If you’re wondering exactly how to sell online courses and high ticket programs, pull up a chair and get cozy.
The first thing you need to know is that your offers aren’t always going to automatically sell themselves while you sit back drinking margaritas (no matter how amazing your stuff is!)
You need to have an excellent sales process in place, and the best news is that you don’t need to do any sales calls in order to scale your sales on evergreen - even for premium courses and high ticket programs.
As the pioneers of social selling – that is, selling “in the DMs” as the cool kids say – we’ve got a LOT of experience with what works and what doesn’t.
We’ve generated millions of dollars by selling via direct messages (without ever jumping on a sales call), and we’ve helped hundreds of clients do the same.
We’ve shared a lot about what great social selling looks like. In today’s article (and video), we’re taking a peek at the other side of the coin.
We’re talking about the biggest mistakes that even top six-and-seven-figure business owners make when it comes to social selling.
We’re breaking these mistakes down in detail so you can avoid making them yourself, or fix them if any of these sound familiar!
WATCH THIS VIDEO: HOW TO SELL ONLINE COURSES & HIGH TICKET PROGRAMS (3 MISTAKES TO AVOID)
https://youtu.be/ymjW9beF4ls
This blog post (and accompanying video) are part of one big juicy in-depth series we’ve created all about social selling, and this is Part 4. (Part 1| Part 2 |Part 3)
❌ Fear of voice memos (sending only text-based scripts)
If you’ve been reading along with our social selling series so far, you already know that creating connection with your most qualified leads is the key that unlocks your sales success.
If we had to pick our top trick for creating that immediate personal touch with our leads, we’d have to go with sending voice memos.
As we’ve all likely learned the hard way, so much conversational nuance is simply lost in translation when we only send text messages.
Firing off a quick voice memo instead of typing out a text DM means that your potential client can hear your tone, your enthusiasm and your passion about where they are and how you can help.
There’s simply no text-only script that can ever compare to the power of your voice.
When we’re chatting up our leads in the DMs, we like to use a mix of voice memos and text messages.
But as we’ve given this advice over the years, we’ve noticed many business owners are hesitant to harness the power of their voice.
If you’re nervous, we totally get it. You might be feeling pressure to say the perfect words in the smoothest possible way without messing up.
But remember one of our first rules of social selling in the DMs: act like a real human, because you are!
When you’re chatting with your best friend over lunch or catching up with your neighbor on a walk, do you have flawless phrasing with zero pauses, stutters or starting over? Of course not!
Normal, everyday, real deal conversational voice memos are exactly what your ideal clients want to hear.
They don’t need you to be perfect. They just need you to be YOU!
So even if it’s a little uncomfortable or unnatural at first, lean into the power of those voice memos.
And worst case scenario, most social media or text platforms have an “unsend” button – if you fumble, you can re-record!
❌ not following up or sending enough reminders
Plain and simple: most folks social selling in the DMs just aren’t following up with their leads enough.
Here’s a scenario:
You’ve been chatting with an engaged lead who seemed really interested at first.
But now that you’ve answered all their questions, they’ve stopped responding and still haven’t bought your program.
You don’t want to act sleazy or come off as desperate, so you decide not to “bother them” with any further messages.
You don’t want to push it, so you figure they’ll come to you if they’re ready – after all, if they really want it they’ll just buy it, right?
That’s where you’d be making a critical mistake. While that thought is totally logical, it’s also totally false most of the time!
We need to avoid the doom spiral our brains want to suck us into when we fear we’re getting ghosted in the DMs.
If a lead stops responding, it does NOT mean they hate us, hate our programs, think we’re annoying and want us to quietly back out now. Far from it!
What it does mean is that people are busy.
Our prospects are running businesses, shuttling kids around from school to sports, caring for aging parents, paying bills, and trying to eat vegetables.
How many times have you really wanted to buy something online, but you left it in your cart and walked away from your computer when the phone rang or someone knocked on your door?
Just because you got interrupted doesn’t mean you didn’t want that thing anymore!
Our high end clients have full plates and full inboxes. Many of them intend to get back to us, but the conversation inevitably gets lost in the shuffle.
It’s time to flip the script on ourselves and embrace the fact that it’s actually polite and courteous to send multiple reminders to people in a personal, friendly way.
That’s because the people we’re talking with are never strangers. They filled out an application to work with you or reached out because they want what you’ve got!
And since when is it “considerate” to hold something back from someone who raised a hand for it?
You aren’t bothering them. You’re actually doing them a huge favor by floating something important back to the top of their inbox!
If someone wants us to stop messaging them, we need to trust they will let us know (and of course we will immediately respect that.)
But the next time you don’t get a response from someone you’d love to work with, it’s safe to assume life happened even though they meant to get back to you.
How to Implement Reminders
Regularly following up with your leads might feel a little uncomfortable or counterintuitive at first, which is exactly why we recommend coming up with a standard process for your outreach.
When you outline the communication ahead of time, you’ll have a harder time talking yourself out of it or convincing yourself that someone is ghosting you because they want you to go away.
Here’s an example of what our typical social selling reminder flow looks like:
The simplest way to schedule out your follow up is to plan for an initial DM, a midpoint reminder, and a “24 hour” reminder followed by one “last chance” message.
At any point in the process if a lead gives us a verbal “yes”, we have a note ready to go which includes clear next steps.
Finally, create a standard “welcome” DM including onboarding details so you can celebrate your new client as soon as they make things official.
So let’s say it all together now: send the darn reminders! People will literally thank you for taking the time to reach out to them personally.
Let’s pull ourselves out of the mindset drama, STOP overanalyzing and just hit send on your reminder DMs – you might be surprised when your leads literally thank you for it!
❌ Backing down or pivoting at the first objection instead of TALKING THROUGH IT
We saved the biggest and sneakiest mistake for last.
If you’re willing to run and hide, offer a discount or change up your entire offer at the first sign of resistance in the DMs, social selling will quickly start to feel like an uphill battle.
Here’s a question we get a lot when we train our clients in the art of social selling:
How do you know if it’s merely an objection to overcome, or if they truly can’t afford it?
It’s a great question. In our next few blog posts, we’re going to be diving deep into the different types of objections you might encounter and how to talk through them with confidence in an empowering way.
For today, we need to acknowledge how tempting it is to back down and start switching things up to accommodate someone immediately in order to get an easy “yes”.
Here’s a perfect example:
Here, we see a situation in which a prospect’s initial reaction to this program is that 12 months feels “too long” because that timeframe seems “intense and tiring”.
How would you respond?
Would you feel the wind deflate from your sails, automatically assuming this person isn’t going to enroll?
Would you feel tempted to let them in for a short time right away, or sell them something cheaper?
If you answered “yes”, we totally understand. But the reality is that this is the prospect’s very first objection!
We always have the option to present a creative solution in the conversation; but before we do that, we can go a little deeper in this conversation and learn more.
We can ask more questions to get to the bottom of why this person is worried 12 months will be too tiring and intense.
We have the opportunity to shed light on why the timeframe is designed the way it is, breaking down exactly what will happen over those months to convey that it’s doable.
And through the conversation, you may discover that this truly isn’t the right time or best fit for them. That’s always okay!
But it’s equally possible that the lead actually is an excellent fit, and the details simply need to be ironed out in order for them to make an empowered decision to enroll.
It’s important to emphasize that we’re leaning into objections with empathy and understanding.
We are NOT trying to overcome the objection at all costs and pressure them, but we want to really determine whether your program is exactly what they need right now or not, and support them in the best decision for them.
Objections are an opportunity for conversation.
In a perfect world, all of our prospective clients would give us an immediate yes with zero hesitation. But that isn’t how people work.
They’re going to have questions, and for good reason – this is a big decision they are weighing as they consider your course or high ticket program!
When a prospect has an objection, it’s really an invitation to go deeper.
Because you’re a great coach, you know how important it is to go to bat for your client’s highest good.
Your program, exactly as you built it (without freebies or discounts), might very well be the exact thing this person needs.
If you take it away from them because they have one objection, who does that really serve in the end?
Tackle objections head on with honesty and transparency. Ask more questions. And be prepared by collecting the most common questions and creating a response library.
Write out the answers to your most common objections ahead of time to prevent feeling flustered in the moment.
You’ll be armed with a “mini script” that serves as a jumping off point in each unique conversation.
We like to pair our objection responses with screenshots of our favorite testimonials, since we know evidence that this can really work is often what our people are seeking:
Even the savviest of social sellers can fall into the tempting traps of these three big mistakes.
Keep them top of mind so you can guide more of your most qualified leads into your program and do what you do best: help the right people achieve the transformation they most want.
Social selling is a game changer — but it’s one piece of a bigger strategy.
If you want to learn how to create a system that sells your high ticket program on evergreen without sales calls, there’s more to it than trying to swap out calls for DMs! You’re invited to apply for our comprehensive, all-inclusive program, High Ticket Hybrid.
High Ticket Hybrid is our implementation sprint and mastermind for course creators, coaches and CEOs who want to scale an evergreen high ticket group coaching program without sales calls.
In High Ticket Hybrid, we show you how to:
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Create a hybrid course + coaching program that can serve hundreds of clients at a time in less than 10 hours per week
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Build the evergreen sales system for enrolling high-ticket clients year-round, without any sales calls
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Escape the launch-to-launch feast and famine and revenue roller coaster by going evergreen with your program
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Create, Launch and Evergreen your own high ticket program in our focused implementation sprint
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Optimize for a clear and spacious CEO calendar (the ultimate luxury)
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Build a simple, sophisticated, truly scalable business model that is chill, fulfilling, and profitable