Close More High Ticket Sales With Ease By Using Context In Your Pricing

Today I’m going to teach you about one of my favorite sales strategies that helps to remove resistance around your prices and makes closing deals so much easier!

You know when you get sick for 2-3 weeks with a nasty cold that feels so endless and miserable? Then there’s the one day that you suddenly start to feel better, and its like the best day in the world!

Think about that for a sec, just getting back to ‘normal’ feels amazing! Why is that?

Because you just experienced 2-3 weeks of feeling miserable, which gives you context to how great it feels to get back to normal!

Did you know you can do the same thing when it comes to pitching your high ticket offers? What if you could make the pitch actually feel good when you name your price?

A story to illustrate the point:

Years ago, I had a traumatic injury where I broke my jaw and had to have it wired shut for 6 weeks. Yeah, it was bad, I had to drink through a straw and worried about how I could even breath if I got a stuffy nose.

It was bad, but what was even worse is I had just finished up 2 years of braces on my teeth and they were perfect for just a few months before the injury.

After my surgery and 6 weeks of healing, plus having to have 3 broken teeth fixed, my top teeth still were pretty straight.

My bottom teeth though were out of alignment where my jaw was broken and I didn’t want to go through another round of braces.

So, I’ve always had straight teeth up top but kind of crooked on the bottom, but it never bothered me too much.

In recent years being more prolific online or presenting in front of groups or podcasts, it started to bother me so I decided now might be a good time to get them fixed.

I scheduled an appointment with a reputable orthodontist in the area and went in for a consultation.

He told me what we would need to do and outlined 2 ‘Invisalign’ packages that were available: The Comprehensive package and the Moderate package.

He explained both packages, then told me that I would only need the Moderate package.

What happened next was cool.

His associate left the room and came back with two bid sheets with pricing on each package?

She first showed me the Comprehensive package at $5495. I thought to myself, didn’t he just tell me that I didn’t need the Comprehensive package?

Then she showed me the Moderate package and it was priced at $3095.

It felt like a screaming deal! The reason why is they first presented the Comprehensive package and even though I didn’t need it, $5495 was the first price I saw.

So, when I saw $3095, even though I never needed the other package, it felt like a ‘no brainer’.

I don’t know if they intentionally planned it like this, but it was an excellent example of context pricing.

I call it this because one price gives context to the other.

It’s kind of like ‘good cop, bad cop’ with pricing!

More examples of context pricing:

Before I understood this concept, I remember going to the local automated car wash and seeing that you could get the ‘deluxe’ car wash for $15, or you could get as many car washes as you wanted if you got on their continuity program for $20 per month.

That also seems like a ‘no brainer’ because I would want to wash my car at least a few times per month.

What that does is it increases the ‘average cart value’ by 33% while locking in future business.

Instead of charging $5 for a single wash, they triple the price to be $15; then offer ‘as many as you want’ for only $5 more at $20.

For the small percentage of people who actually wash their cars 4 times per month, the car wash makes $5.

For those who wash their cars 3 times per month, the car wash makes $6.33 per wash.

If they wash it 2x per month, the car wash makes $10 per wash.

And then there will be some who forget or get lazy and wash it just 1x per month, so the car wash makes $20 per wash.

So by significantly RAISING the price of single washes, they capture way more business and at higher prices per wash!

How I use context pricing:

As you may know, I do a lot of business with high-net-worth physicians and helping them ditch employment in favor of ‘contract work’.

If I am talking with a physician who is making $400k per year, I’ll ask them how much they work per week.

Usually, they will say they work 60-80 hours per week, which is a major pain point and why they want to do contract work.

So, I’ll take the larger number (80 hours) multiply that by 48 weeks per year, then divide it by $400k.

Then I’ll say ‘Did you know that if you are working 80 hours per week and making $400k per year, you are only making $102 per hour? You are literally getting paid LESS to have LESS time.’

But it goes the other way too. While we often structure contractor rates for physicians on an hourly or daily rate, I’ll make sure to give them the TOTAL CONTRACT VALUE instead of the hourly or daily rate.

How to use context pricing in coaching/consulting:

This is why it is good to have multiple offers at multiple price points.

Some people avoid low ticket offers because they think they don’t make any money.

I disagree. Low ticket offers are a great way for someone who doesn’t know you to enter your eco system.

Whether they spend $37 with you or $6k, they are spending money with you and now a client. Clients, especially if you deliver for them, will spend again with you, often times over and over.

Build lifetime customers.

Want to scale? Raise your 1x1 prices and create a group program where you can serve one to many.

$12k for 6 months of one-on-one coaching, 1 hour per week.

Or, a 6 month group coaching cohort that costs $3k and has 10 slots available, one hour per week.

Present the $12k program first if you want the $3k group coaching to seem like a ‘no brainer’.

The client sees a coaching option that is ¼ the price of one-on-one coaching but they’ll still get 90% of the value if they take the group coaching.

And you’ll make more money because 10 slots at $3k = $30k and you can serve those 10 people in a fraction of the time of 1x1 clients.

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