How to Attract and Land Premium Clients

If you asked me what the most important skill that a business executive who wants to land and attract premium clients should be, my answer would be: Excellent Corporate Communication.

It appears too simple because all businesses communicate, however how it is done is what determines how fit premium brands would deem you.

Who are premium clients?

Premium clients are brands that choose quality over price. In my experience as a business executive that has landed and worked with some of the top global brands, here are 4 things that makes an excellent corporate communication:

1. Swift, responsive communication:

As easy as this seems, only a handful of businesses are capable of this level of professionalism. I've asked a number of our clients why they chose us, their answer was that we were the first to reply to their emails. You would never know how much difference a one-hour lapse in response time could make.

A while ago, I saw a vendor saying she was running Facebook ads for her business, and people were commenting and making inquiries about the products she was advertising. By the time she responded, they told her that someone had already replied to their DMs and they had bought from that vendor.

Swift response time gives you a competitive edge over other businesses, but most importantly it is a proof of professionalism. Personally, I have stayed with a number of service providers just because of how fast their customer service responds to my inquiries when I email them. When a service provider takes longer than 24 hours to respond to my query, I usually don't take them seriously for business.

Swift responses gives an impression that you're not understaffed because someone competent is sitting at a desk taking and attending to their queries. It makes you a trustworthy brand because if clients have any issues, they won't have to wait all day to have it resolved. They trust that within an hour, the issues are going to be resolved.

2. Clear Communication:

For example, when a customer asks a hair vendor "how much is this hair?".

There's a difference between just replying "The price is 100k," and replying: "The price is 100k. It's 14 by 14 frontal wig of 22 inches. Also available in black, brown and gold colours. If you would like to proceed with your order, you can just click here and fill out the order form. We would deliver to you within 3 days."

You didn't just anticipate their next questions, you guided them and also informed them of the features of the product so they are well informed about the value of what they're getting.

High-end clients like it when they're informed and guided from the start on the next steps and what to expect next. Clarity in communication proves that you have structure and processes, thereby reliable.

3. Professional use of grammar:

Premium brands can always tell when they're communicating with a properly educated and competent professional, or a regular hustler. These brands want competence and quality no matter the price, so they would opt only for the best.

It's important to sound professional in every tiny detail of your communication. You can rephrase your sentences with Grammarly, proofread and ensure your emails are free from typographical errors before sending.

You can't send out emails that say, "Please find attached" and then forget to include the attachment. Or insert a broken link or an inaccessible document.

I always advise that when you want to send out a very important proposal, you type it and send it to yourself first. Then wait till the next day, go to your sent emails and read it again. Make sure that the grammar, spellings and attachments are good, before you go ahead with sending it to the client.

4. Structural Branding:

Premium clients like lots of paperwork. You can't create these documents on the spot, you need to have had them already incorporated in your communication structure.

There must be documentation for every phase, because these document are going to pass through multiple departments. A service that appears as simple as hiring hostesses goes through 3 - 4 executives. Emails would be copied, documents would be forwarded, and all of these processes need documentations provided by you.

So, you're going to provide branded documents for the proposal stage, company profiling stage, quoting stage, contract stage, invoicing stage, receipt stage, and everything else inbetween.

Partly because it's a normal standard of a properly structured business, and mostly because the documents are used in their company reports.

Obviously, you'll need more than just excellent corporate communication to land and attract premium clients, but ticking these 4 boxes put you on the right path and ahead of others.