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Not All Clients Are Created Equal: The Champagne Client Matrix

• Brandi Mowles • Episode 278

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What if the reason you're exhausted, underpaid, and starting to resent your business has nothing to do with your services or your strategy and everything to do with who you're working with?

Y'all, today we're diving into the Champagne Client Matrix, one of the most eye-opening frameworks I teach inside my workshops and Strategist Society. After working with over 3,000 service providers, I've noticed that most of us are attracting the same four types of clients and depending on which ones fill your roster, you're either building toward your dream business or burning out fast.

In this episode, I'm walking you through all four client types, how to audit your current roster honestly, and what it's actually costing you to keep the wrong clients around.

In this episode we cover:

  • Why you don't have a pricing problem (and what you actually have instead)
  • The 4 client types in the Champagne Client Matrix: Bargain Bin, Golden Handcuff, Miracle Worker, and Champagne
  • The "confidence tax" that bargain bin clients charge you without you even realizing it
  • Why golden handcuff clients are the hardest to let go and what happens when you finally do
  • The telltale signs you're working with a miracle worker client (hint: you've become their therapist)
  • What makes champagne clients different and how working with them compounds your confidence and income
  • A simple roster audit you can do today to see exactly where you stand
  • Why your messaging is likely the reason champagne clients aren't finding you yet

Resources & Links Mentioned:



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NOT ALL CLIENTS ARE CREATED EQUAL: THE CHAMPAGNE CLIENT MATRIX

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Brandi: [00:00:00] What if I told you the reason you're exhausted, underpaid, and low-key starting to resent your business has nothing to do with your services, your pricing, or your strategy and everything to do with who you're working with. Y'all we're talking about the Champagne client Matrix today, and I promise you, by the time this episode is over, you're gonna look at your client roster in a completely different way.


So let's jump on in. Welcome back, my friends to the Serve Scale Soar podcast. My name is Brandi Mowles and if you are new here, welcome to the party. This podcast is where I, I help one-on-one service providers scale to consistent 20, 30 k, months while working less than 25 hours a week. And yes, it is totally.


Possible. Not only am I living proof, but the hundreds of students that we've interviewed on the podcast are proof as well. Okay, so today we're diving into something that I teach inside our workshops and inside a strategist [00:01:00] society. And honestly, it might be one of the most eye-opening things I walk people through.


It's called the Champagne Client Matrix. Here's the thing. After working with over 3000 service providers over the last seven years, I've noticed that most of us are attracting the same four types of clients, and depending on which of these four types of clients fills your roster, you're either building towards your dream business.


Or you're building towards burnout. No judgment. I've been there. I've definitely had bargain bin clients. I've had all of them. But my goal for you today is to identify what your roster looks like. So I wanna give you the framework to audit your current client roster. Identify exactly which types of clients you're working with, and for you to understand what it costs you when you keep the wrong type of clients around. So grab a pen, grab your notes, app, pull out your client roster because you're gonna wanna identify where each of your current clients are. [00:02:00] So let's jump on to this week's episode. Before we get into the actual matrix itself, I need to address something because I see this all the time, and it might be happening to you right now.


You're on a discovery call and people are saying, that's a little outta my budget. Ooh, can you work with me on your price? Or, uh, someone else is only charging 500. And what happens, you start to think you have a pricing problem. But here's the thing. You don't have a pricing problem. You have a positioning problem.


You have a messaging problem, you have a prequalification problem, but you don't have a pricing problem unless you're the one charging 500. And then you definitely have a pricing problem because if the right clients were seeing your content, you were having conversations with those and you're getting on calls.


Price wouldn't be in the conversation. So the issue isn't your rates. The issue is who you are attracting. And on top of that, how [00:03:00] many of you are working way too many hours? Like you have a full roster. You should be technically making your income goals based on how many hours and clients you're working with, but you're stinking tired.


Y'all. I run a million dollar business and work 25 to 27 hours per week in Strategist Society. We track this, our average student works 24.5 hours per week. Some of them are doing 30 and $40,000 months and working that amount of hours. So if you're working 40 hours and you're not making a million dollar business, you are working way too many stinking hours.


There is no reason for a service provider to be working 40 plus hours a week if that's you. It's either a system issue or more likely it's a client issue. That's what the Champagne client matrix helps us solve because not all clients are created equal. Some of them are costing you far more than what they're paying you.


Okay, so here's how the [00:04:00] matrix works. Think of it as a diagram with four boxes, two axis. So we have one going down the middle, then we have one going across. So we've cut our square into four equal boxes.


On one side, you have the dollars. How much are clients willing to pay you? The higher up, the more they pay, the lower the less. Then on the other axis, you have the client quality, meaning how great they are to work with, how much they respect you, how solid their business is, and when you put those two things together, you.


Four distinct types of clients, and I wanna take you through all four. And as I'm doing this, I want you to think about your clients and tell me and write it down, what type of client are they? Okay, so let's start at the bottom and listen, there is absolutely no shame if this is where your clients are.


I've been there, I've worked with them. Heck, last year I had one for a little bit and I know better. I used to work with these clients. A lot of us do, especially when we're [00:05:00] first getting started. Bargain bin clients are exactly what they sound like. They're paying you the bare minimum. We're talking 500, 1000, even $1,500.


They come to you with their ad budgets or like 300 bucks for the whole month, and you're sitting there like, what are we even doing here? These clients see you as an employee, not a strategist or an expert for that matter. You're like a glorified va. They're not paying you for your brain. They're paying you to check task off, and the truth, they see you re as replaceable.


They can get someone to do what you do for cheaper. You are gone. They think they can swap you out for someone overseas for a few hundred dollars a month, and because of that, because they don't see your value, you start to not see your value either. This is what I call the confidence tax. And friends, the confidence tax is one of the most expensive things you can be paying because when your confidence starts to deplete, it becomes harder and [00:06:00] harder and harder to land new clients, especially champagne clients.


You start to feel like you are the problem, and it's not a you problem, it's a client problem. These clients DM you on weekends. They micromanage every little thing you do. They want the whole stinging world on a shoestring budget, and they leave you busy, broke and tired If you. If you're only working with bargain bank clients, you will start to resent your business.


You will start to burn out. You will think that the business is the problem. You'll start to wonder if you should switch services entirely. One of our Strategist Society members, she came to us. When she came and she was doing web design and she was so stinking burned out and when we had our onboarding call, she was like, I'm switching to ads.


This is my problem. I was like, can you just hear me for a second? Can I just like share something? I think if. You had different clients and you weren't having these client issues, would you love building [00:07:00] web websites? And she said, yeah, I loved building websites, but like the client situations are so awful and this and that.


And I said, okay, I don't think you have a service problem. I think you have a client problem. And so she didn't switch services, she switched the type of client. So we worked on making sure she was working with champagne clients and higher pricing. And you know what? She landed a $15,000 contract at the very beginning of this year.


The service wasn't the problem the clients were, but when we have bargain bang clients, they can start to put doubt into our head as if we're even doing the right service. If we even should have a business. And it's not any of those, it's because they're a crappy client. So as you're listening, think about your roster.


Do you have any bargain bin clients right now? Write them down. Only you're gonna see it. No judgment, just honesty. Okay, so then the second type of clients are the Golden handcuff clients. So when we get into Golden Handcuff [00:08:00] clients. These. These are the sneaky ones. These are the ones that you think you actually love working with, and these are the hardest to fire because they're really fun people.


You love working with them. Heck, maybe you would become friends with them. Here's the thing about going to handcuff clients. They pay you, okay, money. Not a premium, but still good paying. And y'all are like best friends at this point. You've had 'em for a long time. Y'all vibe out. You like working together and y'all may have been laugh, grab some coffee.


They appreciate you, and you're like, Brandy, I can't get rid of them. I love them and I get it. I genuinely get it. But here's the truth about the golden handcuff clients. They will never pay you more than what they're paying you right now. Maybe peanuts more, but nothing significant to help you hit your goals because at the end of the day, they're still not paying for your brain.


They're paying for your hands. They're paying for a checklist to be done. You are replaceable. If they need to swap you [00:09:00] out, they would if you went to them and raise their prices significantly to match where you should be, they would drop you because they see you as someone who does a really good job.


But not as irreplaceable, not as a strategic partner. They're the people who will still message you on the weekends, still have little boundary crossing, and here's the big thing. You end up stuck. There is a ceiling on what you can earn from this client. The reason these are the hardest to let go is because we love them.


They're fun to work with clients. We see them as friends. One of our strategist Society members had a golden handcuff client for a really long time. She finally let them grow, and her business grew to a completely new way almost immediately. Letting go of the comfortable thing made room for the right client.


We are not in business to make friends. Yes, that is part of it. And that is we can have champagne clients that are friends, but [00:10:00] at the end of the day, you have a family to pay for. You have expenses, you maybe have debt, maybe you wanna go on vacations, you have goals and dreams and desires. And unless you got into this just so you could pal around and have BFFs.


That pay you? Like that's not what we're doing here. We have to run a business. Does that mean you can never try to convert a golden handcuff client to a champagne client? Not necessarily. Sometimes with the right conversations about scope and pricing, it can happen, but a lot of times these clients have a ceiling and they're already at it.


Okay, y'all. The next client type. Oh, this one. The miracle worker clients are the orange zone on the matrix, meaning they pay you pretty good money and way more than the golden handcuff clients did. And they do see you as a strategist. They see you as brains of the operation.


They think you're so smart, you are the expert. And that feels amazing because [00:11:00] they just gloat over you and thank you are like the best thing since sliced bread. Until they don't, because here's the catch. Their business is a hot mess express. They're always putting out fires. They're always trying. The next shiny strategy that the next coach told 'em is the hot new thing.


They're in 17 coaching groups with dozens of people in the ear. Ear, so they wanna implement every single idea that comes across the desk. One week it's a new funnel. The next week gets a new platform. This week they wanna try a new ad strategy That week they wanna do a launch. It didn't work. So heck, we're gonna completely pivot our business to a different business.


They trust you. They can't execute. Their money's inconsistent, their energy is frantic, and they're always in crisis mode. And because they see you as smart and so capable, the scope creep gets so out of hand. Hey, can you look at my funnel? Can you fix my copy? Can you review this [00:12:00] email sequence? Can you do this this weekend?


Oh, and I need this in 24 hour turnaround. Oh, and what do you think about this idea? Have you ever done a webinar? What do you think our numbers should be? You are not their strategist, you are their therapist. Does anyone have one of these? Like, be honest, I've had some of these, like lots of these, I feel like I tracked more of these type of clients with one-on-one than I do the golden handcuffs.


So, and it was funny, we were talking to a strategist society member and she was like, oh yeah. This is what I attract, and we both talked about how we are very grounded people and that that chaotic energy is attracted to us. So if you're a super bubbly and friendly person, you may be attracting a lot of the golden handcuffs.


So we have to be aware of this. And so we know the red flags to look for based on who we're actively attract, attracting.


And here's the deal. I know why these are hard to let go because they do pay really good money and they genuinely really appreciate you and hype up your ego. But [00:13:00] y'all working in that chaotic, frantic energy every day is so stinking draining. And you start to think, this is just how it is.


This is how every client runs their business. And that's not true. You are just working with the wrong clients. Okay, so this is what we're building towards. This is the green zone. These are your champagne clients, and here's what makes champagne clients different from every other type that we've talked about.


They pay a premium, full stop. They pay a premium. They have the means to invest in your services and execute what you give them. They don't spiral when one ad campaign underperforms. They don't panic during launches because they've run a solid business long enough to know that it is a long game. They respect you as an expert.


They don't micromanage. They don't need you to be their hype person or their therapist. They want your brain. They want you as the expert and then they get outta your way [00:14:00] and let you do your thing. They have boundaries not only in their own business, but when it comes to working with you. They're not sliding into your dms or texting you on a Saturday night.


They're not laid on invoices. They run their business with numbers and strategies, not emotions and chaos. And here's what I love most about champagne clients. Your confidence grows when you work with them because when someone of that caliber trusts you, invest in you and values your expertise, something shifts.


One of our strategist members, Emily, went from charging just a few hundred dollars a month to working with clients, spending 30 to $50,000 a month on ads, and she credits so much of that growth to what happened when she. Finally started working with clients who treated her like the expert She is. Her confidence grew and when your confidence grows, you charge more.


You attract a higher level client, and the whole thing compounds. That is the [00:15:00] champagne client effect. So now I want you to actually do something with this. I want you to pull out your client roster right now, even if you just had it in your head. And I want you to put by each of your clients, which of the four quadrants they're in, bargain bin, golden handcuff, miracle worker, or champagne.


And I want you to ask yourself, honestly, what would your business look like if every single client on the list was a champagne client? It'd probably look like a more predictable schedule, less time on your phone, talking people off the ledge, higher revenue, fewer clients because you're charging what you actually should be.


One of our members, Mandy, went from working with 30 clients to 40 and 50 hours a week to working with just four consulting clients at $12,000 a month and hitting $19,000 in revenue. Her new problem, she needs to find hobbies. This is the kind of problems I want you to have, and this is what happens when you start working with champagne clients.


Now, [00:16:00] here's what I also want you to know. Not every client can move to a champagne category. Some of your bar and Ben clients. Bless their hearts just aren't there in their business and they're never gonna be. And what we need to do is replace them right away and then leave them. You cannot save everyone.


The goal isn't to convert everyone to champagne clients. The goal is to phase out the clients who are draining your confidence and your capacity, and start attracting the ones who match where you are going. And the reason you may be struggling to attract champagne clients right now, your messaging probably is not speaking to them.


You're either invisible, the best kept secret in your industry, or your messaging sounds like everyone else doing the job that you're doing and is talking to those bargain bend clients.


There's nothing in your messaging that makes champagne clients stop and say, this is exactly who I'm looking for. That's a messaging problem and that's fixable. Alright, my friends, if you're sitting here right now thinking, okay, Brandy, [00:17:00] I see it. I know exactly where my clients are draining me, and I know my messaging is not calling in the right people.


I want you to know that you're not starting from scratch. You're starting from a place of an awareness and awareness is everything.


And the next step to getting your champagne messaging dialed in so the right clients find you come to you pre-qualified and are ready to pay a premium price is exactly what we teach in my chasing to chosen workshop. It's only $97 and it is gonna get your entire messaging dialed in. But not only that.


Your content and it's gonna tell you what to say and what not to say, and who to look for. This is one of our most popular workshops we've ever done with the fastest results from anyone. We had someone that joined the workshop the next day. She went on LinkedIn, updated her profile, started doing her connections with the champagne messaging, and landed three discovery calls within seven [00:18:00] days.


Y'all, this workshop I could be charging $500 for and for $97 you can get it. Go to brandimowles.com/chasing


you can find the link in the show notes or just head to brandimowles.com/chasing where you can grab that workshop. It's only $97. You get lifetime access, and not only do you get the two hour workshop, but you get two custom GPTs that are gonna do the majority of the work for you. Listen, you did not start this business to work for 50 hours a week for clients who don't value you.


You started it because you're really good at what you do and you deserve to not only work with clients that understand that, but also be compensated and paid for it. The champagne clients are out there and they're actively looking for ad managers every single day. They're looking for someone exactly like you.


We just need to make sure that they can find you. And they know that you are the one to help them. So go do your audit, be honest about your roster. [00:19:00] Go grab the from Chasing to Chosen Workshop so you can get your champagne messaging dialed in and start attracting the right clients. And until next week, my friend, go out, serve your clients, scale your business, and soar into the success you deserve.