Great Clients Can Be Created - The Secret To Branding Agency Success
You’ve set up your ‘shingle’ on your new branding agency, and you’re out there, hustling to get your next clients.
Or your agency has been around a while, and business is OK, but you’re working all out to service clients that you’re really sick and tired of.
Where and when will you get those great ‘ideal clients’ that everyone talks about?
You know, the ones that will pay high prices, just follow your lead and say yes to all of your work?
And why is it that everyone you talk to ends up being a challenging client with no budget, and yet so many people online are talking about working with these ‘mystical’ ideal clients?
Want to know the secret?
It’s not that these ideal clients are hiding in some parallel universe you don't know about.
It’s that people with ideal clients know how to MAKE them ideal.
And that’s exactly what I’ll share with you right now.
Fit Calls and Lead Products - the first step in creating an ideal client
If you’ve been reading my posts or checking out my content on social media, you’ll know I talk a lot about replacing free proposals with paid engagements called Lead Products.
And what's so powerful about the Lead Product Strategy is that it immediately kicks off the relationship with your client in a power dynamic where you are the one leading.
You’re the expert telling the client that your time is valuable, and they’re going to pay you for your insights and your time. You’re going to lead them through a process and they’re going to follow you.
From the very first touch point, when a prospect reaches out to you and is interested in hiring you, your response should always be that you interview them to understand whether or not they're a good fit for you. This is what I call the Fit Call, and I teach my students this in the No BS Agency Mastery Program.
When you do that, what you're communicating without saying is, ‘I don't take everyone. I am assessing you to see if you're a good fit, as much as you are assessing me right now.’
It creates a certain level of authority and integrity.
Why? Because, as human beings, we’re all primed to shy away from anyone who seems to be trying to sell us something no matter what.
You know, that ‘snake oil’/’used car’ salesman energy that we all hate, and also hate to be seen as.
The polar opposite of that is, ‘I'm not going to try to sell this to you. In fact, I'm only going to make sure that you're somebody that I can help before I even offer anything to you.’
This part of my Fit Call process, where you assess if this person in front of you is a good fit, sets the tone of being a leader and expert right off the bat.
Then, of course, if they are a good fit, you have this Lead Product, or this package or service, that is the first step in the process.
And it’s all designed to communicate that your time is valuable.
You’re saying that you have a process that the client can rely on, that you’ve done many times, so you can trust the process. And that's another ‘trust-factor builder’.
When a client buys into this and says yes, they’ve now agreed to follow your lead.
Now, let’s talk budgets.
Some people you talk to might not have budgets for their branding, but a lot of people do have budgets - just don't have a budget for you.
And it's not that they're lying. It's just that they really don't see the value in what you have to offer.
And when that happens, the easiest thing to say is ‘Oh, that’s too much money for me.’
The Lead Product process bypasses that.
Yes, we're charging upfront, but we're charging people a fraction of the cost of a full project, in order to qualify them.
Some people really have no money to spend on their business, so they're not going to buy your Lead Product. And we want to figure out who those people are as quickly as possible.
If we didn't have a Lead Product to offer, we could easily spend another three hours trying to convince them that we're worth whatever we're charging.
Or doing things like writing them a proposal and coming up with all these ideas for somebody who, in the end, was never going to buy.
So by putting their feet to the fire right there on the spot, using the short, intentional Fit Call, you weed out the ‘browsers’ from the serious buyers.
When somebody does go ahead and buy your Lead Product, they're already telling you they’re serious about branding their business, and it’s important to them.
But that still doesn't mean they're ready to buy your bigger packages - they're just committed enough to buy this lower priced thing.
Then, you take them through the whole Lead Product process, which, from my previous content, you’ll know is all about building trust and authority, showing them the vision of what their business could be, figuring out what that plan is, and allowing them to come along on the journey.
By the time you get to the end of it, and you clarify what this plan is for them to help them get to their goals.
And this is why, in most cases, they agree to go ahead with the bigger project, because they were there for the whole journey to figure it out as well.
They are bought into this vision and this idea that you have put in front of them, so they are much more likely to say yes and sign on the dotted line when it comes to pitching them at a higher price point.
How a ‘freebie’ turned into a $12,000 project
In my Facebook Group for branding agency owners, I have so many amazing stories of students who have upsold their Lead Products into higher priced services.
One of the most common posts, and my favorite, is when someone shares how they sold their highest package ever, because of the Lead Product.
But one such story really stands out, and I want to share it with you.
My student, Donaji, does amazing work and when she was doing Lead Products for the first time, she was going to do them for free.
She was just looking for a case study client and I always tell my students ‘I don't care how you do it, just do it as soon as possible so you can get into the habit of doing them.’
Some people just sell them right off the bat, but she decided to do it for free, which was totally fine.
She found a guy who wanted to do her case study. And he said, ‘Just so you know, I don’t have a budget for this and I can’t hire you for anything else, but because you need a case study, I’ll take you up on this free thing.’
Let's stop right there for a second. We’re all talking to that guy, right?
So Donaji does the Lead Product and takes him through the experience.
Then she pitches him at the end, in the way that I teach all my students, and he hires her for a $12,000 package.
That’s right. The guy with ‘no budget’ paid Donna $12,000 for her branding services.
At the time, that was the highest package she had ever sold.
So what do we take from this?
Was he lying to her in the beginning? I don't think so. I think he truly meant it.
He had $12,000 to spend.
He just didn't have $12,000 for her before the Lead Product.
So what changed?
The Lead Product process allowed him to experience, understand and value her work.
So when she said it at the end, he could say, ‘Yeah, I'll find $12,000 for that.’
Because he could see how he needed it, and how it would make him money.
If I said to you, ‘Give me $12,000, and I'll give you back $100,000’, would you find $12,000 for me?
Of course you would - you'd be silly not to.
That's what a Lead Product does.
It helps them get off of the idea that this is a cost, and helps them see it as an investment to make more money in the future.
And if you really see that value in that future payoff, that future ROI, you will find that money.
Here’s what I want you to get from this.
Instead of asking ‘Where do I find all these people who have all this money, value branding and design and are ready and willing to pay for it?’ flip it around and ask this:
‘What do I have to do to be worthy of those dollar amounts, so that the people who would find the money or have the money see me as worthy and valuable of it?’
Because if they're telling you they have no budget, they just mean, ‘I don't see the value here.’
And don't take that personally. It doesn’t mean you don’t have value. It’s that they don’t see the value of branding and design, which plenty of people don't see, especially because there's a lot of great design out there for free.
Of course they don't see the value - it's not their fault.
I think, sometimes, as creatives, we look down at people who don't see the value.
Like ‘Don’t you get how important design and branding is??!!’
And it’s a pitfall of being an expert. So I would caution you to think that because it's shooting you in the foot.
It’s not that they don't understand. It’s just that they haven’t seen the clarity about how it's really going to help them.
So your job is to help them see it, by giving them some kind of experience, and let them come see the value on their own.
You can't just educate people on this. You can't just force it down their throat and say, ‘Hey! Branding is important, and you need to pay for it!!’
If you ever find yourself trying to educate clients and explaining why branding is so important, you've already lost them. (Trust me, it’s happened to me more than once.)
You’re way better off giving them an experience where they really get it themselves.
And that's really what the Lead Product does.
How to direct the client-agency relationship, so you always have ideal clients
We’ve proven that we can turn people who have no budget into clients who will pay a premium price.
But can we turn clients into good clients?
Let me share something I used to experience.
I used to feel like clients were such an energy drain. Every single client, even the clients I loved, just sucked my energy.
They never did what I needed them to do.
They never got me stuff on time.
They were never quick with their feedback, and projects never ended on time, no matter how militant I was about the timelines. It was like clients just couldn't do it.
Now fast forward years later, I can't remember the last time I had a client who didn't get me something on time.
I can't even remember the last time that I had a client that went out of bounds and out of scope.
Why? Did I somehow just start talking to the right people?
No, I got clear on my leadership and my process, so that I turned people into good clients.
Personally, I can be an amazing client. I'm very conscious of that, because I work with clients.
And I'm very aware of the fact that with certain people who have a clear process and are managing me well and are being a good leader, I'm an excellent client. And then I'm a terrible client to other people.
I'll give you an example. Anytime I'm working with somebody who isn't great at communicating, who isn't great at setting expectations, who doesn't follow through on things the way that they tell me they're going to follow through, I end up being a nagging client, because I don't have the information that I need.
One time, I was emailing with a guy who was doing some ad work for me. I was saying ‘Hey, when am I going to get this thing?’ and ‘I thought I was supposed to get this last week - where is it?’
And I'm not getting answers from him. So I started to feel like such a nag.
Or he would tell me he was going to get me something on Friday, but I wouldn't hear from him until the following Wednesday.
So he was making me a bad client because I wasn't being managed and I wasn't being led.
Not only was I the one doing all the following up, (which was already a bad situation), but I was also trying to find out information that I needed.
I was also second guessing the things he was doing because I didn't trust him. He wasn't giving me a reason to trust him.
In fact, he was giving me a reason to not trust him.
I didn't believe that things were going to be double checked or proofread because I kept finding mistakes.
So I was doing all this extra work, becoming a ‘micromanager’ because I had to. He turned me into a bad client.
On the flip side, I have a great agency doing my Facebook ads right now.
They are on top of everything for me.
They are very organized and give me everything exactly as I expect it exactly as they say they're going to.
And because they've been doing that for so long, I barely check anything that they send me (probably to my detriment!) but I let them handle it.
I think they've even told me I'm a great client, because I really trust them.
And really, that's what I'm paying them for - take it off my plate, take care of this for me. Not only do I not want to micromanage them, I don't even want to have to double check this stuff.
That's the relationship that I want from people that I hire, and that's the relationship that you want from your clients.
You want your clients to say to you, ‘I trust you, here's the money, go to town, do your best work.’
And when you show me the work, I'm going to say ‘Great, I love it! I trust you that this is the best that should be.’
And that's why there are no revisions.
So when people ask us how we're able to deliver a whole brand in a day or two, it's because our clients trust us. We have this whole process and we've turned all of our clients into really great clients.
Not because we found special people.
Even though our qualifying process with our brand attracts high-achieving people - because our messaging is all about being a badass, being excellent and being super expert - our process is one where we lead them the entire way.
So they know what to expect, and they always get what they expect.
If you lead from the beginning, you can create people with budgets out of people who have no budgets, and you can create great clients out of people who would not have been great clients.
This is all in your control. And I really want you to own it.
Every time a client goes out of bounds, it's because of something I did.
I went and looked back and said, ‘Where did I go wrong? What did I forget? Where did I not communicate to them that I am in charge, and I've got this and they can relax?’
Over years of questioning my own actions and efforts and looking for ways that I could get better, anytime a client did anything wrong or annoying or frustrating, I would always ask myself, ‘What did I do to turn them into that?’ And then I would fix it.
And over the years, all those little tweaks is what became the No BS Agency Mastery process, that I now teach my students.
That's really the goal, because if every client that comes in is ideal and easy to work with, there's really no BS, which means no loss of profit, and lots of freedom.
Here’s what you need to get…
There’s no magic ‘paradise’ where ideal clients are hiding out.
You can turn any client into a great client when you bring leadership and a clear process.
You can even, miraculously, turn a ‘broke’ client into a high-paying one!
P.S. You can always jump on a call with my team if you want to fast-track your way to creating ONLY ideal clients for your branding agency and all my other tools and strategies to scale up your agency - just go here to get started!