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How Your Agency Can Attract Higher-Paying Clients

Forbes Agency Council
POST WRITTEN BY
Brian D. Evans

Getting high-paying, quality clients has not always come easily to me. At one point, I couldn’t even give away my services. But after a lot of trial and error and studying how the top agencies in the world operate, I realized that the majority of them are doing it wrong.

Many agencies try to discount their services to attract more clients. But discounted and lower cost implies cheap. When you run an agency offering quality services, this quickly becomes a race to the bottom.

This mindset of “cheaper is not better” was the hardest thing for me to wrap my head around. We all have a perceived value in our minds surrounding price. If someone offers a $99/month service, no matter how great they actually are, it’s going to inevitably seem cheap, whereas a $20,000/month service is going to have a higher perceived value to most people.

Here's what we do differently and how it's helped us grow (and get named one of the 25th fastest-growing agencies in the country):

1. Frame your agency's services as an investment, not a cost.

When a client comes to me and asks about my cost, I frame it instead as an investment. A cost is something they are spending money on and get nothing back. There is a subconscious mental programming behind the word “cost.” The programming that we have embedded in our brains behind the word “investment” is that we gain something by putting money in, like a beneficial trade. And in the long term, a client will get something far more valuable back, such as quadruple their product’s sales.

If you frame everything around the word investment rather than cost, it shifts the way people think. An investment means that they gain something out of working with you, versus a cost, where they only lose something. This idea can be put into practice by being conscious of the way in which you use language.

A simple adjustment is to remove conditional statements. Many people pitch and do sales by saying, “If we get you results.” Avoid the word "if." Instead, say, “When we get your results beyond what you were expecting, of course, you are going to want more.” If you believe in your services, say so with confidence.

2. Invest in networking.

A lot of people would say that a $10,000 mastermind event is expensive. But what if it resulted in $250,000 in business?

I make some of my highest-level connections at mastermind gatherings. Recently, I met Shark Tank's Kevin Harrington at the Dollar Beard Club’s Unconscious Content event in the Hollywood Hills. From this one event, I will make well into the six figures in income.

Why? A mastermind event like this removes the need to have an introduction. This is one of the only cases where a cold intro and just walking up to someone will be regarded as a high-level introduction because the barrier to entry is so much higher than less expensive or less curated events. You know you are only in the presence of people who can invest in genuine networking and content.

3. Only accept warm introductions.

Outside of high-level mastermind events, I rarely accept or make cold introductions. A warm introduction means that a mutual contact has referred me (or vice verse) to the other party and made the introduction personally, after asking. If I’m introducing someone or someone is introducing me, it always has to be warm.

A cold introduction, on the other hand, is much more difficult. If it’s done wrong, it won’t work, and in fact, can upset many people. If you were to email 20 of your highest-level contacts and “introduce” them to someone that they didn’t ask to be introduced to, your high-level contacts would cringe the next time you email them.

This is one easy adjustment that will make you a significantly better networker: When you warm up both sides prior to an introduction, you will have a much higher success rate and ultimately a higher perceived value as a networker.

If you have no other option other than to give or receive a cold intro, the best way to handle it is to ask for an agenda. You can quickly find out beforehand via email what the other parties' intentions are and then decide if it’s worth it.

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4. Only work with awesome people.

I have had bad experiences over the years working with lousy people that I simply don’t do it anymore. At the end of the day, I love working with people who are doing things for a greater purpose other than just making lots of money. Money is relevant in this world, but it is far from the most important thing.

I qualify my clients as much as they qualify me; I always start by looking for a great reason behind what they are doing. If they have an app and they want to a get a million additional users, I make sure that there is a social cause or greater purpose other than just purely creating a cash cow. If you look at a company like Facebook, they wouldn't have come this far without social causes. Being awesome is one of the most important factors.

Be ethically confident in your client and believe they have a great, purpose-driven story and reason behind doing what they do. If they check all these boxes, they are going to get incredible results.