3 Things You Need To Know to Make Money as a High-End Service (pt1)
3 Things You Need To Know to Make Money as a High-End Service - Part 1
- High-End Sales Expert for Unconventional Photographers and Creative Entrepreneurs.
How would you like to make more money and have a business you feel amazing in?
The thing is my friend, your uniqueness is where it’s all at! In some cases, these unique parts of you that stand out could unintentionally intimidate other people. Perhaps you were a loner at school or made fun of, or you found yourself with maybe a small group of friends you felt you could trust. You might have felt like you really don’t fit in at all like there was something different about you, when all the while it was because of your wonderful uniqueness. Looking at it all now, isn’t that great because those parts of you are actually what can and will supercharge your business!
Your uniqueness is precisely what makes your clients go Yes!! We want you!
Sadly, as many of us transition into adulthood, we try to hide these unique parts of ourselves because growing up we were either told that we were too weird or to tone it down. Maybe you just really had negative experiences with expressing yourself. Well, I have good news for you!
Now that you are a fully grown adult, who is also a creative business owner selling your art or your creativity or experiences, wanting to make money as a high-end service, you can come out of hiding. By honing in on your unique superpowers in a way that your aligned clients can connect with and resonate with you, that also connects right back to your unique service and offers that you have, that is the goal!
That is literally how any photography or creative business becomes successful.
It must stand out and be distinct from everything else around it. You must have your own uniqueness! Your own special sauce, right? Because if you look like everybody else and sound like everybody else, and you are not distinct, then how are your clients going to know that you are the one for them?
So right here, right now, I want to share the first part of my three-part process for really honing in on your own amazing uniqueness to help you make more money and become a high-end price service with clients who just cannot help but love you!
I always say that the money and the magic is all in your uniqueness because once you really understand how to integrate your own individual, quirky, weird self into your business and create your whole business in this very specific way, that's when things get super exciting!
This is when you can actually become a high-end priced service and book higher paying clients. in doing so, you’ll step out from the generic pricing or the average pricing or even the low pricing because you will become so very individual in a way that you will be able to understand how to communicate why you're unique and how you're unique!
And that is how you become a high-end price service because then you become exclusive, right?
Let me tell you, it feels so good when you get the clients who love you and who you love back. It's literally life-giving. It is the life force that keeps me going.
So what is the three-step process and why does it matter?
The first step in the process is ‘brand alchemy’. This means learning how to alchemize your magic into a brand that fills a unique void in the market. Everything starts from here. Literally everything.
This is the absolute most important part of growing your photography or creative business and charging high-end prices for a high-end unique service!
Everything in your business stems from this. Everything. Literally. Everything. Do you get it yet?
This is where you pair your superpowers with your aligned client and your brand life force. This is the step that I would have to say most of the clients who first came to me totally skipped. They kind of just glistened on over it and really just haven't done this part and then they're left wondering why nothing seems to really be working or why they're having such a hard time with everything in their business. It's because they haven't figured out their brand alchemy yet.
The next step is ‘offer magic’. The quest to creating your offers.
This step is what you build on after your brand alchemy foundation has been laid and you have total clarity around your brand alchemy. This stage of offering magic is in forging your offers to your aligned clients that match your superpowers. This turns the idea on its head that you create your offer or packages.
I interchange the words offers and packages because, in the industry that I commonly work in (which is the wedding industry or the photography industry because I'm also a photographer ), it's often referred to as packages. However, I’m actually referring to your business offer. Even though I'll go back and forth between offers and packages (because in the coaching world, it's called offers) I mean the same thing.
So often I see that the offers or the packages are just copy-pasted, industry standard, everyone else is doing this so I guess I'll do this too, and then they try to fit everyone into these packages. They try to fit leads, any leads that happen to come their way into these packages, and just sell, sell, sell, sell, try to book, wanting to make money!
So in this stage of offer magic, the quest to creating your offers is to flip it around. You want to be making your offers based on your superpowers and your aligned clients.
The final step in my process is ‘sales sorcery’.
This step makes me feel like an absolute wizard when it comes to helping my clients make money as a high-end service by really honing in on their sorcery and selling their offers in a way that is what their aligned client' brains want to experience, what their own brains want to feel while selling, and what they want to experience. All while making their sales process as smooth as butter.
I’m from the Midwest!! I like Butter!!
This stage makes selling feel so easy! It feels like straight-up sorcery. This step is also how you call in your aligned clients so they know who you are. You will communicate effectively and help them understand that you are what they're looking for.
So those are the three steps that you must master! Then really pay attention to and put thought into whether you want to have a successful business.
Do you want a photography or creative business that is unique in the market and can offer high-end priced experiences to people you love working with and who love working with you?
If yes, let's talk about the all-important first step brand alchemy!
This is my personal favorite and I love to really dig deep with people and help them put the dots together and lean into what they really want to do and what parts of them are magically aligned for it. I love the ‘aha’ moments in this stage when the creatives realize they've basically been doing business all wrong and have been riding the generic business train for far too long.
They feel free! They see the boring business box lid crack open, and they float out of it and all of the rainbows and sparkles and unicorn magic they have inside of them gets to shine for the first time. They realize why the areas that they just didn't feel right about or good about had felt forced or they felt some kind of friction around it was happening. Wondering why they weren't getting the clients they wanted and/or why they felt like their website just didn't sound like them or why things were just not working.
It's because of this step. It's the brand alchemy. It is magically alchemizing the parts of you to your aligned clients to then build your services around.
This is the step I see skipped most often because when people start a photography or creative business, they just want to fly past this and go right into the part where they make money.
Which I totally get! Everybody starts a business to make money. Of course, they also want to offer their services and Krieger and stuff, but almost everybody starts a business to make money. It might work for a while when they are severely undercharging and their clients are mostly just friends and family at that point ( because these people already know you ), but when it’s time to get into the bigger game of raising prices, having a real experience for their clients, making an impact or having a fulfilling business, that's when they really begin to understand and feel that they have most definitely skipped a step.
You must know who you are, like truly who you are and what your superpowers are, then pair it with your aligned client avatar. Next, you really need to know who they truly are. I don't mean knowing surface-level stuff like they drink soy lattes and drive a minivan. That's cool if you're selling coffee or minivans, but if you aren't, those are some of the last details you really need to know. And I would argue, you don't even need to know that at all!
One of my superpowers, for example, is that I'm really good at blasting away, fluff from information, and distilling things down into only the things you need to know and implement to see results at the stage that you're at. Like this!
It's the most simple boiled down and potent steps and information you need to know and understand in order to become a high-end experience service.
I boil it down. I take everything else away. I make it easier. That's a superpower! Not everybody else can do that!
This step is crucial in everything you do in your business because the only way to grow your business is by having clients who hire you and pay you money. Literally, that's the only way to grow a business. It’s to get clients to pay you money!
If you master this foundational step, then you will be able to do everything else in your business with so much more effectiveness, success, and clarity. It will also make your business actually make sense to you in the first place.
When it comes to making money as a high-end service, this is the start of how your clients will know that you are the one for them.
This is what will give you clarity on what to say in your marketing.
This is what will give you clarity on what to say in your consults and in the sales process.
This is what will give you the understanding of what to say or do in your marketing, on your website, and in everything you do as a photography or creative business. It all starts with brand alchemy And alchemizing your uniqueness so you can really understand who you are creating your art or service for.
If you're unsure if you have done this properly or not and haven’t, then you might feel:
That your website doesn't feel like you.
That you are posting to Instagram and you literally just talk about the photo you are posting and not speaking from your alchemized uniqueness or to anyone in particular.
That your marketing or website is all about you.
If I were to ask you to tell me the three most important fears your aligned clients are feeling at this moment, you have no idea.
Or if I ask you what are the three most important drivers your clients have in wanting to buy from you, you also have no idea.
That your clients are often ghosting you.
That your leads tend to go with other people often.
That your leads often prioritize your pricing over everything else.
That you have no idea how you actually stand out in your industry.
That you are using words on your website that are the same as everyone else.
So my friend, is your photography or creative business in the place you want it to be? Are your leads engaging with you?
Are your leads those ‘Oh my God, I love these types of leads’ leads?
If not and you feel that your clients are not really respecting you for the artist that you are, then you probably have not nailed your brand alchemy!
I hope this gives you something to think about and brings awareness of how you are showing up in the world and potentially might still be hiding. I can’t wait to share part two of my three-step process with you soon!
In the meantime, I dare you to sit down, put that thinking hat on, and ask yourself:
What am I actually doing in my current photography or creative business for my clients?
Who is it all about?
How am I elevating their life?
