9 strategies for closing more high-ticket sales

Most sales leaders want their teams to focus on the big-money, high-ticket sales. But with big-league deals come big-league challenges.

Pages-long buying requirements. Decision-makers that emerge at the last minute. Surprise security reviews.

Frustrating, right? 

In this article, we’ll walk through the most common challenges that come up with high-ticket sales — and then give you tips for overcoming them.

You’ll learn how to push high-ticket sales across the finish line by creating ROI-focused messaging for economic buyers, leading change management within a customer’s organization, and formalizing your relationship-building process. 

What is high-ticket sales?

High-ticket sales is the practice of selling products or services at a high price point, usually priced from $10,000 or more. 

B2B examples include enterprise-level SaaS products, specialized consultancy services, and months-long agency contracts.

High-ticket sales require a different selling skillset and process than low-ticket, transactional sales that focus on selling efficiently at scale. Instead, high-ticket sales prioritize building trust and removing roadblocks for customers through buyer enablement.

High-ticket product example

High-ticket products in the B2B space are typically company-wide solutions that impact multiple areas of a business. They require an enterprise sales motion due to their complexity, cost, and the substantial integration they introduce across a business.

They’re strategic investments that offer scalable growth, optimize operational efficiencies, and enhance competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Atlassian’s Jira Align, for example, is a high-ticket SaaS product. Even for a modest team size of 30 users, its Standard pricing starts at $27,000. The Enterprise plan is a cool $46,440.

Its positioning as a high-ticket product is obvious when you visit its pricing page, which includes a software cost estimator. 

At this price tag, getting a company to adopt Jira would mean getting buy-in from several teams and stakeholders, while aligning the product with the company’s strategic goals. 

The sales process requires a more intentional and structured approach that ensures all parties see the value and long-term benefits of the solution.

High-ticket service example

High-ticket B2B services carry a substantial fee due to their expertise, depth, and profound influence on an organization's trajectory. They aren’t just business transactions—they’re pivotal partnerships.

These are typically services such as:

• Consulting services
• Coaching programs
• Agency contracts

Of course, there are low-ticket versions of all of the above examples—but high-ticket services promise a more transformative experience that promises substantial returns and business growth. 

The sales process in this case becomes more consultative and trust-driven. The seller’s job is to position themself as indispensable partners in their client’s success by showcasing their understanding of their needs, challenges, and industry trends.

What is high-ticket closing?

High-ticket closing refers to the sales tactics that guide buyers toward finalizing a high-price purchase.

Because the stakes are higher with high-ticket deals, there are more potential roadblocks to a deal. Sellers have to keep up deal velocity by managing stakeholders, removing roadblocks, and proving value.

Therefore, high-ticket closing is less about having a natural selling instinct or having a great pitch. It requires a more methodical, repeatable, and proactive approach to selling where the seller acts more as a consultant than as a salesperson.

How do you do that? Let’s have a look.

9 tips for closing high-ticket sales

Closing high-ticket sales requires a deep understanding of the buyer's mindset. These nine tips help:

1. Use a qualification-focused sales methodology

High-ticket deals take a long time to nurture and close. So the best way to protect your team’s selling time is to focus heavily on qualifying prospects.

71.4% of respondents in a Sales Insight Lab study said that less than half of their initial prospects are genuinely suitable. 

It also doesn’t help that 75% of B2B sales to new customers take at least 4 months to reach a close.

What does that tell you? By the time the B2B sales cycle ends, salespeople realize they’ve been wasting their efforts on the wrong leads.

The key is to focus on the right buyers to optimize time and resources. 

Two sales methodologies we prefer at Dock are the Sandler Selling System and MEDDIC. 

The Sandler Selling System

The Sandler Selling System is a consultative sales methodology that emphasizes mutual respect between the buyer and seller. 

It works for high-ticket sales since it focuses on building a deep understanding of the buyer's needs before moving into solutioning.

Instead of the traditional product-focused pitch, it focuses on the buyer's emotional and logical reasons for making a purchase to promote a more balanced dialogue. 

It involves three phases: 

1. Relationship-building: bonding and rapport, up-front contract 
2. Qualification: the pain, budget, decision 
3. Closing: fulfillment, post-sell 

Wondering why it’s represented by a submarine?

Because the system is about stealth—not the hard sell or being overly aggressive. The selling happens under the water. 

Deep listening and strategic questioning ensure that by the time you release the "torpedo" (or the sales pitch), it will hit the target. 

A submarine analogy also implies a linear progression through each compartment to emphasize a structured and sequential approach.

MEDDIC

MEDDIC is another sales methodology that helps you qualify your prospects and spend time on the right buyers.

It stands for an acronym that asks sellers to identify:

1. Metrics - How does your prospect measure their success?
2. Economic buyer - Does your buyer contact have the authority to authorize spending?
3. Decision criteria - How does your prospect make their decision?
4. Decision process - How is your prospect reaching a decision?
5. Implicate pain - What pain point (if any) is forcing them to buy?
6. Champion - Who will defend your interests on the buyer's side?

Companies like Zendesk and Salesforce swear by it.

Why? Because MEDDIC allows Sales teams to qualify prospects better and predict deal closures. A structured approach also helps sales professionals gather important customer information to improve decision-making and reduce time spent on ill-suited prospects.

2. Formalize relationship-building with multiple stakeholders

In high-ticket B2B sales, it's a collective buy-in that drives the deal home.

We've all heard the numbers: the typical buying group for a complex B2B solution involves six to 10 decision-makers. Each of these decision-makers has four or five pieces of information they've gathered independently and must de-conflict with the group. 

While SMB sales are more about one-on-one relationships, higher-priced deals mean selling to a team of stakeholders.

That means each interaction isn't just with an individual, but an interconnected web of influencers within an organization. 

Here’s what to do: treat every stakeholder separately. 

A tailored approach ensures each stakeholder feels seen, heard, and valued.

Here are a few more tips:

• Implement account mapping: Go beyond just identifying the key players. Understand their roles, their influence in the decision-making process, and their connections with other stakeholders. This creates a clearer picture of the buying group dynamics and informs your engagement strategy.
• Embrace multithreading: Instead of banking on a single contact, weave multiple threads of connections within the organization. This means building relationships with various stakeholders at the same time to ensure you're not overly reliant on one contact.
• Work with champions: Every organization has influencers — those who can sway opinions and drive decisions. Identify these champions early on (whether they’re power users, managers, or C-Suite executives), nurture the relationship, and collaborate to promote your solution within the buying group.

Let’s put this into action. Appointment-setting agency, Belkins, practices the same approach.

Margaret Lee, Head of Marketing at Belkins highlights how they really dial down into every stakeholder’s interests. 

“We have a research team that helps BDRs and Sales Executives get more info,” she says. “When they need something, the BDR or SE contacts the team to add a new task. For example, if we discover that a stakeholder likes wine, we may extend a tailored invitation for a virtual wine meeting with wine delivery.”

A personalized approach resonates more with stakeholders and builds trust and rapport.

3. Create ROI messaging for the economic buyer

The economic buyer has the final say over significant purchase decisions. They hold the purse strings and care about the financial implications of any investment—especially for big-ticket items. 

Create ROI messaging for this buyer that addresses their chief concern: how will this investment benefit the business financially?

Monday.com, for example, has multiple case studies on its website that build social proof and speak to the economic buyer: 

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Where do you start? First, understand the questions that weigh heavily on their mind. These might include:

• What will be the tangible return on this investment?
• How long before we see a return on investment (ROI)?
• How does this solution compare, in terms of cost and benefit, to other options in the market?
• Will this investment streamline operations and lead to cost savings?
• Are there any long-term financial benefits or risks associated with this purchase?
• Are there any potential upsides in revenue or growth due to this investment?

Equip your sales team with sales enablement content such as:

• Interactive ROI calculators
• Comparison charts
• Testimonial videos with financial metrics
• Informative webinars

This way, you align your solution to the economic buyer’s primary concerns.

4. Use sales POCs and sales engineering

Sales proof of concepts (POC) are like test drives. They let your customers try before they buy.

For high-ticket products where free trials aren’t feasible—for example, a SaaS solution that requires a long implementation process—a sales POC is a nice alternative.

Sales POCs are time-limited pilot projects where a company can try a small implementation of your solution for a reduced fee. 

For example, they might roll out your software product with one department, with the understanding that they’ll buy your product company-wide if the pilot is successful.

Sales POCs are beneficial for both sides.

• For the customer, they de-risk the purchasing decision. They get a taste of the potential impact of the product and what it’s like to work with you.
• For the seller, they act as a wedge into the organization. It’s easier to build trust and grow the account with a real project.

POCs are often guided by sales engineers, who are responsible for custom-fitting a solution to the client.

To learn how to run a sales POC, check out our Sales POC Playbook.

5. Create mutual action plans

Why do high-ticket offers die? Typically because of a lack of momentum.

Research by HBR shows that a proactive, prescriptive approach that puts the buyer in the driver’s seat increases purchase ease by 86%.

Mutual action plans (MAPs) help you take this proactive approach.

MAPs (also referred to as close plans, joint evaluation plans, or mutual success plans) are collaborative project plans you create with your clients to ensure both parties stay aligned throughout the sales process.

Think of them as a roadmap—just as a GPS guides you on a journey, MAPs help the seller and buyer understand the destination and the milestones along the way.

They typically include:

1. What each party is responsible for
2. What actions they need to take to close the deal
3. Dates and timelines
4. What a successful deal looks like

Of course, your MAP will fall short if you can’t generate buy-in for it. To get buy-in from your buyer, create it from your buyer’s perspective and keep it simple by limiting tasks to only what’s necessary. 

The problem with most mutual action plans is that they’re created as messy spreadsheets. They don’t get engagement because they’re confusing and feel like extra work.

Dock’s mutual action plans replace these messy spreadsheets. They allow you to create a single shared client workspace to collaborate with your buyer throughout the deal cycle.

You can assign contacts to tasks, set due dates, mark the milestone risk status, and even attach supporting sales materials to empower your champions and simplify the entire sales journey.

6. Focus on buyer enablement

The average buyer doesn't come to the table uninformed. They've scoured websites, pored over reviews, and likely know almost as much about your product as you do. 

More than 60% of buyers now say that sellers who are knowledgeable and address their needs have the most positive impact on their buying decisions. 

Therefore, it’s the seller’s job to focus on buyer enablement.

Buyer enablement is the process of equipping potential buyers with the necessary information and tools to confidently make a purchasing decision.

Why is buyer enablement important for high-ticket deals? 

Decision-making often involves higher-level executives like CFOs who want to see the potential ROI of any commitment. Lack of preparation for these additional stakeholders equals difficulty in reaching a consensus.

You have to inform and create alignment with all the stakeholders involved.

Zaid Imran, Account Manager of Commercial Majors at Zoom, uses a buyer enablement approach to overcome opposition to AI-related privacy and security concerns from potential high-ticket clients.

“Being too passive and opting for a wait-and-see approach can often be costly for a business, since their competitors could be moving faster in implementing AI.

It’s my job to: 

a) Listen and then address their concerns on how Zoom approaches AI safety with a federated approach and doesn’t use any customer data to train models. 

b) Educate them on how other companies have leveraged AI to enhance the customer and employee experience and the impact it has had on operational efficiency. Some of the engagements we offer at Zoom include high-level innovation sessions or live “experience tours” showcasing modern hybrid workspaces. 

c) Build a business case for how AI can enhance their communication and collaboration workflows, highlighting the cost of doing nothing, while losing ground to competitors.”

Here are some other quick tips for enabling your buyers:

• Understand your buying committees: Delve deep into understanding the needs, challenges, and goals of all the stakeholders involved in a deal, not just the primary decision-makers.
• Understand the different jobs the buyer needs to complete: Recognize that different stakeholders have different "jobs" or concerns when evaluating a purchase. For example: for the Solution Exploration Stage, create detailed product comparisons, expert guides, and how-to content to help buyers understand your product's unique value.
• Use Digital Sales Rooms (DSRs): Create DSRs to centrally house all your enablement materials. These ensure easy access and a cohesive presentation for potential buyers.
• Collaborate with your champion: Build a cooperative relationship with your buyer to co-create pitch decks tailored for their executive team. Use the buyer's insights for internal resonance and your access to relevant case studies to ensure the presented solutions align perfectly with the buying committee’s needs and context.

7. Create a white-glove buying experience

Buyer or sales enablement content like ROI studies, benchmark data, cost calculators, and diagnostic tools educate and build confidence across the buying committee.

But generic, cookie-cutter sales content? It's outdated and ineffective. 

Your sales content should be tailored to your prospect’s industry, business size, and unique challenges. Think case studies from similar industries, whitepapers addressing specific problems faced by businesses of their size, or even testimonials from similar-sized clients.

To deliver a bespoke experience to each buyer, you can create a digital sales room in Dock.

Dock lets you create a shared sales workspace for every prospect. You can start from a template and then customize the workspace for each buyer with their company name, logo, and more.

It’s templatized for your sales reps, but feels white glove for your customers.

Within the digital sales room, you can share:

• Sales contact information
• Meeting recordings and videos
• Mutual action plans
• Embedded sales content like PDFs, case studies, and slide decks
• Pricing tables and order forms
• Security documentation

Our enterprise sales template is a great example of how you’d use a digital sales room for a high-ticket sale.

8. Lead the change management

Change management is the structured approach to transition individuals, teams, and organizations from a current state to a desired future state. 

Leading this change ensures smooth adoption, minimizes resistance, and maximizes efficiency when implementing new strategies, processes, or tools.

When businesses adopt high-ticket solutions, it's not just a matter of introducing a new tool. It's about transforming the entire organization's way of working. 

The problem? This transformation often faces hurdles—employees might resist the change due to reservations about the new workload, or there might be challenges in product adoption. 

Lack of change management skills is one of the top three hurdles that organizations must overcome during digital transformation.

How do you fix this? Through a proactive approach. 

Intertwine your sales process with customer success from the get-go. Loom, for example, pulls in a Customer Success Manager during a sales call to provide a crystal-clear preview of the onboarding and implementation journey. 

They show the customer what their onboarding plan will look like in Dock, which paints a realistic picture of the transition. It’s also helpful to get buy-in from all stakeholders, especially top management.

When leaders champion and role-model the adoption of new tools or processes, it communicates the added value of the change and sets a positive example for the entire organization to follow.

9. Measure dark buying signals

Dark buying signals are the less visible, less trackable indicators of a prospect's interest or intent to purchase. 

Touchpoints like organic search and paid social are easy to track. There are so many others that you don’t see. 

They include: 

• Dark social: Social sharing and conversations you can’t track through analytics. These are places where people talk about products, brands, or services, but marketers can't get precise data. 
• Dark funnel: Other buying activities that can’t be tracked by your website or CRM, like reading third-party review sites, holding internal buying discussions, listening to podcasts, or attending trade shows. 

Ditching the “wait-and-see” approach for a more proactive stance empowers sales teams to anticipate needs, engage with the right stakeholders, and capitalize on subtle cues.

Tom Whatley, CEO of Grizzle, takes a proactive approach to using dark social signals.

“View who views your profile or engages with your content. Get on the "offense" and connect with other members of the buying committee to build a presence and authority while your champion is making a case in the "background".

Excelling at high-ticket sales means learning to interpret the dark funnel.

For example, you might get two weeks of radio silence after sending over a sales proposal.

There are two potential reasons for that silence:

1. Your buyer is having serious internal discussions about your product; or
2. They’re just not that into it

So how do you tell the difference?

One way to do this is by tracking viewing activity in your Dock digital sales room.

With Dock’s analytics, you can see who views the room and when they viewed it. So instead of second-guessing, you'll know which key decision-makers are genuinely engaging with your deal room.

Or if nobody’s checking out the workspace, it’s a good sign you’re getting ghosted.

Andrew Hollis, Director of Sales at Nectar, is a big believer in using Dock to forecast dark signals.

“As a personal Dock user, if I had a prospect go over 12 views on my Dock, they had like a 97% chance of closing. It was ridiculous,” said Andrew.

“If they're looking at Dock a lot, it's a huge sign they're going to buy. The level of Dock activity was better forecasting than being a green light in HubSpot. It was very predictable.”

Master high-ticket sales with Dock

B2B high-ticket sales are a collaborative experience. They involve a deeper interplay between buyer and seller where both parties influence and depend on one another to reach the final note. 

Dock streamlines the entire process to ensure all necessary documentation, discussions, and decisions converge in a single, accessible space. 

Build transparency, trust, and high-level understanding on one platform and create a cohesive approach that transforms the conventional sales process into a unified journey.

Create your first 5 customer workspaces for free here.