Why Premium Clients Resist You (And What They're Actually Seeking Instead)  [ep. #2]

Why Your Premium Strategy Isn't Working

[00:00:00] Premium clients don't want what you think they want. Spoiler alert, but luckily in this episode, we're going into what it is that they actually do want and what makes a buyer decision making process easier for them to invest in your offers.

You might think that a premium client looking to invest at a high price point (I'm talking £20k, £50k upwards) wants things to be easy. They want a smooth process. They want more handholding, more access to you.

I see this with my own clients. When they raise their prices and they're scaling their business, they remove the friction. They add more one to one calls. They make everything as simple as possible.

[00:00:51] And here's what happens: sales slow down. People take longer to make a decision. Some people buy, but they don't fully engage. They're not showing up the way you'd expect at this level of investment. And you're left wondering what is going on.

Premium clients don't want you to make things easy. They want you to make things expansive. There is a big difference, and we're going into it in today's episode.

Understanding the Friction Paradox

They resist restriction and they crave challenge. It is inherent in them. It is what makes them so driven, so ambitious, so willing to keep pushing their limits and fulfil their potential.

This is what I call the friction paradox, and today we're breaking down what this actually means: the two types of friction, how to tell the difference, and why the friction you think you are removing to please these premium clients might be exactly what they're looking for when they're making a buyer decision.

[00:01:49] The friction paradox is what most people miss, but it's what I have seen time and again working in really high end clients environments and have applied it into service based businesses. And it has changed results dramatically.

Premium clients don't want you to make things easy. They want you to make things expansive. The friction that they're looking for is not an obstacle. It's not about making things really hard for them to process. It's about elevation. It's the kind of friction that makes them think bigger, operate at a higher standard, feel themselves becoming more capable just by experiencing your premium strategy, your buyer decision making process, the way that you show up for them.

[00:02:44] Most people who are building their high ticket offer go the opposite way. When they raise their prices, they remove all friction thinking that's what premium clients want, or they add in friction that doesn't expand them. More checking points, more forms to fill in.

The two types of friction that come into your offers can dramatically change whether you are getting the right clients into them and the right clients that stay with you.

Expansive Friction: The Kind Premium Clients Crave

[00:03:12] Expansive friction challenges you to rise. It signals you are entering something that will stretch you. It makes you feel more capable from simply being inside that space.

Restrictive friction makes you smaller. It wastes time. It flattens your thinking. Premium clients invest in expansive friction, but they will walk away from restrictive friction immediately. They sniff it out, they sense it, and they're gone.

Let's go into the difference so you can start to see how this operates inside your own business, starting with expansive friction.

[00:04:03] This is the kind of friction that challenges your clients to rise. It's exactly what premium clients want. Those buyers that are driven, that have high intent in their capability.

Some of the ways that expansive friction can show up in your business: one is high standards for entry. I don't mean that you need to put an application process on absolutely everything in your business, but an application can be one way.

[00:04:31] That's for fit, where you have to stretch to be within that offer. That friction makes you rise to meet it. It signals that you're joining something exclusive. It's not just about being able to buy premium. Premium clients want this. They want to know that you're selective. They want to feel like they have earned their place by being who they are.

And it may not be an application process. It could be the way that you are speaking in your offers, the way that you are challenging your clients to self qualify by really standing in who this offer is for and who it is not for.

[00:05:00] The second aspect of expansive friction is intellectually demanding content. Whether that content is your marketing or your social media, whether it is in your offers, or the way that you are delivering.

This podcast assumes that you are here to be stretched. I'm not handholding you through the basics of what a premium brand is or how to position. I'm assuming a level of understanding, capability, and intent, and desire to go further, to go outside the norm. It's pushing you. I'm not dumbing things down, and that friction is going to expand how you think.

[00:06:03] This is what premium clients are looking for: work that treats them like the intelligent, capable human that they are, not content that's over explaining or talking down or calling them out from a place of pain. Rather, calling them out and up into what their capability is.

Another aspect of expansive friction is bespoke processes that require deep inputs. This could be in your offers where your clients have to complete the thinking before they come in. They can't just show up and have someone show them the way or do it for them, or show them every single step.

[00:06:31] That friction expands your client's self awareness. It makes the work better because they had to put the right level of input into it.

And then of course, a topic that we are going to dive into much deeper is premium price point and investment level. A level of investment makes you commit fully and show up differently than you would for a level of investment that is easy for you.

[00:07:16] Now, this isn't me saying that you have to invest big to be able to play big. I don't subscribe to that way of thinking, especially in the coaching space. But this is about your ability and your willingness to really own the value of your work, because that is a signal to your client about how expansive the work is going to be.

This is the friction that premium clients want. It elevates them. It makes them expand even through the process of investment. It's why you will often see somebody invest at a stretch point for them and then get results even before they've really come into the work, because that level of investment has stretched them to a place of expansion.

Restrictive Friction: What Pushes Premium Clients Away

[00:08:06] On the flip side, let's talk about the friction that is restrictive. This is friction that makes things smaller. It wastes time. It flattens your client's thinking. Premium clients spot it immediately and it breaks trust.

Here's what restrictive friction can look like: over complicating every step in your offer, in your buyer decision making process, in the experience of them interacting with you. Five forms, three different types of discovery calls, endless back and forth emails or even just direct messages, just to get started with you.

[00:08:34] It seems like we're putting in the process so that everything is automated and gives you back more time and freedom, but from a client perspective, it feels like we are giving them control over the next step, but that rigor is friction. That's just wasting their time. And premium clients, they do not have time to waste.

Another aspect that can create this restrictive friction is unclear communication. If you are somebody who only speaks in concepts without giving examples of how it applies with your clients or how it's happened within your own area of work, then that's not expanding their thinking.

[00:09:24] It's making the client work hard to understand what you are even trying to say, and they simply don't have the patience. They need clarity. They want you to be exact.

Another issue that has come in a lot over the last couple of years is rigid templates that don't fit their work. Being put into a framework, being put into a template flattens the depth of thinking and the way that client wants to move, and often the speed that they want to move at.

So adding in something cookie cutter when they actually need custom is creating friction that restricts that client's ability to apply the work that they are doing with you into their actual business.

[00:10:19] There is a place for templates. There is a place for frameworks. I do this in my own business with my clients, but it is super intentional that it is expanding them and it is not restricting and flattening their thinking.

Then the final one is gatekeeping information. There is nothing more frustrating, and you may have experienced this yourself as I suspect that you yourself are a premium client.

[00:10:45] There is nothing more frustrating than making clients jump through hoops to access basic details like the price, like when the programme starts, or holding back information. That just creates an artificial sense of scarcity. What that does is it creates distrust.

If someone has to chase you down for basic details like timelines or process or pricing, you are signalling that your control matters more than their decision making. And they are somebody that wants to move fast. Premium clients will walk away from this because that restricted friction signals that you don't value their time.

And if you don't value their time before they even become your client, then they don't feel like you can be trusted to protect their energy when they're actually in the work with you.

Why We Add Friction in the First Place

[00:11:21] So when I say this, it might seem so obvious that we don't want to put things in place that restrict and we want our clients to expand. We want our spaces and our services to be places where our clients get their results, where they are able to develop in identity as well as in skillset and expertise.

So why are we putting these things in?

Because we often think that premium means that we have to add more: more steps, more processes, more gatekeeping, which suddenly makes things more exclusive. Or we go the other way and think that removing all friction is what premium clients want.

[00:12:09] So we have zero application processes because we don't want it to make it hard to work with us. There's no requirements to actually be in this space because we want to make it accessible. And there's no standards of how we're actually running our mastermind or our high ticket offer.

But premium clients need this balance. They need to have freedom to be able to expand without the restriction of so many steps and processes to fill in.

And ultimately what I see this comes down to is they want standards. They want to know that you're selective. They want to feel that they belong in your work.

Designing Friction That Expands Your Clients

[00:12:39] So the goal isn't to completely remove friction. It's to design the friction so that it is expanding your clients and not restricting their thinking. The way that they can work with you, it's a way that they can access the depth of the space that they're coming into.

We want some friction. It's what they crave. But this friction has to make them think bigger. It has to protect their energy. It has to signal that they're entering something that will elevate them.

That is what creates certainty for premium clients. Yes, messaging is super important. Yes, the way that you structure offers. Ultimately, if they don't feel your standards, if they don't feel that your standards match who they see themselves becoming, that is what is going to put them off.

[00:13:43] You can audit your own offers right now to see whether you are adding in restrictive or expansive friction.

How to Audit Your Offers for the Right Friction

A process that I'm going to encourage you to go through is to firstly list every friction point in your client experience. This is a process that I go through several times a year across all of my offers.

That is always something that comes up that I can see, that I can optimise, that I can refine from the moment that someone discovers you to the moment that they finish working with you.

[00:14:31] Where is their friction? So look at your application process. If you have discovery calls or any kind of sales calls, onboarding forms, payment structure, communication, deliverable timelines, get it all out there. Write it all down.

And then ask: does this friction expand or restrict? Is it making them think bigger or is it wasting their time? Is it protecting their energy or is it protecting mine? Is it elevating your client's capacity or is it flattening their thinking?

[00:14:57] If you cannot clearly answer that it is expanding your client, then it is probably restricting them.

Then ask the question: what would happen if you removed this point? That's the test. If you removed this friction point, what would change?

If the answer is nothing, then there's your answer. It doesn't need to be there. It has just stayed there because once upon a time it seemed like the right thing to do.

[00:15:42] If your answer is, "Well, they wouldn't be as prepared if this wasn't in place or the work wouldn't be as bespoke," that's expansive. That is what is enabling your client to expand within the work that they are doing with you.

The really crucial part, if you are going to keep in the point of friction, is to also explain to your client why it exists. Don't just say, "This requires application."

Tell them: "We are looking for the right fit because this work requires full commitment and we are protecting the integrity of the group." That's expansive. I'm talking about a bog standard application form (boring, boring, boring, boring). But when you position it for how it's going to expand your clients, suddenly it becomes something where they're like, "I belong in this space. I'm rising up to meet this."

[00:16:33] Don't just price your offer. Explain: "This investment level ensures you're fully committed and is creating the condition for the transformation that we're going to go through."

Premium clients don't want you to get rid of any point of friction. They don't want things to be spoon fed to them. They don't want to have a plug and play business. They don't want to feel like they can get with you what they could get anywhere.

They're not resisting friction. They're resisting friction that makes it feel unnecessary.

[00:17:17] When you design friction that expands them and you are transparent about why it exists, it becomes part of the value. It becomes part of the positioning of your offers and ultimately your work.

Key Takeaway: Master Your Premium Strategy

What I want you to take away from this episode is that premium clients don't resist friction. They want to be challenged, but it has to be the right kind of challenge.

They want friction that makes them think bigger, that incentivises them to operate at a higher standard, and that encourages them to become more capable through the process of your work.

They will walk away from anything that wastes their time or that makes them feel smaller, that is trying to box them in, or that feels like they are just becoming another number.

[00:18:00] Your role as a business leader, as somebody who is building a premium strategy and offering high ticket offer, is not to remove all friction. It is to design friction that is going to expand your clients' friction, that protects their time, that elevates their thinking, that proves that you operate at the level that you are asking them to invest in.

Holding your boundaries, having clarity in the process, but not making them jump through 50 hoops to be able to understand. That is what creates certainty for premium clients. They feel who you are behind the scenes, and that is ultimately what builds trust.

What's Next

That is it for episode two. In the next episode, we're talking about your offer as a brand, your individual offer as an individual brand. Most offers are completely interchangeable.

We are breaking down what makes an offer have a signature versus being one of many. If you're ready to stop blending in and start owning your category with your premium strategy, then this episode is for you.

Until then, I'm Rachel Pearson. This is Rich Work.