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A Simple Way To Price Services To Land More High-Paying Clients

Know this: When it counts, the lowest price option is a turn-off for high-paying clients. But it still belongs in the mix of offerings.

Of course, everyone (even high-net-worth individuals, also known as “high-paying clients”) loves to get a good deal.

But when high-paying clients are evaluating more important purchasing decisions for their business or personal lives, the lowest price option is usually the first one discarded.

“Having been involved behind the scenes on countless purchasing decisions for high-paying clients as well as positioning our company at the high end of the remote executive assistant support space, we have several reasons for why this is the case,” says Ethan Bull, a cofounder of ProAssisting, a remote executive assistance firm for business owners and C-suite executives.

With a background in hospitality, Ethan Bull has held a variety of senior positions, including director of administrative services and senior executive assistant to the president and CEO at Rochester Regional Health. He is the coauthor, with his ProAssisting cofounder Stephanie Bull, of the book The 29-Hour Work Day.

Mid-tier options are viewed with some skepticism when compared to the highest priced option, which raises the question of “why?” said Ethan Bull in a recent Zoom interview.

Answer that “why” and you will close the client, he added.

If you are in the business of selling your expertise, pricing is always a sticky issue when it comes to lead conversion. To understand the psychology of closing (which I term enrolling a client), it is time to revisit Goldilocks pricing.

The Goldilocks principle is named by analogy to the children's story "Goldilocks And The Three Bears," in which a young girl named Goldilocks tastes three different bowls of porridge and finds she prefers porridge that is neither too hot nor too cold, but has just the right temperature. She also tests three chairs and three beds. Quite the little comparison shopper.

The concept of “just the right amount” is easily understood and applied to a wide range of disciplines, including pricing for high-paying services (in my book, services that cost thousands of dollars).

Many employing Goldilocks pricing use the terms “Silver,” “Gold,” and “Platinum” as shorthand. Others use “Basic,” “Standard,” and “Premium.” You can name your packages whatever you like, so long as it makes sense and implies a scale of value.

Silver or basic packages are the lowest level of service you’ll offer: bare-bones, no frills, pragmatic, and no-nonsense. This is the one that almost always is rejected. (By the way, this is the option you should offer last.)

Gold or standard packages add more features, frequency, or services. These are the ones most clients will choose, because most people believe moderation is a good thing.

Finally, there’s your platinum or premium package. This is the package that will attract the kind of carriage-trade client who shops exclusively at Nordstrom and Neiman-Marcus. This package is for the client who likes to say, “I’m worth it.” You may not sell a large number of them, but when you do, you’ll be satisfied that you didn’t leave money on the table.

According to Ethan Bull, here are some truths about high-paying clients:

“They value quality and would rather pay up for hard experience and a proven track record. They don’t want to be the guinea pig.”

“They know that price reflects supply and demand and thus tangentially the quality of the product or service.”

“They would rather pay up once as opposed to having to pay repeatedly for an inferior option or fix a mistake by an inferior provider.”

“They don’t want an important transaction to ever appear to be ‘the cheap option.’”

“They have exceptionally high standards and don’t want to feel guilty by expecting such from their service so they pay the highest price.”

However, according to Ethan Bull, high-paying clients also hate feeling like they are being charged for a service because of the size of their house, the articles written about them, the movie they starred in, the company they built or the car they drive.

The solution?

“Be able to articulate the tangible and intangible values being transferred in the transaction,” says Ethan Bull. “Once your case has been made, have the conviction in your service to stand firm and not negotiate on price.”

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