163: 7 beliefs that block women entrepreneurs from premium clients
7 myths keeping you from selling premium offers
We’re in an era of uncertainty: a softer economy, more discerning buyers, and a marketplace crowded with entrepreneurs and product-based businesses.
But here’s the truth: high ticket buyers are still buying. They’re just more selective — and that’s actually really good news for you, especially if you know how to position yourself.
In this post, I’m busting the 7 biggest myths I hear from business owners about premium offers, and sharing some real-life shifts that will help you confidently step into the premium space.
Myth #1: My niche or services can’t command premium rates
This is a total myth. Almost every niche has a premium segment. Whether you’re a dog walker, a bookkeeper, a photographer, a fitness trainer, a therapist, or an educator, you can reposition your offer to serve a premium market.
Anytime I think I can’t charge that much, I look around, see what others are charging, and then I change my thinking: If they can do it, I can too.
Myth #2: Nobody in my audience will pay that much
If you’ve only been selling entry-level or low-ticket offers, it probably feels like you don’t have the right audience to buy a premium offer.
But high-ticket buyers are out there. They’re lurking in your orbit, waiting for you to say you can solve their problems. They want a white-glove, high-level experience — but if all they see is you solving beginner problems, they won’t know you can handle advanced ones.
Myth #3: If I go premium, I’ll alienate my audience
This is patently untrue. Beginners will still be inspired by your elevated positioning. They’ll see your new messaging as the ultimate goal. Meanwhile, premium buyers will finally see that you can solve their high-level problems.
Premium offers aren’t elitist. They’re elevated. And that attracts an elevated clientele.
Myth #4: I need a bigger audience before I can sell high-ticket
This is some of the biggest marketing BS we’ve been sold. You don’t need thousands of followers.
I’ve surpassed six figures every year in my business with less than 1,000 people on my email list and only a couple thousand followers across social media — because I sell high-ticket packages.
You need a small but mighty audience that knows, likes, and trusts you — plus personal relationships and referral partners. That’s it.
Myth #5: I’m not enough of an expert yet
This one hits Gen X women especially hard. I’ve been there — when I started my business, I couldn’t even call myself a copywriter. I dumbed it down to “wordsmith” even though I had almost two decades of career experience under my belt.
But here’s the thing: your decades of experience already equal a premium level of expertise. Premium buyers aren’t looking for someone who took a weekend course. They want someone with depth. Showcase it through testimonials, results, and packaging your process into a named framework.
Myth #6: If I charge more, I’ll have to do more (and burn out)
Not true. Premium pricing isn’t about overdelivering — it’s about sharper positioning and better packaging. It’s fewer clients who are a better fit. It creates higher margins, which means more energy back in your week.
And let’s be honest: sometimes the $500 clients are more demanding than the $5,000 clients.
Myth #7: It’s greedy or unethical to raise my prices
Please hear me when I say this: there is nothing wrong with charging premium rates for the transformation you can create.
Premium pricing generates more profit margin, which means you can show up more fully for your clients and your life. You can hire help, donate to causes, or even create scholarships. Premium pricing creates the spaciousness to do more good.
That is not greedy. That is sustainable.
🚦Your green light 🚦
High-ticket buyers are still buying — even in a shaky economy. Just look at the Taylor Swift tickets, the vacations, the luxury services people invest in.
So if you’ve been hesitating to raise your rates or launch your premium offer, this is your green light. Step into the premium space, create more profit, and build a business that’s sustainable and aligned with the life you want.
FREE WEBINAR
On March 24 2026, I’m hosting a power-packed 60-minute webinar:
The Premium Pipeline: Fill your client calendar & waitlist with high-ticket leads - even if you have a tiny list
In this session you’ll discover:
The psychology & habits of high-ticket buyers, so you know how to appeal premium clients
Premium messaging & positioning strategies to help you stand out as the go-to expert (who’s pricy, but worth it!)
The surprising marketing mistakes that quietly sabotage your high-ticket sales - & how to fix them
This masterclass will give you a proven and repeatable formula to attract and win premium clients, even in today’s market.
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[00:00:51] Hello. Hello. Welcome back to the Ill Communication Podcast. I'm your host, Kim Keel. Today we are busting some myths that keep brilliant, seasoned Gen X business owners playing small in your business, your offers, and your revenue. Now, I get that we're in an era of uncertainty, a softer economy. More discerning buyers and a marketplace that is very crowded with other entrepreneurs and product-based businesses.
[00:01:25] But here's the truth, high ticket buyers are still buying. They're just more selective and discerning, and that's actually really good news for you, especially if you know how to position yourself to appeal to those premium buyers. But in this episode. We're gonna tackle seven of the biggest hesitations or myths I hear from business owners about premium offers, and I'm gonna share a few real life examples and shifts to help you confidently step into that [00:02:00] premium space.
[00:02:01] But before we get into it, I wanna share that while I've charged. What would be considered premium rates for my copywriting services for several years. When I first started out, I second guessed everything and played it super small. On my first website, I called myself a wordsmith. I couldn't even bring myself to own the title of copywriter.
[00:02:24] For some reason, at 42, after working in. A career where I was writing for almost two decades. I didn't feel like I'd earned the title of copywriter. And at that point, back in 2018, I'd written dozens and dozens of campaigns and grant applications that generated hundreds. Of thousands of dollars in revenue every single year.
[00:02:49] I'd written Ouch, meet outreach material that won national awards. I had almost two decades of career experience under my belt, but I couldn't bring myself to call myself a copywriter. So I called myself a wordsmith. But what even the what even is that, like how is calling myself a wordsmith clearer than calling myself a copywriter?
[00:03:10] And when I did launch my business, I remember the first long form sales page I wrote was 500 bucks. I did it because, A, I didn't believe I was worth more since I was so quote unquote new to copywriting and B, because I just really wanted to get my first couple of clients. But after that experience, the next sales page I wrote was a thousand, then 1500, and then 5,000.
[00:03:36] I still charge in the range of $5,000 for a sales page, and yet many other direct response copywriters are charging upwards of $25,000 for a sales page.
[00:03:49] Now I'm sharing this because we all start in the same place where we second guess, we hold ourselves back. We play, play it small. But over time you can [00:04:00] and should be elevating your rates to elevate the clientele you work with and. I've worked in this industry for coming on eight years now, and I've seen many of the mistakes my peers have made in their quest to charge premium rates.
[00:04:15] And honestly, I've made many of these mistakes myself. So I wanna share with you seven of the most common myths or mistakes I see that are blocking women from running successful, high impact, high value. Premium level businesses. Myth number one, my niche or my services can't command premium rates. This is a total myth.
[00:04:42] A lot of us think like, oh, I'm, I'm a, a dog walker. I can't charge premium rights. Look, almost every single niche has a premium segment. You just have to reposition your offer to serve it. Whether you are a bookkeeper, a photographer, a fitness trainer, a therapist, an educator, you might have a belief that you can't charge higher rates, but I wanna encourage you to look around and you will find.
[00:05:07] People charging way more than you. Just think of the luxury segments that exist now in pet care, lawn care, car care, health and fitness. And even in copywriting, the se, the se, the industry I'm in, there are copywriters who charge much less than me, and there are many who charge much, much more than me.
[00:05:30] Anytime I think I can't charge that much, I look around, see what others are charging. And then I change my thinking and think if they can do it, I can too. Myth number two, I don't have anyone in my business or in my audience who will pay that much. Now you've, this thought has probably popped into your head.
[00:05:52] Anytime you hear that you should sell premium, high ticket offers, you might be saying, but I don't know anyone who would pay that much. [00:06:00] Nobody in my audience. Can handle that kind of a fee. The thing is, if you've only been selling entry, beginner or low ticket offers, it probably feels like you don't have the right audience to buy your premium offer.
[00:06:14] But the reality is, high ticket buyers are out there and they're looking for solutions. They're lurking in your orbit and they're waiting for you to say that you can solve their problems. They're looking for a white glove, high level experience to get the transformation they're looking for. But if they see you talking about beginner level problems, or if they see you're offering a super affordable course, they probably won't know or won't have the confidence that you can deliver an advanced service to solve their advanced problems.
[00:06:48] Now, I've worked with a couple of clients in the past year. One was a private client and one was a member of my group coaching program. Both are brilliant business coaches who are working with high level clientele, or at least they should be. Both women should be working with multi six, seven, and eight figure clients, and charging rates can measure it with that, and yet both kept finding the same.
[00:07:15] Super fans kept signing up for their entry level offers and never matriculating up into their top tier leveraged programs. And when I looked at their offer suite, I could see that both were talking about beginner level business problems. They had offers like. Or content, how to land your first consulting gig, how to start a boutique business.
[00:07:39] Uh, lead magnets about how to attract clients. This is all good content, but these are beginner problems. If you talk about beginner problems, you'll attract beginner clients and you'll turn off the advanced clients who are willing to pay premium rates. While they both said they wanna uplevel their businesses and fill their top tier programs, they were spending [00:08:00] most of their marketing.
[00:08:01] Solving beginner problems. When they shifted away from that and started positioning themselves as coaches for already successful business owners who needed to dial in their success a little more, they began attracting stellar premium clients. In fact, the one client was really focusing on selling an offer that.
[00:08:22] Just a few hundred dollars, whereas she has 20 5K and 50 K offers that solve the biggest pain point for advanced consultants. But she wasn't even talking about them putting all of her energy into the energy. Into the entry level problems meant she wasn't attracting the clients who would bring the most leverage to her business.
[00:08:45] So trust me, there are people in your orbit who are willing and ready to pay higher rates for your higher level shift, but you probably just haven't been marketing or speaking to them in the right way. Number three. Uh, another myth, it's kind of aligned with the first one or the last one is if I go premium, I'll alienate my audience and.
[00:09:10] It's just patently untrue. Even when you talk about the high level advanced problems, high level advanced outcomes, the beginners and lower ticket buyers in your audience will still be inspired. They'll see your new positioning in marketing as their ultimate goal. They'll still be attracted to you and your energy.
[00:09:31] They'll still wanna learn from you so that they could get to that point of success. You're not alienating them, you're just giving them a new. Vision to reach for. By doing so, you'll also begin to call in those higher ticket buyers who will now see that you solve those high level problems. So by clearly positioning your premium offer and communicating its value, you'll attract the people who are ready to step up, and you'll still have some of that content and [00:10:00] inspiring content that will serve those who are not.
[00:10:02] Quite ready yet. Premium offers aren't elitist. They're elevated, and that attracts an elevated clientele. Now, another myth that I see getting in the way is that people think, I'm not ready yet. I need a bigger audience. And it's because this is some of the biggest marketing bullshit that has ever been pulled.
[00:10:25] A lot of the guru, famous marketers out there have been telling us to launch. Tiny offers a self-liquidating funnel or a digital course when you're kind of just starting out in business. But this is ackwards. Before you launch a course, before you can create a leveraged offer, you actually need to be working with one-on-one clients.
[00:10:48] You need to fill your calendar with one-on-one premium clients, and you need to serve at them at those high levels when you've worked with several clients one-on-one over several years. And you've refined your process and frameworks, you've built your authority, then you can focus on smaller offers and courses.
[00:11:08] And the good news with premium buyers is there are lurkers and binges, and you don't need a lot of traffic to sell a high ticket service or offer. I have less than a thousand people on my email list. I have maybe a couple thousand followers across social media, and yet I have surpassed six figures every year in my business because I sell high ticket packages.
[00:11:32] You need a small but mighty audience that knows, likes and trusts you, and you need personal relationships and referral partners. Many of my own high ticket sales, including 30 K retainer packages, come from introductions from colleagues who've seen me slowly and steadily build my reputation and body of work.
[00:11:52] You do not need a massive following or a big audience to sell high ticket. It is quite the [00:12:00] opposite.
[00:12:00] The next myth is that you might be thinking, I'm not enough of an expert to charge premium rates. And this one kind of hits us Gen Xers pretty hard, and especially women business owners. If you've been working in corporate or nonprofit for decades and you suddenly move online, you kind of feel like a newbie.
[00:12:21] That was why I felt like I couldn't call myself a copywriter and dumbed it down to a wordsmith. But the thing is, gen X business owners. Bring decades of experience and that often already equals a premium level of expertise. Probably more than you give yourself credit for. Think about the clients you've helped, the problems you've solved, the feedback you've gotten.
[00:12:45] Premium buyers aren't looking for someone who took a weekend course. They're looking for someone who is seasoned, who can partner with them. They're looking for someone with depth. And how do you showcase your depth and expertise? You document your results, testimonials, and case studies. You package your process into a named framework or methodology, and that will signal and elevate you.
[00:13:12] Above 90% of your market. I understand the mindset goop that comes up with this, especially if you've been socialized to second guess and play small like most women have. But if you're a Gen Xer or a millennial, you have literal decades of life and career experience under your belt, and people want to access that depth.
[00:13:34] The sixth myth if I charge more, I'll have to do more and burnout. I'll have to hustle harder to charge more. I have to deliver more in a high ticket offer. This is completely untrue. High ticket selling isn't about overdelivering. It's about better packaging, sharper positioning, and more focused delivery.
[00:13:54] It's fewer clients who are better fit. It creates higher [00:14:00] margins, which means you get more energy back in your week. And in fact, many business owners agree. That sometimes lower ticket clients are a little more of a pain in the ass than higher ticket clients. Beginner clients sometimes need more handholding and more support are a little bit more demanding than higher level clients who trust you to do what you'll.
[00:14:21] Say you do. You've probably seen the memes comparing the $500 client with the $5,000 client, $500. Client says, I just wanna be sure this is the right investment for me. Can we hop on another call to clarify everything? What are the exact modules I can access? What support will I get? I'm putting a lot of trust in you here.
[00:14:39] This is a big deal for me. And the $5,000 client says, money sent, excited to start. It's a meme and a cliche for a reason, and the seventh myth that you might be falling for myth or misconception is it's greedy or unethical to raise my prices, especially right now, and it feels too salesy. Please hear me when I say there is nothing wrong with charging premium rates for decades of expertise and transformation that you can create for your clients commanding premium rates.
[00:15:18] Generates more profit margin in your business, which means you are earning more with less effort. You'll have more capacity and bandwidth to show up more in your business and for your clients or even in your life because if you are a Gen Xer in the squeeze of life, I know you need more spaciousness and bandwidth.
[00:15:40] When your business is profitable, you can impact more lives. You can hire more people to help you in your business and household. You can donate more money to causes you love. You can create scholarships to work with more marginalized communities. You can give more back to the people you love. Premium [00:16:00] pricing creates the spaciousness that allows us to be more present in all areas of our life.
[00:16:07] It allows us to do more good in business and in life, and that is not unethical, that is not greedy, that is not salesy, that is spaciousness. So it recap. High ticket buyers are still buying even and a SHA economy. Just think of all the things people are buying right now. Taylor Swift tickets, Morgan Wallen tickets selling for over $500 a pop.
[00:16:31] People are spending crazy amounts of money on travel, on food, on sporting events, getting their nails done, getting their hair done, and the same is true in business to business. Premium buyers are discerning, but they are proactive. They're out there looking for trusted experts who can offer a premium experience and a clear return on investment.
[00:16:56] If you've been hesitating to raise your rates. Or create that next level offer. Let this episode be your green light. Please raise your rates, serve at a higher level, create more bandwidth and spaciousness in your own business in life. And if you're ready to go deeper, if you need a little bit of help with this, I am thrilled.
[00:17:19] To announce a new workshop on October 8th, I'm hosting Master Your High Ticket Message. It's a 90 minute hands-on workshop to show you how to attract and win premium clients. You'll uncover the unique attributes and psychology of high ticket buyers, why they buy what they value, and how to speak their language.
[00:17:41] You'll uncover how to craft a premium offer that naturally attracts premium buyers without feeling salesy or pushy. You will uncover proven ways to sell to high ticket clients. I will share some premium messaging and positioning strategy so you stand out as the clear, [00:18:00] confident expert of choice, and we'll go through some of the hidden mistakes that sabotage high ticket sales and how to avoid them.
[00:18:07] Please know this is not a passive webinar. This is a head down, roll up your sleeves workshop. Where you'll identify the gaps in your current messaging, refine your offers, so they're irresistible to premium clients, and you'll write your own premium positioning statement, which is a short, powerful piece of copy you can immediately use on your website.
[00:18:28] Social profiles everywhere. And because I know personalized feedback accelerates growth, you'll also get a custom homepage or a LinkedIn profile audit by me where I look at your page and I show you exactly what's working and what could be improved to attract more premium buyers. This workshop will have limited seats, so I can make sure I can provide you with as much personalized attention as possible.
[00:18:56] So go claim your seat, grab your ticket, and block the time in your calendar for the Master Your High Ticket Message Workshop on October 8th. Now, my signup page is still being designed, so depending when you visit, it might just be a simple checkout before it gets more flushed out and designed. Do not let that hold you back from signing up for this training that could help you create more sales and spaciousness in your business.
[00:19:20] Visit kim keel.com/workshop to grab your ticket and start selling more premium offers because when you step. Into the premium space, you'll not only have more profit, you'll create a business that's sustainable and more aligned with the kind of life that you want. Thank you so much for listening today.
[00:19:40] I'll see you next week and hopefully at the workshop on October 8th. Bye for now.
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