I talked a little bit about high income skills in my ebook I sent you (I hope you read it, if not, you're missing out), but now I want to get a little more in depth. I cannot stress how much of a game changer having a high income skill can be for those looking to change their immediate lifestyle. Most people have a skill in general, but the problem with the skills most people have is that they are not a rarity. Granted there is something to be said about trades in this age we live in, but I know that since you are here you are looking for something a little more than a trade skill. You are looking for something that can fundamentally change your life. Well, these types of skills can be exactly what you need. Besides the monetary benefits, these skills allow you true control over your life. You get to create your own schedule, work the hours you want without having to worry about seasonal changes, and the work itself is much more satisfying than being a plumber or an electrician, even better than higher skill trades such as doctoral or legal work. Better yet, you often don't have to pay the same outlandish fees you would expect to pay for multiple years of university education and unpaid internships. Instead of going hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, you can pay anywhere from 1000 to 10000 for a course that will have everything you need, plus a foot in the door for some professional contacts to get you started.
Does this pique your interest? Well, let's examine some of these skills a little more in depth.
1. Copywriting
"The number one skill any successful business person must have is the ability to sell through the art of the written word."
I first heard these words through Anik Singal, who first heard these words through one of his mentors. This skill alone has taken people from the lowest income brackets into the realm of multi-million earnings. This can very well be what makes or breaks a business, and now with the power of decision being solely in the hands of the customer, the stakes are that much higher. However, if this skill is learned it can be used across many different types of business models and across various mediums in which a business and a customer interact.
The thing that most people get wrong about copywriting is that they focus too much on the text as a whole. People are too disjointed for that to be a working strategy anymore. What you are looking to do is grab their attention immediately and leave them wanting just enough for them to read on to the next section, whether it be a short three sentence paragraph or a single sentence. You want to take your prospect on a journey, and by the time that journey is complete the prospect will be ready to part with their money.
The great thing about copywriting is that you don't need to be an artistic writer of any kind. Fancy words and cunning wit is not what copywriting is about. You want to make yourself relatable, and to show that anyone can make their goals a reality with the help of whatever product you are selling. It's about settling those common dismissals right away and really showing the value of the product.
There are many places and mentors you can hire to get started with copywriting, and most of these companies offer this comprehensive training around 1000 dollars, and this training provides you with real world instances of copywriting for a business, often with direct training from people who have made hundreds of thousands of dollars doing it themselves. It's hard to think of any other trade that offers so much potential for growth for so little upfront investment.
If this interests you, start looking around for your favorite marketers and see if they offer a course on copywriting. Your future rests in your hands.
2. High Ticket Closing
So in the section above we mentioned copywriting. While copywriting is arguably the backbone of any modern sales toolkit, the ability to close high ticket offers takes that model and cranks it up an extra notch. Let's explain a bit more before we continue on.
Sometimes for a relatively low ticket offer (anything I would consider from 100-2000 dollars) all you need may be the right type of copy. However, if you are in the market of 5000 or 10000 dollar products or services, you are going to need something a bit more powerful. You are actually going to need to get on the phone with your prospect.
Getting on the phone when discussing a high ticket offer with your prospect serves two purposes. First, it helps qualify your prospect even further than normal sales copy can. You can really discuss and internalize the pain points and the pressures your prospect faces. You can make sure your prospect understands the need for such a high price tag on a specific service or product, and discern whether or not the prospect is at the point where the price of the product will really be worthwhile. If you are selling these high level offers, it's ok to be choosy with the people you choose to work with or present your offer to. You can only get an in depth feel for this positioning by actually having a discussion with your client on a one-to-one basis.
Secondly, if you prospect qualifies for this high ticket offer, you can really dive deep into how this offer can help take your prospect to the next level, whatever that may be. Prospects often have a serious battle going on in their heads to rationalize such a large purchase, and the prospect wants to make it absolutely certain that this initial investment has the ability to increase their ROI significantly. This positioning can only be done with an actual conversation, and the closer must be willing to put themselves in the shoes of the prospect. If the prospect is able to significantly increase their revenue with help from this product or service, a single investment of 10000 dollars is really just a drop in the bucket. Only a direct conversation can make these sort of connections.
Now, if you are able to work as a middleman for a business by closing these kind of high ticket offers, businesses will be more than willing to pay you 20% commission on that single sale. That's right. If you can close a deal for a business that sells a 10000 dollar product, you can easily make a 2000 dollar commission for that single phone call.
It almost sounds too good to be true, until you realize how important moving product is for a business and how much value you are providing a business when you offer them excellent closing skills. In an age where salesmanship is seen as an almost evil action, actually connecting with another person and helping them will often put you in a position where you aren't working for money, but people are giving you money because of how much value you offer.
So, if you are looking to take your sales skills to the next level, consider taking a high ticket closing course. These can cost a little more than a copywriting course, but these skills can be the bridge you need when writing copy just won't cut it. High ticket closing is definitely a skill worth working towards mastering.
3. Consulting
Sometimes a business needs to take their tactics to the next level and get some hands-on assistance for making that goal a reality. Sometimes they will need an actual master looking over their systems, analyzing them, and determining where the weak links are. This can be done with the help of a consultant.
Now, consulting is a bit of a misnomer. Both copywriting and high ticket closing have aspects of consulting built into the systems, but actual consulting is much more visceral than just directing a prospect to a sales page or having a phone call with them. You're actually working as an outside assistant to the company, and leveraging your position as a master to help elevate the business of your prospects.
Now, consulting has its pros and cons. Often with consulting you are actually taking time and energy to personally help elevate a business. However, this time sacrifice will be offset by an incredibly premium price point. This is how some people can be paid astronomical retainer fees, or even hourly fees. Some consultants offer their services for 50000 or 100000 dollars PER HOUR! While this may seem outrageous, remember that this is a premium service. After all, time is money, and if you are going to request the most valuable resource an individual has, which is their precious time, expect to pay premium fees for that time.
This positioning can also truly cement your status as a master in your field. Many people often don't realize that with enough work they can usually get to the level they are striving towards on their own, but use the services of a consultant as both a shortcut and a direct path towards that goal. One doesn't necessarily have to be the best in their field to position themselves as such, they just have to know how to get results, and show how those results can be seen through direct growth.
Now, what positioning you wish to place yourself at when it comes to consulting depends on your expertise and experience. You may be relatively basic at putting all the puzzle pieces of a business together, but absolutely fantastic at one specific aspect of that puzzle. You can use that to laser focus your prospects and get yourself from balancing many tasks to making clear gains in one specific area. On top of that, if you can show how your intervention in this one aspect creates a domino effect of value throughout the rest of the business, you have seeded yourself into the minds of these prospects and truly have become a definitive authority in that field.
Starting a consulting business or investing in a consulting course may be a bit steeper in price than other courses simply because the skills are more in-depth. It requires self-awareness and confidence in whichever field you are specializing in, and requires the ability to sell yourself and your brand as the product rather than a digital product or basic service. The course in general will require a more hands-on approach, thus requiring a higher price for the course. However, most people are not experts in almost any field, so being able to position your knowledge to help people get to a new level in their businesses doesn't have to be a drain to your faculties. However, consulting more than any other skill will require qualifying your prospects, so be sure to have a deep understanding of this process.
4. Paid Speaker
Imagine making multiple six figures just by speaking directly to a crowd. Now, imagine on top of that, being able to present a great offer to this crowd, thus making even more. This is the incredible benefit of becoming a public speaker.
Public speaking is really a culmination of every other skill mentioned wrapped up in a single skill, with the bowtie of presentation and the power of a live event on top. Public speaking can transform you from a standard marketer into a rock star. If you are the kind of person that can be clear in your speech, but also feed off the energy of others, public speaking may be the golden ticket for you. It's one experience to have a one-on-one conversation with a prospect, it's something entirely different to speak to hundreds or thousands of people directly face-to-face.
Now there are many different ways to approach public speaking, but arguably the most important aspect of public speaking is being able to engage. Engaging means not only engaging personally and emotionally with your prospect, but engaging with the sales process and the product. This used to be done during the TV era through live-on-air events or infomercials, but with the advent of high speed internet at our fingertips it is easier than ever to take a public speaking event and place it on the web for anybody to see.
However, as those of you who love live events knows, seeing an event online does not compare to being present at the event personally. There's a certain type of connectivity you feel not only when you are on the same wavelength as the presenter, but also as part of a crowd who are there for the same reasons you are. Many people talk about the inherently fake nature of networking events, yet completely overlook the networking power of attending a public speaking event. A speaker can capitalize on this by not just having the correct level of energy, but also by including the crowd in your presentation. There's something elevating about participating in a magic trick, or your favorite singer holding the mic in your direction to sing along with them. There is no reason you cannot take these same type of participation techniques and apply it to your public speaking event just because your niche is more professionally directed.
Now, public speaking is similar to consulting in that you are trading your own time to participate in this event, therefore you want to charge a premium fee for being a part of this event. However, don't let that stop you from ruling out attending an event completely. After all, the real moneymaker comes from presenting the crowd with an offer. You can take your skills from closing and copywriting and transmute them into a presentation you will show live at this event. When you have made that connection with the crowd and have shown above and beyond how valuable your offer is, you will have positioned yourself to where a large amount of people are ready to get started with your offer immediately. This can offset almost any cost incurred with an event, and can synergize with other offers depending on how many presenters are attending the event. Again, the possibilities are only limited to the scope of your imagination.
Public speaking is a bit of a wild card because there aren't that many people teaching how to maximize your technique. Oftentimes one can only be presented with a basic framework because speaking requires so much of the individual and their own styles and mannerisms. While there are some ways to streamline your presentations, it's often more of a matter of how you present yourself within the allotted time of the event. If you find a public speaking course expect to pay a premium and expect to piece the puzzle together more or less yourself. The best option you can take is to put yourself out there, take any speaking gigs that are presented to you, and learn how you interact with both the crowd and the presentation itself. As someone who has performed live in front of crowds many times personally, I can tell you from experience that nothing can really train you to stand in front of a crowd and pour yourself out to them. This skill is not for the faint of heart or those unwilling to take criticism. However, it can be one of the most personally enriching skills you can learn.
5. Webinar Presenter
I saved this skill for last because it shares so much in common with public speaking, but also is very different. You are still presenting to a crowd and are taking advantage of the energy between you and the crowd, but it is a bit more impersonal since it is all online, so it requires a little more creativity to achieve the same results. However, this can be useful if you aren't as keen on presenting in a live event, or it can be a force multiplier if you want to expand outside of public speaking events.
Webinar presentations are similar to public speaking events in that they are still presented in front of a crowd. Usually this event is created through a service such as WebinarJam or GoToWebinar, and people that have signed up previously can be granted access to the live event of the webinar. You still want to create a connection between the crowd and yourself, and especially between the crowd and the product. This can be done with great ease if you know how to position your product or service correctly, and if you have experience with both closing and copywriting. Similar to a live event, this presentation will essentially be a live presentation of your copy, but since it is a live event you have more control over how to position the product in relation to the desires of the crowd.
Where this differs from a public speaking event is in the format of the presentation. Since there is no face-to-face interaction, the connection will need to be built through the tools you have available. Often this will be done by asking the crowd to interact with you through text, and shouting out interesting responses or usernames you see responding can help bridge that gap.
Another way to build connections is to present moments where the presentation can actively teach the crowd. One of the reasons I like webinars is because you can get right into a program and show the crowd hands on how your product or service can meet the crowd's needs. I've seen people build a fully functioning business online within 20 minutes with a webinar. I've seen people actively build ads, launch them, and show money being made within the timeframe of the webinar. I've seen people contact businesses live peddling their services with a pre-built system and land a gig with the business live on a webinar. Webinars, due to their online nature, have incredible potential for both value stacking and value positioning, possibly more so than a public speaking event.
I'm sure you've seen your fair share of webinars, but you would be amazed and shocked at how few people are creating truly memorable and valuable webinar presentations compared to how many people are actually in any specific field. Not only does the cost of a webinar service provide a certain barrier of entry (which is why having a relatively high ticket item for webinars is key for offsetting these costs), but many people don't actually know or have the technical know-how to set up a functional webinar. On top of that, you will also need the right copy and have closers ready to lock down anyone who is interested in investing in your product or service. Webinars, more than any other system will require a system behind it to take full advantage of the power it has.
Because of the nature of this format, you can easily position yourself as a powerful resource for a business if you can wrap up the technical aspects and your presentation ability into a single package. Considering how powerful webinars can be, but how underutilized they are at this moment in time, you can find yourself making obscene amounts of income by positioning yourself as an expert in this field. It can be extraordinarily lucrative if the business you are presenting for already has a great system behind it.
Now this will be a little bit more difficult because webinars are still such an underutilized tool, but there are options if you are interested in learning how to both write copy for webinars and create webinar presentations. It will take a bit of digging, but considering the position you will be in when you learn this skill, it will seriously be worth both the admission price of the course and the time investment searching for the course that will be right for you.
Closing
In closing, all of these skills can be used in isolation, but learning these skills in this order can not only set you up with the startup capital for your own business, but can set you miles ahead of your competition if you have a deep understanding of these skill and how to systematize it. Even if you don't want to become an entrepreneur, these skills will provide you with the ability to live within whatever means you choose. So, instead of making a paltry allowance from your employer, take your life into your own hands and learn one of these skills today. One of these skills can truly start you on the road to self fulfillment and financial freedom.