Graham Cochrane (00:02.029)
The clients who pay you the least are costing you the most. Now I know that sounds backwards, but after sixteen years of building businesses and coaching thousands of entrepreneurs.
Graham Cochrane (00:19.906)
I can tell you with absolute certainty your low prices are not protecting you, they're slowly destroying your business.
Graham Cochrane (00:32.908)
Now most people think the solution is simple. Just charge more so you can make more money. And yes, that's true, but here's the thing.
Graham Cochrane (00:45.698)
That's actually the least interesting reason to raise your prices. There are four other reasons why your cheap prices are killing your business that have nothing to do with your bank account. And today I'm going to show you exactly what they are.
Graham Cochrane (01:40.332)
Again, I'll say right at the very top, you and I should be charging more for a variety of reasons. The most obvious one that I guess isn't so obvious because people don't seem to do it is because it is the fastest way to make more money. I don't know how else to say it, but it is amazing to me how people decide on a price. It's usually low. And the reason it's low is because that's their comfort level.
We tend to sell at our comfort level. You should never sell there. You should sell at the value of the transformation you create, which is an entirely different thing. If you don't value it, they won't value it and they'll pay you effectively whatever you effectively ask for. But most people are very uncomfortable with high prices. So they charge low to make themselves feel better. And they then keep their prices there. And when they're not making as much money as they'd like, they look everywhere else but the price of their offer.
To increase the income in their bank account. They try to sell it to more people. They try to improve the conversion rate on their website with better copy or positioning or images or graphics or a more slick-looking website. They try to get more views on social media. They try to go on a podcast tour. All of these things are not bad things, but they're just not the thing that grows your business faster than anything, which is just charge more. Okay. I'm not going to talk about that part.
Today, because I've talked about it at length before. Also, because I have an entire event that helps you figure out how to charge more, what to charge, how to confidently sell it. And you should probably just come to that. It's called my 10K Offer Challenge. It's happening next week. I'll link to it below. But go to 10KOfferchallenge.com and get a VIP ticket while they're still available. Those do sell out. I want to see you there. We'll help you with all of this. Just planting that in your brain. But let's talk about.
The four other reasons why you need to charge more and why not charging more is costing you more than just the obvious revenue that you could be making. And let's think about this in the terms of a boat. Let's say you have a boat, you're in a boat, and your business is a boat, and most entrepreneurs are trying to grow their income by
Graham Cochrane (04:11.822)
And let's talk about this through the picture of a bucket. If you imagine that your business is a bucket and you want lots of water in the bucket, a full business, full of income, full of energy, full of impact, full of life, full, right? Fullness is the goal. If you want a full bucket in your business, most entrepreneurs are trying to fill the bucket by getting more water from outside the bucket.
And pouring it in, which makes sense. I get it. And what this looks like is getting more leads, getting more clients, more activity, more hustle. But the bucket never seems full. And you wonder, I'm working so hard. I'm I'm posting all the time. I'm doing all the things. Now I'm incorporating AI. I'm I'm in all the masterminds. I'm I'm
Running all the plays I thought I was supposed to do, but my bucket never feels full. Why is that? The problem is because there is a leak in the bucket. So as you're focused on putting stuff in the top, there's a leak at the bottom, leaking out water. Now, the leak isn't your audience size. it's too small. It isn't your marketing strategy. Right? Although a bigger audience could help. And maybe a better marketing strategy could help.
But none of those things will help until you plug the real dangerous leak, which is your pricing. Your low pricing is the leak in your bucket. You can pour all the water you want into your bucket. But if there's a giant leak at the bottom, it will continue to leak out and you will never have a full bucket. But the moment you patch the leak, you plug the leak, the moment you fix your pricing.
Everything that you're already doing, please hear me, everything that you're already doing starts to accumulate and compound. Let's for a second. How amazing would it feel to know that every day you you wake up and you get to the office or you crack open the laptop and you produce and you teach and you coach and you build that every bit of work you did today.
Graham Cochrane (06:33.086)
Isn't leaking out the bottom. It's actually staying in place. So what you do tomorrow compounds on top of that. What you do the day after that compounds on top of that. What you do next year compounds on everything you did this year. So you start to experience momentum. One of the most glorious words in all of life, it's especially true in business when you realize you are creating compounding momentum. And what you do each day now has exponential impact.
Not because you're amazing that day, but because it is now building on all the stuff you built before. How amazing would that feel? Right? As opposed to what it feels like right now, potentially for you, where you come in and you're working hard and you're posting and you're building and you're teaching and you're coaching and you're marketing and you're learning. And it feels like every day you've lost a little bit of that something. So now you're just filling back up to where you were and you feel like I'm kind of not getting anywhere.
Pick a metaphor you like. I'm plateaued, not getting any higher. I'm treading water, so I'm moving my arms, but not getting anywhere. Pick a metaphor that feels right to you, but whatever you pour into that bucket, you have the same amount of water the next day, the next month, the next year.
That's the pain that we're in until we fix our pricing. Low prices are the leak. And most people have been so focused on pouring more water in that they've never stopped to ask why the bucket keeps emptying. And the reason it's emptying is your low pricing. And what I want to share with you today are why cheap clients are your most expensive problem.
And let's just say this at the very beginning. The reason you have cheap clients is because you have cheap prices. It's not your client's fault. It's kind of your fault. And I say this in love. And I can say this because I've been that guy. Right? My first business, the recording revolution, I taught music, recording, and producing to home studio musicians. And I
Graham Cochrane (08:41.132)
By God's grace I was able to turn that into a multi million dollar business.
But I learned a lot of what not to do. I learned a lot of what to do and I learned a lot of what not to do. And I built that business on the back of low prices. I will never do that again. In fact, I wish I hadn't started that way. People say, Well, Graham, you've just graduated to high prices because I didn't know any better. What I coach my clients to do these days is to start with high prices. Do not start and work your way up. Just decide to be a premium provider because your cheap prices.
if you have them are going to attract cheap clients. And what I'm going to show you are four reasons why cheap clients are your most expensive problem. If you have only premium prices and you become a premium provider, you will attract premium clients and your business will be completely different. You will love coming to work and you will make a ton of money, have a ton of impact. Just watch this, okay? So let's just talk about these cheap clients. I'm just saying this. It's not their fault. It's your fault. If if I have cheap clients, it's my fault. Your pricing
Is a signal. If you put out cheap prices, they are going to signal and attract cheap clients. You put out premium prices, you're going to signal and attract premium clients. Make sense? Okay. So that just one, you know, that's on us. You get to choose your clients, and you're choosing it every day by your pricing. Okay. Number one, cheap clients are consuming. Cheap clients are consuming. They demand the most time and energy.
And time and energy are your two most valuable resources. People want more money. Yeah, money is great, but you can always get more money. There's infinite money to be made. There is a finite amount of time. You only have 24 hours in a day. So that is a finite resource, much more precious than money. You can't get that time back. But even more precious than time is energy. Because you have a guaranteed amount of time every single day, 24 hours.
Graham Cochrane (10:44.2)
All of us that are alive get 24 hours. Guaranteed. But you do not have a guaranteed amount of energy every single day. You do not have 24 hours of good energy every single day. Have you ever thought about that? This is why energy is the most valuable resource you have. It's not money, it's not time, it's your energy. But time and energy are your most precious. And when you have plenty of time and plenty of energy, you can do anything. When you're short on time and short on energy,
Good luck building a business. Good luck transforming your life. Good luck transforming your marriage and your family, making an impact in your community and the world. Good luck enjoying your life when there's no energy or time to enjoy it. So cheap clients consume your two most precious resources, your time and your energy. Why would we allow them to do this? Here's why this works: low-ticket clients tend to require the most hand holding.
They tend to require the most support and they tend to push hardest on your boundaries. I've always felt that the people who pay me the least complain the most, demand the most, and refund requests the most. I didn't like your $27 ebook. It wasn't what I expected. I want money, my money back. And then you should be ashamed of yourself. It wasn't good. How could you charge $27? Right, like, right? And yet.
My $27,000 clients and my $55,000 clients and my $100,000 clients never complain, never refund request, never demand anything. In fact, they tend to apologize for bothering me. They're the ones that get access to me directly on demand. They'll message me.
On Voxer or text or whatever, and they'll Hey, I'm so sorry to bother you. I know you're probably having dinner with your family, but I just had a question. I I love that. That's a beautiful preface. I'm so sorry to bother you. These people have paid me a hundred plus thousand dollars and they're apologizing for bothering me. And they're not bothering me, right? But they just know that I value my time. And why do they know that? Because they value their time. because they're a premium person.
Graham Cochrane (13:04.428)
And so there's mutual respect. My premium clients respect me and I respect them. So the low ticket clients, the cheap clients.
When you have a lot of them in your world, you end up spending a disproportionate amount of your time serving those people. And those are the people paying you the least.
This means some of your highest value hours are consumed by your lowest value relationships. You ever thought about that? Again, this isn't a client problem. This is a pricing problem. The pricing is a signal to the types of clients that you are gonna choose to work with. You may not say, I don't, I'm not choosing those cheap clients. You are through your prices. Low prices attract people who aren't fully committed.
And uncommitted people need constant reassurance. They need constant hand holding. And the math on this is brutal. If your cheapest clients take 10 times the time of your highest paying clients, they're not cheap at all. They're your most expensive client. You're just not billing them that way. This is what's fascinating. Your highest paying clients actually need less of your time.
Why would that be? Why would a low-paying client want more calls, more access, more hand holding, more time with you? And people that pay you $10, $20, $50,000, $100,000 need less time, less hand holding, less access to you. Wouldn't it be the opposite? No. Because premium clients are action takers. Premium clients
Graham Cochrane (14:51.244)
Busy themselves and they don't actually want to spend lots of time. They want to get results quickly. Premium clients understand that it's their responsibility to get a result, not you, the coach's responsibility to give them a result. Premium clients understand that coaching and education is a pull system, not a push system. A push system would be the coach or the expert or the teacher pushing information onto a client.
Pushing transformation onto a client. Here it is. Here's what you got to do. Do it, do it, do it. It's up to me to make sure you get this. Premium clients understand that's not how transformation works. It's a pull system. It is their job to hire you and then pull out of you your genius, pull out of you everything that they want and need. Not all of my clients want and need the same things out of me. So it is their responsibility to come to a coaching call, come to a session, and pull out of me that which they need.
It's their responsibility to go through my coaching curriculum and pull out of those video trainings that which they need. Because they are the only ones that know what they need. I don't know what they need. But if they can come with more clarity in what they need, what they want, where they're stuck, what questions they have, then I can help them. But that's their responsibility. And high-ticket clients get that. Cheap clients don't. They just want you to do everything for them.
So, this is why, if you're like Graham, I am exhausted serving all these low-ticket clients. I can't even begin to imagine having $10,000 clients, $20,000 clients, and all that that's going to demand of me. That that's my whole point is you you're you have it backwards. The reason you're exhausted is because you have low-ticket clients. If you fire all those low-ticket clients and become a premium provider and only have high ticket clients,
You will actually get more time and energy back because your high-ticket clients don't require as much of you. In fact, if you think having a high-priced offer means you have to shove everything you've ever made into that offer, you don't understand offers. And that's okay if that's you. That was me. This is why I refuse to go high-ticket for so long, because I kept thinking, I don't want to give them.
Graham Cochrane (17:12.0)
My phone number, I don't want to give them a call every day or every week. I don't want them to come over to my house for sleepovers. I don't want to have to give them naming rights to my baby. I don't wanna have to give them everything I've ever made to justify the price. And that was because I didn't understand where value comes from or where pricing comes from or what high-ticket buyers want. And if you don't understand that, I highly encourage you to come to the 10K Offer Challenge. It will be the most transformative.
Transformative five days you've ever spent in your business. I promise you that. Not only will you walk out of there with your $10,000 offer or whatever price you land on, you will walk out of there better understanding yourself, your business, your clients, and you will find that it's easier to make more money and get more of your time back. So again, details below, but you should come. The question you need to ask yourself is if you add it up every hour you've spent.
on your most difficult client this month and multiplied it by what your time is actually worth, what did that client actually cost you?
Graham Cochrane (18:23.342)
Okay. Cheap clients are consuming because they demand your time and your energy. Number two, cheap clients can't commit.
Low prices attract low commitment, and low commitment produces poor outcomes. This is so important. If you don't have great testimonials and you don't have great client transformation stories, and because you have a heart and you are a good person and you truly want to help people, which I believe you do and you have, and you're frustrated because you don't have the amazing before and after, like, my gosh, this is completely transformed.
It's because of your prices.
People who pay pay attention. And people who pay a lot pay a lot of attention. And the only way your clients are going to get transformation is if they pay attention to your amazing coaching. Like you have amazing advice because you have experienced transformation yourself.
And or you've helped other people experience transformation. So the only way for them to get transformed, these clients of yours, is to pay attention to what you're trying to tell them. And if you give your stuff away for free, or you charge $27 or $97 or $500 for your your premium program, your signature course, whatever it is, as much as much money you think that is, $500 is arguably not enough to get someone to commit.
Graham Cochrane (20:01.336)
To pay attention to do the work. I mean, just look at your video backend, your Kajabi backend, look at how many people actually get through your course. Like, it's probably less than 5%. I know, because that's what mine have been for my all my courses in the past. It's really, really pathetic. Which means people are gonna say, this was a great course, but they didn't complete it, they didn't do it, they didn't get results. But high-ticket clients have skin in the game. Jesus said.
Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. That's a very profound statement. People's hearts go where their money goes. The heart follows the wallet. The heart follows the pocketbook. So if you want your client's heart to be in their transformation journey, charge more. Because when they've invested money, they're going to do it. Look, I hired a coach last year, Myron Golden.
And I paid him $375,000 to coach me. Do you think I showed up to every call he had, watched every video in his portal that he had, went to every event that he had, you did everything he said to do? Yes. And more. Like whatever you're telling me to do, Myron, I'm gonna do it, not just because I respect you and you have great results.
But because bro, I gave you 375,000 of my dollars. Like that's a lot of money, right? So my heart was all there because I invested my money first. I just hired a nutrition coach. Okay, to dial in my nutrition to to reduce my body fat percentage and get in the best. Like I'm in good shape, but I want to get in even better shape. And I could watch videos and I could.
Take a course and I've read books and all that kind of stuff. But I paid a coach $9,000 to help me dial in my macros and my exercise and everything for my specific body to get to my specific body fat percentage goals. You better believe I'm doing everything he says, tracking everything he said to track, because I've just paid him $9,000.
Graham Cochrane (22:26.008)
Where your treasure is, your heart will be also. If you want your clients' hearts, you need their treasure first. Because that's what people value. So if you want their hearts, and you do want their hearts, because once you have their hearts, you have their attention, they will do what you say and they will get results. Like the moment I raised my prices from $500 to $50,000, I started getting amazing transformation stories.
I started having clients do $50,000 in the first 30 days of joining one of my programs. I had people go from six thousand dollars a month to seventy-two thousand dollars a month just a couple of months into my program. I had people go from thirty thousand dollars a month to a hundred thousand dollars a month on average and hit some two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a month. Like this stuff is insane. The the results my clients are getting are insane. I've had clients who
Only been able to sell their highest, highest, highest thing being a $3,000 thing to selling multiple $25,000 things without even trying hard. Like the best testimonials I've ever gotten were the moments I created higher priced coaching programs. Because these people are all in because they've invested a lot of their money and they're doing what Graham says. Does that make sense? You want people to do what you say. When someone pays you $97, they dabble.
They they dabble, they disengage, and most often they disappear. They're gone. They even forgot they bought it. And I know because I do that. I bought a a course a month ago, like a public speaking course. I've got tons of those and I've had public speaking coaches, but I I love public speaking stuff and learning people. I bought this guy's course for 150 bucks. I watched like 10 minutes of it, but I don't I don't even remember where it is. Because it I didn't invest a lot of money.
I dabbled, I disengaged, and now I've disappeared. And that's what your clients are doing with your $97 thing. They because they have nothing to lose by quitting. Yeah, a little bit of money. They would love to have gotten some value out of it, but it's not much. It's not much. Does that make sense? A client, and this is how it works. So a client who doesn't pay a lot, doesn't pay a lot of attention. If they don't pay a lot of attention, they disengage, they disappear, and they don't get results. When they don't get results, they're gone.
Graham Cochrane (24:45.944)
But not only are they gone, a lot of them don't just quietly leave. The nice ones quietly leave. The polite ones, the ones that I think have maturity quietly leave. The ones that aren't mature, that aren't nice, those people become refund requests. They leave negative reviews or a bad testimonial that you never wanted to receive, or they say something mean about you on the internet.
And the painful irony of it is that you lowered your price or kept an artificially low price 'cause you wanted to help people.
But low prices are actually preventing your clients from getting the help they need because the commitment follows the investment. Ooh. You think you're helping more people by r lowering your prices, you're doing the exact opposite. You are hurting their chances of winning and thereby hurting your business.
Graham Cochrane (25:43.254)
Here's the principle. The transformation is the transaction. The transformation is the transaction. When someone makes a significant financial commitment, something shifts in them psychologically.
Graham Cochrane (26:04.792)
The this is amazing. Your coaching for them honestly begins the moment you present your ten thousand dollar price or twenty thousand dollar price or fifteen thousand dollar price. And I I teach this a lot to my clients because the moment you you talk about the transformation that they could have that they want, like, gosh, I want this, I want this, I want this. I need this, I need this, I need this. And and and you don't reveal the price until you know like.
You're just making sure that they're a good fit, that you can solve their problem, that you have what they want. The moment you reveal the price, they're confronted with a deep question, which is, ooh, not is this worth it, but am I worth it? Am I worth investing this amount of money on myself? If you're in the fitness space and you have a $10,000 offer and you present it to a prospect,
They're staring at and saying, my gosh, how serious am I about transforming my body and my health? Am I worth it? Am I worth it? And that's a deep, hard, but beautifully powerful question. And you want your people to wrestle with that question because you want them to see that they are worth it. Their health is worth it, their marriage is worth it, their bank account is worth it.
their family dynamic is worth it, their passions and their dreams of being able to speak French in France or Spanish in Portugal, or not you wouldn't speak Spanish in Portugal, you speak Portuguese in Portugal, in Spain or in Costa Rica or wherever, that that dream is worth it. They have to they're being transformed even s before saying yes to the transaction. Because now they're wondering, am I worth it? Is my dream worth it? Is this pain being resolved worth it?
And then the moment they pay and they make that investment, they have already transformed. Like the beginning of the transformation process is already underway. Because now their heart is following their pocketbook and it is squarely with you and your coaching, and they are all in. The fee, and I say this often to my clients, the fee is not for you, it's for them.
Graham Cochrane (28:26.51)
The fee is not for you, the coach, it is for them, the client.
The reason I charge fifty five thousand dollars, the reason I charge a hundred thousand dollars, the reason I charge twenty-five thousand dollars, whatever I'm charging, is for them. It's for my clients. Like I don't need their money. I don't need your money. Praise God. And you don't need people's money. And what I mean by that is when you're sitting in front of a prospect on a call, a Zoom,
On a webinar, you have to believe in your core. They need my help way more than I need their money. You have to know that, because it's true, by the way, and you have to believe that at your core. And here's how you believe that: A, only sell something that's valuable. But B, know that you don't need them to buy. You just need someone to buy. It doesn't have to be that specific person across the table from you or across the Zoom from you.
Right. You don't need I don't really need this person to buy. No, you don't. If they don't buy, someone else is gonna buy. Like, stop being weird. They need your help. a hundred percent they need your help. But you don't need them to buy. If they don't buy, someone else is gonna buy. And so
When you believe that and you know that to be true, then you realize, my fee is really for them. My fee, I put it out there. If I respect you, I'm gonna charge you a lot of money. If I don't respect you, I'm gonna say, it's only 500 bucks. It's only 300 bucks, it's only 97 bucks to make it easier for you to buy. I don't want to make it easy for you to buy. Do I hate you that much? So you can buy something you're never gonna use. if I make it easy for you to buy, that means I really don't care about you getting transformed. And I'm not good with that. I want you to win.
Graham Cochrane (30:15.586)
And you should want your clients to win. So raise your fee so that they will freaking commit. Cause once they commit, they will get the transformation. If you really loved people, you would raise your prices. If you really wanted to help people, you would raise your prices. But if you have low prices, it shows that you are more afraid or more selfish or you don't understand what leads to transformation. And I can say that in love because I have felt all of those things.
And I stiff farmed the idea of high prices for over a decade. I said, no, no, no, no, I'm gonna make my stuff accessible because I care about people. And then I started to see other people in my space raise their prices and get amazing results for their clients. I'm well, I'm not really getting those testimonials. I mean, people love me and they love my stuff, but I'm not hearing those kind of transformation stories. I wonder why. Cause I wasn't asking my people to commit. I was asking them to just consume a little course and disappear. I'd made it so easy for them to say yes.
Don't make it easy. Make them wrestle. Am I am I willing? Am I worth it? And am I willing to invest in myself? Because once they are, they're committed, they will get results. When they make the tra the transaction, they take it seriously, they do the work, they get results, and you cannot manufacture that with a low price. So cheap clients are consuming, cheap clients can't commit. Point three.
Cheap clients are crowding. Every hour spent with your low-ticket client is an hour you are unavailable to attract, serve, or close a high-ticket client.
Graham, I don't have time to to do this whole high-ticket thing bec because you're spending all your time with low-ticket people. You know, I had to, I shut down a low-ticket membership, a low-ticket course, and even what I would consider a low-ticket mastermind for my space. I said no to all those things. I just shut those offers down before I created new ones, which sounds risky, but I was willing to like make less money for a couple of years. because
Graham Cochrane (32:26.048)
I needed the space to get to work to create better offers, to better serve my clients, my one-on-one clients, to better understand them. So I could create a group coaching program. I actually created two for high-ticket clients like them that would get them incredible results. So I kind of disappeared for a couple of years and reimagined my business, but I had to say no to all the activity. And people liked it and it made money. It was good recurring revenue, but I had to shut some things down to create some space.
So you might have to do the same. The good news is it doesn't have to take you long. In fact, my clients that come to my 10K offer challenge usually the the active ones usually sell their $10,000 offer that week and make money that week. So you can you can turn this faucet on quick, but you need to at least block out five days, do the deep work, better understand pricing and your offers and everything, and then re-emerge as a totally different person.
It's absolutely worth it. So the point here is that your low prices don't just shrink the revenue per client. Again, it's not just about how much money you make. It's they shrink your capacity to build the business you actually want and need. When you're too busy, when you're too drained, too distracted to pursue the clients who would actually transform your income, you can't do it. You just can't ever get ahead. This is why you feel like you're treading water. You are working hard. I believe you that you're working hard. You're doing everything that you know how to do.
And and you care deeply, otherwise you wouldn't be listening to this.
But just think about the math. If you're spending 40 hours a week, let's just say you have a a regular work week for most people in America. 40 hours a week, you're serving 50 low-ticket clients. When do you have the time to find, attract, and close the 10 premium clients who would pay you the same total revenue with a fraction of the effort? You don't. So cheap clients aren't just in your bank account. They show up in your calendar, they show up in your inbox, they show up in your DMs, they show up in your mental bandwidth, they show up in your emotional energy.
Graham Cochrane (34:33.538)
When you have committed to these low ticket clients or low ticket membership communities that you're running that you're like, Yeah, I've got a hundred people paying me twenty bucks a month. Okay. What what is that? $2,000 a month recurring? Like, that's not enough. But now you've got these 100 people that demand coaching calls and new content and like
Like what are we doing, people? Like that model only works when you have thousands of people in it. If you find yourself there, what premium opportunity, what premium client?
Partnership are you missing right now because your cheap clients are consuming all of your capacity?
Again, people who have a a high ticket business, a premium business, who do these big things, they don't I I don't believe they have more capacity than other people. I've heard the the idea that there's small plate people, big plate people. I actually have grown to disbelieve that theory. I believe we are all big plate people, but most people have their plates already full with non-essential things. And the people who have high impact, massive
Yeah, massive impact in the world that we would call high capacity people. They've cleared their plate of the non-essential things. The 80% that's only driving 20% of the results revenue reach. So that they can fill their plate with the 20% that generates 80% of the revenue reach. Does this make sense? So I believe that you and I have a fixed capacity and it's the same.
Graham Cochrane (36:20.866)
But if your plate's full with low-ticket clients, it is gonna be hard for you to attract high-ticket clients, collaborate with high-ticket people, do cool partnerships, have cool opportunities. But you ha like you can I just say this way that some of the people I interact with, and maybe this is you, are addicted to activity. You're addicted to doing stuff because you're afraid if you don't.
You'll lose momentum if you take your foot off the gas. Have you ever said that to yourself? I just can't take the foot off the gas. That is the most bananas destructive mindset lie that's from the pit of hell. I I honestly believe that there this is a spiritual problem. That the the enemy of your soul has lied to you and is lying through a bunch of gurus and a bunch of people with a lot of money and accolades. This idea that you gotta keep your pedal to the metal.
Foot on the gas pedal at all times. And if you let off the gas for a moment, you'll lose momentum. That's what's killing our country right now. That's what's killing entrepreneurs. That's what's killing families. That's what's killing marriages. That's never been the path to success. The most impactful people in the world have deep rhythms of rest and slowing down. We talked about this a couple of weeks ago. and
The idea that you need to have stillness and you need to slow down to be able to see and notice and hear the opportunities that will catapult you further. Success doesn't look like pedal to the metal and burning out an engine. Success looks like slowly moving towards a worthy goal, worthy ideal, noticing the inflection points, being ready, rested, energized, and aware of the moments that you can then catapult ahead. Okay. There are gonna be moments of speed.
But it's not going to come from you pedal to the metal. Letting off the gas is one of the best things you can do. Because your pedal to the metal, your head, your foot on the gas pedal is doing stuff that's filling your plate and it's not the stuff that's growing your business. So you look busy, you feel productive, and you can check a lot of boxes off, but you're not actually growing. Go back to the bucket. You're filling the bucket constantly every day instead of letting the bucket leak out.
Graham Cochrane (38:35.64)
While you address the leak, which is your prices, fix that first, and then you can slowly pour water in and you will over be overflowing in a good way before you know it.
So cheap clients are consuming, cheap clients can't commit, cheap clients are crowding out your capacity to serve high-ticket clients, and finally, cheap clients keep you captive. Low prices don't just cost you money, they cost you the freedom that you got into business to have. And I see this in a lot of areas.
to make serious money at low prices, you do need a few things. You need a massive audience and a massive new audience growing all the time. You need lots and lots of eyeballs, fresh eyeballs. You can't stay with the same old massive audience you once had either. You need complex funnels, you need a constant flood of new customers, and it's a treadmill that never, ever stops. Every month.
You have to find new people because low ticket clients churn faster. They can't commit and they rarely stay long term. And so this is why people feel like I've got a good thing going, but I just I need to get in front of more people. And I guess I gotta run ads and I guess I gotta do this thing. And running ads is not bad. I've started to run ads, but not because I need to, but because I want to scale from where I'm at and I want to reach new people. And I have fixed the leak in my bucket. Again, right things, wrong order.
Right order is fix your pricing, fix your offers. Get absolutely clear on your your who you're serving and the offer you're offering them and make it a high price, irresistible offer. This is the most important work you'll do in your business. Then and only then do you worry about attracting new people and learning how to close those high ticket sales and then learning how to scale. Right. But everyone does it backwards. They have something that's sold once or twice, and now they go try to scale that thing.
Graham Cochrane (40:38.102)
It is so hard to scale a non-irresistible, not high converting, low priced offer. Like you're you're setting your business up and yourself up for frustration and zapping all your time, your energy, and your joy. And this is why people burn out in business and they're like, I hate it. I did it for a while. I hate it. But if you go high ticket and have premium clients, this flips the equation entirely. A handful of the right clients at the right price generates the same or more revenue with a fraction of the effort.
If you're selling a $100 thing and you want to make a million dollars a year, which you absolutely can, you need to find 10,000 new clients every single year. Good luck. Good luck. Not 10,000 new email list subscribers, not 10,000 new followers on Instagram, 10,000 new customers.
But if you have a ten thousand dollar thing, you only need ten customers a month. Not even that. You need eight. Eight customers a month.
Graham Cochrane (41:48.888)
Can you find eight people a month? You better believe you can. So this is what I mean. Like when people say, how can you make three million dollars a year working five hours a week? Right. Last year I made three million dollars a year and I work actually less than five hours a week. But when I run a virtual event, I work, let's say 10 hours that week. So it averages out to five.
But most weeks I work less than five. That sounds insane to people. I was literally at a Russell Brunson event having dinner with one of my friends, Richmond Den, and we were getting to know each other better. And somebody at the table said something about, yeah, it's amazing what you do, Graham. Like you only work five hours a week. And Richmond looked at and he's like, Wait, you only work five hours a week? Like, what do you mean? Like I'm telling you that even people that are successful at what they do.
It the their brain is like, how how how would you make multiple millions a year working five hours a week? It this is the great news for you. It gets so much easier to do that the more you raise your prices and you build a business around working with fewer clients at a premium because not only do you make more per client, but they require less of your time and energy and they get better results, which give you better testimonials to attract better clients and so on and so on.
Graham Cochrane (43:20.396)
This is the volume trap. You think low prices are gonna make it easier for you to grow your business. I'll be able to sell a lot to a lot of people, but it actually makes it nearly impossible for you to get off the volume treadmill. Now you have to just keep finding people.
It it's imp almost impossible to grow. So I know low prices feel safe. I get it. It feels easier to have a low price. There's less risk of being rejected. There's less risk of someone being offended by your prices or whatever a fear you have that's all made up in your mind. I get it. But low prices are the most expensive decision you're making in your business right now. It's the most ex it's costing you so much to have low prices.
And not only is it costing you your money, but it's costing you your flexibility. It's costing you your joy. And this is why I know entrepreneurs doing $500,000 a year, a million dollars a year, $10 million a year. And they would never tell you this publicly, but behind closed doors, they'll tell you, I'm burning out. About a year ago, I had a very, very, very famous big YouTuber.
Six, seven million subscribers, probably more now. Reach out to me. He'd listen to one of my episodes. And it was this is kind of cool, right? When you make content, you have no idea who's watching or listening. I had no idea he even knew I existed. And he messaged me on Instagram because he saw a post I did. I did a a video I did, and he was actually did the homework. I gave like a little exercise at the end of the video. And he messaged me privately and he said, Here's what I did with the homework.
I desperately want to simplify my business and work less, but I'm afraid that if I do, my income's gonna plummet. Here was a guy who's incredibly smart, incredibly successful, and a really good dude doing really good work in the world. And he's burning out. He's starting a family. He's been doing this for a while, and the adrenaline of making a lot of money and working hard and impacting a lot of people.
Graham Cochrane (45:37.492)
It wears off eventually. I'm telling you, it wears off eventually. And he was starting to look down the road and go, I don't think I can keep this up. What do you do then? What do you do then? He felt he was having to choose between getting his life and freedom back or having the income that he's gotten used to. And I'm here to tell you, you don't have to make that choice. There's a door number three, which is you can actually make more than you're making right now while working half as much.
And I will preach that from the rooftops until the day I die because I'm living proof of it. My clients are living proof of it. And it's what people need to hear. I'm sick and tired of this hustle culture. I'm sick and tired of the most successful air quotes of us in the entrepreneurial space spouting out garbage about just.
Ignore work-life balance in your 20s, just work your butt off in your 20s to build a business so you can rest later. That is absolute awful, awful advice that is destroying people's bodies, minds, spirits, marriages, families. And it's also not even true. It's not even necessary to reach your goals. In fact, the opposite is true. You will reach your goals faster and easier if you would stop working so hard and just raise your prices.
And just I I know it sounds crazy, and I feel like a crazy person because people are like, what are you talking about? So-and-so said this, so-and-so said that. I don't care what they said. They're idiots. They're really smart and successful, but they're idiots when it comes to this kind of advice. It's bad advice. It's bad advice. It works until it doesn't. Therefore, it is bad advice. True principles work always for everyone.
There are things that work for a time and then they hit a wall. That's not good advice. That is setting someone up for a short win, long term loss. I don't want that for you. I want short-term win, long-term, even bigger win. Because I want you to not just win in your business, but in your marriage, in your parenting, in your friendships, in your spirituality, your relationship with God, in your body, in your health.
Graham Cochrane (48:02.136)
Hey, how about in your joy? Don't you want to have fun? Don't you want to love your life? If your business is sucking the joy out of your life, something's wrong with the way you're doing business. And that's okay. I've been there multiple times and I've had to re engineer and re pivot. I'm speaking from experience. There's a reason why I wrote the book, The Effortless Business. There's a reason why I do this show and help you create not only more money.
More margin and more meaning. There's a reason why I'm very passionate about this because I have felt the opposite and I've seen the promised land. And I want to bring you with me. So cheap clients are your most expensive problem because they are consuming, they can't commit, they're crowding out your higher ticket better clients, and they're keeping you captive to a business model that'll keep you broke and busy forever.
The good news is this is the most fixable problem in your business. You don't need a bigger audience, you don't need a better funnel, you just need to charge more. And I am gonna tell you one last time the fastest and best way to begin charging what you are really worth is to come to my 10K Offer Challenge. As of this episode dropping, the next one's happening next week. Go to tenkaoffer challenge dot com, get your ticket, be in the room.
Do not miss it. Every month you don't raise your prices and figure this out is a month you are losing not only money, but time, energy, and joy. We can fix this in five days. I promise you. So get all the details at tenkeyofferchallenge.com, watch some of the testimonials, see some of the results my clients are getting that come to this event. It's it's the best five days you'll spend in your business this year. I promise you that. If this episode has blessed you, let me know in a comment below or message me on Instagram at thegramcochrane.
Love to hear from you always to know what's resonating with you. Have a great week and just charge more.
