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8 BIG Benefits To Selling Big Ticket Items
Ok, before we get down to the benefits of selling Big Ticket Items, we had better define what a Big Ticket Item is. A Big Ticket Item is any product or service that sells for more than $500 or $1000. Or, at least, that's my definition. The truth is, the definition of a Big Ticket Item really depends on where you are starting. Maybe you already sell E-Books or some other product for between $17 and $97. Or maybe you think $200 to $300 is a lot of money. My point is, the definition of Big Ticket depends a lot on your perspective. For now, it just helps to use the simple definition I have provided. Now, maybe you are completely happy selling E-Books or other lower priced items. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, every really successful marketer has a range of products that they sell or use as lead generators. Robert Allen calls this multiple streams of income. Now, let's take a close look at the BIG Benefits to selling Big Ticket Items. An example will help. Let's say you sell an E-Book for $17. How many E-Books do you have to sell to make $5000? The answer is 295! That's a lot of E-Books! Now say instead you sold an information product that consisted of 6 CDs and instruction manual. And it sells for $297. How many copies do you have to sell to make $5000? 17 copies! Or, to take this a bit further, say you had a complete home study system which included 20 CDs, 20 DVDs, 3 training manuals and 1 Year of Free Access to a Membership Site. How much would that be worth? How about $1499? How many of these systems do you have to sell to make $5000? ONLY 4 copies! Note: if you are selling as an affiliate for someone else's product then it may take you slightly longer since you are making less money per sale than if you owned the product. But the point is that you can sell much less product and make more money! If you ask anyone who has been really successful in the marketing business where the money is, they will tell you it's in the backend. What does that really mean? It means you're not going to get rich selling E-Books or other Low Ticket Items!!! Sorry, it's the truth. You need a strategy to build relationships with your customers that move them from being prospects to customers. Initially that means they will buy some low priced item from you. Once they come to trust you as a customer, some of them become highly valued clients when they purchase Big Ticket Items from you. Joel Christopher calls this the Profit Pipeline model. And Ted Nicholas says you shouldn't even launch a lead product unless you have a medium or big ticket product ready to follow it up with. Now, I admit that net profit depends on the product you are selling. But, for Big Ticket information products, real estate or other unique and specialty items, your profit is usually much larger than on a low ticket item. E-Books are cheap to create. Production costs are zero on a digitally downloaded E-Book. So, your sale on a $17 E-Book is almost pure profit. But, the creation and production costs of a similar Big Ticket information product, although higher, are still pretty low. Really, just the cost of CDs, DVDs, and their cases, binders, burning the CDs or DVDS and printing out your hard copy information. Maybe $30, and that might be on the high side. So on a $1500 product your net profit is $1470!!! And not just due to the price tag either. The products are generally more comprehensive or represent a substantial investment on the part of the customer, both in terms of time and money. So even though product creation and production costs might be low, perceived value is extremely high. And many extremely successful marketers including Joel Christopher and Ted Nicholas have found that physical products are perceived to be of even higher value than digital products. E.g. response rates were higher when selling an actual hard bound book as compared to its digital equivalent. Also, product returns are actually less with Big Ticket items because the customers themselves are more invested in the product. It's easier to admit you made a mistake and return a low ticket product than to admit a mistake on a big ticket item. Benefit #5 is closely related #4. Since the investment by the customer (cash, time and emotional investment) is so much higher for a big ticket item, consequently, so is their personal level of commitment to actually use the product and benefit from it! After all, as product creators and marketers, we are supplying these items so that people will actually use and reap the rewards from our products. These are the folks who have typically bought a low ticket item from you already. Not always, but usually. The fact that they are purchasing a big ticket item from you now indicates that they are putting a lot of trust in you and your product or service. These people are also the most likely to buy from you again and again. And, they have the capital to do it. If you are not already doing so you should have a specific sub list of your customers who are big ticket item purchasers. Joel Christopher calls this sub list his highly valued clients list. Existing clients are also your best source for future business. Dan Kennedy has said that he became a millionaire by selling to many, many people. But he became a multi-millionaire selling to a much smaller, select group of his existing customers. That was Dan's big ticket sub list! Treat the people on this sub list very specially. They should be getting your some of your most valuable information and unexpected bonuses, for FREE! You should also give them first chance at other high ticket items you have, create or endorse. They have shown you their trust, make sure you show them you appreciate them. The leap from selling a product at $17 or $49 or even $99 to selling a product at $999, $1599, $2499, $4999 or even $1M is a giant one. It requires a shift in mindset and perspective. But, once you make that shift, there are no limits! It is then only a matter of scale. Plus, once you have that paradigm shift, it is also reflected in all other aspects of your life. Confidence, imagination, belief, personal power are all increased and improved! Financial planners, stock traders, business people all think about return on investment or ROI. Return on investment is simply what you think you are going to get out of the investment based on what you put in. Many investors and business people won't invest in equities or projects unless they think they can double or triple their investment. The investment might be money, services or time and labor. Face it, You're going to do one or more of the following activities. Write a one page sales letter, create a direct mail campaign, create a website, hook up a shopping cart, drive traffic to the site and basically do all the other things we do as marketers! And that's going to happen for every product you sell! Wouldn't you rather sell a higher value, higher priced, huge profit margin, big ticket item than a $17 E-Book? Copyright (C) 2005 Chuck Daniel -- All Rights Reserved. Chuck is a former Microsoft software designer and program manager who spent more than a decade happily working on Email for Microsoft Exchange Server and on Integration for Microsoft CRM. Admittedly a seminar, workshop and information addict, Chuck left Microsoft to pursue his interests in personal development, internet, direct and information marketing and to promote and work for charitable causes. Chuck Daniel This article may be reprinted in its entirety in your E-zine or on your Site as long as the content is not modified, all links are left in place and you include the resource box as listed above. If you do use this material, please send us a copy of the publication. Thanks.
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