Introduction
How many $2000 courses have you purchased as an entrepreneur? The more entrepreneurs that I talk to, the more I hear that they have purchased 2, 3, 4, and even 5 different $2000 (or more) courses. So many have shared that they’ve invested over $40,000 in their business before selling anything.
Your first thought might be wow! That is a LOT of money. Followed closely by did they finish all of those courses, implement everything, and get a good ROI?
These are fair questions and one of the reasons that I’ve stopped buying $2000 courses over the last 2 years and one of the biggest reasons that I’ve been implementing more cost effective services and options in my own business and I’m going to share with you my reasoning so that you can decide if the hype of continually raising your prices is worth it for your business.
You might decide that there is absolutely no reason to ever charge less than $2000 for your digital course and that is completely fine, but you might also discover that there is a place for inexpensive services, workshops, and even courses in your business.
I’m going to challenge you to think about what would happen if you priced your services, courses, workshops, and memberships at something that was doable for most people.
Why $2000?
I have no idea where the concept of charging $2000 for a digital course came from, but if you’ve spent any amount of time in the online space you will know that practically every month of the year you can purchase a course that is priced at or around $2000.
Courses like Digital Course Academy, Sell from Stage Academy, The Membership Experience, Product Launch Formula are all in the ballpark of $2000 to $3000.
But does that mean that we should be charging that much for our courses?
Maybe, but maybe not.
Often when talking about pricing, you are encouraged as a course creator to up your price so that you are being compensated adequately for your expertise.
In fact, I tested something out this past week and posted on my Facebook profile about an idea that I have to provide mentoring to digital course creators for an affordable, doable price. A price that I said would be under $20 per month and likely, closer to $10 per month. Immediately I received comments that the idea was great, but I needed to raise the price.
I worked with a coach over the summer who was helping me to think through my service offerings and without exception the advice was to raise my prices significantly, and my 1:1 work already starts at $500 per month.
I am a part of many different course creation groups and often you see fellow course creators to up their prices to be commensurate with their experience.
Please let me be very clear. I fully believe that every human should be fairly and adequately compensated.
But do we need to charge $2000 for our course in order to make that happen?
Maybe, but I’d argue that we don’t need to do that. And in fact, by lowering our prices we may actually be able to serve a larger audience and then keep those higher priced services for more customized work with our clients and students.
I promised with today’s episode that I would encourage you to question what you’ve seen about pricing in the digital course creation and digital entrepreneur space. And to do that I’m going to present you with three different options that I’ve been considering for my business and have seen others implementing with effectiveness. And then I want to hear your thoughts. This is bound to be a topic that you have some strong opinions on.
Option 1: Low Ticket Across the Board
The first option that I’m considering as we near a new year is to just offer low ticket services across the board. What do I mean by this? Nothing is more than $100. There are so great pros to this in that these options become much more accessible to everyone. Entrepreneurs are much more likely to be able to afford something that is less than $100.
In fact, if you do the math, that one $2000 course could actually be spread across 20 or more workshops, courses, and resources that are priced at less than $100 each. This means 20 different opportunities to learn about an aspect of business designed to help you be more profitable.
This sounds like the bee’s knees from a consumer standpoint provided those low ticket offers are high quality and really deliver. They can’t just be something that floats across the surface of a topic in hopes that you will be left with more questions than answers and purchase the next more expensive thing.
But what does this mean from a business owner standpoint? If you offer only low ticket items inside your business, ones that are less than $100 each then you need to have more people purchase your offers to make the same amount of money that you would with a higher priced offer. For example, if you sold one $2000 course, you would need 20 people to purchase your $100 offer to make the same amount of money. And let’s face it, in a loud and busy digital space this can feel tough.
I tend to agree, however, it is a lot easier to ask someone to spend $97 than $2000. A $30 workshop is more of an impulse buy than a $2000 course will be for nearly everyone.
What could this all low ticket option look like in your business? It might be a collection of on-demand workshops, templates, live office hours, and mastermind type group calls. There is so much flexibility, you just have to keep an eye on how much you will need to sell in order to get to profitability.
And this is an inherent weakness of only offering low ticket services in your business.
Option 2: Low Ticket Entry with High Ticket Custom Services
Another, and likely more realistic, option for most course creators is to have a combination of low and high ticket offers. This is where you have the low ticket offers that we were just talking about where your offer suite includes options under $100 and then you have a step ladder with higher ticket options designed to serve clients and students once they have a foundation laid with your lower ticket options.
For example, you might have a collection of low ticket workshops and then offer a higher ticket implementation support group that is limited in size and has access to you regularly.
Or you might have workshops and templates that allow the DIYers to take action and then the people who want help, Done with You, can pay to work with you 1:1 at a higher price.
This approach of having low ticket and high ticket is a great mix of accessibility and high touch that allows students to choose what works best for their budget and learning style.
This also gives you, as the course creator, the flexibility to work with students at different levels, to choose who you’d like to spend more of your time with, and you can worry a bit less about reaching the masses because you have some high ticket offers that provide a buffer.
Using a combination of low ticket and high ticket services is one of my favorite options, because it really does provide some leeway in your budget and the number of people you need to have in your audience to make sure that your business is profitable.
Option 3: Low Ticket with Medium Ticket Support
This brings us to the last option that I’d like you to consider in your business as a mixture that avoids the high ticket $2000 course as your primary revenue generator. If you are ready to create more accessible offers that allow more people to take advantage of your expertise, but aren’t quite ready to go all in on the all low ticket services, you might consider a mix of low ticket and medium ticket offers.
Low ticket offers are the ones that are less than $100 and include workshops, half-day group masterminds, templates, and other services that are often easy to consume and implement fairly quickly. You can then pair these low ticket offers with medium ticket offers that provide support. THis is where things get a little murky because what is a medium ticket?
Medium ticket means something a little different to everyone. I would say that it is a price that is more than $100 and might be a bit of a push for someone. This might be an annual membership subscription that is $997, it could be a one-day retreat that costs $500. In general, it will not eliminate most people from taking part, but this is the price where some will say that is too much for my budget.
When I think about the difference between medium and high ticket offers I think about the fact that a high ticket offer would be something that you’d only work with a handful of people on and it should be priced accordingly. A medium ticket offer is more likely to be a group membership where someone gets your expertise but maybe no 1:1 interactions unless it is a hotseat.
Like the low ticket only approach, you are going to need to serve more people than when you have a true high ticket offer as part of your suite, however, you will have fewer people saying that the offer is outside their price range.
What I’m Considering
These are just three options that are available if you are tired of thinking about offering a course priced at $2000. My purpose in sharing all of these ideas with you is to truly help you see that there is not a single approach, even if the industry is pushing you to go consistently higher with your prices.
For the next year I’m highly taking into account accessibility in my pricing, against the advice of many mentors. For me, it is about who I want to be as an entrepreneur. I’ve taken this year to strip my business of all extraneous expenses so that I can offer more affordable options. This has resulted in many difficult decisions and steps, but ultimately I’m excited for the year to test a new approach.
I’m planning to launch a series of on-demand workshops covering the most difficult and tricky spots in creating a digital course and introducing the opportunity to have access to the equivalent of office hours for my students and workshop attendees.
I realize that this approach might not make sense for you and your business and that is ok. Just like it is ok to have multiple $2000 courses in your offer suite if that is what your business requires. The truth is that there is no perfect answer to building your offer suite and setting the pricing. What I hope you come away from this episode with is an open mind that allows you to consider options outside the box.
Action Item
And that brings us to my favorite part of the episode, the part where I ask you to take action. This week take a look at your offer suite. What are you offering? How is it working? What are your prices for each offer and what objections have you received about your offer suite? What glowing responses have you received about your offer suite?
Look at each piece of your offer suite to understand who it is including and who it is excluding. Remember that your offer does not have to be for everyone, but it should be accessible to the right people.
Then start to plan for what changes you’d like to see for the coming year and what you’d like to keep the same. The best decisions are not made from a place of panic, but from one of data. This is your invitation to collect and observe the data and make thoughtful decisions about your offer suite, whether it is to keep your pricing as it currently stands, to add new services at a lower pricing, or to adjust service pricing that you currently have.
The choice is yours. You don’t have to do what everyone else is doing in your business. Your business is YOUR business and you have to make the right choices for you and your business. But you do have to be thoughtful about the choices that you make.
Where to Go Next?
I’m looking forward to hearing what you decide for your business and the choices you make for your pricing and service offerings. Be sure to send me a DM on Facebook or Instagram at DigitalCourseCreatorGuide to let me know what your offer suite will include in the coming year. Or at least what you think it will include knowing that you might make changes along the way.
And if you are ready to think more about including your students in your course content in a meaningful way, check out Episode 156: 5 Tips for Creating an Accessible Business and Course.
Additionally, if this episode got you thinking about where you need to head in the new year, listen to Episode 122: Vision vs. Strategy.
If you found this episode helpful, please remember to subscribe and leave a review wherever you are listening to this podcast. It really means a lot to me as a podcaster and entrepreneur and helps me to know what you’ve found most helpful so that I can create more content that resonates with you.
Until next time, happy creating!
