How Much Would You Charge To Go Exclusive With Just One Client?

Yesterday’s share, about why entrepreneurs should pay high-volume team members and employees MORE instead of squeezing them for discounts, hit at least one nerve.

One of our readers e-mailed us with a story that sort of dovetails with our share.

See, our reader has a diverse client base, and pays close attention to her ratios so that no one client becomes too many slices of the pie.

But she has this one client – a client she loves – who would love to become the WHOLE pie.

As in, the only client.

In a discussion thread about this very topic (how much would would someone need to pay you to be your only client), she named her price – the price she had given that client: $5 million dollars to “go exclusive”, suspend all her other business operations and marketing, terminate her other clients, etc, for a 1-year period.

Of course, there was this one guy in the thread who didn’t get it.  He thought he’d be a big tough guy and write something like “And just what on earth do you do that’s so amazing someone would pay $5 million for it?”

Aside from him totally missing the point of the thread, he had to be a jerk besides.

So,

She Ignored His Comment, Even While Responding To Others. (And Everyone Else Ignored Him Too.)

Here’s the point Mr. Gloomy Gus Negative Nellie Keyboard Action Hero missed, that everyone else on the thread understood perfectly.

Our reader calculated the LIFETIME impact of firing all her clients except one, doing no marketing, and putting all her eggs in one basket for an entire year. She had questions to answer, including:

• How much would she lose from firing her other clients – not only in revenue, but goodwill and an industry perception of reliability and continuity?
• How much would she lose from having zero clients at the end of the year and having to start from scratch?
• What if this one client she went exclusive with, died or became incapacitated?
• What would life be like – having only one client would make her a de facto employee – it’s not like she’d have other clients as leverage if she wanted to choose her own working hours or vacation. (Think about how that could be a big step backward.)
• From losing a full year of business and marketing growth, how much would her long-term business growth curve be offset?

Having done some research, calculating, and guesstimating, she came up with a round number of $5 million dollars to make it worth her while.

She presented this to her client, who said they’d work on it.

YOUR “Go Exclusive” Rate Is Something To Pay Close Attention To

After all, it places a measurable dollar value on your life value, your business value, and what you see as your long-range goals for success.

Whether it’s $5 million, $50 million, or $50 BILLION – it is what it is.

The only thing stopping you, slowing you down, or holding you back from attaining yours, is how you spend that same 24 hours everyone else has.

We bet the snarky loudmouth on that discussion thread has time to nitpick complete strangers because no one’s looking to hire him exclusive.

Hey, that’s how we see it.