Most business people lower prices to attract new clients. But, unfortunately, charging low prices is not as rosy as it may appear to consultants. Since your hourly rate is low, you win so many cheap clients, and over time, you can barely keep your head above water. You are working endless hours to keep the client happy, and you rarely get free time to work on yourself. Besides, lowering the price may be effective over the first few months in business, but it soon becomes unsustainable.
In most cases, especially when starting a business, pricing is one of the survival strategies. However, that does not call for underpriced goods or services. Instead, you could focus on attracting high-paying customers and keep your business afloat.
So, how do you attract high-paying clients?
In this post, I guide you on how to attract high-paying customers. Whether you are a freelancer or a marketing manager, the strategies outlined here can help you attract premium customers.
1. Define Who High-Paying Clients Are
High-paying clients are the people who understand the unique value of your services. They are customers who trust your expertise; hence, they are willing to pay premium prices. In addition, high-paying clients will sing your praises to other business owners, and they are a pleasure to work with.
Consultants often refer to high-paying clients as premium customers. They are the opposite of the cheap customers who challenge your expertise, demand attention at odd hours, and want to negotiate lower pricing.
To grow your business, acknowledge the high-paying customers and ditch the clients who are always after lower prices. If cheap customers take up to 905 of your time, you can barely position yourself for growth since you lack time to work on yourself. On the other hand, when you focus on High-paying clients, your business becomes an income-generating engine.
2. Research Your Competition
Now that you have defined and probably identified some potential high-paying customers, the next step is to research who these clients are already hiring. When you know whom you are competing against, you have won half of your battle! All you need to do is study what the competitor is doing.
Therefore, you will want to find out the following about your competition:
- How does the competition package itself to your target customer? Focus on both how they look and the way they speak.
- Which marketing strategies does your competition use? – Online and offline marketing
- What fee does the competition charge
- What services does the competitor offer?
Researching competition comes with a word of warning. First, note that back-engineering the strategies applied by your competition without genuinely understanding them could stop you in your tracks. Therefore, only replicate when you understand them completely.
3. Position Yourself as an Authority
High-paying customers are attracted to leaders and authorities. They prefer paying more for value and a unique solution. Unfortunately, high-caliber consultants and freelancers fail to believe in themselves and position themselves as leaders in the profession.
Here are essential strategies to position yourself as an authority:
- Pick a niche that narrowly focuses on your ideal clients and what they need or want
- Choose the proper channels for sharing your knowledge
- Focus on providing real value
- Consistency is the key to establishing your reputation
- Be open and engaging with your community
- Build relationships with experts and influencers
Generally, to position yourself as an authority, spend time reviewing your programs and services. But, more importantly, review the results you deliver to your clients and focus on achieving some uniqueness.
4. Communicate Your Uniqueness
Once you have established yourself as an authority, the next move is to communicate it to target customers. There are three key ways you can target high-paying customers and let them know who you are and why they should work with you.
- Create Compelling videos or featured blog post that targets high-paying customers
- Scheduled live product demos and Invite potential high-paying customers
- Leverage word of mouth marketing
- Create cohesive online and offline experiences to enhance the brand experience
You will not attract high-paying customers if you are not communicating. So it would help if you looked for ways to get the word about your brand out.
5. Know Your Customers
Knowing the customers is often an overlooked critical step. To attract high-paying clients, you need to churn out the products and services that these clients will like. While getting concrete insights into the minds of high-paying customers can be difficult, you should not avoid this step. Leveraging your customers’ information helps you improve customer experiences and implement the right processes by focusing on the critical data points. So, how do you know the customers better? Here are the fundamental guidelines to follow:
- Never make assumptions regarding customer preferences and beliefs
- Social media could help you interact with the high-paying customers
- Personal surveys and asking questions that provide insights
- Host a suitable event that will provide an opportunity to interact with target customers
Taking the time to research your customers will result in many new deals. Just make sure you are not inconveniencing the target customers. Try to fit into their shoes and focus on doing what makes the customers happy.
6. Demonstrate Results
Nothing speaks to clients other than demonstrating to them what you are capable of achieving. Now that you have found out what matters most to the customers, the next goal for you is to show what you have done to others.
Therefore, you may host live events on social media or even send them product sell sheets that include a list of happy customers. Do not forget to invite your target customers to engage your past customers in their experiences. Alternatively, you may include genuine customer reviews in your sell sheet.
7. Ask for Reviews and Endorsements from the Same Level Clients
We all like to do business with people we know and trust. Thus, we often seek comments from those within our social circles. Likewise, the premium clients will talk to friends and even recommend products to them.
When you offer satisfaction to your customers, they will endorse your products to their friends and counterparts. However, not all satisfied customers will remember sharing a word about your brand. Therefore, you may invite them to recommend your products to friends and colleagues. Positive reviews and recommendations will help to boost your reputation and generate higher ratings.
Here are essential tips for asking for reviews and recommendations from your existing high-paying clients:
- Sending a reviews request email to your customers
- Design a landing page for collecting reviews from customers upon project sign off
- Asking for reviews at the point of sale or when the clients contact your help desk
- Share a link to the reviews page
The natural way of attracting positive reviews is to make sure you deliver top satisfaction to your customers. If you are meeting your customers’ expectations, they feel encouraged to go back and leave a good review.
Conclusion
When asked why they are charging a low hourly rate, many consultants say they do not believe they can land high-paying clients. Such consultants spend too much time worrying about the competition and thinking no client would be willing to pay them a higher rate. Instead, start believing that your products or services are worth a high price, and practice the tips covered in this post. That way, you will soon start getting orders from high-paying customers.
Author Bio:- Martin Zialcita is a real estate broker with Prestige Hawaii in Honolulu, Hawaii and has been in the real estate business for nearly 20 years. Martin focuses on Honolulu, but has a team of agents specializing throughout Hawaii and has completed countless transactions there. HomeLight ranks Martin as one of the top 10% of agents who sell homes fast and as one of the top agents who are able to successfully complete transactions.
