Have you ever taken a sales call with a prospect who, on paper, fits everything in your ICP (ideal client profile)?
✔️Seems super interested.
✔️ Wants to solve the problem ASAP.
✔️ By all other metrics, aligns with who you serve (has the problem you solve, industry niche, business model, business age, etc).
But as soon as the conversation gets around to price and timelines and scope…
Their demeanor shifts.
In place of openness, it’s scrutiny and defensiveness.
– “Well, would we need to do all that? I’m really just trying to get [deliverable].”
– “So, tell me what you guarantee for that price??”
– “Wow, so I talked to another agency and they quoted [impossibly low price]. Would you match that?”
In my experience, these types of sales calls happen because your messaging was only built around practical line items in an ideal client profile: industry, business age, revenue, business model, problem, etc.
And there’s something missing in those conventional ICPs. A gap that allows these types of secretly bad-fit clients to end up on your sales call calendar, taking spots away from others and – more importantly, creating a little dent in your confidence.
That gap you’re missing from your ICP is the “I want to hire the best” mindset.
It’s a facet of a very mature market who is not only solution-aware but is also able to recognize the difference between quality and beginner work (or… AI-created work) and are invested in hiring for quality.
Because even if someone fits your ICP, has the problem you solve, and feels the pain of that problem urgently…
If they don’t care/know enough about the level of quality that goes into the solution, it’s going to be way harder to get them to pay expert rates or invest in an expert process.
Not when they can theoretically “solve” the problem faster and at $0 with AI. Or with a low-priced competitor or alternative.
I advocate for speaking to this “I’m looking for the best” client mindset in most of your content, but particularly on your website.
When your website speaks to quality-minded clients — through the way you explain your process, the results you highlight, and the standards you hold yourself to — it signals to the price-shoppers that they’re in the wrong place. They self-select out. The prospects who do book a call have already decided you’re worth it; they pretty much just need to sort out the details.
As a result, you have more sales calls that are about discussing logistics (“When can we start?”), not asking you to convince them that your services and process are worth it.
Here’s what a recent client said about putting this philosophy into practice:
xoxo, your favorite website freak,
Krista
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