Scaling Coaches & Consultants

The Myth of the Ascension Model: Why You Should Ditch the Low Ticket Grind and Scale with High Ticket Sales.

Scroll your newsfeed and?will likely see dozens of offers from coaches and consultants. From promoting a $7 e-book, to selling a $97 workshop to offering a $997 course, all with the promises of solving your problems.

Many coaches and consultants make the costly mistake of building out a complex ascension model thinking that the way to make more money is by selling more things to more people.

They build more offers, more funnels, and try to market to more people all with the hopes that they can continue to up-sell people into more expensive ways of working with them.

A common approach taught by internet marketers is to have a “trip wire”, an ultra low end offer ($7) and use that to push people into a course ($997) where you can then up-sell them into a coaching program ($10K) and maybe one day ascend them to your ultra high end program ($25K).

There are so many problems to this model but perhaps the biggest one is that…

Only 10% of people who enter at the lowest level will ever ascend to your ultra high end offer.

Let’s break these down into numbers. Say you have..

25 people buy your $97 course = $2425

5 people buy your $10K coaching program = $50K

1 person buy your $25K mastermind program = $25K

That's only a little over a $75K in revenue.?

And while it may seem easy to build these things out, unless you're a digital marketing expert, the reality is much different.

Problems with the Ascension model:

> It’s a pain to BUILD and manage.

For every offer you make, it requires its own marketing strategy. This means more landing pages, more copy, more email sequences, more automation all with the goals of converting people at the different levels you offer. The more complex, the more moving parts, the harder it is to manage.??

> Monetizing low ticket requires a TON of traffic.

And unless you already have a loyal, established following OR a big budget for paid traffic, the likelihood of succeeding is low. This is why the majority of coaches and consultants who build courses struggle to ever monetize them. It’s hard to sell something off a landing page (and without a phone call). It requires “the perfect alignment” of understanding your ideal client, compelling copy, offer/pricing strategy and more.

Then you have the added complexity of understanding how to use paid traffic to get people to convert.

There are strategies to “warm people” up to buy a low ticket offer from you. Again, this is a much more complicated process than most people understand until they are deep in the trenches of struggling to monetize. You may invest thousands of dollars and tons of hours building it out with little to no ROI.

> The people who buy your $97 course will likely never buy a $50K coaching package.

People who invest in low ticket versus high ticket are have different needs and budget. Would you rather spend your time, energy and dollars acquiring people who are looking for a quick fix and aren't available to invest at a higher level OR...

Would you rather bypass these people and go after a higher caliber clientele (one is has zero interest in a course) who will happily pay you $50K to solve their problems right now? Better yet, these people don't want to jump through the hoops of endless upsell, they will simply go somewhere else so all that time, energy and effort you put into building your low ticket offers, you can now get back.?

> People that buy your course won't get results.

Courses have a 85% attrition rate which means your course will end up collecting dust on someone's computer. Most coaches and consultants are in the business to make a real impact in their clients’ lives. This requires more than recorded videos and worksheets, it requires coaching in real time, answering their questions, and offering support and accountability. If you want to make an impact, courses are not the way to go.

I’ve helped many clients who struggled with monetizing their low end courses to step into selling ultra high end and quickly turn things around. My client James, a business coach, is a great example of this:

Before working together, he wrote a “best selling book” and launched a course that didn't monetize. We completely transformed his business model, aligning his talents with a higher caliber market and he turned around and sold a $30K program just 2 weeks later. He then went on to sell a $62K program just another 4 weeks later. Selling ultra high end allowed him to scale from $0 to $500k in less than a year.

My client Laura, a Nurse and Consultant is another great example. Before she hired me, she was going to launch a course to try to reach the masses. I showed her an easier and faster way to reach more people and make a bigger impact, by selling to organizations. She built a brand new program and sold it for $75K just 6 weeks after joining. She went on to sell it over and over again for up to $97K.?

Taking a top down approach.

The fastest and easiest way to hit your income goals and inject large sums of cash in your business is to flip the model on its head.

Instead of starting at the bottom and working your way to the top, start at the top, with an ultra high end offer. This could be a $50K or even $100K+ 1:1 coaching or consulting offer. Then you can down-sell, a high end group/1:many programs. I have clients successfully selling $30K to $50K+ group programs.

Take my client Josh for example. When he joined Expert Accelerator, he already had a successful accounting practice but wanted to shift more towards consulting. He learned exactly how to take a top down approach, and go right into selling ultra high ticket. He started selling $30K, $54K and even $90K programs. Our strategies were so successful that he quickly hired a team to support the workloads.

My client Michele, a business coach for interior designers went from selling a her group program for a few thousand a year to selling it for $42K a year.

She now has a thriving coaching business and generates 7 figures a year from this 1:many program.

If you still want to go the course route, you can build this out but unless you are already making 7 figures and are in a place to truly scale up this income stream (i.e. digital marketing background OR team, systems, and large ad budget to support revenue generation) then why bother?

Start at the top and stay there. You can literally build a multi million dollar business by having 2 or 3 high end offers. The other offers can come later should you choose.

Simple math and the simplicity of ultra high end services.?

Let’s say you build out a $50K 1:1 program and a $25K group program.

5 private clients @ $50K = $250K

20 group coaching clients at $25K = $500K

With just 25 clients per year, you are already at $750K. And it is possible to get 25 clients without spending any on paid advertising.?

Try to hit those numbers with a course and a lower end coaching agreement. Both would require VOLUME plus ad spend which means your actual revenue per client would be low.?As you can see, selling taking a top down approach to your offers is easier, faster, more profitable and more impactful.

If you want to know how to successfully sell and scale ultra high end ($25K, $50K, $100K+) services check out the video below:

Client Success Spotlight: Business Strategist Generates Six Figures in 2 Weeks.

Meet my incredible client Judy, a Business Strategist with a successful background as a corporate attorney, real estate agent and entrepreneur. When it came to her coaching business, she was stuck in the trap of the generalist, selling a group program for $500 a month. This required VOLUME to hit her income goals.

We quickly moved her into specialization, translating her talents to go after a higher caliber market and solve bigger problems. Together, we created a new upgraded methodology, repositioned her services, 4x'd the price of her program, revamped her messaging and helped her nail her pitch.

The result?

She confidently moved into selling a $20K group program using her gifts in a much more aligned and profitable way. In fact, she generated six figures within just two weeks of launching and she's on the path to repeating that this month.

Judy is just one of the many success stories we have. If you'd like to learn more about how Expert Accelerator can help you successfully step into selling and scaling ultra high end services, apply for a strategy call here .

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About Jessica Yarbrough

Jessica Yarbrough has quickly developed a reputation of being one of the best business strategists for coaches and consultants who want to sell and scale ultra high end services. Her background is in international business and she has built multiple companies.

Jessica is a genius at showing entrepreneurs how to build an expert platform, rapidly raise their value, build their credibility online and attract high paying clients. She travels the world teaching and inspiring entrepreneurs and helping them grow their influence and make the income and impact they desire.

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