How to get better clients for your business

Do you find yourself wondering what your business would look like if you had better clients? Perhaps you’re dreaming of more exciting projects that challenge you to grow and let you show off your talent? Or maybe you’d like to work with clients who paid you more or at least paid on time?

There probably are bad, good and even better clients in every industry. And your customers influence the direction that your business takes. So how can you make sure that the best clients out there come to you, leaving your competition to handle the less desirable ones?

Find out what steps to take to make your business stand out and attract more high-quality clients in this article, including:

• Offer more value and better quality
• Look more valuable with a professional website
• Define your niche
• Raise your price
• Turn down ‘bad’ customers

Adding more value to your services or products will enable you to charge more. You are more likely to attract more customers if your services are better. You might also attract more loyal customers, resulting in more repeat business.

If you find yourself stuck with low paying projects and customers who can’t or won’t pay you on time, why not try upgrading your offerings? It’s possible that clients who look for better quality products also have enough budget to make payments on time or make repeat purchases.

Raising the quality of your product might require additional investment, but the pros of increasing the value could pay off in the long run. Understandably, your resources could be limited, especially if you’re just starting. In this case, you might want to look into how to find the right investors for your business. 

Your website is often your first point of contact for new customers. Having a good website can make you look highly professional and raise the perceived value of your services, enabling you to get more clients and charge more. 

Your website must be mobile-friendly, load fast, be easy to use and optimised for the Google search engine. Search engine optimisation (SEO) ensures that your website shows up on the first page of Google search results. Appearing on the first page of search results is crucial, as over 99% of people never click past the first page results.

As a bonus, looking well established and highly professional might prevent some less desirable clients from contacting you. As you come across as well seasoned in your industry, these people might opt for a beginner if they’re hoping to pay less or play unfairly in any way.

When you narrow down your niche, you become an expert. Thanks to your specific knowledge and skills, you could charge more than generalists. For example, a plumber often makes more money than a general contractor.

Getting more detailed with what you can offer also allows you to hone your marketing strategy and tailor your marketing efforts for a specific audience. You could achieve better success rates and return on investment with your advertising when you know your target market. That’s because your message is more likely to reach the right people.

Narrowing down your niche could help you connect with clients who already know what they want and are prepared to cover the cost of a specialised job. When you’re specific about what you offer, you could avoid customers who take up extra time by frequently requesting changes, are difficult to work with and expect you to go the extra mile without paying a penny extra.

Raising your price could allow you to offer more value or increase the quality of your products. Better value and better quality can bring in more customers, enabling you to choose the projects and clients that suit your business. 

An increased price might help you avoid customers who aren’t willing or able to pay a fair price and instead are really looking for a deal that would leave you with a loss. When you’ve got more interest from the right clients, you could potentially turn down some less desirable ones.

If you already have existing customers who expect to receive your services for a specific price, make sure you notify them of the price change delicately and with care. You might want to consider a grace period for loyal customers. A sudden surge in price can put your clients off, especially if you don’t communicate the change sensitively.

Understandably, you want to take on as many clients as possible to maximise your income. But ideally, you would have fewer excellent customers instead of many terrible ones. Defining your ideal clients will help you assess all future clients from the start, and you can refer back to these criteria when onboarding a new client.

Sometimes, freelancers can be so keen to land a new client that they ignore all the warning signs of problematic behaviour. Some red flags could include contradictions in their statements, going back on their word or bad-mouthing other small businesses. 

You could end up wasting a lot of time on customers who won’t pay you enough, create problems or affect your reputation badly. Not only could dealing with demanding customers waste your resources, but you might also be losing out on suitable projects and clients because you’re busy with the wrong ones. 

It takes time and effort to raise the quality of your services and attract better customers. Using Countingup for your bookkeeping could help you save time and focus on what’s really important for building value in your business.

Thousands of business owners are using the Countingup app to save time on their financial admin and focus on growing their business. 

Countingup is the business current account and accounting software in one app. It automates time-consuming bookkeeping admin for self-employed people across the UK.

With automatic expense categorisation, receipt capture tools and cash flow insights, you can confidently keep on top of your business finances and save yourself hours of accounting admin, so you can focus on doing what you do best. Find out more here.