EP 91: You’ve Outgrown Your Clients—Now What?
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Hey everybody, welcome back to the Acquire podcast. I'm your host Jenny Wright. I'm a list build and lead generation expert. And on this show, I talk about obviously list building and lead generation, but I also talk about sales, scaling, revenue, all the ins and outs of building a business, as well as things that are just completely focused on marketing strategy. And today I want to really talk about something that I've kind of been reflecting on.

and I went for a really long walk. The past couple of days, I've either swam in the morning or I've walked in the morning. And I'm talking like a 2K swim or an 8K walk. A lot of thinking going on. And one of the things that I was thinking about when I was walking this morning, and that was an almost 9K walk, and let me tell you, my legs were tired. But one thing that I did think about this morning

was the fact that some people feel like they're not in alignment with their client roster. And if your client roster does feel off to you, like it's draining you or they're ghosting you, or you're just not getting the results that they're wanting you to, or that you want for them, depending on what it is that you do, it may or may not be them. Now it definitely could be them because my gosh, how many like absolutely crazy,

bad fit clients that we all had at some point. I mean, I've got stories I could tell. I'm sure you do too, but it may not be them. And it's not necessarily you either, but it's exactly where your business is right now. And that's what I want to get into. I want to sort of pull the curtain back a little bit on the things that not everybody talks about. And that's something I love to talk about is that your client list, your current list of clients,

is potentially a mirror of where your business is right now in its maturity cycle. And at every stage in your business, you're going to attract the types of clients that will shift over time based on your structure, on your confidence, on your pricing, on your positioning, on your messaging, and absolutely 100% based on your boundaries. And if you are like me,

most service-based business owners. And I was very much in that space for a very long time. I'm on my 14th year of business and I am a yes person. I am a pleasing person. I want to make people happy. I've always wanted to do that. I've always wanted to be able to say yes to

and support people. Makes me feel good. And it probably makes you feel really good too because you've spent the time and energy building up a service-based business for the most part. And that's what we like, right? We have a lot of these boundaries stomping people

sort of attitudes where we allow those boundaries to get really freaking stopped. Like we allow people to cross those boundaries, right? So if you set a pricing structure and that pricing structure says, okay, for the following cost of a thousand dollars, this is what you get. A, B, and C. Not A1, 2, and 3, but A, B, and C. And then you get a client goes, absolutely, I'd love to pay you that thousand dollars.

they pay you or they start asking for extra things. Like there's always that scope creep that people either intentionally want or unintentionally try and get. And I'm telling you that we all go through this. We all go through the boundary stop and it is really, really hard as a people pleaser to not allow people to do that. I've been doing this for a long time and I still have the occasional problem with my boundaries.

And I get to work with some people that remind me of my boundaries, funny enough. And they say, Jenny, it's 830 on a Friday night. Why are you answering my email? I'm like, oh, crap. Well, you know, I had a moment, you know, because I'm one of those people that checks my emails until I go to bed. But if you're hearing this and this sounds relevant to you, I want you to sort of think about what I feel like walking you through today. And if this is the episode for you, great, stick around.

But I really want to talk to you about why your business attracts the level of client that it is ready for and it's showing the maturity for, right? So this could be a direct reflection of you. And again, I am differentiating between nightmare clients, which none of us absolutely want, need, or desire, and then also the clients that reflect the business that you're currently creating for yourself, right?

And I will say that 95% of my clients over the past decade and bit have been awesome. And I have had a couple people that haven't been a really good fit or it's gone really, really badly just because of differences of personality and so on. But for the most part, I've been really, really blessed with some great clients. But your business attracts the level of client that it's ready for.

I also want you to think, and I want to walk you through the shifts that can create a move up in your business, to create a better fit, to attract higher caliber clients into your business. And that means that you'll be less burnt out, happier, more fulfilled, and you will feel better about your business. And you wake up actually, you're like really excited about it. Right. And then I want to talk to you about

how you can stop playing like a client whack-a-mole. I love that game. And start working with people who actually get what it is that you do and get you.

Because if you're spending an hour or two hours or even three hours on separate calls trying to convince somebody to work with you and trying to convince them of your value and convince them that you're great at what you do and that what you do will actually benefit them, and you spend all this time trying to convince them and they're still a tough sell, that is an exhausting endeavor. And I have yet to find a client that I have ever done that with that has...

gotten it, that has truly understood and appreciated what I've done for them. It's really tough to say, but it is the absolute truth. So the first thing I want to walk through together is why am I attracting these people? Have you ever sat and thought like, I have definitely sat on my couch and thought, what the frick am I doing wrong that these are the kinds of people I am attracting to myself?

If you ever just finish a client onboarding call or a client exploratory call or sales call, and you feel like you've been holding your breath the whole time, then you know this feeling. You're just like, holy crap, right? If you get off a call with somebody and it's exhausting to have been on the call with them, or you've tried to sell somebody one of your programs, products, or services, and something just feels off, right? It's probably because, or potentially because,

Something in your business is off, right? Your messaging could be off. Your offer could be off. Your pricing could be off. All of that could lead to the attraction of the unwelcome, unfitting client, right? Potentially, you could be attracting people that you've outgrown. I did this for years or people I never should have worked with or whatever.

never should have been in touch with at all. And I'm positive if you're in a service-based business, you've had this. Absolutely. I don't know anybody who hasn't. This thing about us staying in our space and staying in our lane until we have outgrown it to such a level where it is uncomfortable to stay is a step too far, in my opinion. I honestly believe that we stay

Why do we do this? We just stay in things too long, right? So, and I mean, I can mirror this into life and relationships. I'm sure everybody can. But when we're looking at the clients or the services that we offer that we've outgrown or the products or services that are undervalued,

When we close a client for one of those programs, products or services, it really freaking hurts. Like it doesn't feel good. It feels soul sucking. Yeah, absolutely. You know how to do it. 100%. Eyes closed, hands tied behind your back. But you don't want to be doing it anymore. You don't want to be

feeling like you have to settle just so you can make money, right? There is a different world to get into out there, into the thing that you actually want to be doing at this space in your business, the prices that you want to charge at this level in your business, and the people that you want to attract at this time in your business that is completely different than what it was when you first started. And these pivots are completely normal.

We just tend to stay in the weeds, in the space and the grime of it all way too freaking long, right? So when I say that your clients reflect your current business level, it's not that you want to stay there. It's just that you might be afraid to move on. So you say yes to anything, anything with a heartbeat, anything with a credit card, the mindset that you have might be,

You've got to prove yourself still, that you've got to build experience still, that you still have to do this. It's completely normal, but it's not normal. It's not even sustainable for a very long time. Once you've outgrown the scrappy start of your business where you'll just do anything, like I used to have this term, like, you know, I'll do anything. I will even clean toilets with a toothbrush. Like, that's how scrappy I was in the beginning. I would do anything to make money because I was just trying to prove myself.

That is not sustainable for a very long time. And if you're in that stage, I desperately know how bad you want to get out of it. Right? Then there's the next stage. And I lived here way too long. This is the I'm booked but burnt stage. Okay, you're working all the time, your calendar is full, you've got lots of clients, you're selling all the things, but it is low margin work.

and high, like high volume, low margin or low margin, tons of effort. And these clients are driving you crazy, right? And in your mind, you're thinking, oh, I should totally be grateful for this much work. I love it. It's great. Awesome. But what's not happening for you is the ability to challenge yourself, to charge what you're worth. And so that work actually feels like a slog.

and you don't enjoy it, and over time you resent it, and then the worst thing you can do is resent the clients for it. Even though the client's done nothing wrong, you start resenting the client because you have to serve and offer them a program, product, or service that you're no longer in alignment with. So how do you get out of this? What's the next stage? So the first thing I want you to do, and the first thing I had to do was audit everything. Audit my offers, audit my pricing,

audit myself, right? So are your offers built for the kind of ROI that you need in order to sustain your business, grow your business, feel fulfilled, take time off, spend time with family, exercise, sleep properly, all of it. Are they aligned with that?

And then if they aren't, then you have to look at raising your rates. Then you have to look at changing your packages, whatever those are. And you have to stop saying yes out of obligation and out of fear. This is big. Obligation, feeling obligated because there's clients that are trying to come through the door. And the fear of those clients never coming back through the door if you say no is huge. And it takes a bit to get over it. I will tell you that. And I'm not somebody that...

teaches how, but I will tell you that my own method was scary. I just started slowly, incrementally raising my rates. And so I was charging a base price for the different programs and things that I was offering my services. And every time I signed a new client, I would add $250 or $150 every single time until I started hitting a threshold. And I'm telling you like,

The program that I was offering, let's just give an example. Let's just say it's worth or not worth, but what I was charging was about three grand. And then I would raise my prices to $3150. And then I was raising my prices to $3300, $3500, $3750 and so on. This particular product like service that I was offering, I wasn't hitting the threshold of no. And I was still providing an incredibly good result with everything that I was doing and allowing myself the ability to even expand it.

I didn't hit a threshold until about $15,000 and that freaked the crap out of me. Every time I raised my prices and went, "Sure, absolutely, I'd love to work with you. The cost of us working together is going to be $4,500." And the person's like, "Sure, no problem. Here's my credit card." Honestly, I mean, eyes would just go wide, jaw drop. I couldn't believe it that people were willing to pay me

that kind of money. They saw the value. I didn't see the value, right? I wasn't seeing it. It's my problem that I wasn't seeing it. But they saw it and they were willing to pay it. And I wasn't trying to make a money grab out of people. What I was trying to do was to see what the threshold was in the market for what it was that I was offering and my ability to provide a really good service where I felt good, where I didn't have to have 18 clients at once in order to pay all my bills.

I could have six or seven clients or even at this stage I'm at right now, four or five clients, maybe even a little bit less. Not only can I pay the bills, but I can put money in the bank, right? Like that is where the change kind of happens, right?

And that's where you start to create boundaries for yourself. You've learned to qualify leads. Your intake process screens a bit better, right? You create a lot of value for people and they can see it. Your content speaks to the right people. You don't get as many door knockers. You don't get as many people booking sales calls with you and it being nothing. It's just like tire kickers, right?

And when you get to this level, you're going to be thinking more about automations for your onboarding, content that educates before the sale to help actually make the sale happen, which I love doing.

Then you're creating really firm timelines, really clean scopes. You don't create the opportunity for scope creep. So your processes and your onboarding and your contract and your proposals, everything is transparent, clean scopes, transparent pricing. There's no stone left unturned at this point so that you never have people who are trying to

push something along and hope that you say yes out of obligation because they've signed a contract or they've given you some money, right? That is such a power fulfilling. It feels freaking amazing when you start feeling valued for what it is that you do. The next stage that you can get to, which is where I'm playing now, and it feels insane to me that I am,

is I'm more in this like CEO energy of the business, right? I'm attracting aligned, high caliber clients. They respect my process. They respect my point of view, my vision, my opinion. They respect what I'm saying. They respect the pricing. They respect my boundaries, all of that.

And when your business is built and you are ready, you've kind of grown up, right? You're no longer that scrappy start. You've grown up. Your systems are grown up. Your mindset has grown up. You've probably got a team at this point. That feels really grown up. Your messaging is aligned. You've created all of this back-end stuff that allows you to attract those people, to charge those prices, right?

Now, when you get to this level, it's about delegation. It's about scale. It's about owning your voice. It's about saying no and saying yes, but saying no when you don't have to say yes, when you need to say no, right? And if all of this sounds incredible, that's great. But how do we shift? How do we get there, Jenny? Good question, right? So the first thing that I'm going to recommend is that you clean up your messaging. You have to clean up your messaging. This is the basic thing.

You have to have complete and utter clarity on who you serve, not just what you do. This changes over time and you'll do this process more than once. But it is impossible for somebody like me who creates marketing strategy, who creates, you know, lead gen for clients. I cannot make you a superstar if you don't know who you serve. And so a lot of time has to be spent there before I even come into the picture so that you know exactly what's going on. If you're like me and you're a scrappy start person,

then you thought you should and could and would attract everybody to your programs, products, and services. But that isn't an alignment anymore. That doesn't feel good. It feels really burned out-esque and we don't want to be there, right? So what you have to do is you have to speak directly to the people who are ready to work with you. Where are those people playing? Where are they listening? How are you going to connect with them? Is it

Through webinars? Is it through affiliate? Is it through referrals? I get a lot of business still through referrals. I love referrals, pay for referrals. How do you speak directly to the people that are ready to work with you? Where are they? And how can you connect? Also, you have to raise your intake standards. You have to look at potentially having an application form if that makes sense for the program, product, or service you offer. Instead of taking everybody, you create a selection process.

You create pre-qualification calls. I love these. Those are scary in the beginning, but I mean, anybody who's scaling right now is like nodding their heads going, "Absa-freaking-lutely pre-qualification calls." I have red flag filters.

that if I have questions in my onboarding, that if they're answered a certain way, I now know that that's a red flag. I now know what those red flags are for me and from a client, and I can now suss those out really, really quickly. And I can say, ah, no, okay, really looks good. This person would be awesome to work with potentially, but there's some serious red flags here. Absolutely have to have your red flag filters up, right?

You're not an Uber. Not everybody gets a ride with you. Not everybody gets a program, product, or service from you. Not everybody deserves it. And not everybody should get it, right? Now, I also look at my pricing. And I want you to look at pricing on transformation, not on time. You're not hourly anymore, okay? This is a big shift. You're not charging $75 an hour or $125 an hour or even $25 an hour.

you are matching on transformation. The transformation that you can create for a client should determine what your pricing is. Now, if you are a graphic designer, sure, you're going to be charging hourly, most likely. If you're a coach and you're creating transformation, you should not be charging hourly. If you're creating something like I do where I create summits and marketing strategy or I'm a CMO, I'm not charging hourly. I'm charging retainer for transformation.

Right? I want the clients to understand that the value that I create is clear and measurable and absolutely transparent as to what I'm going to do and the pricing reflects that. I don't apologize for it anymore in my head. I don't apologize anymore for saying, sure, that product's going to cost you, you know, 15 grand or whatever. I don't do that anymore because the clients who get it will want it. The clients who want it will pay it. Right? Make sense?

And then I also absolutely want you to use your content to repel the people who don't fit you anymore, right? Instead of attracting everybody, you're going to repel the people that don't fit. Tell stories about the clients who get amazing results with you and why. Tell stories about transparently who's a good fit and who's not. Tell stories and create content about what makes a good client for you. What makes somebody who's going to get the best possible result out of the program, product or service you create, right?

and why. Also, I want you to audit your current audience base and your client base. What drains you from the people that you currently work with? What makes you extremely excited to work with people? And how can you make that a rinse and repeat? You're allowed to evolve. It's completely permissible at any level of your business as you grow to evolve. And so should the clients that you should be working with. And that's completely normal.

I really want to validate for that for people because I will tell you that it is really, really hard or felt really hard to me when I started figuring out I was outgrowing certain levels in my business and then being able to give myself the permission to not do that anymore. It was the thing that bring in like all the money. It was the thing that gave me notoriety, but I didn't want to do as much of it. I wanted to focus on other things. I grew. I wanted the people that I work with to be different and I wanted what I did to be different.

So allow that to be the permission that you need to get to that next level because you're not a failure for having bad fit clients. It's not your fault, right? It's just a sign that your business is ready for next level change, that you have to be the person who can lead that next shift that has the power behind creating it.

That this is the kind of growth, this is kind of the thing that happens in the background that people don't really talk about. This is not the big launch, but it is incredibly powerful, more powerful than a lot of people give it credit for. Being able to grow into your next level of business is massive. It's big.

And when do you get this figured out? Well, funny enough, it doesn't just turn on like a light switch. It happens over time and all of a sudden you realize it's happening and then you have to accept it or reject it. I say accept it and then move on. Start working with the people that respect your time, that trust your processes, that pay you on time, that refer others just like them to you, that get it done.

And they have an understanding of your boundaries. And that's when your business starts to feel good again. That's when you start to feel good and energized and enthused and looking forward to Monday morning, which seems really odd, right? But it can totally happen. Now, I know this isn't one of the longest episodes I've ever done, and that's okay. Hopefully it was something that you enjoyed on your way to work or before you started a call this morning or maybe while you were on the elliptical.

If this episode hit home, please do me a favor. Share it with one person that you think might be stuck in the, why do I get clients like this? And maybe it'll help. Maybe they can reflect on this. And if you want more tactical tips like this, make sure you're subscribed to the podcast because I have episodes coming up that dive into more deep list building, funnel fixes, and shifting pricing models without losing your sales. That might be something that you're interested in.

And if you're ready to scale now with the right clients, my inbox is always open. Let's chat. Let's talk marketing strategy, list building, lead generation, all of it, and see if there's something there that I can help you with. Thank you so much for listening and take care.