SPI 591: Geeking Out on Funnels and High-Ticket Pricing With Rick Mulready

SPI 591: Geeking Out on Funnels and High-Ticket Pricing With Rick Mulready

Rick Mulready: You notice that I just mentioned the price of my program. Most people don’t do that. Most people say apply now and there’s no price on the page. People want transparency. Like, what is the price? It’s always been taught like, well, if it’s high-ticket, don’t put the price on there. Make sure you get them on the call and then share the price. What I’m hearing is people don’t apply because they think it costs more than it actually does. So they’re not even applying because they’re like, “Oh, I can’t even afford this.”

Pat Flynn: That was our good friend, Rick Mulready from the art of online business podcasts. And we are chatting with him today and actually geeking out pretty hardcore. About funnels. So it doesn’t matter what you sell. Maybe it’s a lower level product, maybe a mid tier course, coaching consultation, maybe all the way into an accelerator or mastermind program.

Today, we are talking funnels. How do we get people from kind of just first discovering you and finding you and what might we need to do to get them to not just spend potentially hundreds of dollars with us, but invest thousands of dollars with us. So we will get into the funnel for a high ticket item and is high ticket item a thing that you could sell.

Is it for everybody? How can you do it if there’s not necessarily an ROI for that person on the other end? Well, there is a way, and we’re going to share that today and what I love about Rick. And every time he comes on the show and just in general, he always makes things so much easier to understand, and he definitely follows through today.

So I hope you enjoy this episode. This is session 591 of the Smart Passive Income podcast and this is Rick Mulready from RickMulready.com and the Art of Online Business Podcast.

Announcer: Welcome to the Smart Passive Income Podcast, where it’s all about working hard now. So you can sit back and reap the benefits later.

And now your host, he used the pandemic to learn that slowing down is the best way to speed up. Pat Flynn!

Pat Flynn: Rick welcome to the Smart Passive Income Podcast. Thanks for joining me today, my friend.

Rick Mulready: Good to be back here, man. Thanks so much for having me again.

Pat Flynn: What’s really funny is that like geographically speaking, we are probably less than a half mile away from each other right now.

Rick Mulready: Why aren’t we doing this in person?

Pat Flynn: I don’t know. I mean, we’re literally on video right now and we could have just met and hung out in the same office or something and you know, we’re post COVID mostly, and, you know, we hang out. We fish all the time anyway, why are we doing it this way? I don’t know.

Probably cause this is just how we do podcasts anyway. But Rick, from the Art of Online Business, check out that podcast a long time friend, previous guests on the show, we’re going to talk about funnels. And I want to start with talking about funnels, to what and talking about high ticket stuff, because I think a lot of the audience listing is sort of where I started a while back where it was courses maybe even some consultations or something like that.

But can you define what high ticket is and how it differs from like selling a course or something like that?

Rick Mulready: It’s a great question. Like I was having a conversation with one of our accelerator students yesterday and they were selling a $297 course, and they were talking about what kind of funnel that I was recommending to run for that.

And they were talking about doing like this big. Elaborate challenge to it. And like two weeks and all this other stuff, I was like not necessary. And so it’s really important to think about, like, the question that you’re asking Pat is like, at what point do you have to sort of elevate the funnel, if you will, when you reach a certain price point, I start to look at that at like, probably like $5,000 and up.

Meaning, it’s not so much at that point a “Okay, somebody can go to a webinar and then they’re just going to purchase right off of that webinar.” They’re probably going to need to get on the, on a Zoom call with you or whatever it might be to have a conversation, to get their questions answered. And then also, if you have say like a mastermind or group coaching program, you as the, as the owner of your business and the person who runs that program might want to be doing applications for it.

So somebody has to “qualify” to be in that program. So you’d want to have them apply and we can break all this funnel down and stuff like that, but you’d want them to apply so that you reviewed the application, which then determines the next step. Do you say, send them some sort of emails saying, you know, in so many words, you know, unfortunately this program isn’t going to be for you.

Or does that lead to setting up a Zoom call with them to talk through further?

Pat Flynn: It makes sense because at the higher level, you know, people are going to be less likely to just, you know, put their credit card number in for something of that price. So a conversation might be needed. And you know, that also begs the question like, “How do I sell something in a phone call?” Right? And I’d love to take you through your process on how that’s done, but let me go back to what you said earlier. A student of yours said they’re promoting a course or want to promote a course for about 300 bucks and they wanted to do this elaborate stuff. And you said, no, that’s too much.

Like what is a funnel that’s working right now for a lower-level course before we then move into the higher level.

Rick Mulready: Yeah. So I’m always asking, not only myself and my team for my business, but also all of my students in our accelerator programs. Like what would this look like if it were easy? And you’ve, you know that.

Pat Flynn: That’s like my go-to question all the time.

Rick Mulready: Yeah. Like what’s the simplest path to sell this program and what does the experience need to be for my audience? And in order for them to be able to make a decision on whether they go forward with this program or not, you want them to make a decision, whether it’s yes or no. And so for a $297 program like that, you really could honestly do it all through email.

That can be an email funnel where you have somebody opt into a really super helpful lead magnet. You give them a quick win, you nurture them a little bit, and then you lead them just through email to that offer where you make the offer of that program. At $297 too it’s kind of that in the middle point, if you will, where you could go either way.

What I mean by that is you could totally get away with doing an email promotion for it. You could also absolutely do a webinar for it. That price point too would be really, really good for evergreen. Meaning do you quote unquote, do a live launch if you will. Several times to re a webinar.

You really get that down. Meaning you learn your numbers, what works, what doesn’t work once you’ve sort of refine that process, then you evergreen it. Meaning it’s available at all times and then you’re offering people to watch the webinar, et cetera, et cetera, that is working really, really well.

Pat Flynn: Do you have a particular tool that you recommend for evergreen webinars if somebody’s setting up that kind of funnel?

Rick Mulready: Yeah. What a lot of our members are using, I’m not currently using it, but a lot of the members of our accelerator program are using Stealth Seminar.

Pat Flynn: Stealth Seminar? That’s a new one that actually I haven’t heard of.

Rick Mulready: Yeah, they’re using Stealth and a lot of them are having really good luck and they tried other platforms and then sort of ended up with Stealth and have had really good results.

Now I will say that I haven’t heard one of these evergreen platforms that connects well, with, from a tracking purpose, like they have internal tracking really, really well. Like they can tell you like how long people are watching the video or the webinar, or what have you all that stuff. But like connecting with, say like the Facebook pixel, for example, I haven’t heard one good experience with any of the platforms out there unfortunately, you know, where it’s easy to do that and to have reliable information. Now, granted reliability on pixel information is a whole other topic. Just from that perspective. They’re getting a lot of good results with that platform.

Pat Flynn: Cool. That’s great. I’ll check that out for sure. We are on Team SPI focused on trying to get a really good funnel going for power of podcasting.

You know, we live launch it every once in a while. But we definitely want some stuff just kind of automatically happening under the hood. And I might get into doing live webinars again, especially the cold audiences who come in via an ad or something like that. And then nailing that webinar. And like you said, pushing it into perhaps some more evergreen type of thing.

And you had mentioned like $297 is a great price point for evergreen. Is there a price point that is too high? For evergreen, where it’s like, let’s remove ourselves from the entire process with automated the whole thing. If the price point’s too high, just likely wouldn’t work without some touch points beyond that.

What’s the higher end, you’d say?

Rick Mulready: I think if you’re at like, we have a member right now who is selling a $1497 program on evergreen. And she sells it really, really well.

Pat Flynn: Oh, wow.

Rick Mulready: Yeah. I would say if you’re in that, let’s say north of $1,500, if you’re getting close to that $2000, like I know I also know plenty of people who do evergreen, a $2,000 program, but I think it does become that much harder to do.

And usually when they’re doing a $2,000 offer on evergreen, they’re giving a, you know, sort of the, or the urgency and scarcity, if you will, they’re there, they’re offering some sort of. To bring it down to kind of like that $1497 level ish. Yeah. Like we have a member right now. Who’s doing very, very well on evergreen selling a $1,500 offer.

Pat Flynn: Are they offering pricing plans to help make that commitment upfront a little bit easier?

Rick Mulready: Yeah. This particular member I’m thinking about, she offers a, I believe a three-pay $500. I mean, you can go and you and I haven’t talked about this actually in a while. I wouldn’t go beyond. At that kind of price point. I really wouldn’t go beyond like a six pay.

Okay. Cause then you do get into a lot more. If you offer a 12 pay on something like that. Yes. A lot more people will take that. However, then you will run into like credit card declines and chasing all that down and stuff like that. So I wouldn’t go beyond really a six pay.

Pat Flynn: That makes sense. Have you heard of company called Wizebank. W-I-Z-E?

Rick Mulready: You actually mentioned them to me in passing. And I was like, oh, I’m just curious about looking into that. And I’d been hearing about this whole quote, unquote, buy now pay later from an e-comm perspective where, you know, somebody could buy a product, get it now and just, you know, make payments on it or what have you.

And I didn’t honestly didn’t know really much about it. And so I started looking into Wizebank and it was, you know, what they say is learn now. Pay later and really working in our space from a course perspective or a coaching program perspective. And what is really appealing when, from what I, once I’ve looked into it a little bit, actually I had a conversation with the John, the founder and CEO.

It’s like, it’s pretty fascinating, right? It’s like somebody buys your $1,500 course or a coaching program or mastermind or whatever it might be. And they get to choose how they want to pay for. Up to, I think it’s up to like 12 months. They can choose like a three month option, a six month option a nine month option, whatever it might be.

But you, as the course creator, you get paid upfront. So if you’re selling a $997 program and somebody chooses a 12 pay option, you get the $997 upfront, but they’re making the 12 month payments through Wizebank. Yeah, it’s pretty appealing. And I mean, yeah, there’s a percentage and stuff like that, that, I mean, why is bank as a company would need to make money off of it, but that’s how they do it.

They take a percentage of that, but yet when you do that, you’re making it more accessible to a person who might not be able to afford, at that price point, because they get to set up a payment plan on it. But you, as the course creator get paid the full amount upfront.

Pat Flynn: Yeah. And now you have more cashflow to work with and invest into ads and other things like that, like really, really fascinating.

I’m a big fan of John and the team at Wizebank. And we are exploring the use of them as well, because like you said, it makes the courses more accessible. And for cashflow purposes, you know, the creator can also get paid up front too. So really, really cool. That’s W I Z E bank. And no, they did not pay me to bring this up.

We talked about maybe mid-level stuff. Let’s talk. Higher level stuff, the high ticket items, can you help a person understand who’s listening to this to go? Like, what would I even offer that would qualify for a $5,000 situation? Like, I can’t even imagine that’s unfathomable. Like what are people charging for at that price point?

Rick Mulready: I can share a real life example right now that I looked at yesterday. We’re recording this on a Tuesday. I was helping one of our accelerator members with this exact challenge. So she teaches she’s in the e-comm space, but she teaches other established female e-comm owners. Who are in like the women’s fashion, apparel and accessories, like skincare, beauty, that sort of thing.

And that space, she teaches them how to grow their already established e-comm business. Generally they’re already averaging at least $8K per month in revenue from their e-commerce business. So that’s her target audience. To be honest, it’s taken her several months to get clarity on serving that specific audience.

And so I know a lot of your listeners and I went through this for years. We, it takes us a while to hone in on our target audience. Right. So, you know, over the past year or so, she’s kind of bounced around within the e-comm space. Like what level of person that she wants to serve. Right. So she had a course that serve beginners and so forth.

All that to say is that she settled on what really lights her up is serving this audience that I just mentioned that audience. And so at that point, at that level of quote unquote target audience that she wants to serve, they don’t need another course. They want more coaching, direct coaching. They want training from the person sort of live.

I mean, yeah, they can build, do training videos, but they want the coaching on it. They don’t want to go through another course. We went through some options on what does that offer look like? And she’s thinking about something in the six month timeframe for sort of that, you know, six to eight K total for that sort of.

And specifics of the offer still kind of hashing that out. But in general it would be kind of like for, for this program that she’s looking at, you know, kind of like a weekly training for them, there’s a group for their, you know, to answer questions. She’s going to invite a guest expert to come in and talk about, you know, different topics within e-comm, as far as getting traffic and marketing and so forth, where that comes from is knowing that who she’s served.

And understanding they don’t need another course. They don’t need, you know, more step-by-step videos to go through. They’ve already been done really well. They’re averaging at least eight K per month in their business. Now they need sort of that more direct coaching. So now she’s creating an offer around that because one of the things that she was thinking about too, pat was like, do I do like a full, I don’t know where she got four months, but she was saying like, do I do like four months or six months?

I don’t know where you’re getting four months, but let’s stay with six months because you know, something that we’ve seen, I know that you’ve done coaching in the past and done a mastermind and so forth life events come up. Right? Some like stuff happens where people need to step away from their business for several weeks or whatever it might be.

And so if, if you have sort of that, what I’ve found is if you have sort of that three to four month program people tend to be like, Ooh, I only have this much time. And then if something happens in their life where they do have to take a step back, they feel a lot of pressure because there are quote, unquote only have this much time in your program.

I mean, I’ve run three month programs years ago and that’s what I found it wasn’t long enough. That’s why I recommended. All right, let’s start with a six month program for, for my student here, pricing in that sort of $6-8k range for that offer, but it really kind of going back to uni and going full circle on this is like, she realized that her, her audience doesn’t want another course.

They want coaching. And that’s how she started to come up with that offer.

Pat Flynn: That makes sense. I, I like those numbers for a few reasons. You know, it’s like you can imagine a thousand bucks a month to get access to a person, an expert, a community, coaching, accountability, et cetera. You know, six months, $6,000, $8,000, et cetera.

You’d also mentioned that this target audience, you know, generates about $8,000 a month. So take one month of your yearly earnings, invest that. And I imagine that the promise of the outcome is, you know, you will no longer be at the $8K range. You will be in the 12, 15, 20, 25 K range. So the ROI is, is there.

That makes sense for that particular audience and I probably know the answer to this question from you, but our high ticket options and opportunities offers like this available to every niche, for example, a person who has a guitar course, right. And they’re selling a $297 course, they’re getting traffic in from YouTube.

Could they somehow put together a $5,000 high ticket guitar training program? Maybe? Maybe not.

Rick Mulready: Yeah, because I’m thinking like I keep referencing other of my accelerator members, like we have a, we have a drum teacher, he teaches he’s one of the top rate. I don’t know. Drumming magazine. I don’t know what the magazine is, but I rated him as one of the top dozen drumming teachers in the world, or what have you.

And he has a membership. I don’t know if like a high ticket offer, like what we’re talking about with work in that niche. But what he does do on a higher ticket level is he has what he calls camps. Where during the summertime, he lives in Nashville and he has this whole studio that, you know, that he built out and he has these camps where people come in for.

I think it’s like five days. And I forget what the price point is, but it’s, you know, it’s a couple thousand dollars. I think something like. So that’s the offer any sell, like the demand for it is so high. Like they come in and he like just makes us amazing experience and you know, he’s got swag for them.

And I think he, I mean, he’s in Nashville and he’s got amazing connections. So he has a quote, unquote, famous drummer come in and speak to them and do lessons and stuff like that. So it’s a different form of a higher ticket offer, but not, you know, like a mastermind or a group coaching program.

Pat Flynn: Actually that’s really encouraging because I think many people who are listening consider the coaching and or mastermind opportunity, like really the only higher end ticket option that they, that they have.

But I like this idea of the drummer. Like once a year, five days, maybe there’s multiple versions of this. The experience studies creating for people is worth paying for it, despite them not having a clear, necessary ROI. Right. Versus like these coaches and masterminds. It’s like I’m investing this so that I can get more money back on the other side and some niches, that’s just very clear and opportune versus something that’s more like this, which is. More hobby based. If you will. We both know this. When you are in a hobby, you will spend a lot of money to have as much of the best experiences as possible, i.e. a lot of the fishing you and I have been doing recently, but that’s encouraging.

Okay. So we’ve opened up the doors for people in terms of, okay. You can potentially create different versions of a high ticket offer. Whether you are helping people make more money or helping people with creating better experiences or learn a talent better, or, you know, come together in a situation like that event, et cetera.

Rick Mulready: And I think this is something that I started thinking about in my business probably like four years ago. And it made me think about it. When you said, you know, there’s other high ticket opportunities outside of, you know, a mastermind group coaching program. We just obviously talked about the drumming camps or whatever.

I like this exercise to think about what is something that I could offer that my audience would love to do that is outside. Like, we’ll use a little cliche term outside the box, right? Like that is beyond what somebody normally thinks about. And so here’s an example. Back when I only focused on Facebook ads, one thing I was thinking about doing was doing a two day trip and we’d all meet at like Facebook headquarters. And I would do some sort of like a ranging on the backend, make contacts within Facebook where, how cool would it be to do like a private session with somebody on their ads team and then do like this big dinner together. And it would be like, I don’t know, like a $10,000, I’m just throwing this out there, $10,000 experience over like two days. And, you know, you can make it so that like there’s car service waiting for them. I’m just throwing this out there. Just as an idea to like, kind of think about like, what would be really cool that your audience would love. In the way I’ve experienced and like, you’re amazing at creating experiences for people.

And so for everybody listening right now, like what kind of experience could you create that is just outside the norm that your audience would love. And maybe it’s just like, just doing like a one day coaching session. If, if. Everybody who’s in the coaching or you say drums, what if you offered, like, come spend the day with me in San Diego and it’s whatever the cost is, you know, whatever $3,000 or whatever it might be. It’s thinking beyond what most people talk about.

Pat Flynn: Yeah. I love that exercise. It almost allows us to go, okay, well with the same audience, what are the different levels that we can service them? Right? What are the lower end items? The free things that blow their mind, the mid-level. And then of course like the higher ticket items.

We’re not saying that you have to do those, all those things, but just to explore those options might create something interesting and exciting in allowing to scratch an itch and help more people. The thing about the high ticket items that we also have to consider it’s not going to be for everybody in your audience, right?

You might have an audience very defined, but even within that audience, there’s different levels of people who want to engage in different ways. There are some people who will only absorb all the free content, great. Help them out and have them share your brand with as many people as possible. There are people who are going to take your course, maybe just one course and they’re in and out, or, like many people in the SPI audience, they take multiple courses and they have access to every single one and they, they that’s all that they enjoy, but they would never spend thousands of dollars to come and fly to San Diego for, for. That being said, there’s a certain level of people in your audience that would, and actually for our courses, Power-up Podcasting, at one point pre pandemic, I created a two day sort of bootcamp learn power podcasting in two days in San Diego with me experience.

And it was a $5,000 experience. And we sold that twice at 20 people each time at $5,000, that was such a cool experience. And it was only for 20 people, but those 20 people got exactly what they wanted and they were willing to. Some people won’t, but you’re still not leaving them out. You’re just for people who want to go deeper with you, you know, you’re charging for something that is worth that and then some for them. So, you know, a lot of mindset stuff here for sure.

Rick Mulready: And those people, they might be the ones who are like, no, Pat, I don’t want the course. I don’t want the Power-up Podcasting. I want to come do that type of experience.

Pat Flynn: Exactly. Exactly. That was the pitch. So the pitch was actually more than half of our students came from people who bought the course, but just didn’t have the time to do it.

So the pitch to them was, so I sent this email to every Power-up Podcasting student, people who had already paid and said, “Hey, if you haven’t completed your Power-up Podcasting course, well, then you’re probably like me. You’re so busy. You don’t have a lot of time and you actually prefer to learn directly from the person you’re learning from versus a course.

Don’t worry. That’s not your fault. I’m the same way. So. That’s why we created this experience called power Power-up Podcasting.” Fast Track is what it was called in San Diego. On this date. I think it was may of 2019 is I think when it went, when it happened and we filled it or filled most of it, but then like to fill the extra spots, I went to everybody else who didn’t buy power of podcasting, who I knew were interested because they clicked to view a sales page at one point or downloaded the lead magnet or something.

I said, Hey, I noticed that you’re not a suit of Power-up Podcasting my online course. Probably because you’re just like me. You don’t want to learn in an online course. You’re so busy. It’s the same pitch, just pitch differently to this person, which is why for those of you who prefer to learn that. Here’s an opportunity and we fill the spots and then like pandemic happened.

We did the same thing with our Heroic Online Courses stuff. I taught how to create online courses in person. Now that is all digital, just because yeah, the higher ticket stuff, although you could charge more and it’s probably some of the best times I’ve had, because I’m in person with people. It does take a lot of energy and it does take some time to put together.

Rick Mulready: And scalability is only so far.

Pat Flynn: It’s limited for, for sure. Now that we’ve opened up people’s minds to what is possible, how do we get people to convert into a high ticket item from start to finish? What’s the funnel?

Rick Mulready: Yeah. So this is where and talk about Power Up Podcasting. And you do so well with YouTube video and you’ve been podcasting for years.

The more that you can have that consistent content strategy where you’re serving your audience, whether it’s a podcast, whether it’s a YouTube channel. Whatever it might be. And I’m not saying it’s easy, but it’s going to be easier to sell a high ticket offer because you are building that relationship with people.

Like, I mean, I have these big old Bose noise canceling headphones on right now, but when I have my AirPods on and I’m listening to SPI Podcast and I hear your voice, you’re establishing a relationship with the host and vice versa. When you were able to do that, it’s so much easier to sell a high ticket.

Right? So for example, we are next Wednesday at the time recording is we’re going to hit, I don’t know if you know this or not, but we’re going to hit 600 episodes on the podcast.

Pat Flynn: Congratulations! We haven’t even hit 600 yet. How many episodes are you publishing?

Rick Mulready: Two a week. Twice a week.

Pat Flynn: Oh, no wonder.

Rick Mulready: We made that shift. I forget what year that was, but we made that shift to Wednesday and Friday. And we’re going to pass 9 million downloads. Which blows my mind,

Pat Flynn: Well deserved, well deserved.

Rick Mulready: Just as an example for the funnel for all of 2021, my only funnel quote unquote for my accelerator coaching program.

So it’s basically call the action, go visit the application page and fill out the application because it’s application only. And then based on the application, then it leads to. The only promotion I did for that was through the podcast. So I talk about the show. I have case studies on there, et cetera, et cetera.

Pat Flynn: When you’re a guest and other podcasts, you talked about your students all the time.

Rick Mulready: Exactly. Like I’ve been mentioning here today.

Pat Flynn: Yes. Which you said, dude, that’s awesome.

Rick Mulready: It’s building that relationship with people and the quote unquote sales cycle. Is tends to be longer, right accelerator. As of right now, I’m recording, this is $2,500 a month for 12 months.

It’s a 12 month program. Or you can pay a one-time fee. That is not something that somebody just learning, who I am is going to say, oh, you know, I mean, although that has happened actually in the past few months where somebody mentioned me to one of our existing students, they listen to like one podcast episode and applied and boom he’s in the pro.

Generally that doesn’t happen. They’ll, you know, that needs to take some time. People need to know that you know, that what you’re talking about, they need to figure out who you are as a person, your values, et cetera, et cetera. Then once they do that, it tends to be the decision to take the next step towards that high ticket quote unquote program tends to be easier. Yeah.

Pat Flynn: I mean, that makes sense with anything, right? Like people are more likely to take action with you, but are you saying that it is basically, or maybe 99% impossible to throw up an app? To a person who’s never met you or heard about you before and then sell a high ticket item straight to the sales page and make a purchase.

Like that’s not really going happen, not gonna happen. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So some relationship building has to happen. I love the idea of the podcast as well, because you hear our voices. You’re getting to know how we coach and you know, I have people who I coach on AskPat you have people who you’ve coached and you talk about your students all the time.

So you’re essentially proving yourself such that a person can then be more open to. Into you and what you have to offer. So how long would you say a person might need to like build a relationship with you before they, on average? I would say maybe be open to making a bigger purchase.

Rick Mulready: I would say usually for like my program level four months plus.

What I find. And what I’ve really found, especially in the past few months is how deep is the pain that that person is feeling. And I don’t mean that in like a weird way. Like for example, I had one woman who just joined the program. She’s been listening for like forever, for years. And she’s working literally, I think she said like 14, 15 hours a day in her business.

She teaches travel bloggers. How would it create a business out of their blog? Very successful. She’s done really well, but she’s just, she’s not taking time for herself. She’s quote, unquote date night involves her sitting with her husband with a laptop open and not being fully present, et cetera, et cetera, that pain had gotten so deep that she’s like, I can’t do this anymore.

I need help. Another woman is going through business partner, breakup kind of stuff. And again, working all the time, just the pain has gotten so deep, been listening to podcasts for a while and she’s like, I just can’t keep this up in my business right now. And in my life has several kids. I need some help on that.

On the flip side, again, like I just mentioned, I’ve had a couple of people like, yeah, I just learned about you and I’m in outside of podcasts and YouTube. I think it would be. People are probably thinking, well, well, Rick, why are you talking about ads? You can absolutely sell. Quote-unquote sell high ticket with ads, but not in the way, like you just mentioned Pat, as far as like, all right, here’s an ad to go pay $2,500 a month for 12 months.

No. So the funnel quote unquote there, what I would do is I’d be running video at the top of your funnel to your target audience. So this is your way of. Starting to build that relationship and that trust and adding value. So people are learning about you. And then from there, I would be retargeting those people who watch your videos maybe into, you know, some sort of a, a lead magnet or get a quick win, furthering the value, add building the relationship.

And then from there you can get them into the application. And that absolutely works, but it’s not a case of ad, click on it, go apply. Like you got to take that time to build that relationship first.

Pat Flynn: Yeah. Deliver some value in some way. Podcasts, like I said is great. I would imagine that thing is like free webinars where you teach are also really good at where you can start to like connect with people, live streams and like start doing.

Making that direct connection in a small way, the workshops, like you said, I know that you you’ve done actually a lot of workshops that, I mean, I think that’s what we chatted about last time you were on the show was the, how workshops played a role into promoting the accelerator program. How does it remind us like what that was like?

Rick Mulready: Yeah. And we’re going to do, we’re actually going to do it like right before this call this morning, I had a call with my team and we are going to do another workshop in June. The call to action. I mean, it’s going to be like a two hour workshop. It’s not a webinar. It’s like, Hey, I’m going to teach during that.

But there, what we want to do is we want to teach something for the level of business owner that accelerator is right for. And we’re going to be solving a problem that we see over and over and over when people join accelerator. From there. The call to action will be apply.

Pat Flynn: Is that a paid workshop or a free workshop?

Rick Mulready: Will be a paid workshop.

Pat Flynn: Okay. So paid workshop, you’re delivering value on a specific promise. And that is specifically chosen as far as the promise, because you know that that’s what people who need the program are probably going through. So you’re filtering people into that, but why not do a free one?

Rick Mulready: It tends to people have more skin in the game, if you will. When they pay for it. And when I do a paid workshop, I know like we talked about it last time when I was on, like, I don’t think it’s expensive. Right. Obviously that’s all relative, but we’re talking like, I haven’t even priced it yet, but it’ll probably be like $67 or something like that.

Pat Flynn: Oh, wow. Okay.

Rick Mulready: Yeah. So it’ll be very inexpensive, but yet it’ll be like, I way over deliver on the, as you do, when you do your workshop, like this is the workshop it’s like, 90 minutes and two hours. I don’t have it completely nailed down, but it’s going to be something to do with knowing your numbers and your business, creating a dashboard so that you know exactly what’s going on in your business, because it’s something I see all the time.

People don’t know their numbers from a funnel perspective, but also in the business perspective. Right. And so anyway, paid workshop into a, just a call to action. Apply people don’t want to apply it. That’s cool. They have this workshop that they just purchased training and they get a copy of it obviously to, to watch whenever they want.

Pat Flynn: And then the pitch for the application. Like if it’s a two hour workshop, how much are you spending delivering value and educating? How much do you spend on the pitch? And then how do you personally feel good about pitching that? Cause I know a lot of people would feel a little bit apprehensive.

Rick Mulready: So I tell people right up front when I start the workshop, one of the first things I tell them, I say, this is not your quote unquote traditional webinar. I’m going to deep dive on this training on this top. And yes, I am going to tell you about my accelerator coaching program for if you’re at a certain point in your business, et cetera, et cetera, that could be something that could be helpful for you to, you know, to increase your profit, et cetera.

But that’s not right now, that’s later on. So I tell them right upfront.

Pat Flynn: So you deflate, you deflate any potential tension that can happen from a bait and switch or what have you.

Rick Mulready: And they appreciate it. Right. And can I just add one more thing about the high ticket? I think this is something that I’ve been going back and forth with a lot very recently.

And I’m literally in the process of adding this to the sales page. So you notice that I just mentioned the price of it, of my program. Yeah. Just straight up. Most people don’t do that. Most people say apply now and there’s no price on the page more and more and more and more. I hear it all the time, people want transparency. They want, like, what is the price? I mean, you know, people always want to know the price and I don’t like, I totally get it, but for so many years, it’s going to sound funny, but we’ve been taught, right? Like it’s always been taught like, well, if it’s a high ticket, don’t put the price on there.

Make sure you get them on the call and make sure it’s a fit and then share the price. What I’m hearing is for a program like our accelerator coaching program. People don’t apply because they think it’s, it costs more than it actually does. So they’re not even applying because they’re like, oh, I can’t even afford this.

So we are actually literally in the process this week of adding the price to the application page. So like, here’s all the information that you need about the program. You get to make the decision on whether to apply or not.

Pat Flynn: I like that a lot. I’m like literally messaging my team right now. I’m like for SPI Pro, because it’s not something I’m directly responsible for, we have a team member involved directly responsible for SPI Pro. I just asked her, I was like, do we explicitly share the price of SPI Pro when we’re asking people to apply? So we’ll see what she says. I hope we do. And if not, we should definitely do that.

Rick Mulready: Yeah. I just think that in this day and age, and again, like I said, like, I hear a ton of feedback from people. They just want transparency. They’re like, just tell me the price and, and I’m hearing more and more for people too. They’re like if the price isn’t on the page, I’m out of there. They won’t even consider it.

So it’s like, all right, we’ll put the price up, put the price up there.

Pat Flynn: Yeah. I mean, you kind of want people to see the pricing go, “Wait, that’s it?!”

Rick Mulready: Exactly. Yep. Right.

Pat Flynn: That’s something Shaleen always told me is like, when you share the price, you want them to like, have them feel like they’re stealing from you because you’re delivering all this value because all these things are included.

That’s great to finish up here. You get people to apply, you know, if they are qualified, that’s not necessarily the time to sell yet. You said, you know, likely at this level you want to get on a zoom call or a of sorts. What’s the approach on the Zoom call? What does that entail?

Rick Mulready: Yeah, I actually do the Zoom call. And a lot of people would say, well, Rick, why are you doing the Zoom calls? Like why isn’t versus like somebody else, you hire somebody else on your team. You mean, yeah, exactly. Why isn’t a sales person, quote, unquote, doing the calls. And I did have somebody on my team doing the calls for a long time and they did a great job with it for outside reasons it didn’t work out, but like, I actually enjoy getting on the call with them. And I can, I joke kind of with my team. I’m like, I’m a terrible salesperson when I get on a call because I’m like, oh yeah, we can totally help you. Yep. Seen this a million times helped a ton of people just like you. Well, we can totally, I can totally help you, but it’s really about, look, I’m not there or we shouldn’t be on a call with somebody to sell them.

And we’re trying to convince somebody to join our program, I think we’re doing it wrong. You need to take the time to do the research on that person. So applications. Review the application, go look at whatever you need to look at, whether it’s their website, whether it’s their YouTube channel or a podcast or social media, whatever it is, like actually do the work so that you can go into it, educated about that person.

And I mean, my program, we’re very grateful at a point where it’s, it’s almost like, like we take so few people and we have limited spots because I do cap it. It’s almost like an audition. Like I want to make sure that. This person is the right fit for the program, but also are we the right fit for them?

And I say that right up front, they’re like, this is the goal of the call. This is what we’re going to do in the call. Like outline it. I want to dig deep into like, what are their challenges? What are their pain points and learn more about that. And then introduce how we can help that person specifically with their specific problem in the program. So for everybody listening, like think of these calls more so like it’s a consultative call. You’re not there to convince them to purchase. You’re trying to learn as much as you can about them and then introduce what you have to offer, how you can help them, give them all the information that they need to make the decision.

Pat Flynn: That goes back to what you said in the very early beginning, which was you’re here to help them make a decision either way.

Yes or no. We want them to have all the information and not have any regrets with either decision, but that’s our job as marketers. We help people make decisions. And if you’re just kind of forcing something, or like you said, just you’re on the call now, let me convince you why. This is going to be the course that you need.

No, it’s a conversation to see if it’s the right fit for both parties. And I like that approach. It feels a lot more like you’re trying to actually serve the person on the other end versus sell them something.

Rick Mulready: It’s helpful too, Pat, that one thing we ask on the application is like, are you the decision maker for your business?

Are you the financial decision maker? Because if, if someone’s going to spend five grand, if I was to say on your coaching program or whatever it might be, do you have to run that by somebody?

Pat Flynn: That’s interesting.

Rick Mulready: Like 9 times out of 10, they’re like, well, I have to talk to my spouse or I’ve talked to my business partner, whatever it might be, which is great, but can we invite them to the call too?

So we can all have a discussion. And so that I like that a lot. It doesn’t have to be like, go back and forth and stuff like that. Now you’re inevitably going to get the “I have to talk to my partner about that.” I mean like my spouse or what have you. Okay, great. What I always do is like, okay, totally get it right.

I ask what kind of questions are they going to have so that I can make sure that you have the information to be able to answer that for them.

Pat Flynn: Golden. Great. Thank you so much. I mean, we could talk for hours about this cause, but we got the process from a high level. I think we chatted about a lot of great things, even if you’re not interested in the high ticket item.

Something that it can still be useful for you. So I appreciate you for coming on. Where can people go to listen to podcasts and follow your work and check out the accelerator and all the good things.

Rick Mulready: Thanks, man. Yeah. So the Art of Online Business Podcast, we’re on all the podcasting platforms. RickMulready.com. And for the accelerator program, RickMulready.com/accelerator is the page.

Pat Flynn: Nice brother. Well, thank you so much.

Rick Mulready: You bet, man.

Pat Flynn: Good stuff. We’ll see each other very soon.

Rick Mulready: Yes, we will always fun. Thanks.

Pat Flynn: See, I told you it wasn’t that great. Rick is awesome. And a great friend of mine. And like I said earlier, we are literally just down the street from each other now. Anyway, thank you so much for listening and or watching all the way through.

And if you want to check out Rick, you can go to RickMulready.com or listen to his podcast, the Art of Online Business Podcast. If you want to get all the links and resources mentioned in this episode, head on over to smartpassiveincome.com/session591. And make sure you hit that subscribe button wherever you’re listening.

Make sure you subscribed because we got a lot of great guests like Rick and many others coming in in the near future. And I don’t want you to miss them. And we also have some Friday follow-up episodes, which are going to be helpful and handy for you as well. So look out for the next episode, coming up in a couple of days and thank you for all the reviews, all support.

I love it. Our download numbers are up. Everything is going well. And that’s thanks to you. Thank you so much. I appreciate you. And I look forward to serving you the next episode until then peace out, cheers. And as always, Team Flynn for the win!

Thanks for listening to the Smart Passive Income Podcast at SmartPassiveIncome.com. I’m your host Pat Flynn. Our senior producer is Sara Jane Hess. Our series producer is David Grabowski. And our executive producer is Matt Gartland. Sound editing by Duncan Brown. The Smart Passive Income Podcast is a production of SPI Media.

We’ll catch you in the next session.