The 100K client.

Them: “Pete, we're really looking for a couple of days sales training for our gym membership team”
Me: “Sure, how did you come to the conclusion you need a couple of days sales training?”
Them: “Well, the team haven't hit target in 6 months, so they clearly need training”
Me: “Hmm, I can deliver a couple of days of sales training, but do you mind if I share what I feel is really going on?”
Them: “Sure, that would be appreciated”
Me: “Listening to you today, I feel like a couple of days sales training is not going to be the answer for you”
Them: “Intriguing, I’m listening”
Me: “Well, you’ve mentioned a few times already Sean, who manages the team, has no background in sales management and has had zero support since he joined the business to lead the team on a day-to-day level. Also, I’m still unclear on a few other areas. For example, what's your recruitment and onboarding strategy for new team members?”
Them: “Well, ummm, we don’t ummm…”
Me: “The reason I ask is because a couple of days training will inspire your team, but without looking at your entire sales ecosystem and everything that impacts the sale, I guarantee you'll be back to square one and looking for more sales training in a couple of months.”
Them: “So you're saying sales training doesn’t work?”
Me: “I’m saying sales training works brilliantly, but my question is: do you want sales training or sales results?”
Them: “Sales results, of course”
Me: “Then sales training will only be one 10% of the solution you actually need. To create sales results, you'll need to look at your entire sales ecosystem and how everything is impacting the sale.”
Them: “Hmmm, this is interesting. How do we move forward with this?”

Every 100K client starts with a conversation.

More specifically:
• Trusting your expertise
• Listening to what the client is NOT telling you
• Identifying what the client is NOT seeing
• Challenging the client, with empathy

No company director wakes up in the morning and says, “I need to spend 100K today on sales transformation today”.
No individual wakes up and thinks, “I’ve got to spend 8K on transformation today”.

We must realise, clients are created, not found.

The client conversation above started as a couple of days sales training, and their budget was 3K.

Yet, they became a 100K+ client for my business.

How is this possible?

More importantly, how can you create clients at an exponentially higher value for your business?

I can answer this in one sentence.

The size of the sale is a direct reflection to the size of the conversation.

Most conversations are small because we feel small.

We talk about the services we can provide; we beckon to client demands and worse, we do everything on the client terms.

• “When would you like to book?”
• “Okay you want sales training; I can do that sir”
• “Sure, I can discount this for you”

101 of consulting is taking back power.

• You must lead the conversation
• You must be willing to challenge the client on their current reality
• You must lead with empathy
• You must be willing to have a bigger conversation

It doesn’t matter if you're offering graphic design, personal training, beauty treatments or goat herding.

Your expertise is the reason why they need you.

If they could solve the problem without you, there’s zero reason to pay you thousands.

The reality you're living today is a result of the conversations you've had over the last 12 months.

• Are you working with clients in the most powerful and effective way?
• Are your clients paying properly for access to your expertise?
• Who is in control of your diary, you or the client?

Them: “We're happy to go ahead, but I just want to clarify how many days you'll be in the business per week?”
Me: “I'll need to be in your business almost daily at the beginning, there’s a lot of work to do”.
Them: “Oh, you don't need to be here daily, but we'd like to clarify for the contract your day rates”.
Me: “Yes, if we can remove day rates and hours from the contract entirely, that will work best”.
Them: “What do you mean?”
Me: “I'm here to help you create a specific result, so I'll be in your business as much as required, but mostly I'll be working from home”.
Them: “So how do you calculate your consulting fee?”
Me: “You're paying for the agreed results + my consulting support. This is what I charge for”.
Them: “Okay, this can work for us, so you guarantee results?”
Me: “I guarantee you'll have the advice and strategy to transform your sales. I also guarantee I'll be doing everything to work as a team with you. Ultimately, it’s still up to your team and management to make this work. You have my full assurance I'll be there every step of the way”.
Them: “That's fair, we don’t expect you to be getting the result for us anyway. Okay, we'll amend the contract on our side and let's get started”.

There's a lot of psychology in this conversation.

• The client wanting to buy my time, not the result
• Me pushing back and re-educating on why they need my consulting
• Staying true to the way I work (this is key)
• Managing client expectations (do you guarantee results)
• Helping the client to understand the value of my consulting
• Being crystal clear in how our relationship will be

I appreciate what I’m sharing with you here. It can feel overwhelming.

The good news, once you see your own power and truly embody the consultant mindset, this becomes the new normal for you.

The reality is, nobody can win 100K+ clients just because they feel they're worth it.

You need to do the work and step fully into your expertise.

I never won 100K clients because I’m so good at sales or because I have some secret to success.

On reflection, it’s because I really don’t give a fuck about the money (because I can always make money).

But I do care about helping in the best possible way.

Offering one off sales training days or a package of consulting doesn’t make any sense to me.

It feels icky and weird.

What feels right, is helping the client in the best way possible to create the result.

I have zero attachment to what this looks like.

If I find a more efficient and effective way to help my client, I'll adapt and grow.

Some call it integrity.

Personally, I don’t have a name for it, it's simply what makes the most sense.

The same rule applies for 2K, 3K, 5K and 50K clients.
Am I helping the client in the best possible way?

I feel most live a life of giving their power away because they're constantly stuck in survival mode and worried about paying bills TODAY.

This thinking keeps them small, stuck and struggling for a lifetime.

I fully appreciate, we need money in the bank and I’m not expecting us to simply switch off our income.

But, years of working outside integrity takes its toll.

Once again, it's why we can only sell from who we truly are on the deepest level.

Anything outside of this is a lie and will always catch up with us in one way or another.

Keeping with integrity.

It would be easy for me to BS and say I collected the full 100K up front.

For clarification, I've never collected 100K in full.

This specific client paid 5K per month + made additional payments as we deepened the transformation.

12 months later, I asked the client to cancel the contract because we had already massively surpassed expectations by hitting sales targets every month for an entire year.

Their response: “We're not going to cancel, because you are insurance for us”.

By this time, I was doing ZERO with the business.

I would check in a couple of times per month, but nothing more.

Yet, they continued to pay.

It was only after 2+ years, when I decided to move to Thailand, that we decided the contract had reached a natural conclusion.

When all was said and done, I'd invoiced 140K throughout a 2-year period.

• One client who gave ZERO headaches
• One client who demanded ZERO of my time
• One client who trusted my expertise

Consulting isn’t easy, but it’s not complicated.

To manage expectations, my consulting client was already a multimillion-pound business and, on reflection, I could have doubled my fee, and they likely still would have paid (280K+).

This is why I teach people to charge based on the value of the outcome for the client.

I'm able to help a bigger company create a bigger change and my work will impact more revenues + more people.

Most of my clients are solo business owners and I charge significantly less, because the value of the outcome is less for them.

For example, a solo beauty therapist might be turning over 50K per year when I start working with them. If I was to charge the same amount, it would be 110% of their yearly turnover.

I’m not sure of any beauty therapists who want to give away 110% of their annual turnover for a consultant.

Ironically, working with a solo business owner is usually more work for several reasons.

• They're more emotionally invested because it’s their money (at least they see it that way)
• They require more support on a day-to-day basis
• Consulting is a huge emotional decision for them

You might wonder why I’d even bother working with solo business owners if consulting for big companies pays so much more and requires less work?

The simple answer.

I love both, but also if I limit myself to simply helping big companies, I’m limiting my worldview.

Also, small business owners work through my group consulting so I’m not trading one to one time for money (there’s so much more I could say on this one topic).

Mostly though, the buzz for me is X10 helping solo business owners because my work is often life changing for them.

Rosie, who is one of my top clients, has gone from 4K per month as a FULLY BOOKED hairstylist to 30K to 40K per month working just 3 days per week.

When I first met Rosie, she was on the verge of bankruptcy, literally and emotionally, but she had the determination of a lion.

It's been a blessing to work with her over the last few years and see who she's become in the process.

Caleb was a £20 per hour bass guitar tutor when I met him. Today he charges 6K per student to help them become rockstars and win life changing opportunities in the industry.

Mostly though, I’m proud of the man Caleb has become on his journey and everything he continues to achieve.

Liz is a skin expert who was charging the same as any other therapist when I first started working with her.

The last few years she’s transformed her thinking, beliefs and charges between 5K to 12K per client.

Rosie, Caleb, Liz and many others are achieving these results with extreme consistency month in and month out.

I’m proud of their revenues, but mostly proud of who they've become along the way.

Clients like this are not just clients, they've become lifelong friends.

If I purely stuck with corporate consulting, I would miss out on all of this, and my worldview would be an extremely selfish one.

I'm not in this game to purely make money.
I'm here to change lives and as many as possible.

You might not want the 100K client, but I’m relatively sure you're here to fully reach your potential and to embody your expertise at the highest level, for you.

I can almost guarantee you've got clients who are willing to pay infinitely more, because they trust you, they see you as the expert in your craft and they'd love to pay you to help them transform.

But.

It all starts with you.

You must be the 100K consultant in your own mind first.

In fact, the most important client you'll ever have, is you.

You don’t need to be perfect.

But you do need to get started.