The Fast Path to $40K Months: Why You Should Start With a High-Ticket Coaching Program [Ep 51]

Welcome to the Thriving therapyneur podcast. The show for ambitious therapists who are ready to unapologetically make more money, scale their impact and build their dream coaching business. I'm Carly Hill, therapist turned coach turned CEO of a seven figure online business. I created the Thriving Therapeutic Podcast because I'm obsessed with helping big hearted therapists outgrow the office and build successful and sustainable online businesses. So if you are wondering how you can continue to make an impact without sacrificing the life you love, welcome therapreneur. This is exactly the place for you. Think of it like the business school we never had. I am so excited to dive in with you. Let's get started. Welcome back to the Thriving Therapy Podcast. We're going to dive right in. Today I'm going to share something I feel very strongly about and it might go against a lot of what you've heard online because you've probably been told to start with a 97 course or a 27 guide or a $10 template. And the logic is start small, get your feet wet and then down the road you can have a signature high ticket coaching program. But I'm going to say it very clearly, starting your business with low ticket offers is not the best strategy. I believe it's the long way, it's the hard way, and often it's the broke way. You can make a lot more money right off the bat diving right into high ticket. So I believe you should start with high ticket. And in this episode, I'm going to walk you through exactly why I believe low ticket is a scale strategy. It's for later money and high ticket is for now money. You should start your business right out of the gates with a signature high ticket coaching program. And I know it seems like low ticket is the easier path, but let's get real for a second, okay? I love low ticket offers. I use both of them in my business. I have plenty of low ticket offers. I also have high ticket offers. I am a high ticket coach. But you have to be aware of what low ticket offers require. Low ticket means more marketing. You have to get way more eyeballs on your stuff. You have to have more automations. So that's that backend customer service, setting up your funnels, it's the techie part of things. That's what the automations are. Okay? And honestly, it's way more work to make it profitable because it's low ticket. So think about if you have a $47 ebook, for example, how many $47 ebooks do you need to sell to hit a 10k month. Like quick math is over 200. So that means you need to have 200 people saying yes every single month just to hit 10k. We have not even accounted for refunds or ad spend or any affiliate cuts. And the truth is, low ticket buyers, they don't always engage deeply. Most of the time they do not engage deeply. Actually, they buy their stuff and then it sits on their computer or in their email. They might skim your content, download it, maybe open it once, but never open it again. Basically, they're less likely to get results, which means less social proof for you, AKA some testimonials. Less testimonials, social proof, less transformation because they're not actually consuming the content and then taking action from the content. So they're going to have less transformation and less momentum in your business. So I always say low ticket is great for extra cash, but high ticket is for real cash. Low ticket is great for building trust and then ascending them into your high ticket offers. But you have to have a high ticket offer to even ascend them into hey therapist, quick question. How much time are you spending on notes every week? 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All right, back to the episode. I get clients who chime in all the time and they're like, I am so ready. I know. And I hear their eagerness. I hear it and I feel it in their voice. But they have this skepticism like, is this too good to be true? But at the same time they're like, I can't keep living like this. I am a full time therapist. I am seeing back to back clients just to make ends meet. And they love the work that they do, they love being a therapist, but they hate how they have to sacrifice their evenings, their weekends, basically their sanity, their self care just to keep up. Maybe this is resonating with you. This was the life I was living myself. So I deeply understand on a personal level, but you don't want to stop helping people, but you don't want to burn out in the process. This is the therapist that I hear and see all the time who enroll into the Therapist to Coach accelerator. They're either exhausted and the current model is not working for them, it's not sustainable for them long term. They know something has to change. And, and when I walk them through this model that I teach, creating this high ticket group coaching program, leveraging your expertise, helping more people without trading more time, getting paid not only when your butt is in the therapy chair, not only when you're trading that time for money, but getting paid when you're on vacation, when you're with your kids, getting paid while you're sleeping around the clock. When I share this model, they light up. They have that skepticism, but they still light up. And they're like, what? I only need one offer, Carly. I only need one solution. And the answer is yes. They have always had it in their mind. And maybe you have always had it in your mind that maybe you would just start with a mini course. You would just start with that $47 ebook and then maybe one day down the road you would create that signature high ticket coaching program. I can't tell you how many times I hear that. Oh, what? I was just going to create like a mini course to start and I'm like, no, go big or go home. We're going to start with high ticket, then we can create mini courses later. All right, so let's dream big for a second. Let's do some math. I hate math, but this is fun math. All right, so let's say your income goal is half a mil. Okay? Income goal is 500k a year. That means 40k a month. If you're charging 150 a session, that's about average. 1,50 per session. You're seeing eight clients a day, five days a week. You're only going to make 24k a month and you're going to be exhausted as hell. Okay, so let's say you want to create a course priced at4.97. So you're going to create that mini course and you're going to sell it for basically $500. You would need to sell 80 courses a month. That's nearly three a day. Selling 80 people, your course every single month is really freaking hard. You would have to have a massive following to do this successfully. Studies show that the standard conversion rate is 3%, which would mean that you would have to get your offer in front of almost 3,000 people every single month. So even if you have 3,000 followers on Instagram or in a Facebook group or in an email list, that doesn't mean all of them are going to see your offer. Usually only hundreds would see it, and then only 3% of those hundreds would convert. So again, this model works for people with a really big following, but not for the masses. But if you sell a $5,000 program, you only need eight clients a month and two per week. That's doable, especially when you're focused, you're positioned well, you're solving a real problem. And if you take it further, 16 clients a month at 5K, then you're at 960,000 a year. You're in that millionaire territory with one solid offer. Just one. One. This is the power of one. So the math speaks for itself. $5,000 program, eight clients a month, two per week. It's doable. Now, most coaches won't tell you that getting eight clients a month at $5,000, it's actually not that easy. Okay, yes, it's doable, but you have to have the puzzle pieces in place and you have to have a really good offer that passes the high ticket test. There's a lot of floating pieces when it comes to creating, marketing, selling, delivering a signature high ticket coaching program. And that is everything that I teach. But once you have all of those puzzle pieces dialed in, you should be able to sell eight clients a month, no problem. Your $5,000 bomb.com signature high ticket coaching program, that's going to get them the A to Z transformation. And again, the math speaks for itself. But then you might be wondering, all right, Carly, well, who's going to pay that much? All right, game. I'm going to create this $5,000 program. I'm in it, but who's going to pay that? People aren't going to pay my $5,000 program. My audience is just used to therapy, co pays or that feels like too much. And this is just a mindset shift. Okay, I'm going to tell you a quick story. I can't remember where I heard this story, but I wrote about this in my book. There was an experiment with fleas in a jar, and the researchers put a lid on the jar and the fleas learned to jump out. Okay, they learned to jump just high enough to avoid hitting the top. But then the researchers removed the lid and the fleas still only jumped to the previous limit. AKA they didn't realize that the ceiling was gone. This is what's going to happen with pricing, too. So a lot of therapists and coaches are stuck in the co pay ceiling, and they're used to pricing based on insurance or just pricing services like everyone else does instead of pricing services on transformation. So we're used to trading dollars for hours. Instead of having package model that goes off of value, you're hitting the ceiling. Just like the fleas. We're hitting the ceiling. This invisible ceiling in the jar. They learn to jump just high enough to avoid hitting the top. What is your invisible ceiling? Can we break that invisible ceiling? Can we change the model? Can we, can we stop trading dollars for hours? Can we start to package your services where the perceived value is so high your clients are going to be like, whoa, I'm getting all of this for this. Sign me up. But when I say all of this, like, people aren't paying for zoom calls or for worksheets. No, that's not how you're going to promote your offer. They're paying for results. So when someone hires you for a $5,000 program, they're buying clarity, they're buying accountability, they're buying transformation, they're buying sales. Speed, confidence, simplicity. They're buying their life back. They're not buying worksheets or zoom calls. People invest in programs for three reasons or in coaches for three reasons. It's to do something faster, it's to do it easier, and it's to do it with a proven solution. It's all about solving their problem. That's what it comes down to. Businesses solve problems and they want to hire you because they want to do it faster, they want to do it easier, they want to do it with this proven solution, which is why your proprietary secret sauce is important. When you're marketing your program, you have that proven solution, and you need to prove that to them. So let's define what's actually working with a high ticket program to help them do it faster, easier, and with a proven solution. And what is the difference between a course, a high ticket program, et cetera. So a course to me is usually self paced. It's just a course. Like there's no live support. It's maybe just videos or PDFs. A program is different. A program includes support. It has probably group coaching calls, maybe some private community, maybe even a little one to one. Somehow, some way there's accountability baked into it. And then the top 1% of coaches who are in the 7, 8 figure range, they're selling hybrid programs. And this is what the therapist to coach accelerator is. This is what all of my clients do, which is a mixture. Okay, so you have one recorded course plus live coaching, whether you want to do one to one or group or both. Most of my clients do both, I feel like. And then you add in additional support as well. Okay, this is what I teach, this is what works, this is what scales. And by the way, when you start with a beta round, AKA a founding members round, your first go around, you don't need to have all of this built out. You don't have your course built out, you get paid to deliver it. So you sell before you create. And this is not my opinion. Most good coaches will agree with me on this. You just need the outline, you just need the confidence and we help you create the outline. And, and you're in integrity selling something that you haven't yet created because you have that outline. You're also not new to this work. You have your whole offer stack laid out and maybe you've started creating it already. Like you've done week one and week two. And while your clients watch week one of your course, you're recording week three, so on and so forth. Okay, so you're in integrity, you're getting feedback as you go. So you're beta round, your clients are getting 50% off in exchange for feedback. And then you're building the asset that is going to change your life. You're building it as you go, they're paying you to create it. I had someone tell me recently that one of my competitors, if you will, I hate that word because anybody who's doing what I'm doing is on the same mission as me and I don't view them as competition. But for the sake of you understanding what I'm talking about right now, I'm going to use the word competitor. Somebody said, yeah, I took their program and then they ended up enrolling in my program for reasons I won't mention. But they took their program and what they teach. And I was so surprised by this is to create your whole course first and then go to market and sell it. And I was like, what? I thought for sure she would know better to do that because she's actually been around a lot longer than I have. But no, this is not what I teach and preach and not what most people teach and preach. We want to get paid to create our program. I'm going to tell you, the perfectionism will kick in like no other. You will never get your course off the ground or it will take you five times longer if you sit there and you try to create the whole damn thing first and then go to market and sell it. So I'm all about starting to create it so you can give yourself some cushion room. I recommend doing this, but I do not want you to create the whole entire thing and then go to market and sell it. Okay, let's talk about an example. Now that we know the difference between a course, a program, I'm recommending a hybrid model for you for your high ticket. Done some math. Let's say your ideal client is named Sally. She's a single mom of three. She hasn't slept well in months. Her job performance is slipping. She feels guilty all the time. She's not being the present mom. She's not rested. She's just not on. She's not enjoying herself. What is she going to do to finally sleep so that she can be a present mom? What is she going to do to solve her sleep problems? This is serious. It's impacting her job performance. It's impacting her ability to be a mom. Her job performance is about to impact her income. Is she going to buy $197 DIY sleep course or is she going to go to therapy for three years at $150 a session? Or is she going to join your $5,000 signature program designed specifically for exhausted moms like her with personalized support tools and community to finally sleep at night so she can be a present moment and improve her job performance? Increase her income maybe, or not lose her job. Finally be rested so she's not so irritable? Yeah, she's going to do that because you're going to help her do it faster and easier and with a proven process. Buying one $97 sleep course to solve all of her problems is not even realistic. If you have serious back pain, are you going to buy a $197 course to solve your serious back pain? Are you going to be like, that's too good to be true. That's not going to help me. It actually feels good for people to buy high ticket. I compare this to buying a first class airplane ticket. If you want to upgrade to first class, that's going to feel good to you when you make that decision, because you know that you're going to get the top of the line treatment and you're going to feel rested wherever you're going to go. So it's going to feel good to this ideal client because this program is designed specifically for these exhausted moms with personalized support tools, community. So you need to build your offer around a real painful, urgent problem. And then they're going to choose your offer and then they're going to thank you for it because it's going to feel really good for them and you're going to help them get that transformation faster, easier and with a proven system. So your goal isn't to buy, to build more. Your goal is to build one irresistible offer and then make it best in class. So start with the problem your client has. Reverse engineer the transformation, build your offer stack based on the steps that they need to get from A to B. Then you can layer in your bonuses, your guarantees. That's going to increase the perceived value that's going to be giving them the idea like, whoa, I'm getting all of this for this. Sign me up. That's what I'm talking about when I say perceived value. And then always under promise and over deliver, especially with your founding members round, don't get yourself in too deep. You don't need to add all of these workshops or extra zoom calls, or have all of these ebooks and PDFs. Okay? Always under promise, over deliver. Remember too, the only box that you're in is the one you've put yourself in. You don't need to be the best coach in the world. You just need to solve one big problem for one specific person better than anyone else and let that be known to the world. So let me say it one more time, if you're starting your business, do not start with low ticket, start with high ticket. We did the math. Start with one program, build it around one big transformation. So you're going to solve that one problem and then you're going to get paid to deliver it. Do not go and create your whole entire course and then go to market and sell it. And then we're going to work on scaling it. And part of the scaling process can be having low ticket offers, but it's a scaling strategy because what we're really doing here, we're not just building a business, we're building freedom, building sustainability, we're creating legacy. What I don't want you to do is spend an enormous amount of time and energy on low ticket offers and then still be broke. That's not how you're going to build freedom and sustainability. That is not how you're going to create a legacy. So it starts by you saying yes to that high impact, high value version of your work. And if you need help with creating and launching your high ticket signature program, this is exactly what we do all day long with therapists and coaches just like you. So you can find more information on our website carlyhillcoaching.com you can always find me on Instagram at Carly Hillcoaching slide into the DMs. I love to hear what you guys are up to. My love is with you. You got this and I will see you in the next episode. Thank you so much for listening to the thriving therapyneur podcast. I hope that this episode has inspired you to reduce burnout, work smarter and see the freedom potential you have as a therapist. We would love to have you inside the Therapist to Coach Accelerator Facebook group where we have live trainings and cheat sheets on all things marketing, sales and adding coaching ethically and legally. I am here cheering you on and I'll see you around. Sam.