High-End Clients

By Robert Middleton - Action Plan Marketing

How do you attract more high-end clients?

Over the years, as I built my business, I've tried to figure out how to attract more high-end clients.

Now for me, that hasn't been the easiest thing because all of my clients have been, are, and will always be, Independent Professionals who are far from rich. Nevertheless, I "cracked the code" a few years ago and have been sharing this information with clients and in my Marketing Mastery Program since.

Let me share three of the key ideas for attracting more high-end clients:

1. It's All About Value

If you want to attract higher-end clients who will pay you more, you need to offer something of higher value. You can't sell a Ford and expect to get paid for a Mercedes.

As obvious as this may seem, why do so many coaches, for instance, charge about $500 to $750 per month for coaching? Why don't they charge more? Because they see their services as Fords and not Mercedes'.

If they created a Mercedes coaching program that delivered considerably more value, then they could legitimately charge $1,000, $1,500 or even $2,500 per month.

Ask yourself this question: "How would I have to structure my services and what clients would I have to market to in order to double, triple or even quintuple what I now charge?"

What would that Mercedes service consist of?

2. Proving Value

Remember that it's not just a matter of increasing the fee; the value has to increase enough so that the results the client gets will more than pay for a higher fee.

You need to make a direct and solid connection here. Just saying you've raised your fees won't work. But if you can help a client increase revenues, decrease costs, or make any other substantial improvement, shouldn't you be rewarded for that?

I can't tell you how many consultants I've spoken to who have dramatically improved the fortunes of a client company, yet ended up getting paid only "the going consulting rate" of $XX per day for their work.

Even if your service is not easily reduced to bottom-line figures, there is always a result that a client wants or a situation they need changed that they will gladly pay you handsomely for.

Your job is to understand what they really, truly want.

3. Measure and Reinforce Value

It's a strange thing, but if you produce incredible results for a client, but don't measure and reinforce value, the client will not value your work. In fact, they'll think they could have done it without you!

Have you helped a client gain a skill that they wouldn't have developed on their own? Have you worked with a client to produce a bigger result than normal? Have you turned around a loss that was potentially very costly?

Tracking of results, measuring specific benchmarks and then feeding it back to the client on a regular basis is what will keep a client paying you high fees.

These are the things you need to record, add to a report, bring up in regular assessment meetings and, in general, boast about appropriately and as frequently as you can. You need to keep building the case that what they are paying for is more than worth it.

It's not their job to measure and reinforce value; it's your job.

For more in-depth information on this topic, attend my special teleclass on Thursday and find out more:

"Passionate Commitment and Six Other Traits for Attracting High- End Clients."

http://actionplan.com/apmmm.html

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The More Clients Bottom Line: You will only attract high-end clients that will pay you more if you remember these three things: 1. Package your services for higher-end clients. 2. Prove the bottom-line value of your services. 3. Measure and reinforce your value to the client.

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What are you doing to attract more high-end clients? Please share your answer on the More Clients Blog by clicking on the Comments Link below.

Comments

[Ellery]

This is a good article, thank you Robert.

I am just getting start in consulting and it seems to me that "offering Mercedes value" is difficult for me because I don't quite understand what business owners really want.

I simply think that they want more business, more profit and less hassle. If it is the case, how do consultant provide "Mercedes value" to business owner?