Here’s how to sell higher-priced courses

(aka: the price vs trust “seesaw”)

Glen Long
2 min readJan 26

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Photo by Pascal Bernardon on Unsplash

My son’s still young enough to enjoy visits to the playground.

He really likes the seesaw but of course if we sit on either end, he ends up stranded in the air because his weight can’t balance mine.

(It’s funny for about five seconds but then I make the whole thing work by using my legs or moving closer to the middle.)

When you’re selling a product like an online course, there’s a similar balancing act between price and trust.

At one end of the seesaw is the price you want to charge for your product. At other end is the amount of trust any potential buyer has in you and your methods.

The higher the price, the more trust you need to have a chance of getting the sale.

In the first few days or weeks after discovering you, when trust is lower, people will spend little or nothing. As they get to know, like and trust you more, the amount they’re willing to spend goes up.

So here are some quick conclusions:

  1. If your lowest priced product or service is actually mid-range (e.g., hundreds of pounds/dollars/euros), expect to spend a few months building trust before people are prepared to buy.
  2. If you want to people to buy sooner rather than later, consider creating a lower-priced product or service that requires less trust. (By the way, selling a “lower-ticket” item is also one of the best ways to build trust for a future, higher-priced sale.)

To give a couple of examples:

  • A tactical mini-course solving one part of a bigger problem makes a good entry-level product to warm people up for a higher-priced product or service package.
  • A more substantial course makes a good mid-range product but will be a tough first sale unless you’ve built a lot of trust (or just happen to catch someone when they’re ready to take action.)

Bottom line: it doesn’t matter how good your course is if people don’t trust you enough to pay the price.

See you soon,

Glen.

P.S. I wasn’t sure if “seesaw” translated for my subscribers in the US so I Googled alternatives and found “teeter-totter”, which I think is awesome. I may start slipping that into conversation. :-)

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Glen Long

Surprisingly hype-free course creation mentor and trainer. Publishes The Art of Course Creation newsletter and runs the Build Your Best Course online program.