#230: How to Up Your Price
Today, I’ve got Josh Elledge, from Up My Influence, on the show, and we are talking about how to up your price. What we really talk about is how to value yourself and charge what you deserve.
If you’ve ever wondered how people sell those high ticket items, like coaching packages, services, products, etc., Josh shares all the secrets.
Much of how it’s done is by building relationships with the people you want to sell to, then sell them on the outcome they hope to achieve. Josh also recommends adding a money-back-guarantee to any high ticket offer. He also recommends selling on the personal relationship and access that customers has with you.
This is where understanding your own self-worth comes into play.
Josh and I also talk about how you must always validate your offer, to make sure it’s something people actually want. He shares the steps he uses to validate the high ticket items he sells.
For all of us who struggle with imposter syndrome or who feel uncomfortable charging what we really deserve, this podcast is a must!
Table of Contents
Show Notes:
- MiloTree Easy Payments
- Paid Workshop Idea Worksheet
- Join The Blogger Genius Newsletter
- MiloTree Pop-Up App
- Become a Blogger Genius Facebook Group
- All Blogger Genius Podcast Episodes
- MiloTree on TikTok
- Up My Influence
- Jillian’s Appearance on Up My Influence
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Intro 0:04
Welcome to the Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here’s your host, Jillian Leslie.
Jillian Leslie 0:11
Hello, my friends. Welcome back to the Blogger Genius Podcast. I am your host, Jillian Leslie, I am a serial entrepreneur. And my voice sounds funny, because my whole family is getting over COVID. It has not been bad for us, kind of coming back. But that’s what’s going on in my house.
I have a really good episode today. I am interviewing a guy named Josh Elledge. And you know what we’re talking about? How to sell big ticket items. I’ve always wondered how people on the internet do it, how they think about it.
How to Build Your Digital Product Empire with MiloTreeCart
And the reason I want to talk about selling is because I want to inspire you to build your digital product empires. We have a new product that we built called MiloTreeCart. In the podcast episode, I refer to it as MiloTree Easy Payments, we’ve rebranded as MiloTreeCart.
This is a payment platform for you, content creators, to sell easy digital goods to your audience. I’m a big believer in this because it is the way to get off of the social media treadmill. It is a way to monetize your audience.
If you have an audience, there is money to be made selling to them. Plus, you find your true fans. And these are the people who will show up for you and who will continue to buy what you offer.
It’s a really powerful way to grow a business so that you can then provide for your family and live the life that you have dreamed of.
And in terms of digital products, I’m talking about paid workshops, memberships, coaching, digital downloads, and any other service you could think of providing.
How to Up Your Price
So now to the podcast. Josh Elledge is the founder of a company called Up My Influence and he coaches entrepreneurs on building out their online influence and their authority and helps these entrepreneurs sell these very expensive packages.
I really like the way he thinks about pricing. And in fact, after this interview, when I was coaching some of you to set up paid workshops and memberships, I really pushed you to up your price. And I’ve continued to do that being inspired by what Josh has shared.
And we also talk about things like impostor syndrome, but I think this episode is really powerful because it’s about how we value ourselves. So, without further delay, here is my interview with Josh Elledge.
Josh, welcome to the Blogger Genius Podcast.
Josh Elledge 3:05
Jillian, it’s so awesome to be here. And it’s great to be with you again. I had you of course on my podcast. I will look up the episode number while we’re chatting here because I want people to hear my conversation with you where we got to feature the great work that you’re doing. Thank you so much.
Jillian Leslie 3:22
Josh, will you share your entrepreneurial journey and where you are today and what you do?
Josh Elledge 3:29
So, straight out of high school joined the United States Navy, where I was a Navy journalist, I got to learn from Adrian Cronauer who was one of our guest lecturers that came in and he completely changed my life.
Adrian Cronauer was a staff sergeant in the United States Air Force, and he was featured as the subject of the movie, Good Morning Vietnam, portrayed by Robin Williams which was a great movie. You’ll see that what he inspired in me was a love of serving audiences.
And, most importantly, always being honest, and always being 100% transparent and truthful with audiences. I took that, really didn’t pursue a career in journalism. Outside of that I’ve been through the wringer as an entrepreneur.
But my seventh business venture Savings Angel was a consumer-based membership site. We did $20 month memberships. 90% of my audience was moms in the suburbs, and we were helping them cut their grocery bill in half. And we did a really good job had a great run.
I made about $7 million in revenue. And I spent $0 in advertising. So how did I do that? I just showed up in the media and I approached local radio, I approached local TV, approached magazines, newspapers, anyone I could.
And I said I would love to partner with you, I would be thrilled to do a guest appearance, both TV, radio or write a column or something like that. And I just volunteered my services pro bono. And I really worked hard to make that content exceptionally valuable for that audience.
So valuable it became a fixture on those different outlets, fast forward, 2500 media appearances later. And again never had to spend a dime. And this is really interesting. If you just keep circulating, and you keep on doing your thing. It’s going to lead to opportunities.
And I accidentally started Up My Influence, because honestly, I had someone who got funded, and they were like, “Hey, can we just hire you now?” And like, oh, well, shoot, I don’t know. Because I was like, “Oh, would I be practicing?” Because I was going to help them with PR.
And I was like, “Oh, am I going to be practicing PR without a license?” So I started doing that, lo and behold, Up My Influence, we started doing kind of media consulting PR. About three years ago, we were dealing with this. I spoke for the Tony Robbins organization spoke for a lot of industry events.
And those were good for new business. However, there were the peaks and valleys, and I needed something to do during the valleys. And so we started a podcast, we use that podcast to attract in and celebrate other people.
It became the ultimate networking tool. So powerful, in fact, that we went very quickly to have a huge growth. And then some of our clients were like, “Hey, Josh, the PR is good and all, but I know what you’re doing over there on the agency sales stuff, and you’re landing all these big ticket sales helped me do that.”
So our first client was Sonia, she wanted to start a $25,000 mastermind. She was going to an event where a lot of her dream clients were going to be there, started working together, we leveraged generosity and platform.
And sure enough, by the time all said and done, took about 90 days to close everybody, she made $175,000, just from one event. And then of course, lots of really good follow up. This is why I’m on the earth today is to help people solve this problem.
If they want to build relationships and they sell higher ticket type services, I can fix that problem.
The Secrets to Selling High Ticket Items
Jillian Leslie 7:31
I invited you on the podcast, because you are really good at sales. And you’re really good at selling high ticket items. And we were just talking about this offline. We are building a platform; it’s in beta called MiloTree Easy Payments.
What I’ve noticed is there is a need for this because my audience is a lot of female entrepreneurs with audiences. And their vision of monetizing is what I would call passive. I’m going to grow my blog to the point at which I can put an ad network on my blog and make passive income by showing ads.
I’m going to wait until sponsors reach out to me and I’m going to do sponsored content with them. I’m going to put affiliate links on my site and hope to make some money. And we created this payment platform so people can go to their audiences and sell directly to themselves, their service, sell their expertise.
So, one thing that we’ve had tremendous success with is teaching people how to sell a one hour paid workshop on Zoom. You don’t have to call yourself an expert; you just have to be like one to two steps ahead.
And I shared this with you yesterday two women I’ve been coaching, did their paid workshops, one of them charge $10 per seat, and ended up doing phenomenally well and she got 47 people to show up. The other person charged $99 per seat; again one hour live on Zoom, she got 12 people to show up.
So, the woman who charged $99 ended up making more than the woman who charged $10 Tell me about that.
Josh Elledge 9:27
Wow. Everything that we do, we’re communicating to a particular audience. And I think this idea let’s say ultimately, there’s a $20,000 engagement at the end of the rainbow. Those $20,000 clients are not going to participate in $9 tripwires. They’re not going to mess with that.
These are folks they don’t want to wait in line because they just have very limited focus attention, bandwidth. You have to work with them at their level. So essentially what you want to do is you want to open up a fast pass for folks like that.
To your point on the $9 versus $99, that makes complete sense to me, I would be very skeptical of a $9 thing. I would feel like, what’s the point? Why are you even charging me $9? That doesn’t even make sense to me.
Jillian Leslie 10:33
Explain. Will you unpack that? Now, here’s the thing. I’m going to tell you what the two topics were, one I’m going to bake and teach you how to bake, bake bread. The other I’m going to give you some Instagram kind of insider tips.
Josh Elledge 10:47
Yes. I get that. So if it’s a $9 thing, I would say, you know what, I would do it.
Jillian Leslie 10:55
$10.
Josh Elledge 10:55
$10. I would only be investing the $10. Because I realized I’m going to be supporting obviously, a very early stage business owner and to me, I would look at it as charity, quite frankly.
Now, if I’m investing in a $99 thing, this is probably someone who’s pretty serious. And I would expect the content is going to be pretty actionable, it’s going to be meaty. And most importantly, Jillian, it’s designed for people like me.
And so because I know, it’s like, when you go to an event, again, spoke for Tony Robbins. If you go to a Tony Robbins event, you can sit up with the platinums or the rubies or whatever, or you could sit in general population. Nothing wrong, you’re going to hear the same content, but it’s a completely different experience.
Because I’ve been in both scenarios. And when you sit up with the platinums, it’s expensive. But if you have them, if networking is valuable for you, then it makes sense for you to make the investment in that level.
And I do that, and what I find is a lot of your successful business owners will do that. Because the networking is completely different, the experience is completely different. And it’s no disrespect to someone who’s earlier stage in business, but we just have different problems.
We’re still trying to solve different issues in our business. And again, this sounds superficial, but it’s the way that it behavior works. So if I’m working on my doctoral dissertation or whatever, I’m going to attend PhD level type things, I’m not going to go back to the 101 stuff, it would be weird for me to be in that room.
So, all we can do in the business world is make guesses based on who it looks like they’re communicating with. And so if I feel like oh, well, my peers are going to be attending this event. And there’s a price that’s commensurate with people at that level. I’ve got big budget to spend on really valuable things.
I spent tens of thousands of dollars a month on consultants and coaches and agency owners and programs and software and tools. Why? Because my ROI on that is amazing. So, I have no problem with spending $5,000 for something, if it’s something that it’s appropriate for me at my level business.
So, I would contend that your big ticket clients are never going to participate in traditional ascension model type stuff, they don’t have the patience. I disagree with ascension model marketing, if the bottom of the funnel is out of alignment with the activity at the top of the funnel, people aren’t going to participate.
And you’re going to also really have to fight tooth and nail to convince $10 clients to buy $500 products because that’s a big ask. So I would just assume not make that ask.
Jillian Leslie 14:17
My audience is not necessarily selling the $5,000 coaching package or the $10,000 coaching package. So let’s talk about the person who’s going to show up and teach you to bake bread. How do I value it?
So instead of $10 how do I position myself to charge more to attract let’s say, a slightly different clientele or customer?
Josh Elledge 14:46
Again I’ve interviewed about 1,300 successful business leaders, all 6, 7, 8 figure business owners. I’ve been doing this a long time we’ve about 170 clients so I know this world pretty well. So just take that into consideration because you may not agree with what I’m telling you here.
Why It’s Hard to Sell a $10 Product
By the way, if you’re not open to it totally fine. I respect that. Again, if you are selling let’s say that you’re going to be doing a class, I think that it is exceptionally hard or difficult to sell $10 products, in my opinion, because you’re competing with the likes of YouTube, etc.
YouTube is free, podcasts are free, what I’m teaching you right now, I could charge someone $1,000 for this, what I’m dispensing and clients pay me $1,000 an hour for consulting, where I basically share the same stuff that now it’s personalized to them.
And so what would you have to look at is, what is the difference between this event and what folks can get for free. You’re really going to have to lean into the differences. So for example, if you’re just marketing an eCourse course, it’s challenging to sell eCourses by themselves.
But what you want to do is you have to layer in things that they cannot get for free on YouTube. Obviously, you’re going to get a lot of great content, a lot of that we’re going to be delivering on video, but you’re also going to get access to me and my team through our private community.
You’re going to get access to a coach for designated call. Every time we start adding in these things, the price and the value goes way up and SOPs and we’ve created worksheets and documents and step-by-step instructions.
Jillian Leslie 16:43
What’s SOPs?
Josh Elledge 16:52
Standard Operating Procedure. Sorry, I’m a military guy. SOPs are your standard operating procedures. It’s basically the manual for how to do something, and you really break it down and make it dummy proof. That’s my military background. So, even a jarhead could do it.
Jillian Leslie 17:14
I just want to interrupt for one second. It’s so interesting, because again, I’m talking to female entrepreneurs who have audiences and I go, there’s money in your audience, they will pay you if they’re following you. They feel a connection to you.
And I always say you could sell to them, you could sell you to them. And they say I’m not really an expert. And I say good for you. Because then you’re more relatable if you’re only a little bit ahead you don’t need a PhD.
Two, I say they will pay you if they feel like you are part of what they are purchasing. Do not discredit this.
Sell People on their Connection to You
And so then I say, three, when you do this workshop, your number one thing you are trying to accomplish, is to sell you, not the bread baking, it’s you baking the bread and I say layer in some personal attention, where you will do something that you can offer where they have a connection to you.
Josh Elledge 18:20
Jillian, you are so correct. And I hope that someone will rewind this back 30 seconds, and re-listen to what you just said. Because that is the biggest differentiator.
They are oftentimes, if you can make it ridiculously easy for people to get to know you, and build a relationship with you and they eventually get a call with you. And they love you already. They have massive familiarity bias. That’s what we’re creating.
So, if we can build this affinity between your audience and you, you could pretty much offer anything. And if they love you, that’s what they’re buying.
Jillian Leslie 19:05
I said this to the blogger yesterday; I said previously, as bloggers again, I feel like there’s a passivity to it. Like I’m back here creating content that I push out to you. And I said to her, no, I want you to think about your business differently. Your blog is a very important piece of your business.
Stand In Front of Your Blog and Welcome People In
But it’s as if now you’re standing in front of your blog, welcoming people into your business. So your blog is not in front, you are in front you are selling you. That feels weird.
However, once you get used to it, it’s like a drug a good drug that you find that people really respond to who you are not just the content you’re creating.
Josh Elledge 19:52
Thank you, Jillian, you’re so correct. Here is what I was thinking about if you feel like I’m worth that I’m not a guru. I just love doing this but I feel like I’ve spent my life perfecting the art of bread baking. That is what the world needs.
The world does not need more fast talking smooth talking salesy gurus, we have way too many of those, what the world wants, I see consumers want to pay money for is again, connection to people that they trust.
And what the world needs is more heartfelt teachers with compassion, and empathy, if you can be that person, and also still have an expertise in a very nichey specific thing. Don’t try to be the expert of all cooking good luck.
You are going to get commoditized it’s going to be so hard for you to get a word in edgewise in that noisy world. But if you are the world’s best purveyor of using yeast in baking. You’re like, that’s all I do. That’s all I obsess on. That’s like me.
So if you want to ask me questions about social media or a lot of other things like ads or something like that, I am wildly incompetent. And you don’t want to hire me for that. But I’ll tell you what, there’s one very nichey nerdy thing that I’m probably one of the top.
I don’t know who else does what I do, quite frankly. And that’s good. But I’m probably one of the best in the world at one very specific nerdy thing. And that is leveraging platform and generosity to fill your sales schedule with your dream customers.
My implementation, again, it’s very specific and very nichey and nerdy. But it absolutely works. And if you want anything else, don’t hire me. But if that’s exactly, you’re open to hearing more about that.
And again, there are only certain personas that we work really well with. You have to be b2b; you have to have some decent authority already. You have to be ready for us. And if that’s the case, then it’s hard to fail.
Get Your Paid Workshop Idea Worksheet to Come Up With an Idea to Teach
I wanted to take a short break to ask you a question. Now that we are halfway through the episode is this getting the juices flowing?
Are you now starting to think about possibly selling a digital product, and if you are starting to think about it, but you’re not sure where to begin, I recommend you start with a paid workshop.
And if that seems like a lot, and you want to hone in on an idea, I have a worksheet to help you. If you go to milotree.com/workshopidea, you can get my worksheet and really hone in on something specific you could teach to your audience.
But here’s the best part, you can set this up in MiloTreeCart as a product with a sales page that you can fill out in about 10 minutes. And then you can go test it, put it in front of your people, send it to your email list, see if people are interested in this, see if they buy from you.
And if a couple people buy, go build out the workshop, if they don’t, go try a new idea. This is how you’re going to continue to test with MiloTreeCart. And remember, setting up your products in MiloTree Cart is absolutely free.
The way that we monetize is we take a small transaction fee off of sales. So we only make money when you do. This is the perfect platform to test to have fun play around, set up a bunch of stuff. And if you have any questions always know you can reach out to me at jillian@milotree.com.
So again, get your worksheet go to milotree.com/workshopidea.
Jillian Leslie 24:05
And now back to the show.
How to Value Yourself and Raise Your Prices
Let’s talk mindset. A lot of the women that I work with have a hard time asking for money valuing themselves. And what I say is instead of being an expert with a capital “E” start to reposition yourself in your own mind as an expert with a small “e”. So you’re not like oh my God, I have so much impostor syndrome.
But how do I work on that mindset piece to say bread baking is really valuable. What I offer is really valuable. And yes, I might not get a TON TON TON of sales at $10. But probably I can raise my price. I think it’s about seeing the world through an abundant lens and a scarcity lens.
Josh Elledge 24:54
Yes. Number one and I remember hearing this a long time ago. Who are you to judge? And I really mean that quite bluntly. Who are you to judge your client? If they want to give you $100 or $300 or $500 or $1,000 why would you judge them for that? People value what they invest in.
And if I’m investing $9, I’m probably going to give it about $9 worth of value. But if I’m really serious about this, I might have a professional justification for this. Like, I’m trying to get in with this company, or with this restaurant, or whatever it may be, professionally, I need to be successful at this.
And it’s not enough for me to just follow YouTube videos at this point. I need now. And what we’re talking about is like Jillian said, that final 10 yards. I think you can probably get to the 10 yard line using free stuff pretty easily. But people will pay very handsomely for that final 10 yards.
All they need is someone to say we are not selling our infinite wisdom or any of that stuff. It’s not that. It’s will you help me get the transformation that I’m after. And if you can help me get that transformation, then we need to start.
Here’s another thing, stop looking at your pricing as having anything to do with you. It has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with the outcome that someone is trying to create in their lives.
Jillian Leslie 26:44
Unpack that. Go deeper on that.
Josh Elledge 26:47
So, if I tell you I am suffering with plantar fasciitis and I have been for three years, and more than anything, I just want to get out on the road and I want to be able to run again.
Jillian Leslie 27:00
What is it?
Josh Elledge 27:01
It’s like a vampire bite of runners.
Jillian Leslie 27:04
Okay.
Josh Elledge 27:04
I know this. So it’s like a heel pain. Oftentimes accompanies with a bone spur. Sufferers know exactly what I’m talking about. And oh, God, I hope it never happens to you, because it can last for years and years and years. I feel like I’m finally on the outside of it.
If you were to say, “Josh, if you give me $5,000, I will fix it for you.” And it’s not about what their time is worth per hour. It’s I don’t care what their instruments cost I don’t care what their rent is.
Jillian Leslie 27:33
You don’t care where they went to college. And what diplomas they get.
Josh Elledge 27:37
All I care about is the outcome. You can Google this; you can watch some really good stuff. Kurt Bowman has couple of really good videos out there. But there are some fantastic teachers that teach about value based pricing. Because that’s what I buy.
Offer an Outcome with a Guarantee to Charge More
So, I’m paying $5,000 for the transformation, don’t care about the other stuff. I would hope that you would offer some sort of guarantees on that. If you’re not willing to guarantee that, then I would actually look back at your own offering and say, how can you get that to a point where you can guarantee outcomes.
Some outcomes, you have no control over. So you should not guarantee those things. So for example, for us, I do not guarantee closed deals. And there’s a reason I don’t do that. I guarantee high level introductions, because I can make 100 high level introductions.
And if you have stuff that’s getting in the way, I can’t really affect that you need to work with someone else who’s going to get inside your head and figure out what’s going on. Why are you not making? I’m telling you that if I generally close about 25%, and a lot of our other clients close around 25%.
It’s activity knowledge, do the thing have the power? Arthur Schopenhauer said that, but it’s more modeling. So you modeled the behavior of someone else and if they did it, why can’t you do it? You watch someone who follows a fitness regime, and they do it for six months, and they get the results.
Why would you have any different results, there’s some variability there. But by and large, if you look at, Atomic Habits, it is a great book it’s the small things repeated over and over and over and over again, so we just do what other people do, and you’ll have what they have. It’s the same thing.
Jillian Leslie 29:30
So therefore, you are saying, offer a guarantee.
Josh Elledge 29:36
You should.
Jillian Leslie 29:38
Yes. So we offer for example, free sales pages that you can set up super quickly. We host them, it’s super easy to get your offer up front, and when we designed it, it’s stripped down. So it’s easy.
One thing I said is we need a block where there is a guarantee because let’s say you’re charging $30 for something. If that person has bad time, and somehow does not feel like they have gotten their $30 worth, you happily give it back.
Josh Elledge 30:08
Oh, yes. Of course.
Jillian Leslie 30:12
You don’t want to hold that money.
Josh Elledge 30:14
No, don’t ever work with unhappy clients. Sometimes things are just going to go sideways, and that’s going to happen, like someone doesn’t show up. And oftentimes a client doesn’t show up and do what they’re supposed to do.
But you guarantee if you do this, then I can guarantee x, again, don’t guarantee what you can’t control. Absolutely figuring out what can I control and it may come with caveats. You say you have to do this, you have to do this. And if you do this, I can guarantee x.
Because my team and I are going to do what we say we’re going to do. Again, our guarantee is you tell me exactly who you want in the room. Here’s the thing, you know your system better than they do.
So if they give you an unrealistic offer. Let’s say you do PR. And you say, I can guarantee 20 media placements in the next six months. That sounds awesome. That sounds like a great offer. Now, you get to talking and you say, “Tell me about where is it most valuable for you to be seen?”
And they say, “I want Oprah to interview me on Super Soul Sunday, and I want to be in the New York Times.” You as our service providers say, “No, no, thanks.” No, like us, an expert should know. You always want to hedge your bets.
So you say, “I will not guarantee that. I’ve done an assessment, I’ve looked at where you are right now. I’m looking at dada dada. I’m not going to guarantee that, but I can guarantee this. If that’s great and you think that’s a great return on investment for you. Awesome. Let’s do it. Because I can do that.”
Jillian Leslie 31:43
Here’s a question. Let’s talk about the baker. And the way that I work with people is I say start off with a paid workshop, learn from your people who show up, and then use this as lead gen to get them to your next offer.
Maybe it’s a membership, maybe it’s coaching, maybe it’s your course, who knows but you want to build this ladder. However, ultimately, I want to sell a higher ticket priced item to them. How do I start at the bottom, let’s say and not offered the $10 product?
Because maybe that $10 customer is not going to want to buy my $500 coaching package. Therefore, how do I attract the people to me who will rise up that ladder?
Josh Elledge 33:04
Again people who have never baked bread in their life, and they’re just like, only moderately interested, that’s a different audience. I’ll give you a great example. When we attract in and this is going to sound contrary. But stick with me here.
Let’s say that you do basketball coaching. Because it’s the analogy I will translate into bread here in just a second. But let’s say you sell basketball coaching, now, you could sell basketball coaching to JV kids, elementary school kids, or you can sell basketball coaching to NBA players.
Two completely different audiences. Would you agree? And so now, would you charge the same amount of money to a JV kid as you would an NBA player? Of course you wouldn’t? These are two different completely different product categories.
Let’s say that you provide basketball coaching to NBA players, you would speak at a level that would be appropriate for folks at that level in the game. And so you wouldn’t be giving tips for kids unless you do that stuff that you want to do pro bono.
And there’s no business model here it is fine if you do that, but again, you want to start narrowing in because once people are very competent at that thing, they’re not going to join little $9 things that are very general nature.
They want to start now getting really detailed, and really like if it’s the leavening process, what’s it called?
Jillian Leslie 34:41
Kneading.
Josh Elledge 34:41
Kneading. So you would say, I’m going to do a masterclass all about kneading. And that’s it. That’s a $500 class and you’re like, “What?” And I’m like, “Yeah.” So again, what you would do is you would want to reach out and we’re talking lead gen right now.
So what I would do is if I were selling a product to NBA players is I would reach out, and I would celebrate them for the success that they’re at right now.
Build Relationships with the Clients You Want to Attract
So for example, if you sell a $500 kneading class, what I would do is I would find all of the amateur bread bakers that are out there, but they’re pretty serious, like it’s a business for them. And I would identify who those people are I would build relationships with them.
Maybe create a group or something like that some way where you can say, sorry, this is only for people that are professional bread bakers, and then those are the people you bring in, not the people that are just mildly curious about it.
Because mildly curious people are not going to pay $500 for a kneading class, but professionals are and if you obsess on a just a few nichey nerdy things, the riches are in the niches as they say. And that’s where the big opportunity is.
So again, communicate to people only at that level, recognize them celebrate them, it’s amazing how many people you get to show up to an award show when they’re being recognized. That’s a major hint.
So use that to build the people around, you start with, again, “How to Win Friends Influence People, the Go Giver.” That’s my philosophy for how to attract high level people that buy high level products.
By the way, $500, or $1,000, is probably not going to be a one and done class, it’s going to be we’re going to do a series of things, I’m going to provide you a lot of other resources and support and training, we’re going to work on it together.
You’re going to show me in real time, we’re going to get our Zoom cameras and stuff like that, and I’m going to work with you individually. I’ll just say that selling passive video only eCourses at big ticket prices, very hard to do very hard. I don’t care how much money you throw at it.
And by the way, some of my clients are CFOs for a lot of those easy automated riches kind of companies. And I can tell you that she’s privately told me these profits are really not what they communicate.
Jillian Leslie 37:38
You’re talking about for like video courses?
Josh Elledge 37:41
Yes.
Don’t Create a Course as a Product
Jillian Leslie 37:41
I just want to yell this from the rooftops, which is if you are out there and you are thinking of creating a digital course, even buying like a very expensive course to learn how to make a very, what you think is a high end digital course. Do not do it. We’re talking about show up for people. Connect people in real time.
Josh Elledge 38:10
Can we talk about validation for just a second?
Jillian Leslie 38:13
Yes.
Josh Elledge 38:13
I think that it’s so perfect for what you’re saying. And thank you, thank you, thank you. Keep shouting from the rooftops because there is a whole guru industry that I have ethical concerns with.
Jillian Leslie 38:30
I do too. I do too.
Josh Elledge 38:33
So gurus get rich by giving you bad advice so that you will come back and keep buying their stuff because you failed out there. But all you need now is the next thing. No, you don’t. What you need is nobody is smarter than the market.
Nobody is smarter than the customers who may or may not give you money. That’s who you need to be learning from. Now we get into it’s so much more important to validate offers. Gurus have no blankey blanking clue what your audience wants and needs.
You Must Validate Your Idea
Jillian Leslie 39:07
Totally. So here’s what I’m saying. I say to you come up with something you could teach in one hour, go create a free sales page, put it in front of your audience. Do not create the workshop. No, you wait. And if you can get three sales, go create the workshop, but until that point, do not.
And then if you can’t sell this, you go to our site, you create a new sales page with a new offer. You put that in front of your audience.
Josh Elledge 39:35
I agree.
Jillian Leslie 39:35
You do not know what they want. You have an idea. And you could be totally right and I hope you are but it’s like putting I always say like that kid’s toy where you’re putting the cylinder through the slot. You got to make sure that that cylinder goes through the slot easily.
That’s when you know you’ve got product market fit. Do not build it out.
Josh Elledge 39:58
That’s right, Jillian. You’re a genius, but you’re not smarter than the market. I’m pretty smart. I’m not smarter than the market. Even at this level, I don’t do boo.
And by the way, this does not count. Hey, Facebook, I’m thinking about buying a food truck and following my dreams, what do you think people are going to tell you?
They are going to lie through their teeth, and they’re going to tell you, you go follow your dreams, you go get that bank loan or whatever, and get that financing and you go buy that food truck you go. That’s what everyone’s going to say, because they don’t want to hurt your feelings.
And so just be really careful with that. And so what you want to do, there’s a couple of really good books. I don’t remember the book, really good book on validating offers, Pat Flynn’s got one. Both of these are written for earlier stage business owners.
How to Validate Your Idea by Selling it to Clients
So, if you’re newer in business, perfect, but it’s the same thing. Ultimately, you want to have client conversations, here’s what you want to do, just say, we’re putting together I’m really good at this. I’ve been working individually with clients.
And I’ve solved this problem a number of times, and I’ve had a number of clients expressed interest in me creating something a little bit more systems based. I’m looking at solving a problem in a little bit different way.
Here’s what I’m thinking of doing. And I would do it like this. What do you think? This may not be a fit. What do you want to knead? And you ask them, you say, “And what would you pay for it? Where would you invest right now?” And then just take a lot of notes.
Oh, here’s the thing, people will tell you exactly what they are willing to pay for it. And then you say, awesome, and you can even do this, you say, here’s the thing, it’s going to take me about two, three months to build this.
And I’m almost certain I’m going to do this, if I’m committed to doing this, because I’m probably going to need to price it around x. If it’s a go for you, I would be willing to have you in this program. And just for helping me out, I would do it at 50% off or something like that.
Anchor the price really high. So, if your hope was to sell it for $2,000, anchor the price to $4,000 and then say I would be willing to let you in into the founders club because eventually I do want to get the price up to $4,000 for example.
And always be in integrity always be in integrity. Don’t lie.
Jillian Leslie 42:58
Totally.
Josh Elledge 42:58
That’s all you do and then you ask for their money.
Jillian Leslie 42:48
You ask for their money. And if they are willing to take out their credit card, you are on to something. And if you can get the money upfront, you are on to something.
So your job. I say this is how I think about it. You’re a miner and you’re out there mining for gold. And you’ve got to go take that pickaxe and you’ve got to dig and dig until you find gold. But you’re right about, your community would be like, yeah, you go mine you do this.
But it’s like until you actually find gold you’re not there yet. So get somebody to take their credit card.
Josh Elledge 43:27
Learn from my pain and my mistake, because I did exactly what I’m telling you not to do. And it was the most painful sock in the gut. Because I put my heart and soul into something that people were like, “Yeah, do it, do it, do it.” And then I said, “Okay, here it is.”
And then people were like, Cool, good luck on that thing. And like you said to do it. And they’re like, oh, yeah, for someone else. I’m like, Oh, I was thinking about for you. And so don’t get sucked into that trap, you got to have those conversations.
Here’s the thing if you can validate it enough, and you can get deposits. And you don’t have to ask for the full amount, you could just say, “I’ll let you and when I officially launch it, you can just pay the balance. But I will give you the founders club pricing, which is 50% of what I’m going to charge eventually.”
So, if you got $400 as a deposit, you have to leverage scarcity and urgency. I’ve got about 10 other people I’m going to be talking with, I’m only looking for four people in this first round. I would be so nervous about doing more than this because I’ve not done this before.
But four people. If you want to be one of the four, $400. I’ll grab a deposit from your right now. We’ll put that in and then if it doesn’t work, I’ll refund it. Or if there’s some problem, it’s guaranteed. You’re going to have the experience you’re after.
And then like I said, you don’t even have to pay the rest of the balance until the class actually starts. And so get four people to pay you $400, that’s $1,600.
Now you have some money to invest in tools and your time and a VA and software and get everything you need to get set up, they’ve bankrolled it, you can absolutely do this.
Again, if you hear the tone of my language, there’s a little bit of confidence. And now I’m saying what I’m saying, but it’s not about me, it’s about okay, am I committed to solving this problem? Yes, or no? If I am, then if not me, who? If not now, when? I forget who said that Seneca or something like that said that.
But that’s it. It’s like, who else is supposed to be doing this? And if they decide, oh, no, no, thanks. It’s not for me. Fine. They weren’t going to be a client anyway. It doesn’t have anything to do with you. It has to do with them. Is this a transformation that’s valuable? Is this a transformation they want? Yes or no?
If they say yes, then you’ll just follow the flowchart here. Is this a transformation that they’re willing to invest $1,000 for? Yes or no? If not, yes, then is it a solution that they’d be willing to invest $500 for? No.
And maybe the market will tell you, I’m sorry, but what you’re offering is you’re going to have to talk to a lot of people maybe, because again, the market is smarter than you and I, it might be a problem, that’s just not a $2,000 problem. It’s more like a $200 problem.
And that’s okay. You can solve $200 problems. But I would argue that, again, if you’re solving for the NBA player, you’re solving a left handed dribble problem or something like that, and you’ve obsessed on left handed dribbling, that’s going to be super valuable to the right audience.
If it’s about kneading bread in the best way, and you’ve done months and months of research and data and experimentation, you have just saved months of month of headache, quite honestly, what’s that worth? So these are all clues.
Jillian Leslie 47:31
Josh, I feel like you have shared so many gems, so many gems, I couldn’t agree with you more on how to think about this problem. And I would love to have you back to talk about selling mindsets, because I feel like we’ve only scratched the surface on that.
I have to say, I feel very aligned with you. And I feel like we are thinking in similar ways. And I hope that the audience really gets to internalize what you’re saying, because this is I think the fundamentals of business building.
Josh Elledge 48:07
I was hearing some of these things, in my early days in business, and there’s a level where you’re like, okay, I kind of get it and it’s an intellectual level of agreement. And then there’s a certain level you’re like, No, no, no, I get it.
Your confirmation. If someone is observing the dynamic of our conversation right now, there is a shared understanding based on wisdom that’s gained from experience.
Jillian Leslie 48:36
And failure.
Josh Elledge 48:36
Failure, there really is. And so it’s like, if you can learn and just trust, just lean on Jillian’s experience, lean on Jillian’s confidence while you build your own, because it will ultimately save you a lot of heartache. And it will save you a lot of time, it’ll help you make the impact in the world that you truly want to make.
Jillian, I know that’s why you’re here. You want to empower other people to impact the world in a positive way. And your platform and your sage advice and what you do is all designed around that. There are a lot of really good people in the world and you’re one of them.
Jillian Leslie 49:23
Josh, if people want to reach out to you to learn more about you to see what you’re doing, what is the best way?
Josh Elledge 49:31
We’re putting on the finishing touches, and it’s probably ready by the time this airs. I have a quiz that’s really quite intelligent, and it’s going to identify your number one lead generation blocker, there’s no sale at the end of it.
In fact, there’s probably just going to be a ton of resources that are going to help you to kind of solve that problem. You can find that when you go to my website which is www.upmyinfluence.com. And you’ll see right up at the top, there is the quiz and take it and it’s going to be very insightful for you.
I’m going to go through all kinds of resources and quick little videos, they’re going to help you understand how to change some of those things. And then once you improve them, it is such a joy, I want you to show up and not ever have to worry about where your next Conversations are going to come from again.
And I’m thrilled to be able to share with you what I’ve learned over years and years and years and years of doing this and lots of failure, and ultimately, lots of success.
Jillian Leslie 50:33
Oh, well, Josh, I just have to say, you’ve totally jazz me up today, I’m going to be creating like marketing copy. And I feel like I’m going to steal so much, so many tidbits of what you shared. So really, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Josh Elledge 50:49
My pleasure, Jillian, thank you so much.
Jillian Leslie 50:52
I hope you guys liked this episode. For me my biggest takeaways were around how we price things and how we value what we offer and guaranteeing success for people. And that we probably could charge a lot more than we do.
So, if this is intriguing for you, and you want to set up some digital products and test them out, definitely check out MiloTree Cart, just head to milotreecart.com. And remember, it’s all free, and you only pay us when you’re making money.
Also, if you’re thinking about starting with a paid workshop, get my worksheet to come up with your idea. Go to milotree.com/workshopidea. And within five minutes, you will have an idea for a workshop you could sell.
Now if you want free help setting up your paid workshop, just email me at jillian@milotree.com and we’ll get on a call. We’ll talk about what you want to build. I will share all of my knowledge and best practices with you because remember, I only have success when you have success. So we are aligned and on the same side.
So again, if this sounds interesting to you, please just email me at jillian@milotree.com I would love to help. I’d love to hear from you.
And I will see you here again next week.
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