How to find clients who pay more money.
You're looking in the wrong place.
You can watch the video version of this post here:
Let’s talk about the #1 problem in your business right now.
Let me guess…
“I want better clients, I just don’t know how to find them.”
Very common.
The underlying belief is:
“The only reason I don’t have better clients is because I can’t find them.”
It is diagnosed as a lead generation problem.
That is not the problem.
You’re not going to believe me, but hear me out…
I have a pretty solid track record of helping clients solve this problem.
Just a few examples from the top of my head…
A client closed $49k of consulting deals in 24 hours last week.
Another closed a $50k website/branding project.
Another did $94k for 4 days of work in a market that is considered “commoditized.”
I can keep going…
Another closed two CPG brands for $60k.
Another closed a $9k/m e-commerce development retainer.
Another closed a $25k/m full-service design retainer.
I hope you get the picture - I know what I’m talking about.
So let me say this clearly:
You pretending this is a lead generation problem is what’s keeping you stuck.
I promise it’s not.
If you want better clients, it starts with you.
You likely have the “skills” (i.e. you’re good at the thing you do).
But something is missing:
You need to become the person who can handle high-price, high-value clients.
Because let’s be honest, if a $10k / $100k / $1m client (insert your current ceiling) was sitting in front of you, you wouldn’t know what to do with them.
How do I know?
Because you’ve probably had great clients come across your path.
Ones with big fat budgets and amazing work you’d love to be involved with.
Remember them?
You exchanged some emails.
Maybe had a “great conversation” or two.
Sent a proposal.
But it didn’t work out.
And you have no idea why.
Until today.
The reason you’re not closing better clients isn’t because they don’t exist.
It’s not because you can’t find them.
It’s not even because you’re not talented enough.
It’s because when they show up, you’re not ready.
You don’t have the internal capacity to hold that level of client.
You don’t have the positioning, the pricing confidence, the sales conversation skills, or the energetic certainty that makes someone feel safe handing you five or six-figures.
And “fake it until you make it” won’t save you.
Better clients start with a better relationship with yourself.
“We tend to feel most comfortable with people whose self-esteem level resembles our own.” - Nathaniel Branden, The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem
The quality of your clients is a direct reflection of your relationship with yourself.
To attract better clients, you must first become the type of person that high-quality clients want to work with.
And I mean this in the most loving way possible:
If you’re putting out weird vibes, it’s going to scare all the people with money away.
Clients are attracted to certainty.
They want to be sure they’re making a good decision.
Who would you feel more comfortable trusting your money with?
Person 1: Clearly uncomfortable in their skin, doesn’t talk about money, second-guesses themselves mid-conversation, sends a proposal
Person 2: Calm, confident, discusses investment like it’s the most natural thing in the world, doesn’t flinch when stating their fees
The answer is obvious.
I love the phrase, “we teach people how to treat us.”
It’s so true.
And with clients, we teach them how to treat us through how we show up.
Every interaction is an opportunity to demonstrate the value of our work and our character.
Every conversation is a window into our beliefs.
Your beliefs become your business.
I’ve listened to hundreds of sales calls replays at this point.
Listening in on a sales call might be one of the most intimate things to eavesdrop on.
And my god, I’ve learned a lot from it.
If you think you can hide your beliefs from clients, let me tell you something:
Those beliefs leak out.
They really do.
Your clients can feel your relationship with money.
They can sense when you’re insecure.
As humans, we are very good detectors for incongruence.
It probably goes back to our days in tribal living when letting in someone who was being deceptive could mean wiping out the whole village.
Or something like that.
The point is, when what someone’s words don’t match their energy, alarms go off.
Clients won’t even know WHY they don’t want to hire you - but their intuition will let them know.
And then a week later, they’re ghosting your proposal.
So I challenge you to ask yourself this:
What beliefs am I unknowingly transmitting to my clients?
If you don’t believe in yourself, what makes you think a client is going to believe in you? (or even more important, believe that YOU believe in THEM?!)
If you’re a cheapskate in your personal life, what makes you think a client is going to buy your expensive thing?
If you don’t care about your work, what makes you think a client is going to trust you with their business/success?
If you wouldn’t buy what you sell, why would your clients?
If you don’t invest in yourself and your business, why would your clients invest in you?
These beliefs leak out into everything:
How you frame your offer
The confidence in your voice when you state your fee
Whether you justify your price or simply present it
How you handle objections
The energy you bring to the conversation
Your client isn’t buying your work.
They’re buying your certainty about your work.
It all starts with self-esteem.
Nathaniel Branden’s The Six Pillars of Self Esteem is essential reading for entrepreneurs.
It shows that every business problem is downstream of deeply held beliefs that we have about ourselves, our worth, and the world.
I will share a few quotes from the book here that illustrate my point.
First, what is self-esteem?
“Self-respect is the conviction of our own value. It is not the delusion that we are “perfect” or superior to everyone else. It is not comparative or competitive at all. It is the conviction that our life and well-being are worth acting to support, protect, and nurture; that we are good and worthwhile and deserving of the respect of others; and that our happiness and personal fulfillment are important enough to work for.”
Entrepreneurs often find that their self-esteem limits their ability to grow:
“If a self-concept cannot accommodate a given level of success, and if the self-concept does not change, it is predictable that the person will find ways to self-sabotage.”
They often find that as their self-esteem improves, things get better in their business:
“There is a continuous feedback loop between our actions in the world and our self-esteem. The level of our self-esteem influences how we act, and how we act influences the level of our self-esteem.”
To that end, I want to leave you with one practice to help you build your self-esteem and self-worth that has been helpful to me.
It’s stupidly easy to understand and nearly impossible to master.
It’s truly a life’s practice.
A tool: Being your word.
“Doing what you say you will do—being your word—imparts power. Things get done. Efficiency soars. Frustration falls. It’s so obvious. It is surprising how frequently people don’t do what they say they will do. It is shocking how unaware people are of the discrepancy.” - Steve Hardison
This tool helps to address one of the big drivers of low-self esteem: Constantly breaking promises to yourself.
If you hang yourself out to dry, day after day, it starts to eat at you.
I know this well, as a person in long-term recovery from addiction.
For years, it was this promise to myself:
“I’ll get clean tomorrow.”
And tomorrow never comes.
It was only after I got clean that I was able to build some real self-esteem.
And it started by making a new promise to myself - one day at a time - that things changed:
“Today, I won’t use.”
Over 14 years later, I’m still running on the power of that promise.
The most important relationship you’ll have in your life is with yourself.
Most people would never talk to a partner, child, or friend the way they talk to themselves.
Having a great relationship with yourself starts with not breaking promises:
Steve Hardison calls it “Being Your Word.”
Here’s how it works (it’s really simple):
You do what you say you’re going to do.
Every time.
Sounds simple right?
Try it. Simple isn’t easy.
“It is surprising how frequently people don’t do what they say they will do... Most people say, ‘Let’s get lunch on Tuesday,’ knowing it isn’t going to happen. They don’t even have the intention of making it happen... We live in a world that isn’t rigorous about being your word. We let each other off for not being our word.” - Steve Hardison
There is power in Being Your Word.
Not only externally, but to yourself.
How many promises do you break to others and to yourself on a daily basis?
Based on Steve’s experience, most people think they keep their word 90% of the time.
When they are asked to track it, the result is something like 20%.
And these are HIGH FUNCTIONING people at the top of their game.
So I offer you this challenge...
Keep track of how many times you say you’re going to do something (to yourself or others), and then whether you do it or not.
You’ll learn a lot.
It’s time to believe in yourself.
It’s really important to understand that the highest leverage task you can do in your business is working on yourself.
And working on yourself doesn’t mean becoming someone that you’re not.
It means becoming more you.
We are attracted to people who are themselves.
Think about all of your favorite artists/actors/athletes/etc. - why do you admire them?
Not because they’re perfect (they’re usually not even close).
But because they are themselves.
And the same goes for our work:
Clients really don’t need you to be perfect.
They need you to be you.
The goal is to cultivate a powerful and loving relationship with yourself.
This is what happens:
When you believe in yourself, you believe in your work.
When you believe in your work, clients believe in your work.
When clients believe in your work, they pay what it’s worth.
So just just to recap:
You don’t need to find better clients.
You need to find yourself.
Postscript: Wait, how do I find better clients?
You’re still curious huh?
If you want to find better clients, remember this:
The person who believes in themself has a level of resourcefulness to solve their own problems.
When you really want something, you go out and figure it out.
There are millions of people who have figured out how to do “lead generation” and “networking” - these just aren’t complicated skills to learn.
It’s not magic.
But there are some more nuanced hard skills you’ll need to pair with it:
Value-based pricing.
Sales conversations.
Expert positioning.
Building conviction.
If you want my help working on those skills, read on below…
One more thing…
On Wednesday, January 21st, I am hosting a 90 minute free workshop called “How To 2-10x Your Prices In 2026.”
In it, I’ll teach you:
✅ The 4 steps to structure your business to charge way more in 2026
✅ The surprising trend I’m seeing going into 2026 (based on my work with high-level clients)
✅ Exactly what I’m doing to help those clients to close $10k-$250k deals
✅ How to future-proof your business from AI by “racing to the top” instead of racing to the bottom
The free workshop will take place on Monday, January 21st at 12pm EST and you can register below.
This is the second post in a series on pricing and charging more money.
If you enjoyed this, you can read the first post here:
If you flinch when you say your price, they feel it. Clients don’t buy skill first, they buy conviction.
Oh, yes to this! A decade in film will mess with your self-esteem. Ask me how I know!