How to get clients to pay you more money

I recently got a PM from someone on this board and when I started responding I realized my response might be beneficial to many on this board. As it was the third PM in a similar vein I thought it was worth discussing publicly.

To paraphrase and not expose her identity her difficulties lie in getting anyone to pay any real amount of money. And how to get better paying clients.

First off, the amount of money you charge a client has nothing to do with what you're selling it has everything to do with your internal beliefs. My very first client before I even had an inkling of what I was doing I charged $3.5k. My next client I charged $30k. And I haven't looked back yet. I sold it with enthusiasm and pure brass.... well you know....

I believe in the leap frog principle from Robert Ringer. No one is going to stop me if I say I'm the best it's up to me to decide that I'm the best and I'm worth the money that hiring the best requires.

What you charge has everything to do with your mindset. First you have to sell yourself before you can sell it to your client. YOU have to be confident that what you're doing is going to help the client and that they are going to get way more value than what you could EVER convince them to pay you.

You can get that certainty by knowledge. So for your first clients your first order of business should be information gathering. You need to ask them very detailed questions so that you can assist them to make money.

How many people who contact you choose to do business with you. 1 of 2, 1 of 4, 3 of 4?

And what would you say is the overall size of the first purchase with you?

And how often do your clients call you back? How often would you say they call you? Once a year, once every six months?

So if we were to put a lifetime value of a client, what would that be? This needs to be the average of those who never do business again with your regulars, and your big kahunas.

What are you doing to get the clients to do repeat business with you?

Anyway, you get the idea here. You want to know their business like no other salesperson has ever done. When I get into a niche, I usually have my staff interview around 20-30 people in the industry which isn't that difficult.

When you have that knowledge you can kind of extrapolate what you can do for them. If I know the average lifetime value of a customer is $2k, and I can get around 30 visitors a day with around a 5% conversion ratio, and 50% closing ratio that means that I can generate roughly $45k in business a month for them. Do you think I'm going to be hesitant to charge them $1k a month to bring in that business?

Knowledge gives you stronger bargaining power. They can't tell you they can only afford to pay you $200 a month when you both have discussed the average initial purchase is around $500 and you think you can get them between 10-15 new clients a month.

Ok, so hopefully this has helped to "fix your head". Use some mind magic to get you into optimal state before you ever step foot in the meeting. I like to use mind movies and that sort of thing.


Ok, so now we have your mind "fixed" let's talk about your presentation.

Forget the jargon, forget what you're going to do, how you're going to do it, all the technical crap. The client could care less. What you're going to do is get feet in the door and the phone to ring, all the rest of it is BS. And that's the language you need to use. I mention the technical information but more I talk about the things like reworking their website to attract clients, to answer their questions and almost compel them to call them. I talk about how we are going to use the power of the internet and everything that it entails to make their company the logical choice for anyone choosing a "xxxx service". Make your presentation/proposal client focused not technological crap focused. Make sense? And no I'm not going to share my proposal format. Always focus on the customer, not you and your services and you can't go wrong.

And then lastly, no proposal should be a one stop proposal. You should always have levels. Three is ideal. I believe in the Dan Kennedy solution. One price level that is entry level that should be easily affordable, a second level that is a little bit of a stretch but doable, and lastly a jumbo package that is probably higher than what YOU are comfortable charging but you can probably get a few of them to commit to. Give the customer choices but not too many that it overwhelms them.

And lastly you have to embrace the Jay Abraham Strategy of Preeminence

Strategy Of Preeminence Jay Abraham - Business Coaching

Not my site.

You have to embrace the idea that as your client you have the perogative to only charge your client for what he needs. But that also means enough so that you can deliver exactly what he needs. It does you no good to take on a client for $300/mo if you're not going to be able to deliver the results he needs.

I had a referral client 3 months ago who wanted to get to the top of a real estate local niche. I don't normally do these but it is a friend of a friend and they have been chasing me for six months. I quoted $1,400 a month for 9 months. He said that was too much, and then I had to walk him through the fact that I was ethically bound NOT to charge him less than $1,400 a month. If I charged him less I wouldn't have enough money to do the work I needed to get him into the top 3. And if he wasn't going to pay enough money to get into the Top 3 then there was no point in bothering to spend any money at all.

That's the strategy of preeminence. You owe it to your clients to deliver to them exactly what they need, not what they believe they can afford. Check it out and really think through what it means for your business.

Anyway, hope this helps. I'm off on holiday next week so I may not have the opportunity to respond immediately to any follow up questions.

Marcos