Caitlin Bacher:
Hey there you are listening to Scale with Success®: The Podcast Built for Course Creators™. Welcome to Season 2. You’re going to notice something different this season, starting with this episode. You won’t just be hearing from me, although I’m not going anywhere. I’ve invited Karie Price to co-host with me, adding her perspective to the conversation as a former brand messaging coach, one of the first coaches inside Scale with Success®, and now our director of marketing. We’ll also be incorporating interviews this season to share different perspectives with you. So be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast player so you don’t miss any of it.
Caitlin Bacher:
We’re kicking off this season talking about a major challenge that you are likely struggling with right now, inside your online course business, the money objection. If you’re constantly hearing that your course sounds great, but people are not purchasing because they don’t have the money, that could be a symptom of a deeper problem in your business. Today, we’re diving deeper into why this objection is coming up and what actions you can take to turn this challenge into a major opportunity for your business. So if you feel like you are struggling with the money objection, then pull up a chair because we have a lot to talk about. So stay tuned.
Caitlin Bacher:
My name is Caitlin Bacher, founder and CEO of Scale with Success®, and I’m on a mission to help course creators all over the world, grow their business in a way that is profitable and scalable. Together with my co-host and director of marketing, Karie Price, we are sharing revealing conversations about what it really takes to scale an online course business to millions of dollars per year. Join us here to discover the tough decisions we’ve had to make, the biggest failures we’ve had to bounce back from and the learnings that emerged every step of the way. We are so grateful that we have the chance to share it all with you right here on Scale with Success®: The Podcast Built for Course Creators™. Let’s get started.
Caitlin Bacher:
So today we’re talking about what it really takes to package your course into a specific irresistible offer that will overcome objections and sell on autopilot. So here’s how to know if your existing offer is standing in the way of scaling your online course business. So I don’t know about you Karie, but one of the things that I noticed that is kind of a symptom or a sign that someone’s offer is a little bit off, is that over and over again, people hear from their audience, from prospects that, “Hey, your program sounds great, but now just isn’t the right time for me to buy.” Maybe it’s because I’m either too busy to make this a priority, or maybe it’s because I don’t feel financially ready to invest. What about you? What are your thoughts on that?
Karie Price:
Totally. I think we all can relate to that feeling where they’re giving you all the indications that this sounds like exactly what I need, but then there’s some excuse or some reason why now’s not the right time or they just can’t afford it. I think that’s the excuse, everybody hears that, “I just can’t afford it right now.”
Caitlin Bacher:
Yeah. And first of all, I just want to be clear for those that are listening. Yes, there are some people that genuinely cannot afford the product that you’re selling. We’re not saying that those people don’t exist, but what we are saying is that there are a fair number of people in your audience that are using that excuse that they don’t have money when what they really mean is that perhaps they don’t understand the value of what it is that you are selling. Right? Because I know if we did a poll right here right now and said for everyone listening, how many of you have ever heard of the excuse, “Well, I would love to buy, your course sounds awesome, but it’s just too much money,” right?
Karie Price:
Yeah. I think it’s because it’s relative too. We value different things differently. This is an example that I talk to people a lot about. This is going to sound weird, but I remember, and still to this day, if I buy a two liter of soda in the store, I feel like a dollar is too much. If it’s over a dollar, I’m like, “Oh my gosh, that’s really expensive for a two liter of soda.” But you’ll spend 2.79 to get a medium soda when you get takeout and that doesn’t feel like it’s too much. So we see the value of the thing that we want at the time we need it and it’s about making sure people understand that.
Caitlin Bacher:
Yeah. So I remember when I was selling my Facebook group course way back in the day and I had my big Facebook group and I remember I would see this, I don’t want to say her name, but I would see this one person and she was constantly posting in my free group, the same kinds of questions over and over and over again. And it would drive me absolutely bonkers, not because they were bad questions to ask, they were great questions to ask, but it would drive me bonkers because the course that I was selling was specifically designed to spell out all of those problems. And I had messaged her before and said, this is actually a product that I sell that I think can really help you. And I remember distinctly her saying, “You know what? I actually don’t think that product is right for me. I saw the webinar, but I don’t think it’s right for me.”
Caitlin Bacher:
And in that moment I just thought, okay, something is up, something is up. I need to go back and look at this webinar and see what the heck is going on because she was literally… It would have been one thing if she had said, “You know what? No, it’s just not right for me,” and I could tell by the questions she was asking that she was actually not a right fit. But no, the questions that she was asking, all the things that she was kind of struggling with were exactly the things that my course could help her solve.
Karie Price:
Yeah. Isn’t that funny? And it kills you to see that. It kills you to know you have an answer to the struggle that they have. And you’re like, “I don’t know how to make this any more clear. That’s exactly what I do. I can help you solve that so you don’t have to struggle with that anymore.” And that’s the hardest thing to feel as a course creator.
Caitlin Bacher:
Yeah, 100%. So if that’s you, if you’re someone who has ever had the experience of someone saying, “You know what? Now’s just not the right time to buy because I don’t have the funds” or “Now’s not the right time for me to buy because I’m just really busy.” If that’s you, I really want for you to keep listening because what we’re about to dive into is some popular mistakes to avoid when it comes to improving your offer. Right? Because a lot of you listening are probably just like me back in the day when I had that realization moment of, “Oh my gosh, this one person in my free Facebook group is perfect for my course. She has seen my webinar and she doesn’t get it. She doesn’t understand how this course could really help get her the results that she wants.”
Caitlin Bacher:
And so if you’re just like me and if you’re listening, I want to make sure that we cover some common, these are really popular mistakes that I see people make time and time again. And so I want to go over those to make sure that if you are doing these things, you can stop doing them. And if you’re thinking of doing those things, don’t do them. Are you ready to begin, Karie?
Karie Price:
Yeah. And let me just preface by saying Caitlin, you’re not kidding when you say so many people make these mistakes, right? And it comes from, we’re just trying everything we can to help people understand the value. So if you’re making any of these mistakes, just know there’s no judgment in this. We just want to help you avoid this because these are traps that are easy to slide into and there’s a better way.
Caitlin Bacher:
Yeah. And also, believe it when I tell you I have made every single one of these mistakes and I’m sharing that too, Karie.
Karie Price:
100%, 100%. That’s why I’m like no judgment, we all do it.
Caitlin Bacher:
Yeah, totally. So the first mistake that we really want you to avoid is we don’t want you to lower your price so more people will buy. Now, I get it. I totally understand how triggering it can be if someone watching your webinar and then they email in and they’re like, “This was just too expensive. I would love to buy, but it’s just too much money.” I totally get how, because we’re entrepreneurs, because we’re of course creators and we love to solve problems, we’re thinking to ourselves, “Oh, the price is too high? Okay, great. Next time I will lower the price. Problem solved.” Well, not so fast. What are your thoughts on this, Karie?
Karie Price:
No matter what your price point, someone’s going to tell you they can’t afford it. Right? So if you start lowering the bar and then you keep hearing that, that’s really frustrating. So just know that it doesn’t matter how cheap you make it. Even people who feel like they need to give it away for free, somebody’s going to have some reason why, or it’s a dollar, there’s going to be a reason there. So definitely don’t lower your price. So this is going to come really from a branding perspective. If you don’t value the transformation that you know that you can help people get, they’re not going to value it either. So by lowering the price and discounting it and thinking that that’s the way that people are going to be like, “Oh, well now it’s a no brainer. I’m going to jump on that,” you’re going to be really disappointed.
Caitlin Bacher:
Okay. Yeah, that’s a really good point. I can imagine, if you have an offer that is really meaty and is really designed to give someone that big transformation, if you lower the price too much, that could actually communicate to the very people that you are trying to reach, that it’s not that meaty of course, right? You could actually underprice yourself and that could make someone value it less. And kind of speaking to what Karie was saying also about, no matter what the price point is, you’re going to have people say that, it’s totally true.
Caitlin Bacher:
I remember at one point we had a little engagement kit that we were selling for 20 bucks. And we would have the same thing, people would email. They’d ask us a bunch of questions that were like “$20 is a lot of money for me. I want to make sure,” dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, whatever. And the reality is, is that they weren’t clear on whether or not that product was for them. That’s not really a money issue, it’s a “me” issue because I didn’t adequately hit their specific pain points, not to make them be in pain, but to make them aware of what their problems were and how my specific product could actually help them solve those problems.
Karie Price:
Yeah, definitely. When you’re in it and you’re in that position, it’s so hard to see that. And so again, for those of you who feel like this is where you’re at or where you’re leaning towards, this is totally normal because we feel like we’re responding to what our audience is telling us. Our audience says, “Oh, if it were cheaper, then I could afford it.” But at some point, Caitlin, you’re totally right. If it’s so cheap, they’re going to be like, “Well, it can’t be that great if it’s that low price.” Right? If I get to that point where I know I need help and I’m willing to invest in that, I want something that’s really going to help me. And if it’s too cheap, it just won’t feel complete.
Caitlin Bacher:
I love that. If it’s too cheap, it won’t feel complete. You can put that on a bumper sticker. Yeah. So let’s talk a little bit about this other, so yes, when people are having a hard time following your offer or when they constantly hear, “Oh, this is too expensive” or, “Oh, I just don’t have time to do it,” or, “Oh, I’ll just wait until next time to buy.” When you’re hearing these cases like that, you definitely do not want to lower your price. Another thing that you don’t want to start doing is adding a bunch of extra stuff to it. Now, when I’m talking about extra stuff, what I mean is extra lessons, extra bonuses, extra one-on-one calls. I get it that you’re trying to add value to what it is that you’re selling, but I promise you that the problem is not that you don’t have enough stuff in there. That’s never the problem. The problem is they’re not understanding what the true value of your offer is and what it can really do for them.
Karie Price:
Yeah. Please don’t add a bunch of extra stuff. When I purchase courses and I see, “Oh, and there’s all these things,” all that does is make me feel overwhelmed. Like, “Wait, oh my gosh, I have to do all those things too? And where do I start? And what do I really need?” I’m ready for an answer and I’m ready for help. I want it dialed in. I can go get more information elsewhere. I’m looking for somebody that knows how to weed through all of that for me and give me the things that are going to get me transformation the fastest.
Caitlin Bacher:
Yeah, 100%. that’s something that I know we work on with our Scale with Success® clients is we have a really specific methodology for actually determining what the bonuses are, what needs to be included inside your course. We are all about streamlining and not just creating a bunch of, to be honest, kind of confusion, right? I don’t know if you’ve ever been on a webinar before and they’re like, “And there’s this, and there’s this, and there’s that.” And you’re just like, “What? I don’t even remember why I signed up for this webinar. What am I even doing here?” And so we’ve spent a lot of time and effort on really honing that process and it’s always so funny when our clients go through it and then they’re like, “Oh, now I get it. Now I see why I know how to turn about,” dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. So yeah, it’s funny. Sometimes more is not more.
Karie Price:
More is not more. More can be overwhelming, right? Think about no matter what it is you want help with, eating healthier, right? When I hired a nutrition coach to help me, I wanted her to tell me, “Here’s the guidelines to work within,” not “Here’s 500 different ways that you could do it. And so pick what you want.” That’s not what I’m paying her for. I’m paying for her to narrow down the choices so I could get results faster.
Caitlin Bacher:
Exactly. Show me the simplest, fastest way to do it, that’s what I care about. I don’t want to do a bunch of extra stuff. I want to do the bare minimum to get results.
Karie Price:
Totally want to do the bare minimum to get results, yes?
Caitlin Bacher:
Yeah.
Caitlin Bacher:
So what happens, I don’t know, you probably see this in our program too, Karie, where sometimes people start out and they kind of feel like, “I haven’t had any luck selling this course before. And so I think the real problem is that my niche just isn’t the right niche,” or “Maybe I need to start targeting different people” or “Maybe the topic of my course, just nobody cares about.” Maybe there are only five people in the world that care about my Instagram marketing course. And after that, I’m just totally tapped out, tapped out my audience. Maybe that’s the case. What do you think about that?
Karie Price:
Yeah. This one, I know it’s so common for people. Now, let me just caveat this by saying, I am a firm believer in getting really clear on your niche. And sometimes that means that you need to change your niche. But really what it usually means is that you need to narrow and get more specific instead of completely changing. So I think sometimes people think, “Oh, well I’m told I’ve got a niche, I’ve got to be specific.” But they take that to make a right turn and completely change what they’ve been doing. And really it’s more about fine tuning. And so yes, you might be encouraged or you might be thinking about, “Oh, I need to change a niche.” But think of it in terms of getting narrow, what that allows you to do is speak more specifically to an audience where then they’re like, “Oh my gosh, she really gets me. You’re in my head. You know exactly what’s happening.” But it doesn’t mean like this niche, this group of people must not need the thing anymore, you just haven’t found the right way to talk to them yet.
Caitlin Bacher:
Yeah. I totally agree. Something that you said that really stood out to me was it’s really about fine tuning your message and getting more targeted in the people that you’re trying to reach. It doesn’t mean that you need to choose an entirely different audience, right? If you’ve been marketing your product to dentists all this time, it doesn’t mean that all of a sudden you need to start marketing your product to teachers. What that means is that maybe you need to get a little more targeted, maybe you want to target dentists that have a general practice, or maybe you want to target orthodontists, or maybe you want to target dentists that have their own practice or dentists that worked for someone else. So there’s a lot of different ways that you can really optimize your niche. But it’s very rare. I’m trying to think right now. Has there ever been a client where I’ve literally told them that is the wrong niche, you need to totally change it. I can’t think of one.
Karie Price:
No, I can’t think of a specific example where you’re like this is never going to work, you need to think about doing something different because no matter what you’re into, there’s billions of people on the planet, there are plenty of people that need help with that thing no matter how insignificant it feels to you. In fact, it might feel insignificant to you because you’re an expert in that, because you already know how to solve the problem. And there are so many people, they wouldn’t even know where to start, but they have an interest. So don’t give up on them and don’t change a niche and have to start all over. That’s a lot of work.
Caitlin Bacher:
Yeah, that’s just it. It’s like solving the wrong problem. The problem is not that you have the wrong niche, the problem is that you don’t know how to effectively communicate the value of what you’re selling. So let’s talk about some of the things that we want to make sure that do in order to really improve your offer and enroll more students. What’s one of the more important things that you can think of right now, Karie?
Karie Price:
Yeah. So for me, it’s always going to come down to clarifying your offer, knowing how to talk about your program. And this will be a whole nother topic for another day, but your offer is not the same as your course. Your offer is really, how do you speak about it in a way that gets your audience super excited. That’s totally near and dear to my heart. I’m all about messaging Caitlin, you know that. And it’s also the very first thing we help all of our clients do in the program. And what I really love is watching all of their wins and their aha moments and the clarity like you were sharing earlier how even getting clear on how to determine your bonuses. People are like, “Oh my gosh,” it’s seemingly so simple, but it’s so powerful in shifting everything you do in how you market your course.
Caitlin Bacher:
Yeah. I think just again, this whole thing of, you do not have to start from scratch, right? Look at your existing content that is inside of your course. How can you really streamline that so that it’s in alignment with a really clear, specific promise. A lot of times people ask me about pricing and things like that. And I think that when it comes to automated webinars, the price points that I see working the best are somewhere in the range of 497 to 1997. There’s not to say that anything falls that it won’t work if it falls outside of that range, but that’s kind of the sweet spot that we are seeing with our clients. I mean, I will tell you though yesterday in the Facebook group, someone was like, I sell a $2,500 offer and this has been working great. And that’s awesome, but there’s always outliers. But I think that that kind of price point, especially if you’re selling something that solves a very specific problem, I think that works really well.
Karie Price:
Yeah. And it’s interesting you talk about like the higher price point, how that is an outlier and it could work. I think what I see a lot or hear a lot is people being really nervous to raise their price to 497. And I think it comes back to what we were talking about earlier, like they’re afraid, my market, my niche, they can’t afford that for whatever reason. So it needs to be lower. But when you have confidence that you know you can get people transformation and you know that you’re communicating it in that way, people will pay to get results. And if you’ve got that packaged in such a way that it’s really clear to your audience, there’s no reason why you can’t get it to 497. It might not be right away. You might work up to that as you really dive in, but there’s no reason why it can’t be.
Caitlin Bacher:
Yeah. I can think of one of our clients in particular, right now she’s selling her course for 997. But when she started working with us two years ago, she was selling her course for 197. Now, did she all of a sudden start selling it for 997? No, she didn’t, right? And we’re not suggesting that that’s something that we think you should be doing. She took baby steps toward it, right, and was able to find a piece that was right for her. And of course, over time, she was improving her product, helping her clients get even better results. And so it was a gradual thing. She didn’t overnight all of a sudden decide, “Oh, I’m just going to raise my price from 197 to 997.
Caitlin Bacher:
I don’t think that would ever be a good strategy, but it just kind of goes to show, and I remember her specifically, here’s someone who said “My audience can’t afford it. There’s no way that my audience would pay 997 for a course because I’m even looking at my competitors and they’re charging less than 197. They’re charging less than me. Why in the world would I charge more than that?” And this is the one, like I said, we started working with her over two years ago. And right now she’s, I think last year was her first million dollar year. She did it amazingly well. But, it takes time. It’s not something that you just all of a sudden decide to do.
Karie Price:
Yeah. And I think that methodical approach to working up to that, it’s really a great example of just what we help all of our clients think about in terms of, because I remember watching her journey as she’s grown, right? And she was really uncomfortable. It’s like, “Okay, well let’s test it.” Let’s raise the price a little bit and let’s see what happens to your metrics. And she’s like, “Oh wait, I’m still converting and now I’m more profitable.” Okay, let’s raise it a little bit more. And what happens to my metrics? And so I think that helped her gain confidence in her own decision-making and raising that price and getting it to the point and letting her audience prove, we really want this and we’re willing to pay for it.
Caitlin Bacher:
Yeah. And I think in doing that too, you really have to be clear on what are those internal obstacles that your audience is facing when it comes to making the decision to buy, right? Because it’s like, some people have this idea in their head that they’re like, “Oh, I’m just going to raise the price and everything’s going to be exactly the same.” No. You can raise the price, but your marketing also has to improve to make sure that you are doing a better job of overcoming those objections.
Caitlin Bacher:
And in order to overcome those objections, it’s really important that you begin to investigate the real reason people aren’t buying. We talked about this earlier. In some cases it is money, but in the majority of cases, it is not just money and it’s not just time. And so it’s really important that you get people on the phone, you ask the right questions to really tease out, “Well, what is really going on here?” Right? What is the real reason? I understand that you’re saying that it’s the price, but we also know that if I offered to sell you a Lamborghini today for $100, or 1,000, or 997, you would find the money and do it because then you knew that you could go ahead and resell it and get the value for that. What’s really going on here?
Karie Price:
Yeah. And I love what you said, Caitlin. You’ve got to get on the phone and talk to people about it because we make assumptions, what we think the objections are or the reasons for buying or not buying are, and that’s what we talk about. And then we wonder why, “Oh, they don’t see it. They’re not getting it.” It’s not till you speak to them specifically. And you know how to draw that out and you get the real reasons and you’re like, “Huh, I don’t think I would’ve thought that that was it. But if I start speaking to that, does that resonate with people?” And again, then as they’re interacting with you and your marketing and they watch your webinar, the whole time, they’re like, “Whoa, you’re totally in my head. How did you do that?” Because you really understand your audience in a way that they’re like, “You must be the expert that can help me because you really get the problem. You really get what I’m concerned about and you’re showing me that you can help me fix that. Okay, I’m in.”
Caitlin Bacher:
Yeah, 100%. And that’s a great of one of the ways that you can work on overcoming the objection inside of the offer itself. That’s a little advanced strategy, we say that for our clients a bit, but it is once you’re… When you really think about what it takes to create an offer that is irresistible to the right people, because we’re not talking about enrolling people that are not a good fit for your offer, right? But when creating an irresistible offer that someone who is the perfect fit, who could really benefit from that product that you’re selling, being able to craft the offer in a way that overcomes that prospect’s objection inside of the offer itself, that’s when it becomes truly irresistible.
Karie Price:
Yeah. I love seeing this with our clients. And so for those of you who are listening, who don’t feel like you’re there yet, I love when our clients share the feedback that they’re getting from their prospects and their new clients, they’re like, “Wow, this was a no brainer. You laid it out. I knew exactly why I needed this and that you could help me solve that problem.” It completely changes the dynamic and it’s one of the things I love most is just watching this for our own clients.
Caitlin Bacher:
Yeah. I love it too. So I’d love to know your biggest challenge when it comes to creating an irresistible offer that people just can’t wait to dig into. So send me a DM Instagram and let us know. Talk soon.
Caitlin Bacher:
Are you ready to scale your online course business so you can impact the lives of more people and create real change in the world? Join us inside our signature program, Scale with Success®, where you’ll get the content, coaching and community you need to successfully implement our proven process to help you scale, so you can start reaping the rewards of running a highly profitable online course business. Scale with Success® is a multi-year group coaching experience built for online course creators who are ready to scale their business to and through $1 million with certainty as a result of having the right support at the right time. What are you waiting for? Click over to scalewithsuccess.com and apply now.
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