Web Design Business with Josh Hall
The Web Design Business Podcast with host Josh Hall is here to help you build a web design business that allows you to have freedom and a lifestyle you love. As a web designer and web agency owner of over a decade, Josh knows the challenges, struggles and often painful lessons of building a web design business without any guidance, proven strategies or a mentor to help you along the way, which is why this show exists. Think of this podcast as your weekly dose of coaching, mentorship and guidance to help you build your dream web design business. All while having a good time doing it. Through interviews with seasoned web design business professionals and online entrepreneurs, solo coaching episodes with Josh and even case studies with his students, you’ll learn practical tips and strategies for web business building along with real-world advice and trends that are happening right now in the wild and wonderful world of web design. Subscribe if you’re ready to start or level up your web design business and for all show notes, links, full transcriptions for each episode, head to https://joshhall.co/podcast
Web Design Business with Josh Hall
389 - Selling High-Ticket Design Services with Kenzi Green & Marisa Burgett
Have you heard the rumours that high-ticket is ☠️?
Rumours they are, indeed.
Clients are absolutely still investing in high-ticket design packages (both web and branding) that range from 5k, 10k, 20k, 30k +. And to learn about how to structure high-ticket packages and how to sell them, I’m pumped to bring Kenzi Green and Maris Burgett of thebriefcollective.com on the podcast!
They work exclusively with brand and web designers to help offer and sell their high-ticket offers so they’re a great resource to learn from about what’s working (and selling) TODAY in high-ticket world.
Head to the show notes to get all links and resources we mentioned along with a full transcription of this episode at joshhall.co/389
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You teach people how to treat you, and so if you are putting a cheap vibe out there, that's what you're going to bring in like you are in a magnet for what you put out. So, first and foremost, we need to look at the things you're posting and talking about to get those clients. So that's what we would look at first.
Kenzi Green :Yeah, just to follow up with that, to like give an example, I was on threads the other day and I see this designer and she's like I'm so done with clients, I just keep getting ghosted after I send my prices and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and I go look at her services and she's offering a logo suite for $150. And so I nicely responded and I'm like that's your problem. You are presenting as a very severely underpriced designer, you're attracting low budget, low commitment clients and, as a result, you're getting ghosted.
Josh Hall:Welcome to the web design business podcast, with your host, josh Hall, helping you build a web design business that gives you freedom and a lifestyle you love.
Josh Hall:All right, my web designer friend, now if you have just been getting a steady swarm of crappy clients, you may think it's me. Why am I attracting these type of clients? I would actually be willing to bet it's not you personally, it's your pricing and your offers. So we're going to dive into high ticket today and all the ins and outs of a high ticket offer for both brand and web designers. And I'm so excited to have on two guests in one for this episode Kinsey and Marissa, who are the founders of the Brief Collective, who specifically help designers with their high-ticket offers. Now, it's interesting because there's a lot of debate on how well high-ticket offers are selling today, maybe compared to a few years ago. But I'm here today to tell you yes, they are still selling, and to hear from folks who know what's working, how to structure them, how to offer them, how to attract the right type of clients.
Josh Hall:We're going to dive into all that more with both Marissa and Kinsey. You can check them out at the brief collectivecom. Uh, they do have some freebies and a Academy there If you would like to dive in further into the world to find out about how you can structure your high ticket offers and all the show notes and links that we talked about in this episode, or the links in this episode, will be at the show notes, which are going to be found at josh hallco 389. So zip over there for all the additional resources and to leave us a comment. All right, let's dive into the high ticket world, shall we? Well, marissa and kinsey, welcome in. I was just saying before we hit record. I rarely do trio interviews, so, uh, i'll'll make sure we get equal amounts of Kinsey and equal amounts of Marissa, but thank you both for joining yeah.
Marisa Burgett:Thanks so much for having us. We're pretty yin and yang, so we know kind of which one needs to answer whatever questions because we just work together so much. So we have like our lanes, we stay in, which is good.
Josh Hall:So, Marissa, what is your lane in your business?
Marisa Burgett:OK, so I am the mindset coach. So if somebody is dealing with imposter syndrome or they're suffering from perfectionism people pleasing stuff like that I help them through that. Perfectionism, people pleasing stuff like that I help them through that. And if they need kind of a kick in the ass, then I kick them over to Kinsey and she helps them with the action they need to take in their businesses.
Josh Hall:Gotcha. So Kinsey's the bouncer. So, Kinsey, is that like in your tagline, in your email Kinsey the bouncer.
Kenzi Green :Well, they all know, like they all know, when they come into the program, we have them take this personality quiz and we're like how do you handle feedback? And everybody knows if they say blunt, honest, to the point that they're probably going to get paired with me versus like I need it, I need it more, gentle than they're going to get paired with Coach Marissa.
Josh Hall:Gotcha. Actually it'd be more like a, like a drill instructor, right, More like a military instructor or something.
Marisa Burgett:Yeah, drop and give us 20.
Josh Hall:That's the tagline for Kinsey's email, for sure. Well, this is great, guys. It's interesting because I'm always fascinated by folks who have a pretty 50-50, all-in-together approach on coaching. I just personally can't imagine doing that as a control freak like I am. But just real quick, before we dive into digging into specifically high ticket offers, how do you guys balance this business together? Are you local to each other or is it completely online? How does that work?
Marisa Burgett:No, we met. Do you remember when Clubhouse was popular back in the day?
Marisa Burgett:Yeah apparently we met in a Clubhouse room and we started our company together before ever meeting in person. So the internet is really powerful and really cool. So my mom always told me like don't make friends with strangers. You meet in chat rooms. And I did it anyway. So it's always just been very natural for us, like I always, like naturally, just went um, mindset I'm like okay, they're doing that because and we were able to be like A, b and C. And then Kinsey's like okay, they need to fix it with X, y, z. So it was just very natural for us to do that. And Kinsey's really good with the kind of marketing front end stuff and I'm better with the like leading our team and structures organization on the on the back end. So it just feels very natural for us.
Josh Hall:Do you recommend to your students to try to find a complimentary skill set type of person Like? Do you often recommend a partnership style agency approach, or do you teach solopreneurs as well who do it all?
Marisa Burgett:Yeah, we teach a lot of solopreneurs who do it all.
Kenzi Green :What are your?
Josh Hall:thoughts on that Kinsey.
Kenzi Green :If you're building out a team, like who you hire, needs to play well with your skill set like, obviously, strengths versus weaknesses. But I'd never encourage anyone to start a business with someone else, not because I don't love Marissa, but there's more to the story that we don't even share publicly right now. We plan to write a book one day, but it wasn't just us two that started this business and when we started we had no intention of making money from the brief collective, Like it started as a community. It started as just a way to bring designers together and it grew into something more and we didn't have a contract and you know, you can kind of put the pieces together there.
Josh Hall:I'm guessing there is some messiness.
Kenzi Green :Literally, when we, when we tell people the full story, their jaws are on the floor because it's just like, like something that you just you can't even comprehend.
Josh Hall:What is a good point right off the bat too, of like getting really clear about your strong suits and your skillsets and then knowing your role in the business, especially when you start to scale. I mean, you guys are big on high ticket offers. I found that most people doing high ticket offers are getting into scaling pretty quick, depending on what's included, because there's often a lot of fulfillment with higher paying projects versus like a templatized. You know I only do one small thing for each project, then I move on.
Kenzi Green :I think it definitely depends on your goals, right, Like for me. And again, this is the benefit of having two people, two coaches you get my perspective and coach Marissa's perspective, and then designers can take and apply what they want to their own business. But I've always been by myself. I like working by myself. So even when I am working on 12 K, 15 K projects, it's for the most part just me and I have the skillset to carry that out. I mean, if there's, you know, an instance where I need somebody else's skillset, I might bring on like a white label designer just for that project or whatever, Whereas coach Marissa likes to have a team. She's more of an agency model, and so I think it's all about finding what works for you and your lifestyle and your goals.
Josh Hall:That is interesting. Do you guys? Have you guys butted heads on um things to do with, like offers, scaling, like I guess, what, what, what are your both areas of differences, other than what you just said, kenzie? Like what? What have you guys had to come in alignment on with how you teach, especially?
Kenzi Green :Uh, I made her cry once when I was like we have to had. I was like we have to get rid of these programs that we worked so hard on.
Kenzi Green :Uh so like, I think when you're working in a partnership, over time you learn who does what like. It's not like we just instantly knew, even though we were always kind of yin and yang. It's like over time we okay Kinsey's really good at this, marissa's really good at this and then the more action steps you take, the more the path becomes clear. And since I'm in charge of our marketing side and things like that, marissa's always the ideas and the big picture thinker and I'm always like but we need to make it simple. So, yeah, it's just over time we've learned what works. It's like a big experiment, but I think that's what business is in general.
Marisa Burgett:And I really love feedback. Like, a lot of people are very threatened by feedback, get their feelings hurt by feedback, but I think feedback is very powerful and once you get over the initial sting of whatever it is, I'm like, oh yeah, that idea will function better if we just shift this. So I think if you remove the feelings from it, then then you're going to be okay. So, um, yeah, we honestly haven't butted head on heads on many things. Um, it's more like what is best for the company and we do that. So what's best for our students and the design industry as a whole, because we're really trying to, like, leave the design industry better than how we found it.
Josh Hall:This could definitely end up just diving into a partnership conversation because I have so many questions on that. But one thing I am curious about is when you guys decided to go all in on this together, did you create like a really clear, like vision mission and then intangibles that are separate from you guys personally and it's just like this is the business. We have to respect and honor the business. So our personal feelings need to be set aside To your point, marissa. Did you guys have to do that first? You know what I mean Almost make business ground rules in a vision first, and then your personal feelings kind of get set aside and you have to do what's best for the cause. Is that kind of how that went about?
Marisa Burgett:do you want to answer. Um, I mean, I I come from a corporate background. Um, I have eight years in corporate, so I was big on structure. Rules like these are are the kind of ways that we were going to play this out. So we had that from the beginning. But this vision shifted as our business grew and the DMs kept coming and we were like, okay, people really need a leadership in this. They're all asking the same questions. And so that's when we were like, okay, we need to make a course so that we're not like bogged down answering the exact same questions in the DMS over and over. So that's. We initially just started out as wanting to do a community, and then it grew into like being a coach and hosting these people and leading these people. And now we're up to semester 10 of our cohorts, which blows my mind. That's not what we started out doing, but I absolutely love where we've ended up.
Josh Hall:So let's dive into what you guys teach and particularly the results you're helping folks get. High ticket is fascinating. Right now, I feel like and you tell me, I feel like we're in just wild times when it comes to, particularly with the rise of AI and just tools making things easier quote unquote for web designers. I see a lot of pushback on high ticket ideas, or at least I see a lot of apprehension, or a lot of assumptions, that high ticket isn't selling like it used to, because you could crank out a website, for example, you know a lot faster, but you're obviously doing very well and thriving with this model. So where I guess the question is and I'll throw this to either one of you where is high ticket now, in 2025, and maybe it is worth like expanding on.
Josh Hall:What does high ticket mean? Is it just a high price range or is it a is? Let's start with that. What is high ticket is? Is it just a high price range or is it a is? Let's start with that. What is high ticket Is it? Is it a high just price point, or is it like a high bundled of services together? What is high ticket mean?
Kenzi Green :That's a really good question. I think it can depend on who you ask, right, because for some people, high ticket is 50 K plus. For us, we always kind of reference the 10k client mark, just because that's a really big milestone, a really big thing throughout the design community that we oftentimes serve. So for us it looks like working with clients usually 6k plus to 20k I mean on average, I'd say in that range somewhere. And I think being a high ticket designer isn't just about money, though. It's about the way you serve your clients, it's about providing a five star experience, it's about delivering things with confidence and knowing that you're focused on getting them results, and that's a lot about what we teach in our program.
Marisa Burgett:And I think that a lot of people who will pay these high ticket prices really don't want, yes, men. They have enough of those on their team, surrounded by them all the time. They want somebody who's really going to advocate for them, and they're coming to the designer because they're like I don't know what to do. I have this problem, help me solve it creatively. And so just teaching these designers that you know the how we're coaching them, like you are the leader and this is how you deliver that leadership, because it's okay If you push back to your client a little bit in, like advocating for them and what their goals are, where they're headed with their businesses.
Josh Hall:I think you just kind of semi answered my next question, which is kind of where it is high ticket stand in 2025? And really the core of that is like how do you present high ticket offers, especially in 2025? But I think what you just said right there, marissa, and how Kinsey set you up on that is correct me if I'm wrong. I feel like that's probably the answer is like you have to position yourself as more of a partner with your clients, or a consultant or something more than just a pixel pusher and I guess man, like you said, I can't stand pixel pushing Like.
Marisa Burgett:I did that for, you know, my first few projects and I was like I hate all of these. These are so ugly, like and I know that the client that's not serving the client, but I felt scared to push back for them. So I think just walking through that you know ourselves and experiencing that that's why we're able to talk so much about it and, like know exactly where the headspace is of these students we teach, because pixel pushing like doesn't really help anybody. It doesn't help your creativity and also doesn't really help the client.
Josh Hall:And I do agree on the on the mindset of the price points of high ticket, at least in the freelance world and the solopreneur world, without getting into like big agency world. I feel like when I think of high ticket, I think of 10, 20, 30k, yeah, something like that. I view like 5K plus is still you can build a six figure business at five K plus, depending on what you're offering. But yeah, just you know to kind of back up where you guys are at, from what I see as well, when I think high ticket clients it's 10 K plus. Now are you guys often teaching on? Cause I don't know your curriculum, I don't know the model exactly. Are you teaching one-off projects or are you teaching MRR and monthly recurring revenue like subscription style? If we expand on like a high ticket offer that's 10 or 20k, what does the structure of those offers look like?
Kenzi Green :So a lot about what we teach is the business of design and how to just serve a high ticket client in general. So the results our students get vary based on their goals, what they want to offer, where they want to go. We have some students who want to offer recurring services or who know how to do SEO maintenance and want to offer that. And we have other students who just want to do big, high-ticket one-off projects, which is, for the most part, what I specialize in. That's also what Marissa specializes in, but she's also done recurring social media management, whereas I haven't.
Kenzi Green :So we encourage our students to structure their offers based on how they want to serve clients and we get all kinds of different results. So, for example, we've had students come to our program who are just charging $200 and that's all they booked and through our coaching over three months they booked a 5K client without changing anything about their design skills. It's all like mindset, confidence, positioning. And then we've also had students join our program who have already booked a 5K client and then come out the other side and book an 11K client. So a lot of the things that we teach can be applied to designers at different levels and obviously they're going to get different results based on where they're at and what they've already experienced.
Josh Hall:Yeah, but I like that idea and you're totally right. I feel like a high ticket offer could be applied to virtually anything, because you could stretch a. I know a big wave right now of a hot topic and enthusiasm is for some sort of subscription style approach to web design, in which case you could take a $10,000 project and stretch it out over a year or over 18 months, kind of similar to where, like, yeah, even a somewhat low MRR offer, if you zoom out and look at it over a year or two years, that is actually a high ticket offer. It's just stretched out versus the one-off approach. But I love that idea.
Josh Hall:In that frame of like you can go high ticket and very early on. I feel like too. I think a lot of designers put themselves in a box to where they put unneeded constraints on there where it's like and you're, you're a lot of, you know a lot of what you're doing is mindset. I've tell me, if you see this as well as well, with designers under two years in particular, they feel like I could never charge this, even if I have the expertise and the skill set. I can't charge it because I haven't been doing this long enough yeah, I have to put my time in yeah, yeah, like I gotta put my 10,000 hours in.
Josh Hall:Wherever that came from. What are your thoughts on that?
Marisa Burgett:I think it's complete bullshit. I know so many designers who have incredible skills coming out of design school or maybe they're even self-taught I'm self-taught and their design skills are incredible. And I know other designers who are like 10 years in and I'm like, oh, you need to go back to the drawing girl board. But it's like, yeah, it doesn't matter what your experience is, it matters the results that you're getting your client. I think that is like I put that importance way up here, rather than the skills that you have, Because I mean, I was just doing a brand project last week and I didn't know how to do something and I had to go learn a new skill. On the cuff. I'm like, wow, I haven't done this in a minute. You have to be able that's what design is Just being able to adapt and apply those things. So I think the years of experience doesn't matter when you're pricing a project at all.
Josh Hall:Yeah, totally, I love that. I just struck a chord there too. I just saw the jolt of energy come up there. I'm sure you get that question often or see that situation and it's kind of heartbreaking, for whatever reason. Maybe it's because, like maybe, I think a lot of freelancers like myself are not academics, so most of us don't come from that sort of world. But I do wonder if there's a feeling, just because of our culture, that you got to do like four years of some sort of program to get a job.
Josh Hall:And just with the way that, you know, typical college to corporate structure works. I wonder if there's some of that into the mindset of like well, if I'm going to be successful, it's got to take a while, right, I mean, I think that narrative is changing because of real life examples and mentors and coaches like yourself and myself. But I do wonder if there's just like an underlying sense of like I got to put my time and my reps in before I can be successful.
Marisa Burgett:I mean, that's exactly what I thought when I was climbing the corporate ladder Like I was rewarded with doing really good work, with more work, like not more money per hour. So I think that as a society, that's just kind of yeah, you got to put your time in climb the corporate ladder. Like that's just kind of the lies we're fed and it doesn't have to be like that like at all. And once I realized that once I was like managing people at the top and I was like, wow, I'm kind of making this man a lot of money and he's doesn't even give me a yearly bonus, and not that it's all about money for me, but I was like the disrespect I can't. So I ended up leaving. And that's when I started my own design business. Um, yeah, it was. It was a crazy ride. And I think you're right that people think that they have to like put the reps in. I like what you said about that.
Josh Hall:What are your thoughts? Kinsey, did you ever experience that as well, or do you? You know, if do you do, you does Barissa kick people over to you when they really need to to lose that mindset.
Kenzi Green :Well, I'm more effective on people who are good with tough love and are great action takers.
Kenzi Green :I find that if somebody is severely undercharging and I'm like, just put this number on, just say this number, that doesn't work.
Kenzi Green :They have to have the mindset work and like that's really built into our program is, yes, we teach skills and the business of design and have templates and processes and show them all that stuff. But our live coaching calls are for the mindset and the inner work that has to happen in order for them to be able to confidently say that number. And I think that this kind of all ties back to the starving artist mentality. Like our whole thing is that we want designers to book high ticket clients and ditch that starving artist mindset that society puts on creatives especially. And so I find so many creatives that are stuck in the same cycle, even though they literally left their nine to five to get out of that cycle, but that that they carried on that same mindset. So now they built a business that's just as bad as a nine to five and they're struggling to find the courage and the risk taking they need to get out of it.
Josh Hall:Yeah gosh, we're breaking some uh some societal chains here. There is a. There is something still today about creatives and money that is just extra difficult I feel like to break free from or navigate from. And I've found, if you come into web design, branding or graphic design and you are results-focused for clients, that tends to help break through that because you realize I'm not charging for this design per se, I'm charging for helping this client get X amount of leads or grow their businesses in a certain way, and that shifted my frame for sure, realizing like, well, I'm not just designing a pretty website, I'm designing something that is going to make this business money and help feed their kids. And it's a different layer have you guys found that to be true, both with your students and your personal lives as well to where, like as a creative, you put results behind your work and it just changes the confidence I feel like for charging your worth.
Marisa Burgett:A thousand percent, like pretty is so easy but functional and like affecting the bottom line, that's what the business owner really cares about. So I think, yeah, it is such a big thing to be able to make sure that the designs you're putting out are actually going to be fruitful for the client. Like you have to be a good steward of that. And so when we talk to our client or to our students about that and just kind of shed light to that, where we talk a lot about value based pricing and so they're like, oh, charge your worth, charge your worth. Like you hear that a lot but I'm like, no, don't, don't charge based on your worth. That's far too personal. Charge based on the value that you're bringing to this client. Because I wouldn't charge a mom and pop the same amount that I would charge somebody who's going to get their product in Trader Joe's. They're just not the same. So you have to really treat it one-off. Each client is different.
Josh Hall:Let's dive into pricing a little bit. Let's dive into pricing a little bit and actually, before we get into the pricing, I think a worthwhile topic that inevitably includes pricing is like goals, annual goals. It's interesting because I've really gone back and forth as to whether or not building your business around an annual revenue target is the right way to go and it may be right for some and not others, depending on personality and depending on how they view money. But at the end of the day, what I've personally seen is a lot of the successful members of my community WebCenter Pro who hit their goals and are really killing it generally have a target in mind and especially those who struggle with pricing and charging. Their worth or their value is, if you look at pricing just per project, it's really vague and it's like, yeah, 10k sounds nice, but I found if you know what you need to bring home revenue wise and you know your business expenses and you know the other things that come along with that, with taxes and everything else, you can get confidence with pricing if you know what you need to make that year.
Josh Hall:So how do you guys go about and feel about goal setting like that, particularly if you set a revenue goal, because I know that's an icky term for some people. Some people are like I don't like to set a revenue goal necessarily for the year, but I've just personally gone back and forth on that and learned that if you know you need to take home $70,000, then you should probably have a goal of like $120,000, $130,000 with taxes, expenses and everything else and have some profit in the business, which then you can look at your month to month and say how many projects have you done in a month? There's a $10,000 offer, like two $10,K offers. How do you guys feel about goal setting, especially if there's money involved?
Kenzi Green :We literally have them do smart goals in orientation. We literally show them how to set a goal, how to define it, and part of our program is pricing transparency. So we're all about goal setting, being open about the numbers. We even send them checks in their student welcome box and one check is for like the most they've ever made, and the other check is their goal and we make them write it out and put it on the wall, and the other one goes into this little snow globe that they destroy.
Josh Hall:Nice.
Marisa Burgett:Yeah, I think you have to be able to visually see it. I think that's a big thing like practicing out loud saying that big, scary price, at least for our students. They're like, wow, I can't believe I said that out loud and I'm like you go. I think like, just once you know that you can do it, once you're like, ok, I can do this again. It just builds that muscle memory of saying that higher price out loud. And yeah, you got to know how much you need to function with your life, your lifestyle and all that stuff, especially having a family or if you want to have a team, you got to have to be able to support that.
Josh Hall:So goals are always good you gotta have to be able to support that. So goals are, goals are always good. Do you lead, like when it comes to a high ticket offer? Do you lead with with goals in mind, like that? Or I guess, when you're thinking about pricing a high ticket offer, I'm wondering like yeah, where is the what's driving? The price point, I guess, is the real question. You know what I mean. Like what's driving a 5k package versus a 10K package or versus a 15 or 20K?
Kenzi Green :I find that it kind of depends on the student. Like, we have our students complete assignments and then we actually give them tailored feedback on each thing, and so one of those is creating their packages and structuring their offers. And the price point always varies depending on the student, and there's no way that somebody's going to come into our program only having booked a $200 project and then successfully book a $10K project, because there has to be some confidence and some inner work that happens in between those price points. So they're probably going to present us packages that start at, let's say, 3k, whereas someone else with a little bit more experience booking higher packages might present their packages starting at 5K or 6K. And so it's really all about the student and where they're at and how confident they are in their current skillset and services. Obviously, we encourage them to charge more and give them feedback about it, but it really is an independent per student basis.
Josh Hall:And I'm curious do you guys see this working with high ticket offers, If folks have a low ticket offer of some sort, or do you just see most students have success with just having a high ticket offer? Because this is a question I get a lot which is like should I have like a $99 audit or something that's less than $500 to get them in the door to hopefully upsell a high ticket offer? How do you guys, do you recommend balancing a low ticket offer and a high ticket offer, or does that muddy the waters and make things confusing?
Marisa Burgett:I love talking about it like a meal you have your appetizer, you have your main and you have the dessert for the aftercare, so like. But you can't build that all at once. So let's build up the main course first, and then we can build a supporting offer, what leads into that for your appetizer. And then what do your clients need after they're no longer your client? How can you support them after that? So I think that that needs to be built in stages, but I think when all those things work together, they work really, really well and you have a really good client flow, because then you know exactly where they're at. I also think, in developing that, one of the things that we talk about a lot is how educated do you want your client to be before they become your client, and so that appetizer offer, that smaller offer, really helps them become ready to be a perfect client for the main course.
Josh Hall:That's a great analogy. Also, I mean'm eating lunch after this, so perfect timing, marissa, to get me hungry before we go to lunch here With that idea. What do you tell students who tell you I'm just attracting or I'm just finding low paying clients or cheap leads? Do you find that, yes, that's true. Or do you find that they're just not presenting a high offer, they're not selling their value enough?
Kenzi Green :I haven't really done, Sorry. You want to go ahead?
Marisa Burgett:You go right after I say this you teach people.
Kenzi Green :Sorry, just go, I'm silent.
Marisa Burgett:You teach people how to treat you, and so if you are putting a cheap vibe out there, that's what you're going to bring in like you are in a magnet for what you put out. So, first and foremost, we need to look at the the things you're posting and talking about to get those clients. So that's what we would look at first.
Kenzi Green :Yeah, just to follow up with that. To give an example, I was on threads the other day and I see this designer and she's like I'm so done with clients, I just keep getting ghosted after I send my prices and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and I go look at her services and she's offering a logo suite for $150. And so I nicely responded and I'm like that's your problem. You are presenting as a very severely underpriced designer, you're attracting low budget, low commitment clients and, as a result, you're getting ghosted. So a lot of people struggle to charge higher ticket rates and they stay in this range where they're not necessarily affordable for these really lower budget, cheap clients. But then they're also not positioning themselves as a high ticket designer for those high budget, higher ticket clients and I see that a lot and the mindset stuff really helps them get out of that and be like oh, I can start my prices at 5k or 6k or whatever it is.
Josh Hall:You mentioned, you're a fan of pricing transparency. Do you guys recommend pricing being shown on the websites? This is a huge, especially in web design. This is a huge like do I hide my pricing? Do I show it? There's like 5050. It seems like with people who are like you have got to show your pricing, and then 50% of the markets like you have got to hide your pricing and sell it before they see a price to understand the value, when do you guys stand?
Marisa Burgett:Starting at X amount of dollars and I even have on my application form like a little checkbox that they have to be like. I agree to the minimum investment of $6,500 because I don't want to waste my time, I don't want to waste their time. So you know what you're getting into and I am a mom of twins. I got a lot going on. I'm busy and so if I can't find somebody's price on their website, I'm moving on to the next person. I don't care how good your work is Like. That's a waste of time to make me wait to know if I can afford you or not. So I think at least having a starting price really really helps.
Josh Hall:I've also seen average investment on pricing pages If they don't have ranges or anything publicly. I have seen that work as well as an additional option and I'm in the same boat.
Kenzi Green :I love a starting at like ranges, ranges basically what I don't love what I don't love that that designers constantly do is say what is your budget? I'm just like nobody is ever going to reveal the full actual budget they have, which, if you're a new designer, you're brand new to the industry. Maybe that is something that you do want to do for the time being, so you can get on calls and practice actually conducting calls with clients, but at some point you're probably going to want to command your value by saying I'm not getting up out of bed to get on a call unless you agree to the starting price. And, like I always like to say, if you go out to the hairdresser and they cut your hair like they're going to be okay, this is the price of this haircut, they're not going to be like okay. So what's your budget for this, right? So like I feel like creatives all the time always are stuck in this mindset of I have to negotiate, no, you don't.
Josh Hall:Well, and especially depending on the process, of where you're talking to leads, like if you're talking on the phone with a really qualified leader in a meeting and you get the scope of the project and then you find out a budget range. That's a different ballgame than yeah On your website saying what's your budget. Cause I mean, like 99.9 percent of people I'm sure are are selecting, if anything, the very lowest plan, because they're going to be like well, I was thinking like 10, but if they'll do it for five, let's see what they can get done for five.
Kenzi Green :I would, as a business owner, be like yeah, let's see if we can save five grand shoot yeah, like you're, you're giving an opportunity to lose out on money and leave money on the table when you do that.
Josh Hall:Yeah, no, totally. Are you guys helping web designers, brand designers and graphic designers? Do you have certain buckets of of students?
Kenzi Green :I'd say a lot of our students are especially interested in offering brand design. We have had some people come through our program that just offer web design and we've had people come to our program who are new to graphic design as a whole and they're kind of gaining clarity about do I want to be a brand designer? Is that something I want to offer? Do I want to offer illustration? So a lot of times we are serving mostly brand and web designers, but we've had a few people who offer other services or go through our program thinking they want to be a designer and then at the end they're like oh, I actually want to be a coach or I want to. You know, do this other thing? That's in an adjacent industry. So, um, a lot of the stuff we teach can be applied to other creative industries. I'm sure, as you know, there's a lot of overlap.
Josh Hall:Sure, and real quick side note what do you guys feel like the difference is between a brand designer and a graphic designer? Cause I see those waters get a little muddy with people.
Marisa Burgett:Um, brand designers design brand identities for the business Um, and they are very targeted in that Um, and I think graphic designers kind of is a definitely a muddy term. You're right when you say that of just kind of like all design anything, brochures, business cards, like anything under the umbrella that can be designed. So I think that, yeah, you got to niche down, you got to decide kind of where you want to be, Cause if you're serving everyone, if you're for everybody, then you're kind of for nobody. So, uh, we always highly recommend that people niche down um by something. It doesn't just have to be industry, it can also be personality, it can be style, lots of different ways to niche down there. But yeah, that's what I would say.
Josh Hall:That's good. I'm just thinking back because I notoriously offered web design and graphic design, because I started out as a graphic designer and then got into web and I think the industry back then, 10 years ago plus, looked very different. Yeah, designers back in. I mean, I started in 2009. So 2010, 11, 12, 13,. I don't even remember seeing the term brand design, it was just graphic designer.
Josh Hall:So, if I were doing it today, in 2025, I would definitely. If I was mixing both together, I would say brand and web designer for sure, because I do feel like graphic designer just sets you up to be a pixel pusher doing brochures versus a brand designer. It's pretty clear like you're designing a brand and those may be assets or parts of it, but there's a bigger business picture, I feel like, with the term brand design.
Kenzi Green :Yeah, and it's so funny, I still feel like today it's very not known, like it's very like we know what a brand designer is. People in the online space know what a brand designer is, but like I go to a networking designer is. People in the online space know what a brand designer is, but like I go to networking events, I'm like I'm a brand and web designer. Oh, you're a web designer. Literally, they don't even pay attention to the term and so, like I have to, you know, talk with them more and educate them more for them to really understand. It's like they don't even see that that term isn't there.
Josh Hall:Yeah, that's. That backs up what I've been saying for years, which would so many people wonder what should I call myself or how do I introduce myself? And I would love to tell people like, just call yourself a fractional consultant or a brand designer or whatever. But I was like you know what, if you say web design, peep, that leads to everything else.
Josh Hall:Web designer still leads to because they just assume the average person just assumes, oh my gosh, you can do social media and digital marketing and run ads and you can do our logo and you can do our styles, like it really does truly still today. Just, I'm like, just call yourself a web designer and then, once you get to a certain point, you can really, you know, you know push as consultant or partner, but web designer will open the doors to everything else Still.
Marisa Burgett:I recently have repositioned myself as a brand director because I highly enjoy creative directing, like photo shoots and stuff. They were always asking me to be like well, you know how it all needs to look, can you please come to the photo shoot? And I was like, yeah, actually, let's go. Then I don't have to make you a whole list and pray that you get it. I'll just go there and get it myself. So I really like that repositioning too, and I think that right around the corner there's going to be a whole bunch of new names and titles and ways we can reposition ourselves for our specialties and stuff. So I'm looking forward to that.
Josh Hall:And it may just depend too right, like maybe on LinkedIn, if you're connecting with a lot of folks who are savvy in the industry and you are speaking with a lot of brands and marketing directors, then, yeah, brand director may be a perfect term because that says a lot more than a web designer. But yeah, if you're in an in-person networking group with some construction company folks and you know lawyer and a law group with some construction company folks and you know lawyer and a lawyer, a dentist or whatever, if you say web designer, you're gonna yeah, you're gonna get those leads. So there's probably a time and a place to have like all your titles, you know scattered yeah the online space is way easier to like.
Kenzi Green :90 of my high ticket design clients come from social media, and I think it's much easier to speak to my dream clients through the internet because a lot of the people in the online space are already familiar with these things, whereas when I meet the people in person, it's more like, oh Lord, okay, I'm going to have to do a lot more educating and a lot have have greater conversation with them for them to grasp what I do beyond just web design kinsey, how are you attracting high ticket leads through your your social media in particular?
Kenzi Green :primarily instagram, and it's definitely shifting like in 2023. Instagram and tiktok were really big, now it's more so. Instagram and I have joined a local coworking space for women and I joined a local women's and networking group and I am starting to connect more with people in person, which is not something that I have ever done since really starting my business.
Kenzi Green :What's your social media content, like I mean no-transcript and I do a lot of short form video content. That's really what blew my account up from the start. I spent years just creating static posts and made no progress. So when short form video came out, that's what really helped me grow. But my website filters out most of those people. I mean I am. It's pretty obvious that I'm a higher ticket, luxury, premium designer and I do have a question that's like are you aware of this is going to require a four figure investment, like I start around 7k upper four figures. Are you aware of that? So that filters out most people. And then I will get some people who like DM me and it goes in my request. It's like how much for a logo? And most of the time I ignore them unless it's a business that I think I could potentially work with and shift their focus onto. Oh, you actually need brand designer. You need this thing that I offer. You just don't know you need it yet.
Josh Hall:So I love that you unpacked that for us, because I think a lot of people are using social media, instagram in particular, to like do the funneling of their leads, but I think your, your process is is very, very sound, which is to get them to your website and then the website is where you funnel out the leads, because or filter out the leads just because it's really hard to do that, I think, on social media without a bunch of ongoing DM conversations, which is a trap in a lot of ways.
Kenzi Green :Yeah, it's just a time suck. And that's why I don't respond to them. If you're serious about working with me and you're my dream client, you're going to go look at my website and you're probably going to inquire through my website.
Josh Hall:Marissa, what about you? How do you go about attracting higher ticket leads? Because you come from a different background, a different world. It sounds like so.
Marisa Burgett:I do, yeah, so I love in person and referrals are my top like lead generator. Um, the girl knows she's going to take care of you. They tell three friends, and that's just how it's always been for me from the start. But I also, um, like I'll, I'll have coffee with you, sure, but like we're not moving forward unless you fill out the application and we get a contract signed. Like I'll even bring the contract to the meeting and we can sign it right there, like on the table.
Marisa Burgett:So, um, I love being very friendly with my people. I think that like I hold a lot of space for them and like they're going through a big transformation and so, um, sometimes that feels pretty rocky and so they just need to make sure that I'm the right person for that and I get that. So after that's all taken care of, then I'm like all right, here's, here's the game plan and how we're moving forward. So I love that application process. I think that once I implemented that, that was really a game changer, just because simply calling it a contact form, like that, doesn't sound luxury, but just the simple change of putting an application form, making it a little longer, preps them for the experience that they can expect with that investment.
Josh Hall:Yeah, good call. I also love that you both expanded on the fact that high ticket can come from both in person and online, Because I do think there's a bit of a not a stigma, but like a view that, like online is just a bunch of cold DMs and cheap, low-paying Fiverr clients. If you market yourself correctly and, Kinsey, I think you're a really good example of You're going to get bad leads through social media, but you have the filters in place that are not time-intensive for you, you can absolutely get good online clients, and the same thing with in-person. How are you, how are you vetting, uh in weeding out in-person clients? Then, Marissa, how have you done that? Notoriously Like if somebody talks with you and you're like, oh God, they've got $300 for sure. This is like you just. Are you like, oh, gotta go?
Marisa Burgett:I talk about the investment before we meet Um, just so you know, I want you to go take a look at my website, um, you know the minimum investment for this looks like $6,000.
Marisa Burgett:Are you comfortable with that? I don't want to waste our time and usually they feel like like very respected because I've said that cause I've set it up, and that way we're both not wasting time, like we're all real busy people, we all have lives. So I think, just being super transparent about that um, and open and honest about it, so always set that up first, and I think like, uh, I even call it a pain in the ass tax that I add to my proposals If I can tell that somebody is going to need a lot of extra tech support. They don't know what a domain is or what their passwords are, like I asked those questions, you know, in the in the meeting, and so then I know I'm fine working with that, but I know that it's going to take a lot more of my time, so I'm I'm putting the proposal a little higher in my head as I'm gathering this information.
Josh Hall:Yeah, I have that in my discovery questionnaire, which is if there's a little set of options that basically says I have to look back at what exactly I say. But it's like where are you technology wise? And it's like super savvy can figure almost anything out. I'm smarter than you, probably, and then one's like I can barely turn on my computer. Smarter than you, probably, and then one's like I can barely turn on my computer. And yeah, if it's that one, then yeah, this is why going back to the ranges are really important, because it's like okay, we're gonna have a little more handholding here, depending on the situation. So I remember my first experience with this was I was building a website for my mom's Corvette Club one of my first websites and the guy that was going to be on the website asked me how do I get my pictures from my camera to my computer? And I was like, oh she is not allowed on the website.
Josh Hall:No, no, no, no. So those things are really important, especially when it comes to a high ticket offer, because suddenly, a high ticket offer, you could be making less and less if you're spending more and more and more time on support and some of these things that aren't really clear.
Kenzi Green :I found that, you know, surprisingly enough, some of the people who are not as tech savvy are actually easier for me to work with.
Josh Hall:Yeah, If they let you do it right.
Kenzi Green :Yeah, maybe it's because they're older. I don't know it right. Yeah, maybe it's because they're older. I don't know like, I recently just had an ice cream shop client and they were older and they like almost had no revisions and just let me do like everything and I was like cool, more you, yes and I think I think that gets into the.
Josh Hall:Are they a non-tech savvy owner, like a business owner, or are they a diyer? Because if they're not savvy and they're trying to DIY, that's where you get that type of guy that I was mentioning. But no, totally, kinsey, you're right, those are the best. If they're like you, do you, I got my stuff to worry about. That's the best type of client, because they let you do your thing and they do their thing Totally Well. This has been a fab. We've covered a lot of ground in less than 50 minutes here, guys. It's been really good to unpack some of the things that are in high ticket offers how to position them how to attract some good clients who are prepared for that, and some strategies and some marketing.
Kenzi Green :Wait, before we go, I need to hear your hot takes. What are your hot takes on the industry? Because you asked us a lot of questions. We haven't gotten to hear your hot takes. What are, what are your like hot takes on the industry? Because you asked us a lot of questions.
Josh Hall:We haven't gotten to hear a lot from you yet well, I agree with a lot of what you guys do and in your practices. There's really nothing that I was feel combative on or like. No, I would take a different approach, I think, particularly with the high ticket stuff, because it really all I think it boils down to when somebody is choosing their business model as a brand graphic or web designer, do you want to go quality or quantity? Because you can make very similar amounts or even more amounts with either one of these paths. But you could go really productized and more low-end offers and do it at scale and do ads and have a really automated system and not be personally involved with every client as much, and that's fine.
Josh Hall:I know web designers who do that and like that, but I think it depends on the goals, because I'm a little more of a. I'd rather have less clients and know them more and be more personally involved and have a higher ticket route and know them more and be more personally involved and have higher the higher ticket route, and so, yeah, that's I mean really like all those practices that we've, you know, kind of opened up here. I think it really all goes to that of like the quality over quantity. Do you want a lot of clients and sell it at scale and have a different business model, or do you want to be a little more involved? Neither is right or wrong, but it seems like you guys are helping more folks who are in the quality over quantity.
Josh Hall:So that's my biggest hot take is really like you just got to decide. You know, what do you want. What type of business do you want? If you don't want to take calls and you don't want to know your clients, you know if you really don't personally care about people as much. I think it's important to be really honest about that and be like yeah, you should have a very different business model, because clients are going to tell too whether you truly care or whether you're like a douchey hustler agency owner and it's like dude, you just need to have a product or a SaaS company or do it at scale.
Kenzi Green :Yeah, I actually just got done interviewing someone who worked at a company and they scaled to like over a hundred K per month offering $59 per month websites and it was. It wasn't I wouldn't say a neglectful business model, because the audience they were serving was like mental health professionals who were they didn't offer insurance, they didn't really have the funds for a custom website, they didn't want to handle the tech stuff and so, like they were handling it for them, they were pretty much giving a template out and, like, would you know, slightly modify it, but it was working really well for the people they were serving.
Josh Hall:Yeah, and that's the thing right, like all of these options can work. That I think that's what's. Uh. It presents a challenge to a lot of people getting into the design industry as a whole now, because it's like it really does all work, like you can have your pricing up front on your website. You can say what's your budget, you can. You know there's pros and cons. You can have your pricing up front on your website. You can say what's your budget, you can. There's pros and cons.
Josh Hall:I have an approach where you get leads through the door and then you offer the ranges once you decide whether they're questionable or qualified leads. But some people get to a point where it's like you don't really need to do that anymore. Now you may leave with paid discovery. You may have a really high ticket offer where you're only working with maybe half a dozen clients a year or a dozen clients, or you may have something that's in the middle of that and a scaled offer and you may have like 50 clients a year, or you may have like that I don't know how many clients they were having a lot at 59 a month, you may have hundreds or thousands.
Josh Hall:So it really does all work. I think it's a matter of helping people have a clearer path on what aligns with their goals. That's kind of my big challenge that I've set for myself with my community is based off of where people are and where they want to get to, based off their version of a freedom lifestyle, business, aligning the offers and pricing and structure around that. Um, because it's you know even what I do today it's. Some people are like I think I want to do a community and have courses and I'm like I don't know if you're going to like it, you know like I don't, I don't know it's not as easy as it looks.
Josh Hall:No, and I would, because I did both. I will say having a service-based business is way easier than this type of business. I see you both nodding. It really is truly easier. I mean, I built a six-figure business. I didn't know what the hell I was doing, so that's really hard to do as a community builder or course creator or online educator. So, yeah, I think it is one of those things where it's like you know it looks, it looks like it might be easy, but yeah, maybe you just need to be really self-aware about you know, what do you want your schedule to look like? What do you want to offer?
Kenzi Green :Well, and we also just had one of our students create her first like logo, mascot, course or whatever. And I've been talking to her, or whatever, how's it going? And she's like this is way harder than booking clients. And I'm like isn't it?
Josh Hall:Yes.
Kenzi Green :I have way more respect and admiration for how you guys sell yourselves and stuff. It's so hard and I'm like I know.
Josh Hall:I think it looks easy and it's something that's done one to many, which is really appealing, and it's like, oh my gosh, make a course or program and just put it online and just watch people buy it. But there's just so much more to that and I found there's a lot of things that are hard to measure. With intangibles and things like building trust, it's like you can't really measure building trust. You know what I mean. This, this podcast, is my biggest channel, it's my biggest converter, but it is very hard to track unless somebody says, hey, I listen to your podcast, Now I'm in your community. It's a lot different than like a paid ads campaign, where you're tracking clicks and data is a little more measurable.
Josh Hall:I think there's a lot of that that makes this world so much more challenging. And even, like with service-based businesses, it's pretty easy to say like, all right, I got 10 calls booked this month. How many move forward? Okay, two, so 20% conversion. That's very easy to measure. It's not the case. I mean, how many people are looking at your guys' websites on your email list and you're like, probably not exactly sure. Like, where did you come from exactly? I mean, we can measure the best we can, but it's very hard to get into that.
Kenzi Green :Yeah, that's been a big challenge. For us is number one. I mean just, we did a whole podcast last year called 2024 trauma dump about everything we did wrong. And literally our business essentially went to zero at the brief collective and it's it's just a whole different world being leaders and educating others and being in the spotlight of a quote unquote mentor, especially in the society we are right now, where there are a lot of scams out there.
Kenzi Green :There are a lot of courses that aren't genuine and so we have to, like you know, go up against that, and sometimes it's very hard to say, hey, we are legit. Look at all these testimonials, look at all these student reviews. But it's so easy for someone to just come across one video on the internet and be like you're a scam and like talk bad, but they haven't done any research, they don't know.
Marisa Burgett:They're just a keyboard warrior, that's okay. We're always gonna have those. I love being a mentor, though, because just being able to, like I said at the beginning, leave the industry better than how we found it that's the whole reason we started this thing in the first place is because this is the course we wish we had at the very beginning. We've like packed our brains into it, everything that we wish we knew from day one, so that, hopefully, you can learn from the mistakes we made and you won't make that in your business.
Josh Hall:Well, perfect segue, because you guys have a course and you guys have some resources. And I asked you I think before we hit record about whether you have like an ongoing offer or whether it's open and closed with more of the cohort. The differences between my community, which is open all the time, and then your guys' cohort based course, is a good example of like I like what I'm doing right now. I like the model, it's suiting me well. But you guys like the open and closed approach because you're, because I think you're, a little more intensive, particularly with a round of people who do things together. So even our businesses are a good example of both ways where I could go cohort or you could go open 24-7. They could both work, but it just depends on Do you like it, what's getting the best results, what's working for you? So, yeah, tell us about your course and where folks can connect with you online if they're interested in more. I know you have both some free content and the open and closed cohort right, so tell us about that.
Kenzi Green :Yeah.
Kenzi Green :So Design Biz Academy University is our signature program where we teach designers how to book 10k clients and ditch the starving artist mentality.
Kenzi Green :We open it only a few times a year with limited spots, and that is simply because the magic that happens when you have people together at the same pace and there's literally like neuroscience and proof that when you're surrounded by supportive, positive people on the same journey, encouraging each other, like it feeds into a positive cycle.
Kenzi Green :So part of the reason we've always kept it this way is because we've seen the transformations our students have. We've seen them build real relationships and get real results from having a model like this, and I think it allows for more tailored feedback. It allows for us to build relationships with them, whereas we couldn't really teach them the same way as if we had an evergreen program, and I think you can still get value out of an evergreen program. I absolutely think they work. But that's just how we've approached our experience at the brief collective. And then we also have a YouTube channel We've been putting. We literally have like a 30 minute course on there and that's like how to go from zero to 10 K a month as a designer, so like we have a lot of resources out there for people that want to get started charging higher ticket rates, and we also have a free six figure designer community, so that's a great place to also get a little extra layer of support without a price tag.
Josh Hall:Sweet, sweet. We'll have all those linked up and, yeah, I think the key term there, too, is a program versus like a community, like mine's, really structured as a community, which is why Evergreen tends to work. But, yeah, I think, with like a really clear outcome like you guys are getting. I love that it's working for you real quick. I can go a few minutes if you guys have a few. Do you have a hard stop? Right now we're at the top of the hour, um, what? So we'll just, instead of turning the recording off and hearing about this, I'm curious we'll just keep on rolling. What went to zero in 2024 for you guys? What was the pivot and the change that you guys had to make?
Kenzi Green :what happened? The whole business? Um, I mean we just we had our first retreat in 2024 for designers and I know you've done some in-person stuff as well Stupidly didn't budget for that properly at all. We lost money. We had team members unexpectedly leave, whole team left. We invested in a team photo shoot, couldn't use any of the photos. We were very kind probably too kind as leaders and I think that we just learned a lot about what it means to manage people last year and also like the cost that comes with doing in-person stuff. I mean, up until that point, we had only been online, so we just made a lot of bad investments. We hired an ads agency for eight grand and we got the same amount of students that we were getting organically. Marissa, do you want to add on to any of this Our trauma?
Marisa Burgett:Honestly, it's a freaking blur for me, man. But yeah, the team member thing really rocked the boat because that's like you know, your support, your front lines. And yeah, not being able to use the photos really sucks, because we highly depend on photo shoots because we're not in the same state. So not being able to use all of that sucked really badly, because then you're like, well, there goes like 80% of the content we got that day, um.
Josh Hall:So yeah, we, we made a big old list of things we will never do again, um so real quick, you got the, you got the brand photo shoot with like all your team and then they left, so you're basically like an unusable collection of images. Is that right?
Kenzi Green :Correct, yeah and um, I mean just to get into the nitty gritty of it. So people learn from our mistakes. We even allowed them to take some of their own photos for their own business on our dime, because we just we they also had design businesses. We want them to succeed and again, that was a mistake. So, like I think this is part of that leadership role I was talking about, where it's a lot different trying to build something like we're building and having to learn how to manage people with boundaries. We're very chill, we're very fun, we like to have a good time. Our students know that that's the vibe of our community. But that can also get very messy when you have a team of people that's supposed to be working under you the in-person thing.
Josh Hall:Are you guys gonna do it again? Are you gonna try it again uh, you know, with a different lens, because I loved our first big in-person event, but I'm happy to share I loved I loved, loved, loved our retreat, like the students that came.
Marisa Burgett:It was so magical to be able to just sit across from them and like hear their stories, like that. It's just it's so different. And so we are doing a another retreat this year, called scaling summit, in August, and it's going to be on a beachfront property like the most beautiful place ever. We have a few more tickets left, actually, and yeah, I'm I'm really excited to do it again, but I would love to know what you learned Um, cause I love learning from from other people Get sponsors.
Josh Hall:That's what I learned is to get sponsors behind it because, yeah, I would have had to charge like way more to cover our costs. But, thanks to getting we had three sponsors for the event and they're all tools that I use and I already kind of had relationships built with these brands, so it wasn't a hard sell or anything, but that was huge. Otherwise, yeah, we would have lost a lot of money. It's funny because it seems like I delayed doing an event for like two years just because I was so terrified of losing a lot of money. It's funny because it seems like I delayed doing an event for like two years just because I was so terrified of losing a lot of money and I wasn't in the position until last year to be able to do that really transparently. So, yeah, I wanted to make sure. Like okay, I got a rough estimate of like okay, I think this is going to be at least $10,000 out of pocket, so we're going to need at least that much Ended up being nearly $13,000 total in costs altogether, but I got $16,000 in sponsorships and ticket sales on top of that, so we were profitable, or no?
Josh Hall:No, no, I'm sorry. It ended up being almost $15,000 altogether with our size of 40 people and that covered workshop meals, some socials and some other stuff, swag and all that. So, yeah, we're, yeah, we ended up positive. So that was the big thing. I want to be more profitable next year, just because the amount of time on my end that it takes. But it was still a win for sure. But I couldn't have done that without the sponsors, without having tickets be three or four or five times more than they were.
Kenzi Green :Well, maybe we're just fucking crazy, I don't know. The Airbnb we got this year was $18,000 just to the Airbnb.
Kenzi Green :That's more of a conference style model which you know, maybe that is something that we need to consider, because we spent way more than we should have probably again, and doing a retreat is so expensive Like we get a private chef, you have to pay for the property. Then, if you want to have a good amount of people, you have to pay for the property. Then if you want to have, you know, a good amount of people, it has to be a big property. And so I've noticed that a lot of the more conference style ones are more affordable for designers, and I think that's a big issue as well. Like, when we do an intimate retreat, the tickets have to be much more expensive, whereas maybe we were to do a conference, we could sell way more tickets for a way less amount. So that's something we're definitely, like, open to exploring. We've just never done that.
Josh Hall:Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head there. It is the difference between a conference and a retreat, and ours was 40 people, so it was like it was a very small conference technically, which was perfect though, like. Like we're going to do it again in 26 and it's going to be a cap of 50 people. I think over 50 is a very different ballgame, because then you're getting into, like you know, that's just too many people to meet and keep up with in the span of a couple of days. But with the retreat, are you guys looking at like a dozen or a couple dozen people? How many people are for the retreat?
Kenzi Green :This property can fit up to 20 okay so we've we've filled a lot of the rooms. We do have some left and we have like some of the rooms are private rooms that we have left and some of them are the shared rooms. But this retreat is probably it is the property is probably double the size of the one we did the first time. We just loved it so much, even though we had lost money last year.
Kenzi Green :The being with our students, being with creatives who get you in the same room, and having the in-person education, the in-person workshops, doing photos together, making content together, it was just, it was like a dream, it was like a blast. Content together, it was just, it was like a dream, it was like a blast. And so, of course, even though the revenue wasn't there, we were like we have to make this happen again. Like the design industry doesn't really get a lot of retreats like this. They get a lot of conferences and summits that are, you know, maybe more broad. But we wanted to like really niche down and bring designers together in a really intimate way, like we did the first time. And so we were like let's do it again.
Josh Hall:That's true. Yeah, I do feel like it's usually business owners or coaches or something like that who have the retreats. Um, but, yeah, you're right, designers are typically a summit or something, and it is you know what. You're totally right. Like there's so much power, live and being in person more now than ever. I think, um, I feel like events, if you can break even, that's usually a fine trade off.
Josh Hall:Ideally, you don't want to lose money at all, or not much, at least Cause technically, like if they're going to continue enrolling in the program and and like for me, the event was mostly about retention, like I want to bring us together finally, and I mean, how many people, I wonder, went there and were like, oh, I'm staying in pro, like I'm, this is, this is, these are my people? Um, it can't be worth it. I think, wow, to think with that lens, for sure. But, um, yeah, hopefully you guys can do some stuff to help make it a little more profitable, whether it's sponsors or just something else that can fill in some of those gaps. Because, yeah, I can only imagine. I mean, yeah, the one retreat house was more than our budget for all the stuff we did for our conference.
Kenzi Green :So yeah, I don't know what we're thinking. We'll report back at the end of the year.
Josh Hall:Trauma dump 2025. It'll be worth it to get the people together again, for sure. No doubt Awesome this has been really great.
Kenzi Green :Thank you so much for having us and asking such like insightful questions well, you guys made this easy.
Josh Hall:It was really fun picking your brains. Since you're both, you know you have different skill sets in different uh lanes, as it were. So yeah, kinsey Marissa, thanks for coming on and sharing all this. And, uh, I think I'm on your show, is that right?
Kenzi Green :yeah, I think coming up, coming up. So I'm excited your show, is that right? Yeah, I think coming up, coming up.
Josh Hall:So I'm excited to turn the tables and be on the other side, so maybe I'll share some more of my hot takes then, if that sounds good.
Kenzi Green :Yeah, that'll be great.
Josh Hall:Awesome. Thanks guys.
Marisa Burgett:Thank you.
Josh Hall:I hope you enjoyed that one, friends. Again. I wasn't really ever a part of the high ticket world so well. I mean my prices were high ticket but I never framed them as high ticket. So I do hope you enjoyed this one and that you got some good tips to be able to think about how you are structuring your packages and your offers and just that underlying principle of the better your pricing, the better your clients. So cheers to that, my friends Again. The show notes at this one are going to be found at joshhallco slash 389. So zip over there and you can check Kinsey and Marissa both out at thebriefcollectivecom, where they have free and paid resources there for you if you would like to dive further into their world. That's thebriefcollectivecom. Thanks to both Kinsey and Marissa for sharing some good ones on this one and I can't wait to hear from you. So leave us a comment. Joshhallco slash 389. Till next time.
