Your High-Ticket Offer Isn't Being Delivered — What to Do Whether You Sold It or Bought It

You just signed your dream client. The big offer you hoped and planned and wished someone would buy. They said yes, they signed, and it feels incredible. Or maybe you're on the other side of the table: you just bought the biggest offer you've ever spent money on. You're a little nervous, you're excited, and you're expecting great results.

And then something shifts. If you're the seller, maybe a voice in your head says, "I really don't want to run this anymore." But you already sold it. If you're the buyer, maybe the calls keep getting dropped or changed, the deliverables are shifting, and this just isn't matching up with what you thought you purchased.

That is a Business Fire Drill, and the best time to run it is before the fire starts. Business moments are predictable. Panic is optional.

Every Agreement Has Two Sides

An agreement and a contract are the same thing, and either way it takes two parties. You don't sign a contract with yourself. Money is changing hands, which means there is a seller and a buyer, and both of them need a fire drill. So let's run this one from both seats.

The Alarm

If you're the seller, the alarm is usually quiet and internal. Say it's a coaching program, a mastermind, or a live event. You promised ten calls and now you think, "That's way too many, it should have been two." Or you said you'd do something and you don't want to do it. Or your business is heading in a different direction and you want to retire the offering altogether.

If you're the buyer, what you're getting starts to look different. Calls and check-ins get canceled or rescheduled. You were told you'd get two tickets to an event and now it's one.

The facts and circumstances can be endless, so we strip away the drama and get to the core: someone isn't delivering what was originally promised. Or life happened.

Reacting or Responding?

Reacting is knee-jerk, emotional, and a little berserk. As a seller, it looks like you quit showing up, or someone contacts you and you say, "I sold it to you, but I don't do that anymore." As a buyer, it looks like jumping on social media to post how horrible and unfair the whole thing was. Your frustration may be completely justified, but reacting won't help either side's case, and it isn't the competent professional you are.

Responding is calm, informed, methodical, and factual. It's the difference between a fire where you have no idea where the exit is and a fire where you know exactly which door to take.

Running the DRILL

D — Don't react. It won't make the fire go away, but it keeps you from pouring lighter fluid on it. Sellers, don't fire off a "this program has ended" email or cancel calls in a frenzy. Buyers, don't take to social media. And a quick public service announcement: if you see a situation blowing up online, keep your profile out of the thread. You don't know the full story, and it's a great way to get tangled up in someone else's fire.

R — Record everything. By the time a fire is going, there is often no written agreement, or the one you have is murky and full of contradictory clauses. If there is an agreement, get your hands on it. Then build a filing system for everything you collect. If you want the exact system I use for my own fire drills, the Fire Drill Kit Map plugs into whatever storage you already use (mine happens to be Google Drive): [FIRE DRILL KIT MAP LINK — add when ready]. Screenshots, sales pages, direct messages, emails. Anything written goes in the folder. Nothing public yet. That's responding.

I — Identify the real risk. Sellers, ask yourself what is really going on. Did you simply decide you don't want to do this anymore, or did life happen, like a sudden hospital stay for you or someone in your family, so that you truly can't deliver? Those are different situations, and your buyers' expectations will be very different in each.

Buyers, is this a breach of contract, where things you were promised aren't happening? Or are you moving into a different legal arena, like misrepresentation or fraud? Those are very different risks, and they're approached very differently. That's exactly why we don't react. I don't want to fight with you in sinking quicksand. I want us standing on concrete.

L — Lead with calm. You're a capable, articulate professional, and you have your evidence. Sellers, communicate clearly what needs to be communicated. If your facts are unusual, get an attorney's eyes and ears on them before you say anything, because everything you communicate becomes a record. There are ways to say things that defuse a fire and ways that pour lighter fluid on it against you. Buyers, reach out with your evidence and name the specific deliverables and expectations: "I'm inquiring about this deliverable and this expectation, and we need to discuss it."

L — Lock in the lesson. Once the fire is out, ask what let it start. If there was no written agreement, get one before you sell anything or buy anything. Purchase terms aren't big, scary things. They simply say what I'm going to provide, what you can expect to receive, what you're going to pay, how we'll handle disagreements, and how we'll end things. When everyone is on the same page going in, far fewer fires get started. Then fix the systems that triggered it.

The Fire Extinguisher

Planning for the worst case is part of selling anything. If this happens, here's the protocol. If that happens, here's the protocol. The emails are written. The templates are written. If a fire erupted in your home, you'd know where the extinguisher is. This is the business version of that: clear written terms before the sale, a ready-to-go response plan, and a filing system waiting for the evidence.

Your Next Right Decision

You have three options, and all of them are valid.

Option 1: Do nothing. You've already run this drill. Your terms are in place, you've thought through the exit, and your bases are covered.

Option 2: Put the drill in place. Nobody figures out how to get out of a burning building while it's on fire. You figure it out on a Tuesday morning, on a walk, with the weather nice. Each fire drill is its own unique drill, and a single situation will typically trigger two or three of them.

Option 3: Send this to a dear friend who needs it now. Maybe they just told you about the new high-ticket offer they're so excited to put together, or what they just bought. Send them this.

Business moments are predictable. Panic is optional. Run the drill in full inside Business Fire Drills, Drill 04: Before a High-Ticket Client Agreement Goes Sideways.

👉 tamsenhorton.com/business-fire-drills

Keep Exploring: More on Purchase Terms and High-Ticket Agreements

• Why I Updated My Purchase Terms After Kajabi Backstage Changed Everything — the updates I made to my own terms when tech changed how I deliver to 1:1 clients
• The Terms and Conditions for Your Online Courses, Memberships, 1:1 Services — the basics of purchase terms for what you sell
• From 'Lifetime Access' to Terms of Access: A Modern Approach — a modern way to think about the access language in your agreements
• Kajabi mini-course creators - what is your refund policy? — decide your refund policy before someone asks for one
• The Pay-to-Play Fire — What Happens When Sponsorship Money Goes Wrong — the same fire, seen from the buyer's and the seller's seat

Listen to the Business Fire Drills Podcast