Summary

The article discusses the challenges of working with inexperienced clients and how to mitigate these issues by targeting more knowledgeable markets or educating potential clients to appreciate the value of specialized services.

Abstract

The author expresses a love-hate relationship with new or struggling freelancers as clients, appreciating the need for services like positioning, offer creation, and conversion assets, yet finding their lack of experience challenging. This inexperience often leads to naive questions and sticker shock at service prices, which the author empathizes with, having been in a similar position. The solution proposed is to either target markets that already understand the complexity and value of the services offered, such as Agora, or to educate less informed markets, such as accounting firms, through comprehensive resources like books or detailed blog posts. By providing this information upfront, clients can better appreciate the effort and expertise involved, leading to a respect for higher price tags and improved client prospects.

Opinions

The author finds new or struggling freelancers to be both their favorite and least favorite clients due to their need for essential services and their lack of experience, respectively.
Inexperienced clients often ask questions that may seem uninformed or challenge the value of services based on their limited knowledge.
The author recalls their own past ignorance when it comes to pricing and the value of certain services, which helps in understanding the perspective of inexperienced clients.
Targeting "smarter" markets that already recognize the value of specialized services can reduce the need for extensive client education, but these markets may be less open to new methods.
Providing extensive information through books, long-form blogs, or webinars can help educate clients and justify higher service prices by demonstrating the complexity and expertise required.
The author believes that every human makes decisions based on the information they have, and it is the service provider's responsibility to ensure potential clients have the necessary information to understand the value being offered.
Educating clients is seen as a way to turn "bad" prospects into good ones by bridging the knowledge gap and fostering respect for the provider's expertise and pricing.

Ignorance is the root of every bad prospect

Here’s how to mitigate that

From a fundamental standpoint, if I had to tell you my “favorite” prospect, it’d be new (or struggling) freelancers.

They need what I love to do, including:

Positioning
Offer Creation
Conversion Asset
Etc…

But from a practical standpoint, they’re also my least favorite.

There’s a few reasons for this, but at the end of the day, lack of “experience” is generally the main issue.

They simply don’t “understand” a lot of things, so there’s naturally going to be a lot of “dumb” questions because of it.

“Why do you charge so much for an ad?”…

And even though it generally creates an instant “anger” reaction, at the same time, I understand where they’re coming from.

Many moons ago, I was in the same situation, and I’d probably puke if I looked at some of my previous messages.

“$3K for a website? That’s ridiculous! I can create one for $29/month”…

Which is embarrassing now, as I can see the value of a $3K website (assuming they know what they’re doing), but I didn’t back then.

We all make decisions based on the information we have, and here’s how this applies to your business:

Target smarter markets, or hide yourself behind a wall of information

To give you an example of what I mean by this, with “smarter” markets, it’s always going to be relative to your specific skill.

Said differently, if I walked up to Agora, I wouldn’t really need to “sell” the price tag of $10K for a sales letter.

They understand all the work that goes into it, so they’re educated, but the only thing I don’t like about them is how they’re “set in their ways”.

They have a specific form of copywriting they like to use, one I’m not a huge fan of, so I typically like to work with clients who are open to anything that works.

Because of that, I’d need to target other industries, such as Accounting firms — but that’s where the problem comes in.

Seeing how they really don’t understand sales letters, they’re going to receive “sticker shock” if I mentioned $10K for a sales letter.

They’d probably start asking crazy questions after that, such as:

“How much is that per word?”…

Which is funny, as that’s irrelevant, but you get the hint.

We all make decisions based on the amount of information we have relative to a subject, so if your market isn’t experienced on an issue, you need to provide this upfront.

There’s many different ways to do this, but “books” are a common one.

A lot of experts write books anymore, primarily so you can go through everything and see how hard it “actually” is.

After reading all that, you’ll begin to see how you don’t want to do all this yourself, so you begin to “respect” their high prices because of it.

That’s just one method, but on the other hand, you can generally accomplish something similar with a long-form blog.

For example, if I was like:

“How to write a sales letter that converts”…

Then went into great detail afterwards, likely doing so with 6K+ words, it’d have a similar effect.

Now, they could see all the work that goes into it, and if they really want what you’re offering — they’ll probably respect the higher price tag.

It’s merely how every human works, which takes us to:

The recap

Long story short, bad prospects suck, but it’s something we all have control over.

If you want to take the “easy” route, then target clients who are already familiar with the “difficulty” of your skill.

They don’t need any more information, their experience has provided it, but the downside of this market is how they’re generally “set in their ways” on a certain method.

Seeing that, if you want to work with markets who are “open” to your style, then you’ll need to provide the necessary amount of information upfront.

This can be done in many different ways, such as:

Books
Long-form blogs
Webinars
Etc…

But if you don’t do this, they simply won’t understand the value of your service, and that’s where “bad” prospects come in.

I don’t care if you’re targeting the CEO of Target, or a new freelancer who’s trying to figure out their website, every human is this way — so something to keep in mind.

-Sean