Let me share a heartbreaking story that fueled me to write this piece. It goes like this:
"Guys listen, to be perfectly honest with you, I'm shocked,” said a bright young YouTuber during one of his live streams where more than 4,000 people were watching in real time.
He continued, "I've given you all the free tools. I've given you short educational videos. But most of you watching this right now don't even use them. I know this because I check the analytics."
He was clearly upset & disappointed, but not because his viewers weren’t buying anything from him. He only provides free content on YouTube.
"You guys are just waiting for me to save the day. If things don't go your way, you just shit-talk in the comments. All you want to know is whether this coin is a buy or that coin is a buy."
"I decided to start this channel (that I'm contributing to) to help people generate ‘generational wealth.’ That's my mission. I don't need to do this for a living. I don't need to do this if you aren't serious & committed."
I genuinely felt for him. I knew exactly how he was feeling.
Here's a quick backstory about this guy.
He's 25 years young. He lost his father to suicide last year. He was barely making ends meet with his construction business. Then he got scammed & lost all of his money in the crypto market.
He only had $400 left to his name & he went back to work to learn how to trade the right way. From scratch.
He stopped watching TV. He cut down on spending time with his family & friends. He was determined to make it work.
And, he made it work.
He made a ton of money in one year. His mother no longer needs to work her dead-end, physically demanding job. His younger brothers are all taken care of.
One day, the owner of this particular YouTube channel saw his talent & brought him in as a trading chartist.
He packed his bags and left his family behind to work for this channel in another city.
Then he became a dad to a baby girl.
I know. It sounds too good to be true. Like a made-up Hollywood movie.
But from what I’ve observed, he's not making this up. I can tell by the way he shows up every day.
Anyway, he was upset because he was making it easier for others to achieve something similar in their lives without having to go through what he went through, that is...being on his own and trying to figure it all out.
What did he get in return for such a generous act?
A bunch of whiny, lazy, spoiled brats who don't even bother to set a stop limit on their positions, and because of it, lose money.
Why is this relevant to the topic of maximizing free & low ticket offers for your business?
You always hear the business advice, “Give value to build trust first.” This is not wrong. But see what happened here? This guy is not even expecting anything in return in a monetary sense. All he wants is for them to follow what he teaches.
Well, here's what he didn't expect. The cold, hard truth:
The majority of people he encounters through his "free" content will NEVER be the ideal audience to make his mission come true.
Yep, you heard me right.
And, you know what? This is totally OK. I'll explain why a bit later.
This story is relevant if you are wondering about how to create a free or low ticket offer for the purpose of warming up your audience.
It is critical that you know the full landscape of what’s involved with this strategy because, unlike this YouTuber, you are running a business by selling your service offers.
If he gets frustrated by his audience, even though he is not expecting anything in return other than for them to follow his instructions, imagine how YOU will feel if you are hoping to convert your audience into paying clients, right?
“Livid” – is the word that comes to me, and I don’t blame you if you end up feeling that way.
But don’t worry, I got your back. You don’t have to be devastated or resentful.
Ready? Awesome. Let's get started.
Hey! I’m Maiko.
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The Definition of Free & Low-Ticket Offers (in this Post)
For the purpose of this ‘how-to’ post, I want to clarify the definition of free & low-ticket offers in this particular context.
Here, I am not talking about the free webinars, workshops, 5-Day challenges or presentations you host in order for you to sell your full-service offer.
Instead, I am talking about stand-alone offers such as:
Anything that’s considered a “lead magnet.”
DIY mini-courses
Template suites
Printables
As you might already know, I am a huge advocate of putting more energy into “why” over “what.” Because of this, I am not going to list all the lead magnets here so you don’t get fixated on the “what,” since that’s not the goal of this post.
If you want to know what kind of lead magnets are out there, then just Google “lead magnets.” There are plenty of “listicles” you can find.
But if I may, I suggest you read this post to the end before you start exploring “what” you can use for your free & low-ticket offers, so that you don’t get decision paralysis.
Be Honest with Your True Motive Behind Creating a Free & Low-Ticket Offer
Here’s the question I want to ask you:
“Why do you believe you need one?”
This is the first high-value question you want to ask yourself before you get all hot & heavy with your spectacular free & low-ticket offer ideas.
By the way, this is no trick question. You just have to be very honest with yourself without shaming yourself.
In case you didn’t know, I have free and low-ticket offers for my business, and I can answer this question honestly because I spent enough time wrestling with it before making the move.
I will share my reasoning behind creating mine in a minute. But first, I want you to come up with your own answer.
Since this is a blog post & not a real-time conversation, let me take a wild guess and see if you agree with any of the following statements:
You believe that:
free & low-ticket offers are the easiest way to entice potential clients.
low-ticket offers are easy to sell because it’s financially less risky for them.
you will hear fewer “no’s” with these offers so it’s easier on your ego.
no one will take you up on your full-service offer right away without “sampling” your work first.
free & low-ticket offers provide “passive income” for your business.
You probably know where I’m headed with this.
These are the wrong beliefs that will set your business back unnecessarily because none of these are true in real practice. This is because free and low-ticket offers are much harder to promote and sell.
Before you argue with me on this (LOL), let me explain further to make this point truly clear.
Remember the cold, hard truth I shared in the beginning of this post about free content? Here it is:
The majority of people he encounters through his "free" content will NEVER be the ideal audience to make his mission come true.
The same goes for low-ticket offers.
Why is this true?
It seems counter-intuitive to accept the fact that free & low-ticket offers are harder to sell.
Here, I would like to share 3 facts to support why that is.
First, by design, free and low-ticket offers require a large volume of people to make financial sense. On the flip side, your full-service offers require you to interact with fewer people.
Attracting the masses calls for a completely different strategy if you are accustomed to operating based on “done for you” & “done with you” service offers.
If you fail to shift your mindset about the strategy required, you will be in for a disappointment.
Second, unlike SaaS subscription business models that force you to be on the hook for their app if you want to keep using beyond their 14 or 30-day free trial periods, there’s no “hooking” with these offers other than possibly capturing their email addresses since none of them are subscription-based.
Granted, you can attempt to “upsell” or “downsell” other service offers that are inline with the very offer you are selling. But it still isn’t the same as automatically charging someone’s credit card month after month.
As a result, you are likely to end up with the people who are either tire-kickers, free-loaders, or bargain hunters, who will never take you up on your paid service offers.
Let’s not be naïve about the fact that those who just want stuff for free or cheap are only willing to give up their non-active email accounts that they never check. The good news, though, is that these people will never use what you are offering & they won’t get anywhere.
In other words, they won’t waste your time. But is this something you want to put up with? That’s the question.
If you are a value-driven service provider, you will feel the same way this YouTuber guy felt. You want to help them but they won’t even use what you provide. I, for one, would hate to see people purchase my service offers and not use them.
So, you need to have an honest conversation with yourself to truly see if this is something you want to spend your precious time on.
Again, at the beginning of this post, I mentioned that this was totally OK if you are to move forward with it. The reason is that a small % of people we capture will be the ideal audience you are after.
Simply put, the solution for this challenge is to adjust your expectations so that you won’t be disappointed. That’s all there is.
Lastly, cheaper products or services do not guarantee easy sales because price is a justification tool for buyers.
I want you to pause for a moment. This is important. I will repeat: Price is a justification tool for buyers.
For example, you will have an easier time getting someone who is fully committed to investing in solving their problems on board for your complete package that is positioned to be the best solution, regardless of how “expensive” others might feel. For them, it’s worth the investment.
You will experience smooth & meaningful conversations with them because they understand the predicament they are in and how much they want to get out of it. Or, what you provide is something that they view as the “missing piece” in their lives that they want to acquire badly.
Only then, they move on to justifying the price as a “necessary cost” that they are willing to shell out for. They have all the reasons and stories to “justify” why they want to spend their money on it.
By the way, this is no different for B2B in case you are thinking I am only talking about B2C. For more on this, check out how to combat “no budget” objections.
On the other hand, the purpose of free & low-ticket service products is to provide “quick wins.” By default, you will attract people who believe they can DIY to solve their problems by completely underestimating what it takes to solve their problems, and they just want to use what you provide for that reason.
If you aren’t careful, they won’t even remember your business name or where it came from.
“I can’t remember where I found this, but I was going down a rabbit hole one day online. Here, I can send it to you.”
This is the kind of comment they will make while they are chatting with their friends or peers. Don’t get triggered. You just have to be OK with it.
However, this is not to say that if you provide exceptional experience with your free & low-ticket service offers that they won’t come back for more. This does happen.
But going back to my first point, this is a volume game. And, you have to accept the fact that you will only find a small fraction of people to be your potential customers for a larger LCV (lifetime customer value.)
In the next section, I will reveal my reasoning behind my free & low ticket offers plus the kind of mindset you want to have to make your offers work.
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The Most Effective Mindset for Maximizing Your Free & Low-Ticket Offers
There are 2 different beliefs that have helped me maximize my use of free & low-ticket offers I would like you to put to use. One of them is my reason for creating my free & low-ticket offers, which is a bit of an unusual one.
#1: Set Your Expectations Low
Brace yourself for the truth that this strategy requires a large volume of people in order to get a small % of the right people (or businesses) on your email list. You just have to be OK with it.
To take it one step further, this means that you may have to invest in paid ads.
Organic reach may not be sufficient unless you are committed to heavily promoting your offers through various visibility efforts including numerous podcast guest appearances, being featured in online publications, etc.
So, if you thought that these would provide “passive income,” now you know they won’t.
Going back to the story of this YouTuber, had he known that most of the people would never fully commit to what he preaches, he would not have to be so frustrated. He would still end up building a smaller community consisting of loyal followers. That’s a win.
Instead, he assumed that by providing high-quality content that he learned by figuring out the hard way, people would appreciate his intentions and have the discipline to do whatever he told them to do, which turned out to be false.
As bright as he is, I have no doubt that he will figure this out soon. Going forward, he will only focus on those who take his content seriously and be content with it.
#2: Create Offers that Serve Dual-Purpose
Here is my reasoning for creating 2 free quizzes: What’s Your *Impact Creation* Archetype? & Discover Your “Hidden” Profitable Niche Archetype plus a low-ticket DIY product, Plan4Profit – CEO Day Toolkit.
Truth to be told, I did not set out to create free & low-ticket offers to warm up my audience. This was not the original goal. Instead, the need for providing the tools to help onboard people who were interested in my full-service offers came first.
To be completely transparent, I was putting off creating any of these for years, because I was aware that they would take up a lot of my time, energy and resources to capture a sizable volume to make sense.
Some entrepreneurs are great at appealing to the masses like they are living Coca Cola. Me? No. I have virtually no mass appeal. Understanding my strengths and weaknesses led me to the conclusion that I should put it off, and I’m glad I did.
Here’s how they work to serve a dual-purpose. My *Impact Creation* quiz gives me an idea of their personalities as entrepreneurs so that I can begin to understand how they will succeed doing what. This one is specifically designed for those who are starting out.
In other words, they aren’t ready for my full service offers. But I’d like them to get to know me so that when they are ready, I just might be on top of their minds.
My 2nd quiz is designed to be an assessment tool so that I will know whether or not they would be a good fit for the Define + Refine Your Profitable Niche program.
Both quizzes offer certain lingo (archetypes) that we get to share when I introduce frameworks and concepts. What this does is prepare them for the full program without conducting an intense orientation. This makes the transition seamless for my clients while I get to save time & energy. This is a win-win.
Lastly, the DIY toolkit is something my clients need after completing the Define + Refine Your Profitable Niche program. So regardless of whether it catches on as a stand-alone product isn’t too much of my concern.
This way, I get to lower my expectations while all of them are used for onboarding and maintenance.
Conclusion: 3 Key Takeaways
Here’s a quick recap on this topic.
Do not assume that free & low-ticket offers are easier than selling higher-priced services.
Understand that only a small % of people (or businesses) will be your loyal customers in order to maintain sanity in your business.
Only create free & low-ticket offers that serve dual-purposes.
#3 is the reason I did not list all possible “lead magnets,” as I do not want you to start from there the way you pick what you want to eat off a menu. That’s what many business owners do, only to end up with cluttering their offer suites.
Instead, you want to start by thinking about what will help them understand your services better, how best to prep them for your services, and how they will help you conserve your energy. This means you are serving anyone who enters your orbit from the highest level.
So, I would like you to brainstorm from this angle before randomly picking which lead magnet you want to try out.
What would make your job easier while onboarding new customers?
Can this be used as part of your intake process to determine whether they would be a good fit?
Does it help them gain a deeper understanding of your approach or process when it comes to providing solutions?
These are the high value questions you want to replace “Which lead magnet should I pick?” with, which is a low value question to put it bluntly.
This will take a bit for you to explore, but it will be well worth your time and energy.
As always, share your thoughts and feedback in the comment section below!
An update:
The YouTuber guy took some time off to be with his family & friends since the market was in the toilet anyway. Then he came back fresh with lots of great ideas for his video content that are aligned with his original mission. Don’t you love happy endings? I do. I’m glad he turned it around. It just goes to show who is committed and who isn’t in the space.