Over the past several weeks I've written four articles on how to attract more high-end clients. We've covered the following topics. 

1. What exactly are high-end clients and what do you need to do to consistently attract more of them to your business. 

2. The mindset necessary to attract high-end clients and why it has nothing to do with "abundance thinking."

3. Why you must take responsibility for the results your clients produce and why this is key to attracting high-end clients. 

4. How to increase the perception, delivery and outcomes of your service to more than justify the high-end price tag. 

The fifth and final article in the series will give you a step-by-step action plan for enrolling clients into your high-end programs.

Presentations are the key!

My favorite way of enrolling high-end clients is through some kind of presentation. This can be a talk at a conference, a webinar, or a teleclass. 

You actually don't sign-up clients for your high-end services through speaking, you pre-sell them on your concepts and programs and then follow up with them. 

For my Marketing Mastery Program, I do a series of teleclasses to introduce the ideas in the program. I don't sell, I educate. And in fact, I let people know that the program won't be open for enrollment until mid-January. 

If you are offering a high-end service or program for groups, this is a good approach, but you can also offer high-end services to both individuals or companies. 

Speaking is also the most effective way I know to qualify prospects for your program. After you give your talk, you get cards (by offering an article) and in some cases offer what I call a "Strategy Session."   

For instance, your talk might be about how to increase profitability in software firms. Your strategy session would be called a "Software Profitability Strategy Session." You offer it at the end of the talk or teleclass as follows:

"I hope you've gotten some useful ideas from my talk today that will help with the profitability of your software company. Can I see a show of hands of those who are committed to increasing the profitability of your company by 10% or more in the next year? 

"OK, great. For those people, I want to offer something that will help you achieve that goal more quickly. I call it a 'Software Profitability Strategy Session.' This session is valued at $750 and we can make it available for up to five people in the audience today. In this session, we look at your current situation, explore your specific profitability goals and also the challenges that may prevent you from increasing your profitability.

"If you'd like to take advantage of this session, all you need to do is write on the back of your card, "Strategy Session" and hand it to me at the end of the talk, and I'll be in touch with you about the session and send your more information. 

"OK, who would like to take advantage of that session? (Get a show of hands.) Great, just hand the cards into me and I'll be in touch with you right away."

If you are doing this on a teleclass or webinar you do it very much the same, except that you ask them to send you an email letting you know if they are interested in a strategy session. You don't have the added advantage of people raising their hands, but it still works quite well. 

Strike while the iron is hot! After you get the cards or emails, you follow up by the next day at the latest. You want to send them an email inviting them to take advantage of the Strategy Session. It might go something like this:

Dear Jean,

Thanks for attending my talk on profitability for software companies. I hope you got some useful ideas. And thanks for also requesting a strategy session. 

Because I have a very busy schedule, I can only offer a limited number of these sessions, valued at $750, on a complimentary basis. Let me tell you more about the session. 

In the session, which is by phone, and typically lasts 90 minutes, we will cover the following.

1. Your current situation, including discussion of your profitability and other relevant company issues. 

2. The goals and vision for your company. Where do you want to go with your business in the next few years? 

3. The challenges you are facing in growing your profitability and what you need to do to overcome those challenges. 

4. A discussion of next steps and an action plan to move your company towards profitability. 

In order to schedule this session, I ask that you fill out the questionnaire below and send it back to me. The more completely you fill this out, the more I can help you. Please send it back to me within one week or less to ensure that I can fit you in. 

Software Profitability Strategy Session Questionnaire. 

1. What is the current profitability of your company, both in total profits and as a gross and net percentage of total sales?

2. What are the measures you have taken up to now to increase your profitability? What has work and not worked?

3. What is the ultimate profitability goal for your company? 

4. Are you ready in the next few months to commit the time, energy and resources to increasing your profitability?

5. If you increased the profitability and reached your profitability goal, what would it mean to a) your company and b) you personally. Please be as specific as possible. 

6. What else would you like to say about your business and/or your profitability that would be useful for me know before the strategy session. 

- Of course, your questionnaire will be different, depending on your clientele. The point is to get the prospect involved before the strategy session so it isn't just another sales conversation. 

Conducting the Strategy Session

I can't go into all the details of the Strategy Session here, but I will outline the main parts briefly as a guide:

1. State the purpose of the session, which is always an outcome: "…to help you increase your software company's profitability."

2. Ask about the current situation of the company, using the answers to the questionnaire as a guide. Go deeper and try to really understand what is working and not working. Don't talk about solutions or tell any stories during this part of the meeting. 

3. Learn about the goals and vision of the company (or individual). Go really deep here. This is what they are buying from you - the transformed future. So you need to get them to articulate it as clearly as possible. You might use a story or two here of clients with similar aspirations. 

4. Discuss their challenges. What is preventing them from getting their goals? Is it lack of clarity, a lack of strategy or plan, lack of skills, a non-supportive environment or other issues? This is a good time to tell a few stories of clients who had similar challenges and overcame them. 

5. Present your services. If it's a bigger company, you'll want to present them more generally and then do a proposal. For smaller companies or individuals where you offer a fixed program, present  the outcomes, benefits and structure of the program in detail. You can tell stories here as well. 

6. Make your call-to-action. My favorite is when you ask the client to sell you on the value of your program: "Jean, can you let me know why you think this program is a fit for you?" Never talk about the price until you know it's something they want to do. With bigger companies, don't give the price until *after* you've presented a first draft of the proposal. 

If you follow the recommendations in this series of articles on attracting high-end clients, you'll attract a whole lot more of them. 

You can download a copy of an expanded version of all five articles in my report: "The 5 Key Secrets of Attracting High-End Clients."

http://actionplan.com/pdf/high-end-secrets.pdf

If you'd like more information and support in learning and implementing this process, I invite you to attend my upcoming Teleconference Series on Attracting High-End clients starting on Tuesday, October 11. 

In fact, you can attend for free. Click on the link below for details. 

http://actionplan.com/highend-biz

The More Clients bottom line: Attracting high-end clients is the key to success in your business. When you attract more high-end clients you not only make more money (often a LOT more money) you have more fun, produce bigger results for your clients and feel you are making a real difference. What could be better than that? Make it a priority in your business to learn how to do this to the very best of your ability. 

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