17 Reasons to Sell to the Top of Your Market

by David Newman - Author of "Do It! Selling: 77 Instant-Action Ideas to Land Better Clients, Bigger Deals, and Higher Fees."

What’s the difference between a professional practice (or company or expert) that feeds on the bottom versus YOUR business, which should aim to serve the top of your market?

Here are 17 things to consider:

1. High fees are paid by clients and customers who are doing well, not those who are struggling.
2. Referrals come from those who are proud of the fees they pay you, not ashamed to be lowballing their way through business.
3. High-end clients tend to be believers; low-end clients tend to be skeptics.
4. Top clients are easier to please because they have a partner attitude, whereas low-end clients are almost impossible to please because they have a peddler attitude.
5. Paying higher fees also means your top-of-market clients pay you higher respect, pay your advice more attention, and invest more resources in their implementation of your ideas.
6. There is always a way to raise your game, boost your value prop, and charge higher fees; otherwise, we wouldn’t have $500,000 sports cars or $35,000 watches.
7. There’s no profit in a business model that challenges other poverty-mindset entrepreneurs in a race to the bottom.
8. You can always design a “lower-level entry point” to a high-end offering (example: the $195 Tiffany bracelet); however, it is almost impossible to “level up” from commodity status. In other words, Walmart would have a tough time attracting high-end jewelry buyers.
9. Are you attracting referrals to goofballs or people who don’t see the value of what you offer? Like attracts like. It’s very possible your current clients and customers simply don’t travel in the right circles.
10. If you’ve heard yourself say, “My clients won’t pay any more than they’re already paying,” or “I can’t raise my prices, because I’ll price myself out of the market,” then you may need a.) better clients, b.) a new market, or c.) both!
11. High-end clients expect great work. It is energizing, engaging, and fun for you and your team to rise to that challenge.
12. Low-end clients expect perfect work, even though they have no idea what they want, change what they want based on whims, and are a moving target of conflicted priorities. It is demoralizing, exhausting, and depressing for you and your team to put up with these micromanaging, neurotic control freaks.
13. High-end clients value relationships, and once they’re in with you, they’ll come back for more. Why? Because if they switch, they would essentially be admitting to themselves that they overpaid or made a wrong decision, which is more expensive to their ego than to their pocketbook. Bottom line: high-end clients always look for reasons to stay.
14. Low-end clients only care about transactions. The next coupon or email or offer will lure them away for the next bargain. They’re forever playing Let’s Make a Deal, and the fact that they bought from you once REDUCES the chance they’ll buy from you again. Bottom line: low-end clients always look for reasons to leave.
15. High-end clients will approach you with new ideas, ask for more innovative services, and help you develop new products and programs that they WANT to buy and that people at their same level would value. They serve as your personal idea-generating R&D department to help you grow your business.
16. Low-end clients will pressure you to give less, offer “lite” versions, and generally dumb down and dilute your core offerings to match their small thinking and tiny budgets. Don’t fall for it.
17. Companies that serve low-end clients are dependent on massive numbers of small transactions from one-time buyers and price shoppers. Companies that serve high-end clients thrive on small numbers of much larger, deeper, richer, and longer-lasting relationships with clients, customers, and friends who stay longer, buy more, come back more often, and refer like crazy.

It’s your call: serve the top or serve the bottom.

Just be careful what you wish for, and know what you’re in for when you get it!

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David Newman is a professional services sales expert and founder of Do It! Marketing, a marketing strategy firm dedicated to making thought-leading entrepreneurs more successful.?

If you pre-order David’s book, Do It! Selling: 77 Instant-Action Ideas to Land Better Clients, Bigger Deals, and Higher Fees today, you'll get a TON of marketing, sales, and business-building bonuses immediately at www.doitmarketing.com/selling. ?