How to take higher-ticket clients
People often say that you need to solve more significant problems to take higher-ticket clients. But the reality is that you have to find a client ready to pay more.
People often say that you need to solve more significant problems to take higher-ticket clients. But the reality is that you have to find a client ready to pay more.
In today's article, we gonna go through some steps to help you:
Identify potential higher-ticker clients
Places to find them
Pitch yourself to win the project
How to take higher-ticket clients
While many designers can make a living within their current network, there's no doubting that they'd be much better off if they could land a few more high-ticket clients.
These so-called dream clients pay higher rates and allow you to work smarter, not harder, significantly generating revenue without the need to grow your team or increase the number of hours you work each day.
Getting these clients is a process, so sit comfortably and find points that, when applied, will make you much happier and more profitable in the long run.
How to define who you want to work with
To find high-paying clients, you must first identify the problems that must be solved. This involves analyzing your own areas of expertise and the market's current needs to determine companies that would be the most interested in what you have to offer.
To find a client who will be your dream client, find a problem that intersects with your passions. In my example, design is something I would do on weekends, just for fun, even if nobody will pay for it. I have found an area where I do my best work, and clients are willing to pay top prices because it's a valuable asset for their business.
Don't try to be everything to everyone. While narrowing down your offer might limit your target audience size, it will also make it easier to identify the unique ways in which your offer and your prospect's problems intersect.
Remember, clients, are people, not companies. To define who will be a high-paying client for you, think about this:
What are the problems my potential clients are facing?
What are their fears and desires?
What areas in their current work can be simplified, automated, and delegated?
Then align the points above with your interests and passions. Find an intersection between these and create an offer based on your finding.
Don't be afraid of being too specific. It's much better to be great at one thing rather than being good at many different things.
Where to find high-ticket clients?
There are many places to find clients as a designer. But when it comes to finding high-ticket clients, places like Upwork or Fiverr are not the best platforms to start.
In my experience, the best high-ticket clients come from two primary sources:
Word of mouth
Cold outreach
While word of mouth always has a higher success rate when it comes to landing a client, I find cold emailing the best way to find new high-ticket clients.
When the client comes to you through the referral, they already know a little about you and have some expectations defined by the person who referenced you. But the biggest challenge of word of mouth is that the level of clients that come to you is approximately the same. So if you've been working with low-paying clients, they will refer someone with the same budget.
To get new clients who pay more, you must change the strategy and make new connections. Research the potential companies you'd want to work with, find the right person to contact, and show them the value you can bring.
In my experience, finding the small inefficiencies on the company's website or app, looking for small details that don't work well, or showing how to simplify current workflows are the best ways to provide value upfront and prove you're worth working with.
How to pitch yourself to win the prospect
One big thing that I've learned over the years is that clients don't care about you. They care about what you can bring to the company. More specifically, how can you help them make or save more money.
Focusing on the business impact of your work is critical here. If you're a designer, stop talking about pixels and Figma plugins, and start talking about the impact of design on the company's profit.
How can you expect people to value design if you can't connect your efforts in design to how it affects business at the bottom line?
Here are some examples to help you define the way your work makes a business impact:
Increase of sales
Increase in conversion rate
Number of orders
Decrease of drop-off rate
Reduction in an abandoned shopping cart
Decrease in account cancellations
Remember: design is a vital determinant of business success and the only way for businesses to stand out from the crowd.