Lead Magnet Ideas That Will Have

Dennis: How long did the process take for you to go from start to finish? Did you have mentors help you learn that process?

Dan: Yes. My mentor Alan taught me about marketing and copywriting, and then, of course, all the books I’ve read and the events I’ve gone to, and the friend groups I belong to—I learn from everybody, even the bad examples.

Sometimes I hear people say, “Hey, I bought this book, I bought this program, and it didn’t work for me.”

I always ask them, “Have you ever had a bad meal?”

They say, “Yeah.”

I ask them, “Do you still eat?”

They say, “Yeah.”

So even with the bad examples, you didn’t get what you expected from it, but you got something out of it. Maybe you learned what not to do, rather than what to do. So I learn from everybody.

I’ve been doing high-ticket closing and high-ticket sales for almost twenty years. I don’t feel like I’ve been doing it for this long, but I’m still mastering my craft. I’m always a student of leadership and business and sales. I learn a lot from my mentees. As I learn and apply different sales techniques, some of them work well, some of them work okay, and some of them completely fail.

One day, I said to myself, “I have to find a better way,” because it’s like there’s a disconnect. A lot of traditional sales techniques don’t seem to work that well when selling high ticket.

I started experimenting, testing different approaches, and I finally developed my own highticket methodology that has worked extremely well. But it’s bits and pieces, mostly through trial and error.

Dennis: How many years did it take to go from copywriting to traditional sales, and then to high ticket?

Dan: I’ve been doing sales for twenty years or so . About five or six years ago, my company was growing like crazy, and I

Dan talks about how his high-ticket methodology breaks all the rules of traditional sales:

“In traditional sales, we have been taught to have energy, to be excited, to get the prospect excited. So we pick up the phone and say, ‘HOW ARE YOU, SIR? I’M EXCITED. I WANT TO SHARE SOMETHING WITH YOU!’ All these techniques that are taught in traditional sales, they don’t work when you’re selling high ticket. In fact, these methods have the opposite effect of what you want.

“The sales conversation should not be a pleasant experience for your prospect. You should not be all giddy-up and excited. It shouldn’t be like that at all. You shouldn’t talk fast and get excited and get your words in and get your pitch in before the prospect hangs up on you. Slow down. Slow down your pitch. Don’t speed up and don’t get all excited.”

needed sales guys. Over the years, I’ve hired and fired sales guys. If they are no good, they just cost me money. If they are decent, I train them and I get them so good, they go work for my competitors. Sometimes they come with experience, but it’s in traditional sales, and that’s not what I needed for my company. I wondered what I should do. I thought, “You know what? Why don’t I utilize my skill and actually put together a program and teach others? From there, I can cherry-pick the best people to come join my company.” That was my intention when I launched the “High-Ticket Closer Certification Program.” I took my methodology, taught it to people, then I thought, “You know what? I’m going to train fifty people, and from there I’ll pick five.” What I didn’t realize when I launched the program, before even marketing it, before any kind of strong promotion, the first class had ten times more people. It was such a “thing” in the marketplace that people were looking for. years, over 10,000 professionals have gone through the program from 151 countries.

We have a system to reward top-performing students. They submit proof of documented revenue they’ve closed in order to win awards. When we add all of that together, out of the students I have directly impacted, they have produced $34.2 billion.

Dennis: When selling high ticket, many business owners start a sale by offering the lowest-cost version of a product or service. Why is that a mistake, and how should they fix it? Dan: We’ve all heard of this before in marketing—it’s the power of ascension. Let’s say you have three boxes to sell: one is $100, one is $1,000, and one is $10,000. The problem with that approach is when you show people what you’re offering for $100, they think that’s all you have. Instead of using the power of ascension, use the power of descension. When you’re using ascension, you’re fighting gravity. Out of the one hundred people who buy the $100 product, maybe some of them would buy the $1,000 product and a tiny percentage of them would buy the $10,000 product. Imagine you’re pushing a rock uphill. Now, when you use the power of descension— let’s say you’re on the phone or doing a presentation—you show the most expensive thing you’ve got first, so the $10,000 product. That sets the tone of your value. You’re showing people, “Hey, I have a $10,000 offer,” knowing that most people in the audience can’t afford it or they’re not ready for it, but then they know you have it. If you’re not getting a little bit of resistance when you mention your price, you’re charging too low. You should get a little “Ugh, that’s a lot.” It’s supposed to be a lot.

When you present that $10,000 offer, the buyers who would buy it think,

Dan defines anything from $0 to $1,000 as a low-ticket offer. Anything from $1,000 to $10,000 is mid-ticket. Anything from $10,000 to $100,000 is a high-ticket offer. Anything from $100,000 to $1,000,000 or more is an ultrahigh-ticket.

“No problem, $10,000, let’s go.” The people who can’t afford it think, “Ah, damn! I want that, but I don’t have $10,000.” You then present the $1,000 offer. Now what happens?

You have the $10,000 offer—let’s say you’re selling a coaching program—and with the $10,000 offer, the customer gets more of your time, and other bonuses. If you take away those bonuses, you still get the essence of the program, but it’s only $1,000.

If you’re a customer, what are you thinking?

Dennis: At least I can start the program, and I’m going to end up getting the $10,000 offer after I learn so much from the $1,000 program.

Dan: Now you’re setting up for future business.

In the ascension model, customers don’t even know you have a $10,000 offer. They never see it. Now you also have the power of prize contrast working for you, because suddenly the $1,000 product seems like a nobrainer, because you have a $10,000 product.

If you show them the $100 product first, then show them the $1,000 product, they’re wondering, “Why is this $1,000? I don’t understand.”

Here’s the thing: After showing them the $1,000 offer, some of them are saying, “I want to buy that, but I don’t even have $1,000.” Well, here is something that is small, a basic version of the product, that is $100. How many people have $100? How many people could get started with $100? You would close 90% of them on the $100 version.

You might only get 10% of those customers if you offer the $100 product up-front. The people with $100 are now thinking, “How do I get to $1,000?” and the people with $1,000 are thinking, “How do I get to $10,000?”

You’re selling the same thing, but you offer it in descending order. That’s the power of it.

Your conversion would go up, customers would be happier, and sales from Dan and Dennis demonstrate how to mitigate common objections by setting the agenda and giving prospects permission to say no. In this exercise, Dan is the closer and Dennis is the prospect. Dan: Hey, Dennis, I’m glad we’re connecting today. Now, before we get into how I can help your company, can we agree on a couple simple things? Dennis: Yeah, absolutely. Dan: By the end of our conversation, there are three things that you can say to me: One, you can say yes, and this makes a lot of sense. You want to move forward and do business with us, so you can say yes. Dennis: Okay. Dan: The second thing that you can say is no, and Dennis, I want you to know it’s perfectly okay to say no to me. Dennis: Okay. Dan: The third thing that you could say, but I don’t want you to, is, “I want to think about it,” because usually what that means is no, but you’re just trying to be nice. Can we agree on that? Dennis: Yeah, absolutely. From this point, you go into the conversation. You’ve taken the pressure off the prospect, making a sale more likely, and you’ve set the agenda.

the $10,000 customers pick up on day one. Everybody would know the positioning: you have a $10,000 offer. You have something low ticket, but you’re a $10,000 guy. You’re a $25,000 guy. You’re a $100,000 guy. They all know that, so when you’re selling something for $100, you’re not lowering your value, you’re saying, “Here’s a piece of me, here’s something that I have. Here’s a book that I have. It’s a digital program to get you started.”

From the marketplace perspective, you’re doing them a favor by offering something more affordable and more accessible.

Dennis: How do you stay so humble and confident at the same time?

Dan: I wasn’t always this humble. At the age of twenty-seven, I made my first million. I was kind of cocky and arrogant. I looked at my peers at the time and thought, “I’m a smart guy, I have a good lifestyle, I’m making all this money,” but truly, the arrogance came from insecurity. I was insecure about my failures. I was bullied in high school. My parents divorced when I was young.

I thought to myself, “I want to be seen as the smartest guy,” so I was very cocky until I matured a bit and got a little wiser.

There’s a much bigger world out there, and I’m fortunate enough to have some great mentors in my life that showed me no matter how successful I am, I could do so much more.

I just turned forty. What will happen by the time I’m fifty or sixty years old? There are people out there playing a way bigger game, with way bigger businesses, and I’m like a little fish. There’s so much more I could do. That makes me humble, but I wasn’t always like this. It’s because now I’m wiser, a little older, more mature, and have more gray hair.

Dennis: What advice would you give a younger version of yourself?

Dan: One of the sayings I have is, “Rich people do what is hard, that’s why their life is easy. Poor people do what is easy, that’s why their life is hard.” Do the hard stuff that no one wants to do. Most people want success, they want freedom, they want all the things that come with success, they aren’t willing to work toward it. Another piece of advice I’d give myself is to find mentors early and learn to be a good mentee. Most people don’t know how to be a good mentee. It’s almost like they have this entitled mentality. “Oh, you’re successful, you’re supposed to help poor little me,” versus, “How do I add value? How do I contribute to the relationship?” I know what it’s like to be a good mentee, and I’m very proud to say that I’m still very close to all four of my key mentors. I always edify them. I refer back to them again and again. I’ll say, “I learned this from Alan,” or, “It’s not because I’m so brilliant, I learned this from Dan. I learned this from Dwayne.” So find mentors early, learn to be a good mentee, be humble, and do the hard stuff no one wants to do. To learn more about Dan Lok, visit his website at danlok.com, watch his videos on YouTube, or listen to his podcast on iTunes.

Dan shares another piece of high-ticket methodology: Talk about money with prospects up-front, not at the end of the conversation.

“Why do you waste an hour of your time if you know the prospect can’t afford what you sell?” Dan asks. He recommends salespeople be very direct and transparent when selling through high ticket. No slimy sales or tricks. Dan and Dennis give an example conversation between a salesperson and a prospective client. Dan: Hey, Dennis, I could solve your problem. Can we talk about money for a second? Dennis: Absolutely. Dan: We can solve your problem within this time frame. Do you have a budget set aside that you could share with me? Dennis: Yes, I do. Dan: Roughly, how much would that be? Dennis: Well, it depends on how big of a problem it is. Let’s say it’s a $5,000 problem. Dan: Okay. Do you have $5,000 set aside to solve this problem? Dennis: Yeah, if you can solve it, sure. Dan: And by the way, how do you usually make a decision of this nature? Dennis: I only need to talk to myself. Now you know the prospect has a ballpark of $5,000 they’re comfortable with, and you also know you don’t need to talk to anybody else.