What Repels Premium-Fee Clients [Without You Realizing It] (Episode 58)
If you’ve been raising your fees—or want to—but your inquiries don’t reflect it, this episode is going to feel like a necessary reset.
Premium-fee clients aren’t “better” clients. They’re not more deserving. But they do make decisions differently. And if your website is still written for someone who’s debating whether therapy is worth it… you may be unintentionally repelling the very clients who are ready to invest.
In this episode, I’m breaking down the subtle messaging shifts that separate “shopping” inquiries from “choosing” inquiries. Because the clients who are prepared to pay $200, $300, $400+ per session aren’t asking, Should I go to therapy? They’ve already decided. They’re asking: Who is the right expert for me?
When your website aligns with that mindset, everything changes.
Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:
1️⃣ The key difference between “shopping” and “choosing” inquiries—and how to position your website for clients who are ready to choose.
2️⃣ Four subtle messaging mistakes that quietly repel premium-fee clients (even when your intentions are good).
3️⃣ How to shift your website from convincing people therapy works to confidently showing why you are the right fit.
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Hey there. Welcome back to Marketing Therapy. If you're trying to attract premium fee clients in this market, your marketing has one job and one job only, and that is to make you the obvious choice for them. Now before we get into this episode, I do want to note that as I prepare for maternity leave the number of spots available to work with us in a done-for-you capacity are limited.
So if you are seeking expert led, industry leading therapist specific support. When it comes to writing and or designing your website, now is the time to be reaching out. You can schedule a free discovery session with me at walkerstrategyco.com/services. My calendar will be closing at the end of March, and we will not be booking new projects until the summertime.
So if this is something that you have been. Interested in. If you are looking to elevate your online presence and really bring in those premium fee clients, then perhaps one of those project slots is yours. Alright, now let's get into it. Premium fee Clients. You've heard me talk a lot recently about the fact that in general, client behavior has changed.
We're all different than we were 3, 5, 10 years ago, right? And when we look at who is paying premium fees, who is interested in dishing out 200, 300, $400 plus per session, there are some indicators, there are some qualities, there are some characteristics of those clients. Now let me be very, very clear that the quality of the therapy you are providing, the quality of them as a human.
Absolutely no different than if they are using their insurance or paying on a sliding scale. That's not what I'm talking about here. What I am talking about in this episode is the mindset and the approach that clients who are prepared to pay your fee have about therapy and how your marketing can meet them there.
Okay? Now there are two types of therapy inquiries, and I hear this from y'all. There are two types. One is shopping, one is looking around, one is talking to this therapist and that the other is choosing. Let me say that again. There are two types of therapy inquiries.
One is shopping, the other is choosing. I want you to attract clients who are choosing you, not shopping around. That is not to say that you're gonna get on every single consult and people are gonna be a hundred percent sold on you every single time, and people should engage in multiple consultations with clinicians if they need to,
but I would love to see you attracting more people who call and say, I've been looking and looking and looking, and I know you're the therapist that I want. That's what I want for you, and that's what we're talking about here today. Now, here's the important thing to know. Clients who are willing to pay a premium fee are not asking, Hmm, should I go to therapy?
Should I invest in this? I wonder if this would be helpful. They've already decided therapy is worth it. They already value it. That decision has been made. So when they are looking for a therapist, they're asking one question, who is the right expert for me? If your website and your online presence is written and positioned in such a way that you are convincing someone therapy works or that they need it, then you're speaking to the wrong mindset here.
So let's look in this episode at what your clients are scanning for on your website and what to change so that that website can really start pre-qualifying people instead of inviting the shoppers. Again, not that there's anything wrong with the shoppers, but I want to see you attracting more of the choosers.
So the old assumption. It has often been that marketing is about convincing someone to do therapy, convincing someone you can help, convincing someone this is the right next step. But in this new reality and in this premium fee market, this is about showing the right client that you are their person.
Okay? That's the shift here. Premium fee. Clients already believe therapy is an investment. They already know it's expensive, quote unquote. However, we measure that they're not warming up to this idea. They're prepared so when they decide that you're the therapist for them, it's because they see your expertise, they feel the fit.
They've started to cultivate some trust in you. They get the sense that you see them very, very quickly, that you're an expert in the areas that they're looking for. So attracting premium fee clients, we talk about this often, but you're not trying to be everyone's therapist here. You're trying to be the obvious choice for the right person.
Specificity right now is your absolute greatest asset. It is your greatest asset when it comes to standing out to these clients.
Let's look at the two mindsets of people as they make decisions about therapists. And one of them was more prevalent a few years ago, so if we think about, we'll call it the pandemic mindset. The energy around that was very urgent. It was reactive. People were looking for immediate relief, like they needed a bandaid on the bleeding wound right now.
So they were making decisions based on availability, based on cost, based on how fast can we start? Do you have room for me? You can hear the urgency there, right? So they were comparing multiple therapists at once. They were reducing the decision down to logistics. Is this person available? Can I afford them?
Is this sort of what I need? They're skimming for openings. They're looking for proof that you can do sort of what you say you can do. Okay. Do you hear the urgency? Then? We have the premium fee mindset, and this is where we've seen it shift to when studying full fee. Clinicians that have continued to be successful post pandemic, because that was very much the energy.
In 20 20, 20 21, I would say up to 2023. Now we've shifted into a new era, and so the clinicians who are continuing to be successful in the premium fee space in particular, they're speaking to a different type of client. This client has a different energy about them that is calm, that is intentional.
That is long term. Now, that's not to say that you can't be a premium fee clinician and meet people who have very, very urgent or deeply felt needs. Absolutely not. Because at the end of the day, we still need to meet a deeply felt need. But the energy. That these clients are coming to the therapy shopping experience with is a lot different.
They already expect to invest their time, their money, their emotional effort, right? You love working with those motivated, insightful, ready to do the work. Clients, they have that energy about them, so they are making decisions not based on availability, not based on do you seem like you know what you're doing, but on fit on specialization.
On approach on does this person seem like they would actually see and understand me? Do they specialize in the very specific challenges I am facing? So their decision making criteria is fundamentally different than the pandemic mindset. So on websites and in your marketing, they're reading things more closely.
They're looking for signals of expertise, of specificity, of experience that are gonna match the level of investment they are prepared to make. They wanna have that feeling of like, oh, that's exactly what I've been trying to put words to, or that's exactly what I've been looking for. That's the experience that they're seeking.
And so this shows up in your inquiries when you hear things like, your website spoke to me, or I looked at 10 other therapist websites and I chose yours because of the way it made me feel and what it said. Or, I've been looking for someone who specializes in this. What's your process? What's the next step?
There's a motivation. Urgency, yes. But the energy is different. So if you want more of that second type of inquiry, your website has to be built for how those clients are deciding now.
We are seeing more and more how your website dictates your ability to command hire fees, to establish yourself as an expert and as a go-to in your niche or in your local area. Your website's job is to convey the professionalism and drive the perception that your clients have of you, because you can be a fantastic therapist, but if your website doesn't go before you and set that expectation, then your clients keep looking.
That's the risk here, but also the opportunity. If your website can do its job,
your website is telling on you one way or another. It's either telling on you that you are a therapist offering a fantastic premium level boutique experience who deeply specializes in the needs of your clients or that you're more of a generalist now we know that regardless of the premium fee mindset or the pandemic mindset, that people are making fast and gut level decisions about you when they land on your website. Studies actually show us we have less than a half second to make a positive impression. It's one of the reasons design matters so much more today than it used to, but premium fee clients are making a gut level decision about does this person feel like an expert?
Do they feel specialized? Does this match the experience that I expect to have in therapy, in the investment I plan to make? Right? They're seeking out these signals. And so your website has to communicate specificity. Again, you're not for everyone. The most successful practices right now are exclusive.
They are very comfortable with being the right fit for some clients and the wrong fit for others. Confidence. You're leading, not pleading for inquiries. You are showing up in your marketing as the clinician you want to be and competence. You know what it is that you specialize in? You claim that expertise, and there's a heir of authority in how you present yourself that makes you immediately trustworthy.
Because these clients, again, they're not hunting for the cheapest option. That's not the criteria by which they are deciding who they're gonna work with. They are trying to reduce risk. They are looking for fit, and your job is to make that decision feel obvious to them. That's the job of your website.
So here are a few mistakes that I sometimes see clinicians make and that we are really, really mindful of. Of course, when we are supporting clinicians and done for you and what our students in Confident Copy learn to avoid as well. The first mistake is attempting to actually sell therapy. So long explanations of why therapy matters, as if the client doesn't already know, or really broad sweeping education that could really apply to anyone about why therapy matters or what it can do.
Now, this backfires because again, premium clients don't need to be convinced that they wanna go to therapy or that it can work, and so it can make you sound like a more of a generalist. As opposed to a specialist. So as you are approaching your website, I want you to write as if you are assuming that they're already bought in.
They already know they need this speak, like the guide that they're searching for, the person who's gonna lead them to the change that they're wanting, not convincing them that they need a guide to begin with. This is focusing more on why you, on what you bring to the table and how you work and displaying your level of understanding as opposed to convincing them that this is something that they need.
You don't have to make the argument for therapy in your marketing, okay? This is about making the argument that you are the right therapist for them, and that shift is serious. When you make that shift, that shift is huge. Okay, the next one. Is over emphasizing pain points. Now, if you've been in Confident copy, you say, Anna, what about the empathy blocks?
Or if you've seen us write copy, we are acknowledging the pain points. Absolutely, because your clients premium fee or pandemic or whoever are still coming motivated by challenges in their lives. But when we overemphasize them, it can sort of create a desperation energy, even when we don't mean to.
Sometimes I'll land on a therapist website who. Has had their website live for a long time, and man, I scroll for days on that homepage, just painting this dire picture of what the client is experiencing. 27 ways your life is falling apart right now. Empathy is all about displaying a level of understanding.
That's why we have to acknowledge these pain points, but when we do it too much, then we end up leading them back into the spiral that they're trying to get out of. So there's a balance here in naming the experience that brings your clients to you very, very clearly. But doing it maturely, doing it with nuance, displaying enough as we call stickiness for someone to be like, oh, you're in my head.
Or, oh, I had that thought last night at 2:00 AM but not so much so that we are assuming that they lack self-awareness or complexity. Right. So we're not catastrophizing on your website. We are acknowledging, we are displaying understanding, but we're not inviting them back into the pain that's led them here.
And that's a balance, a really, really fine one. The third one is making. The tangible elements of your work, the center of your client's decision. Now again, there's a balance here and it, this is fundamentally about knowing what it is that your clients need and are seeking out of therapy. If you do very, very structured therapy with a very clear process, maybe you have a framework you use, or it's a concentrated timeline, we need to be focusing on that.
If you offer intensives, for instance, we've gotta share about the process. But again, premium clients aren't likely to base. Their decision on the number of sessions, oh, well this therapist said I only have to come to 12 sessions, and this one said 16. That's probably not why they're gonna choose you, right?
They're choosing based on the kind of change they want to experience on the experience they're gonna have with you and on your ability to lead them there. And so there's absolutely some expectation setting that needs to happen in your website. We're actually gonna talk about that in next week's episode when we talk about the about page.
But we wanna even further emphasize outcomes and transformation because at the end of the day, that is what they're motivated by. If you're gonna tell me that I'm gonna be able to stop bending over backwards for everyone else to put my own needs first and to feel better in my relationships the way we get there, whether it's 16 sessions or there's lots of structured tools, or you, I get worksheets or I don't, doesn't matter as much to me.
So again, making sure that we are highlighting and most heavily emphasizing those outcomes and transformation is what's going to invite someone to actually see the future that they're motivated by when deciding who to work with. This is also about being able to share your approach without the jargon and sharing about what you bring to the room, why you're really good at what you do, the process that you take people through.
That's hard. It's one of our favorite things to translate in our done for you clients and to hear from clients like, oh, I've never been able to say the way that I work that way before is one of the coolest compliments we get. But you do need to find a way to share about the way that you work, because clients will evaluate.
You based on that, without leaning into the clinical space where their eyes glaze over and they miss it entirely. It's about showing what it's like to work with you in your language, that process at a higher level so that people, again, are understanding how we're gonna get there, but at the end of the day, are most motivated by where you're going to get them.
Because they're not here paying for sessions. They're paying for the shift, those sessions are going to lead to, okay.
All right. The last mistake I sometimes see clinicians make is speaking to hesitation instead of readiness, as I mentioned earlier, I want you to assume you already have buy-in. I want you to speak to the client who already knows they're gonna do this and is just deciding are you it or is the next therapist it. Okay. So speaking to readiness in your marketing, again, premium fee clients are not on the fence about whether or not they need this.
They're not debating whether they are bad enough. They're not being dragged into it or coerced. They're there, but a lot of therapist websites are written to someone who's still hesitating. You don't have to do this alone. It's okay to reach out, stop struggling in silence. These are all good things to say and sometimes people need to hear it.
That language is compassionate, but it's also speaking to someone who is still wrestling with the decision to start therapy at all, and we wanna be avoiding that energy in your marketing. Premium clients are more in that readiness energy. They've probably thought about this for months. They've probably been to therapy before.
Talked about it with friends, budgeted for it, right? They have the resources. They're not asking, should I get help? They're asking who is the right therapist for me. So if your website over overemphasizes hesitation, then it subtly lowers the level of that conversation. So instead of trying to push someone over the edge into therapy, speak to the person who's already stepped forward and is now just deciding, are you it or is it someone else?
Assume that they know that they want depth, that they value expertise, that they're choosing carefully. Not about convincing, but about showing them that you are the right choice. This is all very, very subtle, but these are the types of things that a premium fee client is going to be looking for. That's what's gonna help them feel like you are speaking to me because of the place that they themselves are at.
All of these mistakes come fundamentally from two things. One, you knowing the work that you do very, very well, what you bring to the table that others do not, and two, where your client finds themself, what their mindset is, what it is that they are motivated by, and what type of experience they're seeking out of therapy.
It can be tempting to feel like you need to generalize your copy a little bit or generalize your marketing, or stay broad or stay open. But like I said, specificity right now is your greatest asset, especially when we consider the mindset of people who are deciding to pay premium fees for therapy in this market and in this economy.
Now premium fee clients are coming to you with a desire to relieve symptoms. Absolutely right. I had the big blow up with my spouse last night, or I snapped at my kids for the thousand the time and I feel horrible about it, or a big life change happened and I am completely at a crossroads in my life.
Whatever it is, they're coming to you with a. Desire to reduce the discomfort they're in right now. But what they're often really signing up for is the deeper stuff. It's the ability to trust themselves. Again. It's the desire to feel steady in their lives in a way that they haven't in years or maybe ever.
It's to have better relationships and to stop attracting the wrong partner over and over and over again. It's to free themselves from the pattern that they keep seeing themselves fall into and. So when people are coming to you wanting to relieve anxiety, for instance, if you're ideal client, that is their primary challenge, they're here ultimately because they wanna stop living.
Like everything is about to fall apart and to stop waiting for the next shoe to drop, right? Or if I'm coming to you and I'm so frustrated with a pattern of people pleasing that I can't get out of, really what they want is to be able to say what they mean and not feel bad about it. If you work with couples, they're not just coming in because they keep fighting.
They're coming in 'cause they wanna feel like a team again. They wanna remember why they fell in love. Your website's job is to speak to this deeper desire to help these clients feel seen. So they're stopped in their tracks and they say, oh yes, that is what I'm looking for. Symptom relief, yes, but ultimately that deeper change.
So here's some questions you can ask yourself as you're looking at your website and wondering, am I aligning to the mindset of a premium fee client? One, does my website assume that my client already values therapy or does it read like I'm trying to convince them? Two, do I sound specialized? Or could this copy be pasted onto 50 other therapist sites that one can hurt?
Could I take your copy and put it elsewhere and it still fit? If so, then we have some opportunity for specificity. Do I sound like a guide, an expert with a clear approach, or like someone who's just hoping they'll be picked.
If a premium client landed here, would they feel like this is it, or This is fine.
Fine isn't cutting it right now for these premium fee clients, we need to be making you the destination for the symptom relief, but ultimately that deeper transformation that your clients are motivated by and are interested in investing in. Now, as I mentioned, if you're sitting here thinking, okay, I get it, Anna, I do not wanna be the one rewriting this, or I don't know where to start.
Or I don't know what is wrong or I don't have a website yet, but I know I wanna do this. Right. That's why we offer our done for You services. This is about creating websites that don't just look good, 'cause Pretty doesn't book sessions, but that actually does some pre-qualifying, right? I was talking to a potential done for you client yesterday in a discovery session, and she asked what types of feedback we get from our clients after they launch their sites.
And one of the best ones is how good the fit is. So after we launch their new website, they're getting on conversations with people who are perfect for them, who are quoting their website back to them because their website is doing that filtering. It's speaking to the energy and the mindset of their ideal client and also blessing and releasing those who are not the right fit for them.
So it's about creating a website that goes before you, that's priming your clients for your high price point. And really elevating the way that you are perceived by them matching the experience that they're seeking. The goal of the websites we create is to make premium fee clients feel like finally, this is what I've been looking for.
That's what we love to do for you. Like I said, you can get all the details about our done for you services@walkerstrategycode.com slash services. Grab one of my remaining discovery session slots before maternity leave begins. If you're sitting here and you're like, Anna, I'm not ready for that, or I wanna learn what's going wrong, I wanna dig more deeply into this.
We just released our Clear website, full Caseload Workshop on Demand, so this is our most popular workshop we've ever ran. It was available live earlier this year and now is available for you to watch whenever you'd like, and it's about diving more deeply into the mistakes that many clinicians are making on their website that are keeping them from attracting those premium fee clients.
So if you want more of a show me how to do it, show me how to fix it experience, then the clear website full caseload would be awesome for you. You can dive right in, totally free on demand, as I mentioned, Walker strategy code.com/cwf. C Clear website, full caseload, CWFC, and jump right in. Watch that. Start taking notes.
Like I said, we go even more deeply into what those mistakes are and how you can be making the shifts on your existing website. Now remember, premium fee clients in this market do not need convincing. They need to be shown that you are the obvious next step for them. Your marketing's job, your website's job especially, is to show them that you are that person.
You don't have to sell therapy, but you do have to establish yourself as the expert to speak to that deeper desire and to lead like the guide that you are who can help your best fit clients experience the life change that they are seeking. You've got it in you.
I believe in you, and I'll see you in our next episode. Okay.
Resources & Links Mentioned:
The Walker Strategy Co website: https://walkerstrategyco.com
Done-for-you website copy + design services (limited availability before maternity leave): https://walkerstrategyco.com/services
Confident Copy (step-by-step website + PT copy program): https://walkerstrategyco.com/cc
Clear Website, Full Caseload workshop:https://walkerstrategyco.com/cwfc
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About Marketing Therapy
Marketing Therapy is the podcast where therapists learn how to market their private practices without burnout, self-doubt, or sleazy tactics. Hosted by Anna Walker—marketing coach, strategist, and founder of Walker Strategy Co—each episode brings you clear, grounded advice to help you attract the right-fit, full-fee clients and grow a practice you feel proud of.
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