Most companies don’t have a problem selling their services or products once they get an audience. If you’re a salesman who lands the appointment and can fill the prospect’s basic needs, then you’ve got a good shot at making the sale. If you’re in retail and have the leisure of customers entering your door, odds are higher that they’ll buy. Professionals who can land that initial consultation and demonstrate their product or service usually walk away with a sale – without having to compete on price alone.
If you can figure out how to do your marketing and web building the right way – so that it busts through the clutter and bridges the confidence gap – then you can easily sell your quality product at a premium price all day long…and reap huge profit margins in the process by making repeat sales. If you’re not interested in that and you’d rather just dump stuff out there for a cheap price then go ahead and do it. Prepare to be eliminated from the business world. It’s all about the marketing.
You need to uncover what your customers want. We call this your customers’ value hierarchy or discovering the most important thing to your customers. Then build your case. Prospects want to find YOU communicating the advantages of doing business with you. Emphasize solving the customers’ problems and give them what they want. Consumers won’t care what the price is…if you can solve all their problems. Obviously, you don’t want to be so outrageously priced that you’re way off in right field.
Most business owners don’t realize that price is actually one of the lowest values on the customer value hierarchy. The problem is that because of the confusion in the marketplace, customers have an extremely difficult time distinguishing who’s who and what’s what. So when all things APPEAR to be equal, they default to price. People make assumptions based on the cases built around products.
Let’s take a glimpse at something as basic as a watch. Watches wear many price tags, depending on brand and features. There’s the Armitron, which can be found at the local Quick-E-Store. It’ll set you back about $5. Then there’s the Cherokee at Target, which costs $50. There’s the Seiko at Dillard’s for around $500. People with refined tastes may spend $10,000 for a Rolex without batting an eye.
No matter which one of these watches you’re selling, you need to build a case around that product. Tell exactly why the watch you’re selling is worth the price you’re selling it for. Explain the advantages of your product and the advantages of buying it from you. Spell it out for the consumer. Break it down for them. They love that. Explain the advantages clearly and in detail – and watch your profits go up.
Spring brings April showers, blooming flowers, and growing grass. And there’s nothing more unsightly than a lawn in need of attention. Lawn care companies will be out in mowing force ready to care for your lawn. How will you distinguish between all of them? Watch out for the ones that only say, “I’m better” or “I’ve got the best customer service in the industry.” That doesn’t tell you anything – except they sound like everyone else.
Lawn care is usually a price-based business – most consumers chose a lawn care company by price. Here are some of the strategies we used to distinguish our lawn care client from their competition:
1. Our client created a landing page that read: Our Competitors Hired The Stupidest High School Dropout They Could Find To Mow Your Lawn with a sub-headline that read But At Smith Lawn Care Services We Don’t Do Business That Way. Also included on the sign was an offer for a FREE report and the top 10 questions to ask before you let anyone on your property. 2. Then our client set up a web form capturing the name, phone number, and e-mail address of each person requesting information.
The results were overwhelming. Smith Lawn Care Services received an overwhelming conversion rate of 20%. The leads were further qualified so as to focus our targets on clients can actually pay.
Our experts at Chhlin are available to you when you need help differentiating yourself from your competition and competing on value. That’s what we do. And we love watching our strategies work in the real world.
Of course, all businesses are not created equal and you probably know right now what makes you the better value. It just happens to be extremely difficult to get your prospects to want to listen. And it’s even more difficult to differentiate exactly what, specifically why, and expressly how you are better. And then it’s next to impossible to explain the incredible features, the overwhelming benefits, and the uncommon advantages you provide to them. That’s why developing an Articulated Sales Argument will separate you from all your competitors and make you the obvious choice…regardless of price.
