This week on the podcast, we are continuing our conversation with course curriculum developer, Mike Gregga. Last week we talked about the value of the content we create within our courses, and this week we’re diving deeper and learning how to build authority for our high ticket course offerings. So, be sure to tune into last week’s episode first, then come back here for this value packed conversation, too.
Topics discussed in this episode:
- Creating a course for lead generation purposes
- What to include your different course offerings
- Building credibility through your courses
- The different paths your clients may take after your course
- How to lean into your expertise and zone of genius when creating and marketing your course
Quotables:
“We don’t want to just dump a little bit of information on people and let them walk away, because they need more than that.”
If you’ve got that high ticket offer, create a course not just as a course, but as a client generating machine that can help drive people to your higher ticket offer.”
“You have to be very strategic about the course you create.”
“What I’m really doing is helping to show the best part of their expertise to their prospects.”
“Manuscripts aren’t necessary because this is your zone of genius. This is the thing you know the most about and are passionate about.”
More on Mike:
Resources Mentioned
click here to read through the raw episode transcript
Mike Gregga
But when it comes to true mastery and really getting it accomplished well doing a job well. I mean, think about like learning how to build a website. You can learn how to build a website in a course Right, you can learn all the steps, right and follow those steps, but how long is it going to take you to get really good at it, that’s gonna take you very long time. You know, they say that, you know, in any particular art or craft or whatever, it takes about 10,000 hours of practice, to really make a master. This is why I’m kind of more and more, I’m leaning towards saying like, I really want to work mostly with people who already have an established high ticket offer, whether it’s a coaching program, or an established done for you service of some kind, where they’re going to do it for them. Of course, it really needs to have something to ascend people to because you’re going to introduce them to this process, but they’re still going to need hand holding through the actual implementation, or do they maybe just want to hire you for their implementation, but they’re not ready to, like do the best work possible with this? Would this process really no matter what it is? Yeah, you, it’s good to learn the process. And some people are gonna, like, take it, and they’re going to solve their problem, and they’re going to be fine. And they’re going to, you know, be relieved of their pain. But again, looking at the example of how to build a website. Yeah, you, you could go through a course and you can walk away, and now you are technically able to build a website, and you may be able to build one that’s good enough for your purposes. But is it going to be a great website? Is it going to be a high converting website? Probably not. You need more help with that, you need to hire somebody for that, whatever you need to do. But that’s why I’d like more and more I’m thinking, that’s the superior way, in my opinion, of going about just learning and conveying mastery, because we don’t want to just dump a little bit of information on people and let them walk away, because they need more, they need more than that.
Britney Gardner 26:49
Many more than that, but they also need the nuances of experience. Right? Exactly. I like what you said earlier, you know, at best, a course can introduce a novice, like, hey, here are the steps to solve the problem, you are now a beginner at solving this problem, right? To use your website creation example. Right? Yeah, you can go out and design a website. And it might be a good website, but it’s not likely to be a great website to get there, you have to have done it a few different times, probably more than a few. Yeah, and I really just learned the different nuances that really, truly only experience can can give you and I’m thinking back, I will say, my favorite courses that I have taken, have involved some of that give and take, Jennifer grabs, measuring maximize is a really great example of that she has example assignments, as part of each each module, you know, there’s like, you know, one or two lessons in each module, and then an assignment and they are voluntary. It’s not like you have to take them, it’s not a certification. But it’s the act of doing and actually creating that cements those, those learning tools, especially since that particular course is something very technical, and very data driven. And yeah, and probably beyond most people’s like, you know, skill set I just taking in from watching a 10 minute video, right? So for me, that kind of learning has worked very, very well. And with what you’re saying, I feel it kind of it falls, it falls very much in line, you know, you get to a point where you’re like you finished the course. And I’ve also taken courses like this where I go through the material, and I’m like, Oh, that was really interesting learning about that. I don’t want to do it. Can I just hire you?
Mike Gregga 28:32
Right? You know, what’s interesting about what you just said, is that a lot of times, so this is why, if you’re a service provider with a one to one done for you service, high ticket, a great thing to do to bring clients into your orbit is to create a lower ticket course that kind of walks people through that process a little bit, because a lot of times, they’re gonna walk through that process, and they’re gonna go, Dang, this is a lot of work. I’m gonna hire somebody. And the great thing about that is now they’re not going to complain about your price, because they’ve seen for themselves, how much is involved. And they’ve concluded that they definitely don’t want to do that. Right. So So one of the things and that one of the things that I keep talking about with my clients is look, if you’ve got that high ticket offer, create a course not just as a course, as such, right. But as a client generating machine that can help drive people to your higher ticket offer, whether it’s you you’re you’re doing a coaching program, because you’re in you’re helping them implement the process that they were introduced to in the course, or whether it’s as a service provider, you’re going to actually do that implementation for them. Either way. It makes for a great combination, right where they learn about the process. They kind of get into it a little bit and they realize they need more help. They realize they want to hire you to just do it for him and take it off of their plate. Either way, it’s a great experience for them. It’s a great use of, you know, what we call our value ladder and marketing, right, where you have different levels of offers. And the other thing is that this also helps take advantage of is the fact that when you teach a course, and you teach it, especially if you teach it, well, you automatically have an enormous amount of credibility in the eyes of all those students. Because you’ve by in virtue of teaching them something, you’ve positioned yourself as an authority, right? that know like and trust factor that we’re talking about, right? The title of your podcast. So it’s, it’s, it’s cranking up that know, like, and trust factor in a way that like, you’d have to do an awful lot of marketing to match that. Right? Like you’re talking about a lot of touches in your marketing, before you have anything like the credibility that you gain in a course. And the great thing is that if you keep it low ticket, people are much more easily persuaded to engage with it than they are with a high ticket where they need kind of a lot more convincing, right. Great way to do that is with a lower ticket course.
Britney Gardner 31:12
So when you’re saying low ticket, I mean, are we talking you know, slow pricing? 2737 47? Right, under $100? Under $100. Okay, because yeah, it’s interesting that you say that. So I have an unformed theory. So walk with me here for a second. Oh,
Mike Gregga 31:28
I love that. All right.
Britney Gardner 31:30
So my unformed theory, as such right now is that SLOs are losing credibility because the markets been flooded. This this, this is not the informed part, I think this is just true. I feel like at this point, if you want to be taken seriously, for what you’re putting into your course, you almost have to price it beyond that kind of slow pricing, you know, at least 7797. You know, 147, maybe that’s like my top end to kind of give them better attention, right? Yeah, getting the attention and just saying like, Hey, I’m providing real value here. I’m not saying people out there are not providing values, and they’re self liquidating offers, I think there are many very valuable ones that I have purchased myself. But because they’re mixed in with the maybe not so well conceived ones, right? To be kind, I think, for you to do what you were talking about here, which is using your lower ticket course, as a client generating machine for your one on one high ticket offer. I feel like for people to take you seriously, you need to put some kind of weight behind it. And you and I, as marketers both know that price is just a marketing tool. And I’m not saying that $147 course is inherently more valuable than a $47 course. But from a client perception point of view, I’m leaning more and more in that direction at this point. Because if you really want people to value what you are teaching at that high ticket level, giving it away for $37, it should be a good viable option, especially if you’ve set it up well with someone like you know, your help, Mike. But I feel like from the client point of view, you almost have to start higher off just to get there, given what’s going on in today’s marketing world.
Mike Gregga 33:11
Yeah, that’s a fair point. And I think you’re probably onto something, I’d love to see some data,
Britney Gardner 33:17
I would too, which is why I’m saying it’s unformed.
Mike Gregga 33:21
My client came to me and said, Look, Mike, I know you say do a lower ticket course. But I really think I want to do 147, because of the reasons you just mentioned, I’d be like, go for it, knock yourself out, this is fine. The key is to reach a broader audience. And there’s nothing wrong with kind of qualifying them a little bit more by charging a higher price, because because ultimately your goal is to drive them towards your high ticket offers, right? The key is going to be how easy is it going to be for you to find that ideal client who has this problem and bring them into this course. Because once you bring them into this course, now you’re going to get in front of them and you’re going to and by the way, I’m for sure, insisting that the course has real value, true value that’s going to serve those students that I absolutely insist on having that quality and that high value in the courses that I help my clients create. Which by the way I do in a VIP day I do in one day, I create all their all their course content. And I insist on on that content being high quality and valuable to the students. That’s exactly how you gain the credibility that you need in order to drive them to those high ticket offer. So So I hope nobody misunderstands because some people sometimes think that that’s what I’m saying. I’m not saying the only purpose of the course is to make a sale on a high ticket offer, right? I’m saying that’s a necessary like, that’s all that’s a secondary purpose to it. And for the person who’s creating it is the primary purpose of course, for the for the customers, their primary purpose is to get that value out of it that they really learned looking for. And whatever the price is. The important thing is that you’re able to Get as many people as possible to convert them to that high ticket offer. That’s really, to me the important thing that I’m striving for,
Britney Gardner 35:07
I 100% agree. And when you think about using everything online as a layered filter, right, so you know, someone comes to your low ticket offer whatever price that might be, right, they come to your low ticket offer, they do receive the value for which they are expecting, like 100%, that has to be mandatory. And some of them at that point are going to diverge from the past, some of them are going to be like, Oh, it was kind of fun learning about that, like, but I don’t really want to have done, some of them are going to be like, Oh, that was fun learning about it. That seems like a lot of work, hey, I’m gonna throw some money at you to do the rest for me. And others are going to take it and be like, Oh, this is fun. I’m going to practice and I’m going to get good. And then I’m going to get better. And then maybe I’ll be like you soon. And that is the point, right? Like, the point of us teaching online is that we are filtering those people into different paths.
Mike Gregga 35:55
100% Absolutely. And the way to do that is by really pouring your expertise into it. But again, it’s a very focused, simple, tight little slice of your expertise. It’s not the entirety of your expertise. It can’t be because that’s not what a course can do. I think people are trying to make a course do too much. The other problem that I think a lot of people run into is this tends to plague course creators who are cranking out a lot of courses. Someone came into my Facebook group just the other day and advocated for this. He he laid out a whole method of how to create a course and it basically involved. Yeah, just pick a topic and go, you know, do some Google searching and, and find some stuff, throw it in a course and throw it online, and you’re good. And of course, I replied, I’m like a man. No, this is not how we roll here. This is like the very thing that like I’m standing against and, and he didn’t repent. So his post is gone. And he’s gone. And that’s because that’s not how I roll. But I think I think you have a lot of courses. And I think this is to your point where you’re talking about those super low ticket courses, the the $37 courses, these a lot of cases. And it’s unfortunate, but a lot of cases it’s it’s stuff that somebody did a couple of Google searches through it and some slides and said, Okay, this is what I found on Google. Pay me $37 For saving you, you know, two hours of Google searching. It’s like, that’s No, I, I’ll spend the two hours of Google searching instead of spending two hours watching your course. Well,
Britney Gardner 37:40
and more importantly, I mean, for 37 bucks. Like, yeah, you can hire a VA to do the exact same thing and do it to your own specifications, following your own needs. And getting more targeted information for a similar price really, is the reality, you know, and I’ve had rants on this podcast before about lead magnets that do the same thing. If I can easily Google the answer that your lead magnet is giving me only I don’t have to give my email address in exchange for the Google search. You are doing lead magnets wrong. And I think that’s one of the things I really like about your your course philosophy is that you’re not using courses as a lead magnet, per se, but you are using it, in a sense as a way to generate leads for your higher ticket offers, which is goes 100% in line with my philosophy about all the content you put out there in the world, it should all lead to you finding your best client, so you are able to serve them in an elevated way.
Mike Gregga 38:41
Yeah, and that means you have to be very strategic about the course you create. I’ll give you an example. And actually, I interviewed her live on Facebook a couple of weeks ago. Her name is Chrissy Reese, and she was a client of mine. And we talked about what course she should make. Now Chrissy is like a data genius, right? She runs Facebook ads, she’s a Google Analytics genius gets all into, you know, these cool, interesting questions. And so she came to me and she said, You know, I’m thinking about creating a course. And I thought I would teach people how to set up Google Analytics for their use whatever their uses are, and maybe a little bit with Google Tag Manager. And we kind of talked about that. And basically, Google Tag Manager is something that you can do to bring any data from any sheet any page into one place in Google Analytics. It’s actually really cool. I learned a lot from talking to her. But I said to her, I said, Okay, let me ask you this question. Christy. I said, your high ticket offer Tell me about that. And she told me about her high ticket offer. You know, it’s, you know, it’s done for you retainer services, Facebook ads, Google Analytics, the whole nine yards, right? That’s her highest service, right? And I said, look, the purpose for this course is going to help you to generate clients for that high ticket offer. Now if we make a course on how to set up Google Analytics, that’s great. I’m sure there’s plenty of demand for it. I’m sure you do a wonderful job at it. And it would probably be a great course. And people would love it and learn a lot from it. But are those going to be the same people that want to purchase your high ticket offer? And she was like, huh, I said, I’m going to guess no. The reason why I’m guessing no is because the kind of people that are going to hire you for that high ticket offer, they don’t even want to know how to set up Google Analytics. It’s too hard. It’s too confusing. It’s numbers, it makes people’s brains hurt. And then just like, You know what I want to hire Chrissy to do that for me. So we decided that was not the course we were going to do, we were going to do something that was going to be better for them, to help them convert to her higher ticket offers. And so we talked about doing something different and at a higher level, that doesn’t get into the weeds of setting things up. And so this is the kind of thing that I love to do with my clients is kind of work through their value ladder, their different offers their ecosystem of offers at different levels, and really focus on that high ticket because, like you said anymore, our bread and butter as service providers in particular, needs to be that high ticket one to one service that needs to be like where we’re getting most of our profits from, right. So that kind of has to be our focus. And I love to strategize with my clients and think through what’s your high ticket offer? And who is going to be purchasing that? And what are they thinking about? What kind of course do they need, that’s going to help them see that they need this high ticket offer. And that’s going to be totally different with all of my clients, depending on, you know what their expertise is. But by doing that, the other thing I’m doing is ensuring that it’s not just some stuff that somebody Googled, you know, that’s going into these courses, it’s putting my clients expertise, their zone of genius, that they’ve been practicing for a while that they’re charging a good healthy high ticket price for and, and they really know what they’re talking about, this is what I do, I go into their head, and I dig that genius out. And I first I show it to them and show them how brilliant they are. And give them that experience. And I’m going to show them the best way to put this brilliance on display for their clients, for their students. That’s what I do. And I can’t tell you how much satisfaction I get out of doing that. I just, I just absolutely love it. I can do it all day.
Britney Gardner 42:34
Well, yeah. And based on the feedback that I’ve been seeing from other people who’ve gone through your VIP day are killing it. But I want to point out the reason you’re killing it is because you are solving a very particular problem that they have. They are service providers, they are one to one providers, and they are trying to scale. But they’re trying to do it in a way that makes sense. So that they don’t have to change everything they’re doing. They don’t have to change the way that they’re serving their clients. They’re just bringing in more qualified leads for those services.
Mike Gregga 43:04
Yeah, and what I’m really doing is helping to show the best part of their expertise to their prospects. That’s what I’m doing. You know, it’s very much a Cinderella queen for a day kind of experience. I want to put them in their best and help them look their best. And you know, a lot of times people think, oh, but Mike, you know, teaching live, it’s scary. I don’t want to go in front of an audience and teach myself, I can almost guarantee you, when I show you how simple and clear this is, and how how good this is, this is my client Zona genius. It’s, it’s the one thing in the world that they’re the most comfortable talking about. And they could go on for hours talking about this thing, because they love it. They’re, they’re passionate about it. That’s the thing that needs to be in a course. And you know, my clients, some of them have come into it. Like I don’t know about teaching live. But once we create their course, they’re so proud of it. They’re so excited about it. Not only are they not reluctant to get in front of people and talk about it, they can’t wait to do that. And since it’s simple, they don’t need like a crazy manuscript or something. People don’t like manuscripts anyway, it doesn’t work. Ask me why it doesn’t work, I’d be happy to tell you, it’s just but the thing is, is that manuscripts aren’t necessary. Because this is your zone of genius. This is the thing you know the most about and are passionate about, you know, just like I’m talking now I’m talking about what’s obviously the most passionate for me, I’m very passionate about this. I don’t need a manuscript right now. I’m just talking. I’m talking from the heart. And that’s what I’m helping my clients do with their zone of genius. I’m just putting in a framework for him. That’s all and it works just beautifully. And they come across looking like a genius and their students go through and go, Wow, this is clearly the go to person for this topic. And if I want that service, I’m for sure going to them first. That’s what it’s all about.
Britney Gardner 44:59
Like he said, Client generating machine.
Mike Gregga 45:03
Exactly. And it’s not hard to do for them either.
Britney Gardner 45:06
Mike this has been fantastic. You totally delivered. I love the analogies that you are giving. It makes it really easy to relate to various different kinds of service providers and and how they will find benefit.
Mike Gregga 45:19
Thank you very much. It was such a pleasure being on with you today. Brittany, wonderful show.
To Market Your Business Online:
Navigating how to market your service business online–especially when you’re moving from 1:1 services to a 1:many model–doesn’t have to be hard even when you have a lot of moving parts.
You just have to know where you’re going. The Biz GPS Intensive is the best way to get that 30,000-foot view of your business–and a concrete plan for the next six months.
Stitcher | Google Play Podcasts | Podcast Feed | How To Subscribe
LEAVE A RATING & REVIEW HERE
Music by Michael De La Torre. Thanks, Mikey!