You keep tightening your standards but the wrong clients are still getting through. What if the problem was never your boundaries? Premium clients don't show up because you had a tighter screening process or a longer list of rules. They show up because of how you lead.

In 2025 I was in multiple high ticket mentoring spaces spending thousands of pounds and I felt more disconnected than ever. Every mentor had a different rule. Don't message clients on weekends. Hold your business boundaries or you won't be seen as a leader. Be less responsive. And I found myself paralysed because none of it matched how I naturally show up.

That's when I realised something most people in the online space are getting backwards. Your premium positioning doesn't come from rigid rules you announce and enforce. It comes from your business core values being so deeply embodied that the right people feel it before they ever enquire. And the wrong ones quietly self select out.

I'm sharing the framework I call the standards action gap, why it exists, how it's quietly repelling the clients you actually want to attract, and what to do instead. Plus a story from Anna Wintour that completely shifted how I think about values driven leadership.

Topics covered on I Paid Thousands for Mentoring and It Pushed Premium Clients Away:

1. Constantly announcing your business boundaries? That's a premium positioning problem in disguise.
2. What is the standards action gap? And why does it repel premium clients?
3. What Anna Wintour and Vogue taught me about leading from your business core values instead of rigid rules.
4. One change you can make today to close the gap between who you are and the premium clients you're calling in.

Connect with Rachel:

Come say hi on Instagram │Facebook │LinkedIn

Resources from this episode:

Calibration Mastermind: https://rachelpearson.kartra.com/page/Calibration-mastermind

Related episodes you may enjoy:

Forget Your Ideal Client Profile. Your Catalyst Client Is the One Who Gets Results You Both Can't Stop Talking About [ep. #6]

[00:00:22] But I set it once. And I sometimes break those rules.

Welcome to Rich Work, the podcast for established female entrepreneurs ready to turn their expertise into premium clients and consistent high ticket revenue. I'm Rachel Pearson, global brand and business strategist, skincare obsessed and always distracted by booking the next mini break.

[00:01:02] Let's get into it. 2025 was a big shift in my business and it wasn't a huge pivot. It wasn't that I started to do a lot of new things. I did a lot less last year than I had done the year before. And it became a pivotal year because I realised there was a huge part of me that I had lost.

[00:02:01] And I was in spaces that were premium spaces, places that I was spending thousands of pounds to be in. And great mentors, great coaches.

[00:02:39] I was in those kinds of spaces. I realised that I just felt really disconnected from a lot of what was being said to the point where I wasn't really going into them with the questions around strategy and I wasn't really bringing what I could and should have been to those spaces to be able to get support.

[00:03:24] And it hit me. I felt like I couldn't do anything right. I'd go into a space and one mentor was saying make sure you have really tight boundaries. This is around leadership. Don't message your clients on a weekend. Don't be too responsive. Hold your business boundaries or you won't be seen as a leader.

I'm somebody who works really hard. I have done this throughout my career, before I moved into the online space. I really love working. I love it, and I'll work on the weekends if I want to.

[00:04:33] But I realised that I was feeling so judged for that, and this is on me that I was feeling that. But it really brought up, when we talk about standards, when we talk about these quite high level clients, what does that mean?

This is what I'm going to be talking about today. Premium client standards. Why I feel like the online space has started to get this backwards and what my viewpoint is that hopefully helps to open this discussion for you. If you are sitting there thinking, I just feel really disconnected. I know that I work at this level. I know the clients that I serve. I know that my mission in this business is really big. I want to help. I want to serve, but I'm feeling really disconnected because I'm in a box. Then this is for you.

Why Constantly Announcing Your Standards Is a Positioning Problem

[00:06:00] And it's not a surprise because particularly for women, saying no is huge, right? We are naturally nurturers, givers. We want to bring communities together. That is inherent. It's not necessarily about being a people pleaser or not. It's about who you are as a woman. And so to say no, to exclude somebody, to feel like you are letting somebody down, those are all the associations that come with saying no. So to have those guidelines in place, to be able to say this is not for me, is a huge step for a lot of women.

[00:06:49] And I can see it when somebody has a shift in their business. They've started to make more money or they want to work with a different level of client. I can see that sometimes they become this rigid being online. And I'm like, what happened to your personal brand? What happened to you? What happened to the human that's behind it?

[00:07:25] And it's important to have those in place. My belief is we do need those guidelines because it sets the expectation of how you work and for your clients as well. However, I feel like those standards should be set way before somebody puts their money down with you.

When you join my spaces, when you come into work with me, I have clear guidelines about when I'm available and when I'm not. But I set it once and I sometimes break those rules.

[00:08:32] In fact, I don't have any of those issues that I can think about. But I'm not constantly telling people what my standards are, what my boundaries are. And that's because I think the problem is that when your standards are rules that you have to keep on announcing, that's a positioning problem. That's not about boundaries or you needing to tighten them or needing to have more process. That stems from your premium positioning.

The Anna Wintour Moment That Changed How I Think About Business Core Values

I went to an event last November, so November 2025, towards the end of the year. And in all honesty, 2025 was such a tough year for me. It was really high growth for the business, but a lot of the time I was like, what is going on here? This is not the business that I really want to create. And that was when I realised that I really needed to start listening to myself more.

[00:09:53] But she was asked the question, what does leadership look like? And her answer was something I was really not expecting. I thought she would talk about leadership being about having a clear vision, being fully convicted in who you're for and what you do.

[00:10:30] She spoke about how when 9/11 happened, obviously a terrible time for New York, for the world. I remember seeing that happen. Getting back from college, switching on the news. It was just horrific.

[00:11:14] And so when 9/11 happened, the ripple impact of that was that the city stopped moving. Everything was cancelled. Events, you didn't know when they were going to happen. And so these fashion designers were facing bankruptcy. It wasn't just about Fashion Week not happening. It was, I don't have anything. I've put everything into this week and I'm facing having nothing left.

And they chose to go with their values. Vogue has always been a publication that is very focused on community building, building a community around fashion.

[00:12:31] And since then, that programme that started during that time has become the grant that has enabled fashion designers that you will know the names of now. Several of them have come through that programme.

It really stuck with me because she was talking about business core values. Yes, it was about leadership. But Vogue didn't need to go out and tell everybody, look at what we're doing. We're so great. We're supporting these designers. This is what we're doing. They didn't know what this was going to turn into. They didn't know that what started at that time was going to last 20 plus years. They just acted based on what the values of the brand represented at that time.

[00:13:18] Now, when you are looking at it being not just a magazine but a media brand, it's got to go across multiple different platforms now. But when you look at Vogue, you have a choice whether you engage with their content or not. Especially now we have so much other content out there. But you'll go to Vogue because it has that standard of community, the world of fashion, supporting up and coming designers, giving you access and insight into people that you don't know yet that they know are going to be huge. That's why you go to Vogue.

[00:13:59] And this is where, yes, this is an outside perspective of how a brand like Vogue has done it, but this is what I really relate into the business space, into the online world, into how you are expressing to your clients, your customers, about what your standards are.

[00:14:53] Shown through and felt through the decisions that you choose not to take forward or people you choose not to collaborate with. But you don't have to keep on reinforcing it all the time. It's about people seeing that from you. You show it without needing to constantly tell them. Or putting these rigid rules in place that mean people feel like they can't be in your world, they can't be in your space unless they follow this particular way.

Why Your Premium Clients Should Already Know Your Values Before They Invest

[00:15:22] And I don't think that should be a surprise. When somebody comes, invests with you and they get a set of guidelines in a welcome email and they're like, oh, I didn't think it was going to be like this. You don't want any surprises at that point.

[00:16:00] So if you are thinking right now, I feel like I'm not working with the type of people that I want to work with, or I have clients in my space that aren't matching how I know that I want to work with them. I'm not able to bring the depth of my work, or we're having the same conversations over and over again.

[00:16:45] It has to be compatible. Who you are looking to call into your spaces, who you want to work with, is compatible with how you hold yourself, how you lead yourself based on your values.

So if, for example, your value is reciprocal respect. Very obvious one to have. You naturally will attract clients who share with maturity, who have intention. And it's not because you had to screen them through three complicated forms or an application process.

[00:17:32] It's a sense check of, yeah, my client is resonating with my content. They see how I move. They get my values. There's a shared understanding here. And then the application is just a sense check for me and them. And I don't do sales calls. I hardly ever do sales calls. This is an efficiency thing for me. But it's not a, "oh, how did this happen? How did this person think that this was the right space for them?"

How to Spot the Standards Action Gap in Your Own Business

[00:18:00] Where are you tolerating that right now? And that can even be in how you are allowing those clients to even move through to an application process. Are you tolerating that because you are really not showing the depth of your values in your content? Are you tolerating it because you are holding back on speaking opinions that you really care about and share with your clients?

[00:18:46] Then tell people that. There are so many clients that I'm working with now, and I saw this come through in 2025 as well, who are successful in their business. They are making good money. They have a team. They know what they want. But they are like rabbits in headlights around making a wrong move.

[00:19:30] And then relying on "standards" as in application forms, complex screening processes, holding business boundaries when people get into spaces. You are relying on that to do the work.

[00:20:31] My mastermind. It's a six month space for women who know they're operating at a high level, but your positioning, your leadership, your pricing, your business model hasn't caught up yet. So if you have been feeling this pull, resonating with what I'm saying, there's a link in the show notes to apply to Calibration and to find out more about the space.

What Is the Standards Action Gap? And Why It Repels Premium Clients

[00:21:00] So if you say that your standard is working with conscious, mission driven women who are ready to invest in themselves, but then you are negotiating on price, or you are doubting that if you hold the price then a client might not come and work with you. That is where there is incompatibility.

[00:21:40] And none of these are about the clients that you have being bad clients, or you needing to fix something in yourself, or needing to fundamentally change the way that you work. And none of these are that your current clients are bad clients or that the people you've worked with before who haven't been the right fit are bad people.

I know, especially for the women that I work with, who are very much like, let me go and fix it. They're doers, right? They get in and they fix things.

[00:22:41] Yes, we can continue to do things to refine the process, to make sure that the way a space works, the way an offer works is really efficient. But relying on that because you don't see that the clients you're working with are the right fit? That's not the problem.

That is what premium client standards are.

How to Close the Gap and Attract Premium Clients Who Match Your Standards

So how do you start to address this? First, and it sounds so obvious, but this is usually where we have not looked at this for at least six months. What are your actual values? Not the ones that you think you should have because those are what sell, but the ones that are true for you.

[00:24:00] Being relentless as a woman is not understood. I am relentless. I always get what I want because I always make it happen. Sometimes that can take me 10 years. I will not give up.

[00:24:44] So when you look at your values, I mean, I'm not going to go out and talk about this all over my Instagram. I'm not going to say I only work with you if you are relentless. But I am going to be bringing it through in how I show up, how I share my story, and how I talk about my client results.

Second, look at where you're not living it. Where are you compromising? Where are you negotiating? Saying, I can do that another time. That can happen when I have X amount of money, X amount of clients.

[00:26:01] And then thirdly, make one change from listening to this. Make one change. I do not want you to go away and create 10 new rules. Go and rewrite your Telegram onboarding guide or your welcome sequence. That is not what this is about. Start living your values more clearly. That is what is going to magnetise the right people to you.

[00:26:55] Or it might be, I'm going to share how I fully work, including the fact that I sometimes message clients on weekends because I'm thinking about their growth.

When you lead with your values, the premium clients who match those values will find you. And the clients that don't will self select out. And that's what we want. That's what good marketing is.

And a big piece to this, which will be another episode that I'm going to drop in because it connects so well, is around your pricing.

[00:27:59] You have to recalibrate your standards, your values first, because pricing will then become an obvious change and obvious next step. The pricing will then align with everything that you're bringing.

The moment that you close that gap, the moment you start living your values instead of upholding your rules, the energy shifts. Your positioning is way more magnetic to the people that are meant to be in your work. And your pricing will become the obvious choice. It's not a justification. The pricing matches how you are showing up, how you're expressing your work, how much you are embodied in what you do.

[00:29:11] Next week I'm going into something that I think might be even more uncomfortable than what we've talked about today, which is what happens when your results have outgrown your positioning. So when you are delivering at a level but you are not being seen for it yet. That's going to be next week's episode and I will see you there.

See you next week.