{"id":8107,"date":"2026-05-02T05:32:06","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T09:32:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/data-mania.com\/blog\/?p=8107"},"modified":"2026-05-02T05:32:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T09:32:06","slug":"data-entrepreneur-how-to-sign-high-paying-clients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/data-entrepreneur-how-to-sign-high-paying-clients\/","title":{"rendered":"Data Entrepreneur: How to Sign High-Paying Clients"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wondering how to sign high-paying clients in your data business? Newer data entrepreneurs are always looking for better ways to get high-paying clients sign up for their businesses, so if you\u2019re one of them, then this article is for you!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BTFnkghunps\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>YouTube URL: <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/BTFnkghunps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/youtu.be\/BTFnkghunps<\/a><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you prefer to read instead of watch then, read on&#8230;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ve produced an updated and greatly expanded version of this blog post. For the best version of this content, we recommend you <a href=\"http:\/\/data-mania.com\/blog\/5-essential-customer-acquisition-pillars-for-scoring-high-ticket-sales-in-your-tech-startup\/\">read this updated, improved version instead post instead<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In case you\u2019re wondering why I\u2019m qualified to talk about this topic\u2026 I\u2019ve been a data entrepreneur since 2012 and after serving 10% of Fortune 100 companies from within my own data business, I started coaching other new data entrepreneurs on how to hit 6-figures FAST.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2b50<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">10% of my mentorship clients have land <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">6-figure <\/span><b>CONTRACTS<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> w\/in the first 7 months of signing up with me<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My name is <\/span><a href=\"mailto:lillian@data-mania.com\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lillian Pierson<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and I support data professionals to become world-class data leaders and entrepreneurs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We are going to talk about how to sign high-paying clients for your data business, yes, BUT FIRST, let\u2019s discuss&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>\u201cWhat qualifies as \u201chigh-pay\u201d in the small data business sector?\u201d<\/b><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Data Implementation Services &#8211; $300 per hour<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Data Leadership Services &#8211; $500 per hour<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Data Products** &#8211; $1000 per hour of your time invested<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">** Products can usually be scaled so they don\u2019t actually require 1 customer to pay a lot of money, but you\u2019re still able to earn a pretty decent return on investment for the time you spent on those products\u2026I will cover this in more detail later on in this article.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>What is required of you (for someone to be willing to pay a lot of money)?<\/b><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Necessity<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Uniqueness<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Trust<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote>\n<h4><b>So to answer the question on how you can sign more high-paying clients into your data business, we need to address what actions you can take in order to build up necessity, uniqueness and trust.\u00a0<\/b><\/h4>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How to Establish Necessity<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You need to make sure that your customers need whatever it is that you sell &#8211; either products or services. It can\u2019t be just one of these things that\u2019s nice to have &#8211; it really needs to be something that solves a problem for them and that it is an urgent necessity that will require them to actually make that purchase.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b><i>How do you make sure that what you sell is needed?<\/i><\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You need to <\/span><b>do market research<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to identify the huge gaping whole in the market that you have the expertise to fill. Look on job boards, freelance marketplaces, look inside FBGs, Quora or anywhere else where people are reaching out for help on your area of expertise. By looking at how people are asking for help in terms of job postings or questions, you can get a pretty good idea at their level of urgency and you can also see the degree of saturation in terms of other data professionals filling those requirements.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-9537 lazyload\" data-src=\"http:\/\/data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/high-demand-and-low-supply-300x300.png\" alt=\"high necessity and low supply\" width=\"348\" height=\"348\" data-pin-nopin=\"true\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/high-demand-and-low-supply-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/high-demand-and-low-supply-1024x1024.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/high-demand-and-low-supply-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/high-demand-and-low-supply-768x768.png 768w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/high-demand-and-low-supply-90x90.png 90w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/high-demand-and-low-supply-600x600.png 600w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/high-demand-and-low-supply-649x649.png 649w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/high-demand-and-low-supply.png 1080w\" data-sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 348px) 100vw, 348px\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 348px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 348\/348;\" \/><\/h4>\n<blockquote>\n<p><b>I\u2019d love to hear from you in the comments! Please share with the community about what you currently sell in your data business and who you serve.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How to Cultivate Uniqueness<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There must be some topics, sub-disciplines, specialties or offers in the data space that you are SUPER SICK of hearing everyone else talk about. So what I want you to do is stop and DO NOT DO what they are doing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For example, \u201cdata storytelling\u201d is super popular right now. It would not be a good time to start a course and teach data storytelling to other data professionals &#8211; just because everyone else is already doing it &#8211; it\u2019s definitely not unique.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What you could do however, is take those \u201cdata storytelling\u201d skills and turn them into a unique client avatar &#8211; a very specific class of professionals who really need that type of help! For example: Healthcare Leaders, Marketing Leaders, and so many more.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And where can you identify who needs that type of help: <\/span><b>MARKET RESEARCH<\/b><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How to Build Trust<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are quite a few ways that you can build trust with prospective customers. Some of them are:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Offer low price, quick win products or services<br \/>\n<\/b><b><\/b>Something that they can dip their toe in the water to see what kind of results you can generate for them and then they know they want to keep working with you<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Word-of-mouth referrals<br \/>\n<\/b>If you have people that you have worked with in the past, even if it\u2019s in an employment environment, and they recommend you for the transformation you made in their business, then it\u2019s gonna be a lot more likely that their colleagues will trust you as well and make that purchase from you.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Credibility<br \/>\n<\/b>Another way to build trust is the external show of credibility factors. Yes, of course degrees and certificates are great, but in all honesty in the business world, no one cares that much about your degree unless you went to MIT, Harvard, Stanford or something like that. The big thing really is testimonials &#8211; if you can get results for people and show those results as proof and evidence of your ability to get results for more people &#8211; that\u2019s going to be one of the things that really helps potential clients trust you.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Long-term relationship-building<br \/>\n<\/b>This usually requires you to have a website, email list, content strategy, etc. &#8211; this is the long game. This is you showing up day after day, week after week, year after year, and continually giving value and contributing and helping your community. These are the types of things that build trust in the long term with your community members and prospective clients.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you\u2019re like most data entrepreneurs, then you\u2019re selling your time for less than $300 per hour \u2013 which is a huge mistake. That\u2019s why I did <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/data-mania.com\/blog\/consulting-rates-for-online-data-analytics-services-in-2021-in-western-economies-charge-300-hour\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">this video on how to do Data Consulting at &gt;$300\/hour.<\/span><\/a> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Be sure to <a href=\"http:\/\/data-mania.com\/blog\/consulting-rates-for-online-data-analytics-services-in-2021-in-western-economies-charge-300-hour\/\">check it out<\/a>!<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What to sell to maximize your chance of signing high-paying clients?<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-9538 lazyload\" data-src=\"http:\/\/data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/List-of-data-services-1024x1024.png\" alt=\"in-demand data services to offer\" width=\"491\" height=\"490\" data-pin-nopin=\"true\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/List-of-data-services-1024x1024.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/List-of-data-services-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/List-of-data-services-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/List-of-data-services-768x768.png 768w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/List-of-data-services-90x90.png 90w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/List-of-data-services-600x600.png 600w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/List-of-data-services-649x649.png 649w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/List-of-data-services.png 1080w\" data-sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 491px) 100vw, 491px\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 491px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 491\/490;\" \/><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I put together a list of products and services you can offer to increase your chances of signing high-paying clients. These <\/span><b>services <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">include:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Starter Audit<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Data Strategy Services<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Data Cleaning Services<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Machine Learning Model Building Services<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Data Visualization Services<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Data Pipeline Services<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Custom Chatbot Services<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Basically any data skill you provide to an employer can be repurposed into a high-ticket package and sold on the open market to start-ups or to anyone who is looking to hire freelancers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In terms of what <\/span><b>products <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">you can sell:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Books<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Course<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Plug-n-Play Dashboard<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SaaS Trial Version<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is an almost an infinite combination of ways to sell your data expertise as products and services that high-paying customers want to buy. The trick to actually signing high-paying customers is to <strong>make sure that what you\u2019re trying to sell them is actually what they WANT and NEED<\/strong>. To do this, try surveying and interviewing people that belong to your customer demographic \u2013 so you can hear from them about what they really need and in what format they want that need met.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-11533 lazyload\" data-src=\"http:\/\/data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/How-to-Sign-High-Paying-Clients-683x1024.png\" alt=\"How to Sign High-Paying Clients\" width=\"300\" height=\"450\" data-pin-title=\"Data Entrepreneur: How to Sign High-Paying Clients\" data-pin-description=\"Wanna learn how to make $300+\/hour as a data entrepreneur?\ud83e\udd11 I\u2019m dishing out all my biggest secrets for how to secure HIGH-PAYING DATA CLIENTS. #DataScience #DeepLearning | http:\/\/data-mania.com\/blog\/data-entrepreneur-how-to-sign-high-paying-clients\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/How-to-Sign-High-Paying-Clients-683x1024.png 683w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/How-to-Sign-High-Paying-Clients-200x300.png 200w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/How-to-Sign-High-Paying-Clients-768x1152.png 768w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/How-to-Sign-High-Paying-Clients-60x90.png 60w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/How-to-Sign-High-Paying-Clients-533x800.png 533w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/How-to-Sign-High-Paying-Clients-433x649.png 433w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/How-to-Sign-High-Paying-Clients.png 1000w\" data-sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/450;\" \/><em><strong>Let me illustrate with that data storytelling example\u2026<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you speak to most healthcare leaders who want to spend money to get their data storytelling needs met\u2026most of them that have a decent budget will NOT want to buy a course or a book on the topic. This is because this is something that will require their time to read and put themselves together. They will just want to pay someone a fair rate to come in and serve up a data storytelling solution on a silver platter for them. This will make it easy for them to take the credit for the quick win. So in this case, you\u2019d sell a data visualization service package \u2013 not a book nor a course.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><em>For Data Entrepreneurs&#8230;<\/em><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you\u2019re digging this convo on how data entrepreneurs can sign high-paying clients for their business, then I know you\u2019re going to love my <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/data-entrepreneur-toolkit\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">FREE Data Entrepreneur\u2019s Toolkit<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s an ensemble of all of the very best, most efficient tools in the market. I\u2019ve discovered these tools after 9 years of research and development. A side note on this, many of them are free, or at least free to get started. And they have such powerful results in terms of growing your business. These are actually the tools we use in my own business to hit the multiple 6-figure annual revenue mark.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><a href=\"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/data-entrepreneur-toolkit\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Download the Toolkit for $0 here.<\/span><\/a><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You may also love it inside our <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/data.leaders.and.entrepreneurs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Data Leader and Entrepreneur Community on Facebook<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. It\u2019s chalked full of some of the internet\u2019s most up-and-coming data leaders and entrepreneurs who\u2019ve come together to inspire and uplift one another.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/data.leaders.and.entrepreneurs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Join our community here<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hey! If you liked this post, I\u2019d really appreciate it if you\u2019d share the love with your peers! Share it on your favorite social network by clicking on one of the share buttons below!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">NOTE: This description contains affiliate links that allow you to find the items mentioned in this article and support the channel at no cost to you. While this blog may earn minimal sums when the reader uses the links, the reader is in NO WAY obligated to use these links. Thank you for your support!<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<p><em>Building a B2B startup growth engine? See how <a href=\"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/fractional-cmo-services\/\"><strong>Lillian Pierson works as a fractional CMO<\/strong><\/a> for tech startups navigating GTM, AI, and scale.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wondering how to sign high-paying clients in your data business? Newer data entrepreneurs are always looking for better ways to get high-paying clients sign up for their businesses, so if you\u2019re one of them, then this article is for you! YouTube URL: https:\/\/youtu.be\/BTFnkghunps If you prefer to read instead of watch then, read on&#8230; We&#8217;ve [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8111,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"","tag":"0"},"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[582],"tags":[474,475],"class_list":["post-8107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-startups","tag-data-entrepreneur","tag-how-to-sign-high-paying-clients","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8107"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20186,"href":"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8107\/revisions\/20186"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}