The Canyon Ranch Model of Business

by Fern Reiss ~ August 11th, 2004. Filed under: Publishing Basics, Sales And Marketing.

The Canyon Ranch Model of Business

By Fern Reiss

Can you become a millionaire selling $20 books?

Consider Canyon Ranch. Canyon Ranch is a deluxe spa in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. It serves gourmet meals, offers wonderful exercise and healing classes, and charges high prices.

And it’s a wonderful model for positioning your books and business.

There are plenty of ways to get exercise, eat healthy meals, and feel more fit. Canyon Ranch is one path that happens to be at the high end of the price spectrum. But the people who go to Canyon Ranch chose it over exercising to a video in front of their television set.

There are customers at every price point, for every experience.

Regardless of your book’s topic, making your information available at varying price points is a sure strategy for success. Don’t stop at a $20 book. Most writers and publishers aren’t going to make their fortune from a $20 book—no matter how successful they are at selling it.

But the information contained in a $20 book might propel you to millionaire status. Here’s how:

Take my latest topic, Expertizing, on how to position yourself as a name brand and get media attention for your busijness. I could sell it as a $20 book (and right now, the proposal is wending its way to literary agents, so stay tuned.) In the meantime, I sell the information as a $695 Tookit. I only need to sell one toolkit to one person, and I make as much money as if I sold 35 books.

I also sell the information as a $2500 all-day workshop. OK, it includes breakfast, lunch, and high tea, and it’s at the Ritz Carlton, so I have serious expenses. But I can sell one workshop instead of 125 books.

And I sell the same information—but with my personal guidance—as all-day individualized or corporate consulting. That’s $18,000—or 900 books.
Guess which I’ll sell more of? You’re right; I’ll definitely sell more books than Toolkits, more Toolkits than workshops, more workshops than private consulting. But that’s ok. The question is, how much effort is involved in selling 900 books as opposed to one day of consulting, or 125 books as opposed to one workshop? You got it—it can be easier to sell the higher-ticket items—because I need to sell so many fewer to make the same amount.

Moreover, people like to buy at different price points. There are many, many people who would only consider the $20 book. But there are some people who would prefer the $695 Toolkit. And a few who want the workshop. And some who want the private consulting.

So when you’re figuring out how to package your products, don’t stop at one $20 book. Repackage your information and come out with a set of audiotapes. Or a workshop. Or a teleseminar. Think about whether there isn’t a way to repackage your material in another form—at a higher price point.

And Canyon Ranch? Well, you can buy my Publishing Game books; they’re $20 each, so the set of three would cost $60. Or you can take my all-day Publishing Game workshop for $195, or buy the workshop-on-audio for the same price.

Or you can join me at the deluxe four-day Publishing Game workshop at Canyon Ranch August 23-26. It will be more expensive. But it will be fun.

Fern Reiss is the CEO of Expertizing.com/PublishingGame.com. More information on Fern’s books (“The Publishing Game: Find an Agent in 30 Days,” (literary agents) “The Publishing Game: Publish a Book in 30 Days,” (self publishing) and “The Publishing Game: Bestseller in 30 Days” (book promotion) and Fern’s upcoming Publishing Game workshop at Canyon Ranch can be found at PublishingGame.com. More information on positioning yourself as an expert and being quoted by the media, along with Fern’s Expertizing Workshops at the Ritz Carlton in Boston (September 19) and Manhattan (October 4) can be found at Expertizing.com