offering an advantage over all other options.
If you leave it up to your potential clients to establish the value and buying criteria, it will almost never favor you.
Most buyers of any goods default to price in the absence of any other criteria.
So, if you assume all products in X category are the same, you’re going to buy the cheapest. It’s only by establishing differentiating criteria that a product maker can encourage you to choose the more expensive option.
Take food for example. Produce. We buy organic apples. They are frequently at least $2 per pound, sometimes more.
Without the sticker that says they’re organic, we couldn’t tell them from a conventionally-grown apple. And conventionally-grown apples are sold for about half the price — around $1 per pound.
But we understand that apples are one of the products that contribute the most pesticides and other chemicals into the average diet. By paying more for the organic apples, we’re investing in lower chemical exposure from our diet.
While other food purchases may be driven as much by price as other criteria, for apples we’re willing to pay more because our criteria dictates it.
One of the most powerful things you can do in positioning your product or service is to explain all the criteria you wanted to satisfy in creating the offering. Why did you do things the way you did? What advantage did this create for your clients, over clients who choose other options from your competitors?
The flip side of this is that you can also use this same criteria to invalidate other options. As you establish buying criteria for offerings in your category, you can craft them to favor your product.
By the way, this doesn’t mean you have to have the best product. What it means is that you have to have a product that is a best fit for a certain set of buying criteria that your target market will adopt at your suggestion.
So, for example, when I sold IT training, ours was NOT the prettiest training out there. In fact, it probably qualified as ugliest. It was the trainer’s bad handwriting on a digital white board. Some trainers’ writing was darn near illegible.
But, this approach allowed us to invest resources elsewhere, like hiring better trainers. So if you wanted the better trainers without all the flashiness of corporate-directed training videos, we were the best fit.
By establishing buying criteria, you’re qualifying customers who will be satisfied, and disqualifying customers who will be perpetually unhappy.
When selling a high-ticket item, you definitely want to firmly establish all this buying criteria, BEFORE presenting price.
Third, closing high-ticket sales requires making it the BEST INVESTMENT…
The pivotal moment in high-ticket selling comes when it’s time to present price.
This is a function of your mindset as much as anything else. A qualified prospect for a high-ticket sale is probably ready and able to spend whatever price point you put on it.
And yet, the vast majority of us under-value what we sell. And so we have to justify the high price, as much for ourselves as for our buyer.
If the buyer gets a whiff of this, they’re out. It may be subconscious, but you’ll flip a switch in their head with your message of “it’s not worth as much as I’m asking.”
And yet, even if you can present your high price while keeping a straight face, you have to be ready for the objections.
Or at least, their discomfort with the kind of investment you’re asking for.
That’s when you know you have the price right. That’s when you know you’ve priced it just high enough.
Your potential client takes a big gulp and a long pause after you tell them what they’re about to invest in your offering. But they don’t take off running.
Then, they express their doubt about the investment.
They’re not quite sure.
They need to be convinced to take that final step of whipping out their checkbook and putting their money on the line.
And you respond with a preference ladder.
In the course of presenting the buying criteria for your offering, you’ve established a series of “good vs. bad” or at least “great vs. good” decisions. That is, by choosing you, they’re choosing the better option on all the buying criteria.
When there’s reluctance to move forward based on price, you need to be ready with that list of buying criteria.
You walk them through — preferably, customized to what they said they wanted most out of taking advantage of your offer.
You say, “Would you prefer our offering, which gives you advantage X, or would you prefer to go with another option that is inferior in that area.”
Here you can go through 3, 5, 10, or more criteria.
Pointing out how if they agree with your criteria, the only logical choice is going with you.
Otherwise, they’re compromising.
Done right, you’ll hit the tipping point. Their reluctance will dissipate. They’ll be convinced they made the right decision. And they’ll buy.
Yours for bigger breakthroughs,
Roy Furr
