Before I get to the heart of this episode, I need to say the following. My dislike of high ticket coaching is not a judgment of people who include this offering in their business. Each business and audience is different. I believe that there are people who are at the point to pay for tools and resources to move their online business forward. In fact, I’ve paid for high ticket coaching and it was a great experience. However, as I built out my brand, it became increasingly clear that I literally hated offering high ticket coaching in my personal business, in my business. This dislike had me reflecting on some broader conversations about monetization ethics, and the question of why do so many content creators focus so heavily on high hi ticket coaching? And do you need a high ticket offering in your brand? And I’m going to say that again. Do you need a high ticket offering in your brand? My answer may surprise you. Continue listening. Welcome to Creators Getting Paid.
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Show Notes
So before I did the pre-roll, the ad set segment, I asked the following question. “Do you need a high ticket offering within your brand?”
Here’s the answer.
In my view, yes, all businesses need high ticket offerings.
All online businesses need high ticket offerings. This is like a non-negotiable thing. In fact, I even shared 15 high ticket offerings that content creators can pursue that aren’t are not high ticket coaching because I mentioned that I don’t like high ticket coaching. And what is my problem with high ticket coaching? Because I have some problems with it. I have some issues with it. And so I thought I would share it in the context of the fact that there are other things that you could do.
I have three very specific issues um that I’d like to share specific to high ticket coaching and online content creators. So issue number one is that it’s very easy to slip into borderline MLM business models related to high ticket offerings and just the language around it-with creators pushing their affiliate programs specific to their high ticket offerings. In fact, this week I heard a podcast episode with one creator who I love. I adore this creator, but I have found myself really turned off by how they, they connect their high ticket coaching and affiliate offering within their marketing. there There’s something about it I don’t like. I like that they offer the high ticket coaching for the clientele that they offer it for, but I don’t like how they’re pairing it with an affiliate opportunity in the way that they are.
There’s something about it that bothers me. And so I don’t like that it feels like um creators are pushing the affiliate versus the outcome of the program, and that really should be what they are taught they they should be talking about. That’s what it is. Why aren’t they talking more about outcomes versus be an affiliate for the program? So that kind of bugs me. And I think that could be just a simple thing where they could sit down and really focus on um here are the XYZ outcomes that you would receive in the program. And once you’ve received those, you could also be an affiliate and communicate the outcomes that you experienced versus leading with. Be an affiliate of this multi-four-figure program. Oh, and by the way, here are outcomes. that I think that’s what it is, so I don’t care for it.
I’m reading my notes, and so here we go. Issue number two, high ticket coaching being offered as a product or resource at the wrong time in someone’s personal business journey. People are truly, in my view, they they can be sometimes desperate for one of the following things, a shortcut, more money, fame or all three at the same time. And at times, high ticket coaching feels like it lands in someone’s inbox or view at a point when they’re really needing one of those things. They’re wanting one of those things. It’s very aspirational and ah it really feels predatory to me that That is sometimes how it is experienced by community members and customers. Number three, our high ticket coaching packages in alignment with your brand, your avatar, the people you serve, or your personal nervous system, like nervous system regulation.
And for me personally, there were some clear misalignments.
My brand was and is actually very social good forward and accessible accessibility focused. By the way, this doesn’t mean that people that I work with are broke, not at all. um A lot of them have a lot of money. I’ve you know worked with doctors and other people who are in their personal, professional lives are doing quite well. they’re they’re making money, but their businesses might be new or their businesses might be scaling in such a way that spending money in the way that they would with coaching might not be the right time for it.
I found that I just didn’t want to be as available to clients as you would need to be with a high ticket purchase. Like if they paid money like that, you need to be a around. You need to provide them a lot of access to you. And I didn’t want people texting me over the weekend.
Oh no, but I’m not available like that. I didn’t want Slack messaging. i don’t Slack is okay you know if you wanna be available, but I don’t wanna be available like that. It was so unappealing. and And this is the big thing. I was just so concerned that there would be resistance to hearing the message that I would have to share, that there’s a lot of work that still would need to be to happen post coaching, during coaching and prior to coaching.
Just because you receive high-end coaching doesn’t mean that it’s a magic pill and that the issues you’re having within your business or brand would go away. There’s actually quite a bit of work that has to happen in order to get the results that you’re looking for. Finally, I very deeply believe in the following, which is cause no harm.
Was I building out a brand that gave people the opportunity to say no to, to say no to a good or service versus versus being forced to say yes to a good or service because that was the only way you could work with me. Let me say that again. Was I building a brand that gave people the opportunity to say no to a good or service that I provided versus being forced to say yes because there was only one thing that I offered. There was only one way to work with me. And it feels like in the content creation space that there is the default offering, which is always high ticket coaching. Like that’s the only product that people often will talk about in terms of a high ticket offering. And it’s so frustrating because there are so many high ticket offerings that creators could offer, which is why i I wrote about them in today’s newsletter.
Once I discovered that I could have big ticket products and services within my brand and I didn’t have to coach people and be available like that, um the energy of my brand changed. I started to earn more. I just started to earn more because I wasn’t doing something that was against what I believed in.
Basically, my brand messaging and audience shifted back into alignment. Organizations, in my case, organizations began reaching out to me with opportunities. It was clear to them how I could support their work.
It just became easier also to design products to sell to my audience as well because I had income coming in in a way that would grow my personal brand. um But I was also able to respect what I realized was actually a boundary around how I wanted to serve people, my time, ethics just what I felt was right for the community I wanted to serve. Again, I do want to say that the people I work with have money, a lot of them, but maybe within the business that they’re building they’re They’re not quite there yet. like they They can and would like to ah invest as as you know a lot of folks will say, invest into in yourself. But maybe it makes sense that if they have $3,000 that they do multiple things. Like be a member of my money sprouts community, which is nine, no, not even nine. What am I talking about? It’s currently, it’s $5 a month. $5 a month.
So for me, it’s a no brainer to share that. I feel perfectly great about that. I also do provide other things like workshops. um I have written eBooks in the past. I do different things. I have workshops within Money Sprouts. And Money Sprouts is the community that’s a part of, ah the paid community that’s part of Creaters Getting Paid.
Um Do I charge for workshops outside of that? Absolutely. But I’m not making you pay $3,000 tomorrow because that’s the only way you can work with me. I just think it’s wrong. So this last part of my of this podcast is completely unscripted. Usually I will script out things to make sure that I don’t forget some important talking points.
I believe in high ticket offerings. I think they are very important within building a brand. But I think the broader conversation that isn’t being had is that in a purchasing journey within the company that you’re building, you may have different clientele that you’re serving.
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michellejacksonco
And it is a perfectly okay for you to design your products, goods, and services to um provide positive outcomes for different types of clientele so that you don’t have to charge all of your clientele in way so that you don’t have to charge a clientele in ways that could be harmful to them. So when I’m working with my high ticket clients,
Do I feel badly about charging them high ticket prices? Hell no, they got deep pockets. I feel great about it. I feel great about it. And that was the thing. I knew it was in alignment when I felt great about it. I had no problem sending invoices. I had no problem negotiating up. I had no problem um advocating for myself. I had no problem designing a scope of work. I had no problem showing up 100%.
And this is the key to understanding if something is right for you. If you can do all those things and you’re like, let’s do this, then it’s a good fit. If you’re like second guessing it, feeling really some kind of way about it, feeling weird about something, then maybe it is not the right thing for you to be doing for whatever reason. Again, high ticket coaching, part of it for me, a big, big part of it was how I would have to show up for people and be available.
And I realized in my old job, I had to be so available to people. Like before I became self-employed, I had to be so available. And it was so painful. It was so painful. I was so exhausted. And so I think in my business that I’m building now, I’m really resistant to being available in a way that goes against um my ability to rest, my ability to be creative, my ability to have time off and be with friends and family. And when I’m working hard, I work really hard.
But when I’m available to people, I’m really available. But I didn’t want to set myself self up for failure. I didn’t want to set someone else up for failure because I designed my business and so in such a way that it was against the ethos of being my own boss. That was the other thing. Why on earth would I design a business, a brand in such a way that I resent how I designed it? And I think that this is something that content creators will go through throughout the journey of building their business and brand.
In the newsletter that I do link to in this episode in the show notes, I talk about for the money money sprouts community. I will say I do touch on pricing and how to think about it. um I will say that there are different ways you can negotiate how you’re paid or just depending on the design of the product, you could potentially get paid all up front. You could get paid on an ongoing basis. So with my clients, I have decided instead of doing lump sum payments, that it’s a reoccurring payment just so that my income is smooth. um And so i I record this episode to say, yes, you do 100% need a high ticket offering within your brand.
But you do not necessarily need to offer it to the people that you serve, directly like directly to the people that you serve. You could offer it to somebody else. So in my case, I work with, it’s becoming now a thing, nonprofits who are looking to design an experience or provide an experience online, typically through like a course or podcasting production. And so I produce those types of projects for organizations. At the time of recording this, I’m doing that for two different nonprofits and I love it.
It’s 100% in alignment with my, vt like the organizations themselves and the work that they do are 100% in alignment with what I believe in. And so I’m really excited to help pay, pay it forward with their mission and their scope of work and who they serve. But at the same time, I loved the fact that I get to lean into these skillsets that I’ve developed and worked on so I can you know share these communities with their community and broaden their their mission as well as line my pockets. It’s a win-win-win and I think that’s the final piece. It’s what you’re providing in terms of product good or service. Is it a win for everyone involved?
One of the things I think about with with creating products, goods, and services within my online brand is what is the product journey within the brand specific to the people I serve, as well as just is there are there different offerings. And I feel like only having one offering, just in general, is a bad idea. I have money coming in from different touch points within my brand. I have affiliate income coming in typically on a weekly basis when I’m really working on it. I have book sales coming in right now. They’re very low because I haven’t been publishing, but I’m about to start publishing it again. I have, uh, so I still make money, but I just haven’t been marketing and publishing.
That’s still cool. I have, um, my clientele for my, um, consulting projects, that the production projects projects that I just mentioned. I um do workshops. I have subscriptions that come in for my newsletter. So I’ve done this on purpose because I wanted to smooth out my income each month, but I also did not want to rely too much on anyone income stream. I didn’t mind having one being like the most forward, one like the one that everyone’s aware of, perhaps, but I wanted to have income coming in in different ways. And it’s been a very difficult process to do this um post COVID because before COVID, it was hard before COVID, um but before COVID, I was building out different income streams.
And what I didn’t realize at the time was that there’s a lot of brain energy that goes into just thinking about what works, testing it out, experimentation. Like I don’t think I really understood all of that.
When COVID hit, my energy dropped to the floor. Like I had, I was just exhausted mentally as one would be when you’re at the house by yourself for months um and crazy stuff is happening around you, anywho. um And so I’m thankful though that this happened where I changed my brand and pivoted away from building out those different income streams because I was in the position of missing those income streams. I was like, Oh my God. I didn’t realize I was putting putting so much energy into this, but also I didn’t realize how much I really appreciated waking up and being like, Oh, okay. i’m um I’m going to be okay. Like I can pay XYZ thing. So that being said, are you offering a high ticket product? What is it? Is it coaching, which is perfectly fine. Um, and
What are your thoughts about this episode? Also, again, I’m not putting down people offering high ticket coaching. What I am saying is you do have to be really thoughtful around what does that look like within your brand so that people don’t come back cussing you out because they’re like, well, I didn’t get the outcome that you promised me.
I will say this last thing that I think I may have missed the note on, which is you know because I make transcripts. I felt also like a lot of people aren’t ready for the sheer amount of work that it could take to produce these outcomes. I just hear it almost on a daily basis when speaking with people that they want to, I don’t blame them, they want to skip the hard stuff, but you it just it’s impossible to do. You can speed it up, but there’s no way to skip it.
So thank you for listening to Creators Getting Paid. I’m your host, Michelle Jackson. Make sure to go to the newsletter at creatorsgettingpaid dot.com forward slash newsletter. Again, I do share a ah link to today’s newsletter in the show notes as well. So enjoy.
