Christine Schlonski [0:02]
Hi Gorgeous. This is episode number 315 with the wonderful Joy Bufalini, who is actually starting with the first episode in the 3rd Year of Heart Sells! Podcast.

Joy Bufalini [0:16]
Hi, this is Joy Bufalini, you are listening to Heart Sells! Podcast with Christine Schlonski.

Christine Schlonski [0:23]
I am so excited to have Joy Bufalini on the show today. She has been in the coaching industry for over 10 years, and she has been featured in both entrepreneur, and on magazines. Using her signature Simplify To Multiply Method. She helps clients to double and triple their sales without doing launches, webinars, sales funnels, or ads. So I’m super super excited to have Joy here today. In case we have not met yet. I am Christine Schlonski, the host of Heart Sells! Podcast where I talk with inspirational, successful heart-centered entrepreneurs and business leaders about how they have built a wildly successful business and in many cases had to overcome their challenges in selling their products and services. Some of my amazing past guests include Bob Burg, John Lee Dumas, Ian Altman, and Andrea Waltz.

Christine Schlonski [1:22]
Before we dive into today’s episode, this episode is brought to you by Heart Sells! Academy, where I am the founder of and we support heart-centered ambitious entrepreneurs to sell this ease, grace, and confidence while being authentic and true to their values. And we help them to double and triple their own revenue, and really enjoy the sales process. So if you feel that selling is kind of in your way and holds you back, you probably want to send us an email, and let’s have a chat about how we can support you. Your impact and business grow, you can hop on over to christineschlonski.com to find out more. So let’s dive in with the wonderful Joy Bufalini and let’s find out the path to high ticket sales. Well, I am so super excited you are here today. Joy, welcome.

Christine Schlonski [2:16]
Thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure. Yeah.

Christine Schlonski [2:19]
I just love your work. It’s all about making things simple in your business and really going for where you can add the highest value and also asking for a high ticket. And you know, we are just going to start right in with that high ticket stuff. And I know a lot of people thinking now or feeling even in their stomachs like a high ticket that sounds like I have to take a lot of money. And then maybe this little voice like, is it worth that kind of money? Can I deliver? Can I do stuff? So take us a little bit into your high ticket world? And how did you get that inspiration and the confidence to grow into a high ticket person? And why do you teach that to entrepreneurs?

Christine Schlonski [3:06]
Yeah, thanks for asking. So, and I’m really passionate, mainly about helping business owners, primarily women, to find the simplest, quickest, easiest, easiest path to the growth that they desire, the income goals, the sales, the clients. And just to backtrack the story a little bit. I’ve been a coach for 10 years now, I started my business, you know quite a while ago started from a place of passion, of wanting to help people. I have a special needs child. And there were a lot of mindset shifts and growth that eventually led to me becoming a coach and wanting to help people and really see a new way of thinking about life and their purpose in life. It eventually moved me into being a business coach.

Joy Bufalini [3:55]
But being a special needs Mom, I didn’t have a lot of time, it was not an option for me to be working 60 hours a week in my business. But I spent the first few years really doing all the things, all the low ticket offers all the webinars, all the sales funnels, all the, you know, everything, ads, and just trying so many different things. And I wasn’t. I was working really hard and wasn’t making much money. And that’s when I learned about this idea of a high ticket offer like, Well, that sounds really neat. But, you know, how do I sell that? You know, how do I think it’s about to have to show my value or how do I, you know, work on my money mindset enough to be able to do that? And I really started educating myself in this and I really had an aha moment after doing like another launch that was a ton of work and just you know, a couple of thousand dollars in return. I realized that if I was open to shifting my thinking on this, then it really could be a lot easier. If I just focused on, let’s say, back then it was like three new clients.

Joy Bufalini [5:06]
What if I had three new 5K clients a month? Oh, well, that’s $15,000 really, you know, very simply. So what I started doing was simplifying things and let go of doing, you know, watches with 15, 10 emails, you know, in the sales funnels and ads. And I just started building a community and sharing really valuable content with them. So that was mainly via the Facebook group, my email list as well, of course, and I kinda was almost testing it, you know, I had really not seen it modeled, although I’d learned about, high ticket. I realized, like, let’s just see what’s possible. And I had my first multi 6-figure year with a Facebook group of 500 people and an email list of 500 people,

Christine Schlonski [5:55]
OMG. Yeah.

Joy Bufalini [5:58]
I was like, wait, I’m on to something. Because all the experts and all my coaches and all my colleagues were like, what? You did what with that size of a community? And there was an overlap between both those communities, there were some people there in my group and my email list that wasn’t even 1000 people in total. And I realized I was on to something here, I was working less hours, and I was enjoying the clients who signed up because they were highly vested in themselves. And in getting a result, they were so much easier to work with, you know, in coaching them in their business. So I actually reverse-engineered the process. And that became my Simplify To Multiply brands, right? It’s really about offers, messaging and sales processes being really simple. But high tickets, you know, can feel scary, right? Especially if you’re having trouble getting people to buy a $397 offer. That was me.

Christine Schlonski [6:55]
That was your mindset shift, right? Because I know, I love the high ticket concept. And for me, it all already has served me really, really well. And I, you know, I read a start, this high ticket, and then I’m thinking that what else could I do for people who can’t afford it? What do I want to offer, but then I’m coming from that place of choice? Yes. And I think that’s really important for an entrepreneur.

Joy Bufalini [7:20]
Yes.

Christine Schlonski [7:21]
What was your mindset shift? What was this? Wow, like three people are signing up for 5K each, in one month? How many people would you have needed for a 300 or $400 offer? Right, coming from the place where you did not have the size of the list and the community? What happened to your mindset?

Joy Bufalini [7:43]
Hmm, that’s a great question. Well, I saw that the numbers just didn’t work. You know, if there’s a 1-3% conversion rate, and mine were higher than that, but that’s industry-standard, you know, with sales, 1-3% of my audience is going to buy from me, well, if it’s only 397, I’m going to be making much money. And you have to keep filling that pipeline too, write keep selling that low ticket offer to keep you know those numbers up, it’s a lot of sales you have to make. So you’re exactly right, Christine, it’s a choice, you have to really decide I’m gonna own this path, this is the path, I want to learn and you really do have to work on some of your triggers around money and sales and actually around abundance to see what used to happen to me and I’m sure this is probably true for some of you in the audience, you think, Oh, I’m taking 5K from someone like oh, I could see it just they’re gonna be they’re gonna have 5K less right.

Joy Bufalini [8:44]
And what I was doing is not seeing it all, the value I was bringing to them okay, and there’s I when I got a whole new concept of what I was actually selling so for a business owner, you know, the time that they’re working with me let’s just say it was a 5K offer the time that they’re working with me, if I can deliver specific results that can give them 5K back in their pocket and a lot more right either while we’re working together or shortly after, right if I can really see that value and own that value. You have to own it first internally and also the internal shifts that will happen for them and that really helped me a lot to really own like I have a lot of value to bring to the table and everybody does. Even if you’re not selling something to business owners where they’re going to go make money when you’re showing the transformation. You know, you’re saving someone 5K in medical bills right if you help them transform their health, you’ve saved them 5K in a divorce if your relationship coach knows you know.

Christine Schlonski [9:45]
I just thought about that, because I have a client who helps people in their marriage, and we just had the conversation the other day was like, just think about how much it costs to get a divorce.

Joy Bufalini [9:58]
Yes, everything has a cost that may not be at the moment. But everything, every problem, if it’s a, if it’s a high-value problem, they really, really need it solved. See, if somebody who’s kind of like, oh, I’d like my marriage to be better, oh, I’d like to make a little more money, oh, I’d like to be a little healthier. Those are not your high ticket clients, your high ticket client needs a very pressing problem solved. And let’s solve now. And when you can give them that value right away, and it’s just a match for exactly what they need. It’s not something that they’ve tried before, it’s something unique and differentiated. And you can share that and show that in your messaging, how, what you do is different than what they’ve done before. And then they actually do get that problem solved. On the other side of, you know, working with you being in your program, then there’s a use-value to which most of us forget about, how is their life different now? Or is their business different now? Or is their marriage different now? Or is their health different?

Joy Bufalini [10:57]
Like, how does their whole life change after that, and you really can’t even put a price tag on that use value? So once I started to really understand the value, and that a result is more valuable to one person than another right, not everybody’s going to value the result I provide there may not be ready, you know, they may not be enough, as they call it pain. I don’t like to call it that. But you know, it’s just gotten to a point where, okay, I need to change this now. That’s your high ticket clients, and you can actually attract high ticket clients, by making a shift to your messaging, by being really clear who it’s for, where they’re at, in their journey, what they’ve tried before, how you’re different from other people. And it does require some self-reflection, you know, we, this is one of the things I help my clients with, it can be challenging, like, what is my, what is my genius? What is my differentiator? You know, what is the value that I really need to own that I bring to the table, and I often talk with women, and I uncover their process and how they actually get results for their clients. And I’m blown away. Like, I’d have no idea that they have this unique expertise, this unique modality they use, you know, is just so many entrepreneurs that have so many gifts and talents and experiences they bring to the table, but they’re really not fully owning them. And so they’re playing small at the lower ticket offers because that’s where their own personal level of ownership and belief is at.

Christine Schlonski [12:31]
Oh, I love that. So how could a person start to make a change, right after they listened to our conversation? What came out, obviously, it’s a process and you’ll work with people a little bit longer than just one session. But let’s give them a little something. So they can put that into action and start working on that mindset. Because once you’ve experienced charging 2000, or 5000, or 10,000, or even more dollar ticket, and you see the transformation that your clients are having, by paying you that kind of money, you can never ever forget this experience.

Joy Bufalini [13:10]
Absolutely. And then it just you start owning it. Right. So what I would say to someone who’s thinking about doing this, first of all, go to the basics. I know you hear this a lot. But my clients before their first call with me no matter what program they’re in because they work with clients from just a few years into business to ones that are building from multi six to a million dollars is to identify your yes client. This is, that’s my turn, your yes client, right a little different than the ideal client, who is your yes client for a specific offer. And there are certain things that are true of that person, right? And their personality traits and you know, things that they’ve tried before and that make them unique and different. And then start shifting your emails or social media posts to speaking to them. And what’s really neat is, first of all, you have to shift to a bit of a belief here, there’s a belief shift, because most people say, oh, nobody’s in my audience will pay 10K, or 20K, there’s just no way, right? Because you’ve never had evidence of it yet. You’ve only had evidence of struggling with maybe even a 1 or 2K offer.

Christine Schlonski [14:20]
I would never ask either. Right?

Joy Bufalini [14:22]
Right. Right. Somebody should ask, would you ever? But you know, no, they wouldn’t. Nobody’s going to spend money, people will invest money, right? When they can see it’s a match for them. Yeah, no, no, he’s gonna spend 10K, but they will invest in themselves. So first of all, it’s a belief because I have the desire to serve this person. So this goes to identify your yes client, the person who has a really something they want to be solved. And it’s really important to them. It’s a high priority for them. Really believing that because you have the desire to serve them, that those people exist in your world or a degree or two away right now. I mean, this is how,

Christine Schlonski [14:22]
This is powerful.

Christine Schlonski [15:03]
Yeah, this is really a belief in how the universe works, right? You know, we talk about the law of attraction, and you know all of these things about manifesting. But if you think about it, it would be kind of a mean universe that would give you a desire to do something and not have the way there. And that’s actually one of our simplified and multiply principles is that everything I need is in my world right now, or just a degree or two away. So it’s really having this abundance mindset, like I desire to serve this client who is eager to invest 5K and will, and will show up to every call, implement everything and get great results. So it’s not really just about the money, the money is nice. But these are great clients to work with too. And a lot of my people that, you know, reach out to me, they actually want to work with a more involved client, they want to work with someone who’s going to, you know, ready for a real transformation, whether it’s inner, outer to their business, you know, wherever it’s at.

Joy Bufalini [16:05]
So it’s really, you know, believing, okay, here’s my Yes Client, here’s who I want to serve. And believing that they are in your world, that’s sort of a conscious decision you have to make, and then start sharing content. So that’s the next step that you can start doing right away is identify that and start writing to that person, you know, you don’t have to write your content does not have to be for everybody, from the beginners to those who are the more advanced people, you know, further along in their journey that you really want to be serving. But you asked Christine, and this is a great question. What do you do about people who can’t afford, really can’t afford a 5K, or 10K offer? Or aren’t ready for it? Right? They’re just not far enough in your journey. And so this is my approach on this, again, you know, everything, everyone needs is in their world right now. Right? It’s somewhere in our field. And once we open to it, there it is, right. And I saw all the work it took for me to create, deliver, and also maintain those low ticket offers, right? All the content creation, all the emails to go out, all of the maintenance of logins and passwords. And, you know, when people came in and memberships Oh, that’s a lot of work. And it occurred to me, why don’t I just share that level of content for free?

Joy Bufalini [17:28]
So I shifted my message to just speaking to the high ticket clients, but I share tons of free high-value content. And here’s the cool thing. There are no unhappy clients wanting a refund on a $37 offer. Right? There are no login problems, there are no payment issues, there’s nothing, it’s just free content, right. And those who ideally will eventually become my higher-end clients, they’re going to follow along, they’re going to learn and I’m hoping that, right, but my sales, and who I’m serving is focused on a higher level of clients, but I’m helping tons of people who are getting ready to be there, right, who are learning and growing. And it’s just really simple, you know, to deliver that, that free value and not be attached to, you know, having to make you know, $50 sale, or even a $300 sale.

Christine Schlonski [18:24]
Yeah, I love the concept because I know you, you are a giver yourself and I love to give, and I always find it difficult, like where do you put like, the lid on? Right? What piece do you give and what don’t you give? So I’m also a big believer that when you give your best stuff away, you’re I call them soulmates. It’s your soulmate clients, your yes clients, they will be attracted to you and they want more. And they are ready, right? You don’t have to drag a person into your world or push them or squeeze them or you know, sell them something you just made that offer and I think your yes client is going to be drawn to you and they want to know more they want that personal support. And yeah, touch and yeah, you in that journey, basically.

Joy Bufalini [19:14]
Absolutely. And sales become so much easier, when they’re really clear who you are, your modality, your philosophy, right? So I’m really clear about that. I’m different from a lot of other business coaches, right. I don’t do you know, teach people to do, you know, launches or memberships or things like that, and that’s fine. There’s, you don’t want to do that. That’s great, you know, find people to do that. But since I’m really clear on my lane, people can either follow along and decide, you know, I want that lane too. And so when they do reach out and are interested in working with me if the sales process is pretty easy, too. Because that’s sometimes the fear when it comes to high ticket offers that oh, we’re gonna have to have a 90-minute sales call and there’s gonna be lots of back and forth. Then there’ll be objections to handle, objection handling is pretty much gone in my world. You know, so if someone reaches out I make sure they’re, they’ve been in my group and they know my content. And, you know, for those of you listening, you know, make sure you’re warming people up, if you have a cold lead, reach out to you, and especially if you have high ticket offers, make sure that they’re really clear on what you are and what you are, and how you’re unique and differentiated, then by the time you get to the sales call, you know, they’re already really clear, they’re pretty much pre-sold already. Right? That’s the ideal.

Joy Bufalini [20:33]
And then once you really master this process of really, actually pre-selling through your content, and how you’re unique and different, you can start selling in messenger, which is how I sell, sell now. So over 20K, without sales calls, like that’s, that’s the real simplification there, right? When you have these really great clients signing up. And you can let go the sales copies if you want to, you know if you do not something you have to let go of completely, but it can get easier and more fluid and which is just allows you to have more spaciousness, and mostly spend your days either writing content to your audience that you love, and serve them in that way, or spend and spend your time serving your current clients. There’s not a lot of other things to do.

Christine Schlonski [21:19]
Yeah, I love what simplified that is, and, and how that works. I had the question myself the other day, like, how do you handle objections? And I had to think about it. And you just said that so beautifully, like, when you are really clear on who you serve. And people have followed you. They don’t have any objections, they just want to know what it looks like working with you. And then they already have decided, so if they can figure out the money piece there.

Christine Schlonski [21:47]
Yes, exactly, exactly. And you can, you know, you can allude to the results and the value of those results in your content, right. And, and, and they’ll be able to see it, they’ll be able to expect it, so won’t be a surprise, you know, when you say the investment level, it’s, if you’re vague, and general and kind of jargony in your content, you know, and they don’t see you, they just see you as like, oh, I need to hire a business coach, or oh, I need to hire a health coach. Oh, she’s a health coach, let me reach out to her right. They’re not really educated enough to see a 5K 7K 3K 10K, whatever it is, they’re not educated enough to see that value. And so they’re just going to pray shop, right? Just because they’re just looking for a health coach. But if they’re really clear on, I have this problem I need to solve. I’ve done all of these things before. And I think the problem is actually this, you know, and then they find someone who’s oh, yeah, that’s exactly what I thought the issue was, and you get the, you have the solution. That’s great. You know, so it’s kind of like an alignment piece to that client was already kind of aligned in the direction of, you know, whatever it is, your expertise is already kind of aligned that way or they read your content, watch your videos, listen to podcasts, those kinds of things for a little while. And they educate themselves to say, Yeah, I think that’s, that’s the right way for me. Yeah. So it really makes the process simpler. Yeah.

Christine Schlonski [23:16]
And therefore you should be giving great content, right? So people can really connect with you, that I just love that philosophy right there. You know, there are people who probably will never buy from you or me, because we’ve given them so much. But their lives have been deeply impacted in a very positive way. They had a transformation. And that’s just so fulfilling. When you know, this happens. This is the stuff you share, right?

Joy Bufalini [23:43]
Yes, it’s just it feels good to be in that abundance mindset, too, right? Of not being attached to oh, I don’t. And I was taught that way. Right. In the early days of marketing that I was starting and growing my business, you don’t share too much. Don’t give away your secret sauce. You know. And what I ended up being with kind of general vague, jargony. Right. And people would buy for me, but it was more because they knew me from some other context, you know, or they had followed me for a while and I just happened to be one, you know, the person that was in their world. But you know, what, a lot of those clients actually didn’t drag their feet a little bit, right. They didn’t really, they weren’t really pre-sold in their mind, you know, like, this is the way, it was more, okay, I’m going to get me some Joy energy, and I’m going to hire Joy. And that’ll just like, fix everything. Versus like how I do and I want them to be on board with.

Christine Schlonski [24:41]
Yeah, totally hear you. So let me ask you, what was the very first thing that you ever sold in your life?

Joy Bufalini [24:48]
Oh, that’s a really great question.

Christine Schlonski [24:50]
The very first memory that comes up.

Joy Bufalini [24:52]
Yes. It was probably like a $25 membership to a group like a support group. I was a life coach originally, initially. So it may have even been a book club membership if I remember it and for going back 10 years, so it’s

Christine Schlonski [25:12]
Are there any memories before like maybe you sell anything as a child-like how did sales come into your world?

Joy Bufalini [25:19]
Okay, yes. You know, I don’t remember being someone that sold a lot, you know, like, I didn’t have the lemonade stand or anything like that. But I was a teacher, I was a middle school teacher. And teachers are actually salespeople, too. They’re selling ideas.

Christine Schlonski [25:36]
Yes,

Joy Bufalini [25:37]
Selling ideas. So I always loved teaching, and I loved the light bulb moment. So it was something that was naturally in my personality. And that connection in that transformation, even if it was a sixth-grader in reading class, right. Sixth-grader, they had this aha moment, you know, just like, Oh, I get it now. Right? or doing math? Hard math problem, right? I’ve just, Oh, I get it now. Right. So it’s, it feels kind of like that light bulb moment? Like,

Christine Schlonski [26:07]
Oh, totally. Yeah.

Joy Bufalini [26:09]
Look, I get it. This is yes, this is right. This is yes. So um, so yeah, I sort of, I kind of became a sort of an accidental coach, you know, I was doing it more from a place of passion to start with and my first few years versus making money. And then after a couple of years, okay, my kids are getting older, and my daughter with her special needs had a lot of extra expenses. Really, we were just, the debt was mounting, really, I’ve got to go get a job, or I’ve got to figure out how to make money. So I went down that low ticket offer launch, you know, model, for a little while. And, you know, got to a point like this is not working. Okay, really. And I think I went in for an interview for some jobs. And then I just really made this decision, like, no, my passion is to serve people, as a coach, I can go work for some company and do marketing. Sure. But that’s not what I meant to do.

Christine Schlonski [27:04]
So, just really drawing that line in the sand and saying, This is the business model I’m going to choose. It’s in alignment for me, my gut says, you know, that you can do this, you know, business owners sometimes have to spend the first couple years you know, trying things, figure out what’s the line for their personality, you know, what they love, what they don’t love, I didn’t like spending my whole day, you know, creating a landing page or setting up email funnels and things like that. Some people love that, you know, that’s great. If it’s working for you, and you’re getting a good ROI for it. That’s great. But I think it’s important for everyone to just sit back and look at their business model, you know, and make sure it is really aligned with my personality and my desires and my goals and how I want to serve people?

Christine Schlonski [27:51]
Yeah, awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so, so much, I’m so glad we have another conversation because I do want to touch on the abundance piece that you started to kind of put into the conversation a little bit earlier because that’s such an important piece to have in the thinking to really help you to uplevel and uplift. And so yeah, we, you know, will have that in the next conversation. Thank you. So, so much drive for having been here for bringing joy to our listeners. And for yeah, for sharing. I mean, people can take action now. And they, you know, they can really start shifting their mindset, seeing more of the value they provide and make a shift in their businesses. So that’s really amazing. Thank you.

Joy Bufalini [28:38]
Oh, it’s very exciting. And I wanted to acknowledge you, Christine, that this is your beginning of your third season of your podcast. So congratulations on that. Thank you for having me on. And I look forward to our next conversation to talk more about the thinking and the philosophy of abundance in this

Christine Schlonski [28:55]
Cool, thank you so much. What an amazing episode. I just love the inspiration. I love the golden nuggets, Joy just shared and her process of how she has gotten to the path of high ticket sales. Hop on over to christineschlonski.com find the podcast tab and all the links that connect to Joy. Make sure you connect with her. And also you get her amazing free gift, the Easiest Sales Process. And once you’re over there, check out the show notes, the resource section the transcript, and in the resource section, there’s Joy’s free gift, as well as a link to the Heart-Centered Lead Generation Summit Experience, which will give you 40 amazing experts who are sharing their secrets and lead generation and this one is all for free. So hop on over to christineschlonski.com find the podcast tab. And there you have all the information at your fingertips and all the episodes on Heart Sells! Podcast. I’m so super excited. That you are here and that I have gotten to start this new year of Heart Sells! Podcast, a 3rd Year with the wonderful Joy Bufalini,
and she will be back in the next episode where we talk about “How To Simplify To Multiply”. Thanks so much for listening. Have a wonderful day wherever you are in this beautiful world and I’m saying bye for now.