Why you should sell high-ticket services

In recent years the internet has been flooded with gurus advising us to “sell high-ticket” and marketing the opportunity to help people sell high-ticket coaching and services.

In this article, I’ll shed some light on this concept of high-ticket sales, high-ticket closing, whether it’s legit and the advantages of selling high-ticket.

If you’re a small business owner, freelancer or an expert, this article is for you as it gives you a dose of reality, rather than the optimistic, glossy, laptop-lifestyle nonsense out there.

What is high-ticket?

I regularly speak to solopreneurs through my private client work but I also regularly consult with large corporate businesses. High-ticket means different things in different contexts. When I’m talking with large companies, they may see a high-ticket offer as a £1m deal, whereas for a coach, it could be a £10k package. In reality, a high-ticket offer is more about the customer than the seller. 

For example, selling a £10k deal to a multi-billion dollar business is peanuts, but if you are selling a £10k deal to a solopreneur, it’s probably a big deal for them. I’ve got solopreneur clients selling £100k services into large companies, for their clients, it’s not a big deal.

High-ticket services are high value and require a serious commitment on behalf of the client. The price-point of a high-ticket offer really depends on who you are selling it to. One person's low -ticket could be someone else’s high-ticket.

The definition of high-ticket is subjective, in general, it’s expensive and high-value.

It’s not about selling at higher prices and doing more work. High-ticket is selling value to a more targeted group of people and offering a better solution.

It’s about making more profit per client, by charging based on outcome, rather than input.If you think of high-ticket as selling at the same rates, but selling it in bulk, you are no better off than selling low-ticket.

You need to make more money per client, by giving more focused value. That gives you the freedom, focus and profit to create additional value for your clients.

Why sell high-ticket?

As a solopreneur or small business, why should you sell high-ticket? As humans we are wired to think that having lots of clients is a good thing. But that isn’t the case. It can be an intensive business if you have to sell high-volume to make money.

If you are selling a £10k service, you need 10 clients to make £100k. If you’re selling a £1k service, you need 100 clients to make £100k. It takes a bigger marketing and sales effort to win 100 clients than it does to close 10. 

Whilst our perception is that selling higher ticket services might be harder, in the round, you spend less time selling and marketing because you need far less clients. In other words, one sale may be harder, but the overall selling effort is lower.

In my business, I have a low-ticket and high-ticket offering. Each year more than 5,000 people buy my £95 offer, that brings in almost half a million, however, my high-ticket services bring in more than double that, but I only need 100 clients.

Selling a low-ticket service, you will need to reach more people, promote more widely with high-ticket, it’s the opposite, you don’t need a big audience. If you need 10 clients in the next year, how big of a social media presence do you really need? Yes the cost of acquisition is higher, but you can invest more time in building trust with a select group, rather than needing to reach a big crowd.

More time and profit

When you need to sell volume to make profit, often your approach becomes more transactional. In my business, we have a range of services both low and high-ticket. Our approach to our low-ticket revenue is very transactional and automated; if we tried to sell low-ticket in a relational way, human involvement would eat all the profit.

For a client to work with me on a one-to-one basis, my private clients pay £45k per year, however, for someone to get into one of my courses or group programmes is much lower. With ten clients, I can bring in £450k. That’s at the top end of my industry's pricing, but it gives my clients way more access to me and more of my investment into their business.

For example, yesterday, I spent a day working through one of my clients' businesses and how they can move from £600k a year to £1.2m by the end of 2025. I enjoy that work more, can get my teeth into something and I’m invested in their success.

High-ticket allows you to invest in your clients' success, it also has the advantage that the clients you do take on are more serious about taking action. In the past, when my prices were lower, I had clients who would sign up and week after week, I’d get frustrated they would not follow my advice, would not take action and it was demotivating for me too. I have client’s who’ve worked with me for 3 or 4 years who pay me five and six-figure sums because they are investing to achieve big goals they are absolutely committed to.

There are also your own time benefits too. If you’ve been running a low-ticket business, the switch will give you more thinking time, more strategic time and more free time.

I often draw the comparison like this, would you rather work 40 hours and make £100k a year or work 20 hours and make £100k. The only way to achieve that is to do one of three ways:

• Automate more of your business
• Employ people to run your business
• Make more money from each client

Better clients

You might think that being the most expensive is a negative, yet, many clients will gravitate towards more expensive services because the price is self-reinforcing, our human bias believes expensive is better, which must mean that the service is more likely to be successful. When you onboard high-ticket clients, you’ll also find that they are more willing to follow your process rather than try to get you to make their broken process work. They want the result as such they are paying top drawer for the expert. 

Years ago, I was selling low-ticket coaching and services. I found many clients would sign up, then disagree with my process, wanting to do it their way - they knew best. At the time, I wasn’t confident enough to stand my ground with the clients (because I needed their money) so I’d do as they asked, their idea would fail and guess what? I’d get the blame. They would quickly turn around and say “you’re the expert, you should have told me not to do this” even when I did warn them, they’d still blame me.

What I’m saying is not to throw people or low ticket under the bus, low-ticket services can work, however, you do get better clients, who want to follow your advice and expertise when you sell at higher price points.

High-ticket is a different business

The key thing to understand is that selling high-ticket services is a different business model. It requires you to operate differently than if you are selling low-ticket. Your positioning in the market is different, you need to operate and market differently.

It is incredibly difficult to sell high-ticket and have broad appeal. Who you serve, how you serve them and the way you market yourself is very different.

The easiest way to show you the difference is in medicine. It’s the difference between Doctors and Consultants. Doctors have a generalised knowledge of medicine and resolve minor problems. When it comes to more serious or complex health problems, this is where patients are referred to specialists.

A consultant or surgeon is a specialist in one narrow area of medicine. They understand much of what the GP knows, however, they are highly focused into solving one specific ailment. General Doctors rarely get involved in treating cancer, they may support a consultant or specialist, but it is the specialist, who treats cancer patients on a daily basis and has the experience to know the best way to care for the patient.

But it doesn’t stop there, within the cancer field, you’ll have specialists on treating cancer in different parts of the body. They’ve worked specifically to build their specialism in treating a particular type of cancer. These are the ultra specialists. 

Ultra specialists are often in high-demand and as a result get paid big bucks in all industries, because their knowledge, experience and skill is beyond many who are more generalised. Across all fields, ultra specialists make the most money.

High-ticket services with a very tightly focused specialism is the way to make serious money, less clients, higher fees but often bigger stakes. Clients who hire ultra specialists have specific needs and the outcomes for them are very important. Clients want the best person for the job and they are prepared to pay for it.

How to sell high-ticket

Selling high-ticket is different too. Firstly, let me just say, making the shift to high-ticket is not easy, despite the promises of building a high-ticket offer and selling out in days, which so often touted online, the vast majority of people who buy into that instant answer, often struggle to build their business, beyond a few quick wins. 

In order to sell high-ticket and it be more than a fluke, you need to build a model that gets you in front of people who really need you. There are a few different ways to go about it. I’ll cover this in more detail in future articles, but let me give you a few different models:

Influencer Model: You are known so widely people want to work with you. This is the way most try to do it. It requires achieving a level of influence and notoriety that has people lining up to work with you. It’s not a bad model, but requires a huge investment in marketing, profile building and reaching a vast audience. It’s a serious long-term investment. Many want this, but never realise the huge commitment involved and serious financial investment to get there.

Everyone wants this route, but with a dose of reality, it is un-achievable for most because they lack the resources, know-how and runway to achieve it. 

Typical examples of this are:

• Building a big following on social media
• Getting national / international press and media coverage
• Heavy investment in content

Expert Model: The expert model is slightly different, this is about relevance rather than reach. If you are an ultra specialist and you can surround yourself with people who are likely to need that ultra specialism, you can win clients without needing the big audience or lots of attention. This model requires you to get in close proximity to your target audience and speak directly to them. This model is trust-based and doesn’t require a big crowd, but a small and defined crowd. This is the model I teach and encourage my clients to pursue. It’s easier, simpler and has a shorter runway to achieve results.

Typical examples of this are:

• Growing a tightly defined audience on social media
• Hosting training and workshops of your own
• Building trust through long and short form content

Hunter Model: This model is more outbound. You focus on finding individuals who need your ultra specialism. Often this uses volume to find the needle in a haystack, reaching lots of people in a more transactional way, to find the small number of clients who fit your specialism.

There are some drawbacks and advantages to this model. First off, the advantage is that you don’t need to build or invest in your personal brand. The barrier to entry is low. However, the model has drawbacks, it can be expensive to do well and doing it on the cheap is in many cases, the approach is one step away from spamming. It requires volume.

Typical examples of this are:

• Paid ads on social media
• Outbound messaging lots of people to find interest
• Crafting messages and sequences that perform.

Final thoughts

Selling high-ticket services isn’t for everyone, however, it can be a profitable way to build a business. It takes a mindset shift and commitment. I remember when I started selling high-ticket, I was riddled with doubt. I second guessed myself many times. I also had to get comfortable when people asked me how much.

High-ticket is a simpler path to profit. It is really easy when you sell low-ticket to become a prisoner to the demand of your business. Low-ticket businesses often require a ton of marketing effort and cash.

If you don’t have that, go for high-ticket.