If you’re a coach or consultant selling high ticket packages, stop worrying about your video studio, your website, or having everything look perfect. None of that is what closes deals.
My buddy Zach Babcock came to me recently and said he wasn’t ready to start selling high ticket because his video studio wasn’t set up and he was still redesigning his website. I told him it doesn’t matter. I’ve sold high ticket for years, and the key is one thing: trust.
Trust is the foundation of high ticket sales
The key to selling high ticket is having people who trust you. It’s not how fancy your camera is or how polished your website looks. It’s the trust that people have in you.
When you show who your tribe is, when you honor the people around you and that trust builds over many years, people will sign up for your program without even knowing all the details. We’ve had a dozen people this year sign up for our [AI Apprentice Program], running their kids through it, and they don’t know exactly what it’s going to be. And honestly, we don’t know exactly either because the tools and techniques change. But we have a clear goal: equip young adults with AI tools so they can grow businesses, run teams, become entrepreneurs, and learn the fundamentals of business.
Every one of our high ticket clients has said the same thing: “I signed up because I trust you. I see who you’re with. I see the examples of other people who have come through your program.” They didn’t come through a landing page or a glossy website. For many years, I didn’t even have a website, which sounds ridiculous, but I didn’t need one.
What actually matters in high ticket
If you’re selling high ticket, meaning anything over $10,000, understand that it’s not the shininess. In fact, the smaller the room, the more raw it is, the more people feel like there’s real value. High net worth people whose time is the most valuable don’t see $10,000 to $50,000 as particularly high ticket. Meanwhile, someone making $10,000 a month probably shouldn’t sign up for your $10,000 program. You don’t even want them as a client because the pressure is too much for them.
High ticket is mainly about trust. When you have clarity on the result of your program and the transformation you provide, and people can see a clear pathway from A to B with examples of others who have made that journey, that’s what sells.
The best part is that there’s way more trust when your clients and community do the marketing for you than when you’re just talking about how amazing you are. Gather that proof through podcasts, through recording coaching calls with permission, and through honoring the results your clients achieve. It becomes self-qualifying. The more you show who your crowd is, the more people will know if it’s a fit based on their own identity.
People like [Marco SLA], [Ethan Heim], and [Brennan Aronoff] are examples of the kind of go-getters in our program. When prospective young adults can see the caliber of people already in the program, they can decide for themselves whether they belong.
Zach Babcock’s story
[Zach Babcock] is a tattooed guy who got out of prison about 12 years ago. He has twin boys who are now 12, and he’s starting a podcasting business with them. They just signed up for our program, and he was asking me how to sell his own program when he hasn’t been regular on social media.I told him it doesn’t matter. It’s all about the relationships you currently have. Make a one-minute video, talk about your mission, why you’re starting a new podcasting business, and how you want to work with your kids. He’s got a lot of podcasting experience and has proven he knows how to edit videos and set up a studio. He can offer that to other entrepreneurs who want to leave a legacy and build community value. That’s a clear mission with a clear archetype, and he can absolutely sell high ticket to that audience.
Why courses are dead and what sells instead
Most course creators are struggling because they’re selling free content that’s already on YouTube. Why would someone pay for a course when they can find the same information for free?
What sells is the human behind it. Coaching. Transformation. Exclusivity. An ongoing level of curation where people know you are personally watching over the program. They don’t have to keep up with all the changes in tools and techniques because you’re doing that for them. The more changes there are in your industry, the more valuable that trust and curation becomes.
Take [Jeff Hughes] for example. He grew his family law firm to $20 million and then started [Rocket Clicks], a digital marketing agency that serves family law firms. He’s run two of his boys through our program already. Why? Based on trust. He runs a digital marketing agency, so it’s not like his family doesn’t know digital marketing. But the trust that comes from relationships and common connections in the industry is what made the difference.
How to package and sell your high ticket offer
Take all the Zoom calls, all the things you’ve ever done, and turn them into SOPs. AI agents can help with that. Package it into a very clear offer with a clear transformation from A to B. Make sure people don’t fall off along the way, which is mostly about qualifying the right people from the start.
That was probably the most important lesson I learned early on. In the beginning, I would just take anybody. If someone had $20,000, I’d say sure. But that leads to refunds and headaches. When you have a clear archetype and you qualify properly, you don’t need to make exceptions, offer payment plans, or do two-for-one deals. Keeping that discipline allows your high ticket program to fuel your ability to build a SaaS, start an agency, or create other programs.
Your $10,000 customers are way better than your $1,000 customers. The less people pay, the more they demand. A $1,000 a month customer calling you twice a day saying they put their life savings into your program is not the kind of pressure you want. You need to deliver on your program, and the combination of trust and delivery creates a reputation-enhancing system where you don’t need landing pages and fancy software. You just make videos honoring other people and talking about what you do.
Stop trying to close and start disqualifying
On your qualifying page when people book a call, you’re not trying to increase your close rate. You’re trying to disqualify as many people as possible so the ones who do come to your 15-minute strategy call are absolutely serious.
Tell them the price up front. That way there’s no long discussion that ends with “so what’s the price?” They already know the price, they meet the archetype, and you don’t have to make exceptions. These people are already successful business owners, you’re rendering a service that creates significant impact on their business, and their reputation drives even more people into your program.
[Dennis Yu] is the founder of the [Marketing Mechanic] YouTube channel and has years of experience selling high ticket coaching programs.
Dennis Yu
Dennis Yu is the CEO of Local Service Spotlight, a platform that amplifies the reputations of contractors and local service businesses using the Content Factory process. He is a former search engine engineer who has spent a billion dollars on Google and Facebook ads for Nike, Quiznos, Ashley Furniture, Red Bull, State Farm, and other brands.
Dennis has achieved 25% of his goal of creating a million digital marketing jobs by partnering with universities, professional organizations, and agencies. Through Local Service Spotlight, he teaches the Dollar a Day strategy and Content Factory training to help local service businesses enhance their existing local reputation and make the phone ring.
Dennis coaches young adult agency owners serving plumbers, AC technicians, landscapers, roofers, electricians, and believes there should be a standard in measuring local marketing efforts, much like doctors and plumbers must be certified.