Ask Steph: I don’t know what to launch next. Should I launch a higher ticket offer?

Today, I'm answering a question from a listener who has multiple offers within her business but is stuck on what to launch next and she is questioning if the next product should be positioned at a higher price point. In this episode, I am sharing my advice on solving this issue.
– How to evaluate your business at a higher level to really understand what gaps exist and breaking down the reality of low ticket offers vs high ticket items.
– What is the problem that you solve? Getting specific on the transformation your audience is seeking will be valuable in creating the next offer that your audience needs.
– Why launching it before you create it is such a terrific strategy and the learning outcomes this will provide, bringing you closer to nailing your next ideal offer.

Have a question you’d like me to answer on the show? Write in with your question at https://stephtaylor.co/asksteph

 

Today's question I'm answering is from Moana of Healthy Homesteading. 

I’m looking for some guidance on what I should launch next. I have a podcast, email, paid membership and a digital workbook that is under $10. I would like to know how I should go forward to decide what to launch next. I think my community will help me answer this question, but I'm really needing a higher ticket offer. I'm leaning towards offering a course for homesteaders and dreamers who want to know how to earn an income online and through their homestead. Lack of funds is one of the big homesteader pain I also feel that is something some might pay more money for. Any guidance would be very much appreciated. 

 

The reality of business with a high and low ticket offer

There's a lot to unpack in this question. And I would encourage you to start by taking stock by really looking at what's already working and what's not working because it's really hard to give a specific answer without knowing what's working and what's not working. 

I presume that is the reason you're asking or the reason you think you need a higher ticket offer, is that you're not selling enough of the membership and the workbook to generate the income that you are hoping to achieve.

And that's fair because when you're starting out, you might think that it's easier to sell a low-ticket product, but we forget that it would take a thousand people buying your $10 workbook to make $10,000 of sales versus 10 people buying a $1,000 course or $1,000 program to make that same amount of sales. 

And yes, it might be easier to get a yes from somebody for a $10 offer. They might be more likely to buy a $10 offer than a $1,000 one. But when you don't have a massive audience, it's actually much easier to build a really good connection with 10 people. You would get 10 people to trust you enough, to like you enough, and then overdeliver to those 10 people. Rather than go out there and try and find a thousand people to buy. 

And you can't really deliver an epic experience because there are a thousand people and it's a digital workbook. So you're kind of limited in how you can deliver that experience. And then there's no real reason for them to come back to you because they might not have been impressed or wowed or they haven't had their expectations exceeded. 

So they're kind of just lukewarm versus those 10 people who you've probably had a chance to work with pretty closely. And now they're going to be really good fans of yours. But if we go back to, okay, so looking for a thousand people to buy this $10 offer for $10,000 of sales. 

Let's imagine we're working with a 5% conversion rate, which is actually on the upper side of the standard at the moment. You would need to get that trend to offer in front of around 20,000 people. To sell 1000 copies of it and make $10,000 in sales. If you wanted to make $10,000 in sales of that workbook each month, that would mean you have to get it in front of 20,000 people each month to sell a thousand units each month.

It's a lot of work involved in turning a low-ticket offer into those consistent sales. Now, I'm not sure how high ticket you mean. When you say high ticket, for some people, $500 is a high ticket. For others, $50,000 is where they consider high tickets. So there are different interpretations of what a high ticket is.

But when you are creating your next offer, it's definitely worthwhile keeping in mind that a higher ticket one is going to be much easier to generate sales. And it's going to be much easier to over-deliver and turn those clients or customers into raving fans, rather than trying to just go for that mass approach and sell something at a really low price point. 

 

Solve specific problems of your audience

Now you say that you are leaning towards offering a course. Online courses are amazing. I have built my business mostly by selling online courses. But people don't automatically pay more for an offer because it's a course rather than a workbook. 

And yes, they might perceive your online course to be more valuable. But only if the problem that your online course solves for them is a problem that they value paying money to solve. And generally the bigger the problem or the bigger the transformation, the bigger the problem you're solving, or the bigger transformation that your course is delivering, the more somebody will pay for it most of the time. 

Or if the problem that they are dealing with is really painful. They might pay more to make that problem go away. So when a problem is painful, somebody is much more likely to spend money on it, to solve it. When it's a transformation that they really value achieving, they're more likely to spend more money. So getting really specific on what problem your cost solves. Or what transformation it delivers that will be crucial to demonstrating how much value is in it for that person who's wanting to potentially buy it. 

 

Why launch it before you create it?

You can communicate effectively about how you're going to solve their problem, why it's going to solve their problem, and why it's going to work for them. And why they need it now, then they will likely buy it, but you won't know until you launch it. 

And you can do all of the audience research in the world. And I always recommend you do, you can talk to all of the ideal clients. You can do all of the surveys and these things are so valuable which I highly recommend doing.

But you will also still never know if anyone will buy it until you actually sell it until you actually launch it. Now, if I were in your shoes, I would probably start sharing content about making money as a homesteader and I would start nurturing your audience for the next 60 to 90 days also. And if you already have a podcast, they probably are already fairly engaged. So that's great. 

And if they don't buy it, that's okay. Send out a survey, find out why they didn't buy because it's a lot easier to do that and then find out why they didn't buy than it is to spend all this time creating something only to find out that, oh, they just wanted to learn how to earn income online. They didn't care about earning an income through their homestead. 

If they tell you I can't afford it, that's usually because it's easier than telling you. I didn't see enough value in how you communicated this or what this product is to justify that price point. So then you know that something needs tweaking and it's usually not going to be the price. 

To sum all of this up, I would really recommend testing an offer, putting it out there, and seeing if that's something that they will pay money for. But I'm guessing you already have some kind of framework that you would walk them through to help them create that income and if you don't have that framework, that's fine. 

You can start mapping out that framework, but you don't need to create this entire course record all of the lessons and put all of that work in until you know that people are actually willing to spend money on it. Because it's a lot of time and energy to invest in creating something when we haven't fully validated it. 

 

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