This is why high ticket clients ignore good consultants

Yeah, thanks having me.

Yeah, so in essence I help service based businesses, B to B service based businesses get what I call big fish clients, which we were just talking about before the show. Everybody wants, you know, everyone wants to get paid more, everyone wants those bigger retainers, packages, projects. So I help them speak the language to do that through positioning.

Yeah, so referrals, you know, you can build a successful business, but then there becomes a cap and a lot of Bd B service businesses find this. So you do have to, as you said, you need to expand the channels, but a lot of times you think, well, how do I do that? How do I choose even the right one? The simplest way to look at it is there's three buckets of acquisition channels and each of those buckets have say different pools in them, okay, that you can choose from. So the three buckets are content, outreach. And paid or or ads to a lot of people, right? And within those, there's all different balls of what you could use. So when people when you think of content, you think about posting on social media, but content is is way more of that. It's it's things like this, it's it's podcasts, but it's also collaborations, it's also email marketing as well, with loads of different things that you can do within content. In outreach, a lot of people think, it's cold DMs or it's cold email, but outreach is all classic networking, attending events, conferences, getting into communities, all of those things. And then the the final part of it and then ads, you know, as you know, there's there's meta ads, LinkedIn ads, TikTok or all things like that. So between that organic and paid ways to generate clients, the first thing you have to assess about where your buyer is, so where this up market buyer is, because they're not all attracted with just content or just outreach. people, say for example, selling to salespeople, they will never respond to say a called out route, for example. they'll they'll respond to other things, they respond to to different things to content, for example. So you've got to find out what your market responds to and you've got to choose the right channel. And then with any channel, you have to have two things. You need to make sure you're positioned correctly first. So that means that your message is really chiming with them. And the second thing is you need enough people seeing it. Because if you've just got five people seeing it, doesn't matter how good your positioning is, it's not going to work. The same thing is if you have thousands of people seeing it but your position is not very good, you're gonna get a load of bad

There a lot of them are like I think the biggest thing they struggle with is things are unpredictable in terms of their lead flow. And it's usually either from two things. It's either the volume of it, so they're not getting enough volume within the big projects, the big retainers, the people that can spend the money. So it's it's either that or that they're just people are just not compare people are sorry, comparing them to other people out there. So what they're doing is is this They're comparing, so they're not getting conversions of the big the big ticket people. And then with that as well, they're just relying on one channel, which is usually warm. So it's usually referrals or maybe strategic partnerships, which again are fine, but they're not predictable. And that's hard to scale, and it's also very hard to sell the business as well, if you're just doing like that. So that's why they realize when they get to a certain stage. in order to break through in terms of their revenue and then to potentially sell, they need to expand their acquisition channels. But if they're gonna do that, they need to be positioned correctly because all you'll get is just more traffic and more of the the lower ticket jobs. Okay, the lower retainers, the people that are more difficult to work with and so on and so

Yeah. So we we all have a position in the market, whether we've done work on it or we haven't. When you're positioning to attract bigger ticket clients, you have to speak a certain language. So for example, in positioning, one thing you do is like only in a category what's known as a category of one. And if you try and be a category of one that speaks to the lower end of the market or a a type of buyer that you don't want. you'll end up attracting those. If you and then you but then you want your ideal client who is more up market, then not it's not going to chime with them, it's not going to strike a chord with them. So the main thing that we want to do when it comes to positioning, whether it's either creating a category or differentiating yourself, like you know, saying you're different and doing things differently, is make sure that is what those people at the top end really want. So that's why I talk about positioning a lot because It's quite easy to develop new channels and to get traffic and to get attention. That's not difficult. I think any average marketer could do that. I think where the skill set is and where my specific specialism is, is how you then speak that language to those beggitated people. So when you do go to market, they they are like, this person gets me. this person is the go to for that particular person, right? And it's so key to do that. the way to measure whether that's right or wrong is that. If you get ten prospects that come to you. If two of them are not ideal fits, that's really normal. Okay. Any more of two of them that are not ideal, then you've probably got some issues with your positioning, some issues with your messaging that you need to fix.

Yeah. Th there is there's a lot of things. There's probably actually like nineteen different things because the deck I like personally build for people there's like nineteen different slides usually on it. So the first thing is is knowing who you're targeting and really understanding them. So how you do that. So the first of all is is finding the type of people that will buy at this level. Okay. You need to do some basic stuff like like amount of stuff, revenue levels, could be sometimes to do with their their margins, they could they could be things like that. But it's more specifically what are the pain points in their own words. Because what you tend to find is is that at different levels of the market, they they will have sometimes similar pain points, like they want to earn more money, they want to lower their costs or something like that. Those are quite universal, but it's how they describe their problems and ha what the context is. So one of the basics that people can do is try and find their pain points, but in their own words. So in the words of the at the market, right? Once you've got that, and then maybe add a bit of that to what's known as buying triggers, so what is going to trigger them to actually care about you if they come across you? So what's the trigger to make them move? So there's those, once you've done that, then it comes on to what I spoke about earlier, which is right, how can you be different than the other options out there? Okay, because there will be options in nearly every market that someone can make. So you say, right, how can I position myself differently? How can I deliver what I do differently? Then you could do some basic stuff again for for people listening, like things like getting a nice strong UVP. Okay, so a nice one to two sentence of who you are. And I would try and avoid the I help business do this without this. I would try and stop those basics. Try and do something that really is specific and in your own language and makes you stand out. Okay. So for example, I use the term all the time, big fish. Now, has ever anyone said the word big fish before? Of course they have, but it's something that is more of a colloquial term for me and people tend to link it with me a little bit more. and then the final bit that I would look at is the messaging side of things. The messaging side is basically what's your story? Who are you in their life cycle? Why are you credible? You know, what is what weight do you have and value do you have to bring to them? And then outside of that have some strategic proof points basically. So specific data and research that makes it clear that you are an option to have right now to make a difference in their business. Okay. Have some external data that supports that. Once you start bringing that all together, you can start to shape a bit of a position in the market. Okay. And then when you go and actually go to market, so you go into the channels, then that's what people will then start to pay attention to you instead of just ignoring.

Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent. So d the to keep it really basic so that people listening can go do it them themselves. So when you differentiate, you either verbally differentiate, so it's what you say, or you structurally differentiate, which is means what you do. So we'll give you some examples, right? So verbally differentiate, this can be as simple as a name. Let me use me as an example, okay. So I'll put my head on the chopping block. So the niche doctor, okay, I have a name. Now, should everyone have a name? Not necessarily. But you can have something there. To a lesser extent, there might be a hook or a slogan that you have in your message, something that you repeat consistently. But that's l that's less common with B2B service businesses. the other things that you can say, like you know, you can use terms and own a term. Like I tend to say big fish, right? That that you realize a little bit more. There's loads of ways and things that you can own. I would try and find something that comes naturally to you. So I just happen to say that term, that's how I described it. But there's a guy in my market that calls it whale clients, right? So he he sort of got that and we're like silently competing, right? So there's that. I believe the best firms that differentiate are the ones that structurally differentiate. So they do things differently. Okay, they don't just say they do something differently and say something unique, that gets your attention. But when you structurally differentiate, that's where you can really lean into stuff. So for example, again, use it using me as an example, so I don't like put anyone else under the pressure, I'll I'll put myself under the pressure. So a structure differentiate, I have my own mechanism. That's a common thing. So my NPM, niche position of messaging, and my 21-day framework specifically to do that. also within what I structured differentiate, I work to attributa attributable revenue. Okay, so that's different than a lot of consultants. People still do it, but it's more rare. Okay. So there's those. And there's many ways then that you can if you mix up both what you say and then what you actually do, you will then start to imagine that eighty percent of people do retainers, right? And then as you start to verbally differentiate and structurally differentiate, you gradually become more and more rare. If you're a little bit more rare, you then tend to have clients that suit you a lot more and then they're willing to pay the the higher fees because you are more of a rare, a rare choice.

I I agree with you. I think there is definitely a position to carve out where especially the creative market

Yeah. Yeah, so I agree with you that there's a real strong position to basically not use AI in the future and I think it's for a particular generation as well. I think it will be

All right. Yeah. My internet connection's good, it says, but then it's coming up and saying that something's uploading, so I don't know.

C'est

Or to say it's mistake from Do you mean?

I think the way that the market is going, that anyone that is good at what they do should be focused on working on the bigger projects, working on the bigger retainers, the bigger packages. But what they don't need to do is throw the what I call throw the baby out of the bark with, which is just get rid of everything you've already done and completely reposition, completely forget what you've already done. What you should see it as is growing an arm to the business that really speaks to that market to get these big tickets. options and then just launch new

Yeah, what is it? Have you had this before or is it a new issue?

Yeah, don't have issues with the internet. We've got quite strong internet and it says strong signal. But yeah, keeps coming up and saying it's disconnecting or... Yeah, your connection is unstable.

Yeah, so there's some good information on my website at thenishdoctor.com and on there I've got a BigFish calculator which measures where you're at in terms of your current position and your traffic and that gives you a bit of a report as well. And so what you're doing to that could be quite helpful. Just look on there, BigFish calculator and that should help you.

Yes, actually, it's on there. Appreciate it.