Are you struggling to get noticed by great prospective customers? Are you attracting too many price-sensitive enquiries? If so, you’re not alone. This easy to fix issue is one of the most common in marketing.

Easy to fix?

Yes. We know exactly why it happens and how to fix it.

Here’s what you need to know, along with 10 examples to get you started.

Here’s why the problem happens

When competing products or services seem similar, price becomes the obvious way to determine value. As such, there’s little, if any, motivation for someone to pay more. In this common scenario, the lowest price looks like the best deal.

Sure, they “may” go for the 2nd or 3rd lowest price, hoping to insulate themselves from scammers or low quality goods or services. The key thing is that at this point, they’re price shopping. And you’re now competing on price.

Here’s how to fix it (including examples)

A proven way to totally overcome this problem, is through developing something I call meaningful value.

Meaningful value is when you take what the marketplace expects from someone in your industry, and then improve upon it in a radical, meaningful way.

By default, any product or service with meaningful value has to be radically different from what’s expected. That’s what gives it meaning and elevates it from being average. This automatically places you in a unique position.

A position, where everyone is talking about you.

A position where a growing number of people know your name or the name of your business.

A position, where you’re no longer competing on price, because your offering has no comparative competition!

What might this look like?

1. A service that comes with a 125% money-back guarantee.
2. A product that’s provably safer than anything in its category.
3. A product that’s 50% lighter than the industry leader.
4. A service that’s designed from the ground up, around the unique needs of each client.
5. A product that’s the only one in its class, to be made from 100% renewable sources.
6. A product that’s part of a numbered, limited edition.
7. A service that’s 3 times faster than the industry leader.
8. A product that’s far longer lasting than anything in its niche.
9. A service that’s massively more extensive than anything else available to your marketplace.
10. A product that’s clearly the most energy efficient in its class.

Those ideas are just food for thought. They’re simply examples to demonstrate the ‘base line’ required, for your products or services to stand out as being of meaningfully more value, than your marketplace expects.

Be sure to invest the time and effort required, to create something special. Marginal improvements have marginal impact. They won’t elevate your offering to the point where you have no comparative competition.

Go on. Let your creativity run wild. And aim for maximum impact.

One of the best pieces of business advice I ever received, is just 4 words long. And today I’m going to share it with you, so you can apply it to your marketing. It’s simply this: Don’t rush the process.

I know. Without a little context, it doesn’t sound particularly useful. But over the years it’s helped my clients achieve amazing results.

Don’t rush the process (with context)

Business owners tend to be a pretty motivated bunch. We have to be, right? Not only are we motivated, we also believe in the value of our product or service. When you combine motivation with belief, you create a potent mix. An essential, high energy blend that keeps us moving forward and inspires us to persist even when things are tough.

And that’s great!

However.

Sometimes that mix of belief and motivation can work against us.

Really?

Yes, really.

For example, we speak with a prospect and immediately see that our product or service is the perfect match for them. We’re now eager to help them make the right decision.

Here’s the thing.

There’s a thin line between encouraging someone to make the right decision, and rushing someone to decide.

When that line is crossed, it seriously damages how the prospect feels about us. It quickly lowers their confidence, creates uncertainty and makes them feel extremely apprehensive.

How to avoid this, before it happens!

Based on almost 30 years of experience and observations, I’ve found that this is most likely to be a problem during the follow-up process.

You need to be very mindful regarding how soon and how often you follow-up with an email or call. That’s because there isn’t a universally ideal time or frequency. Different industries and different cultures have different expectations. So, you’ll need to test and measure. Take into account things like the size of the decision your prospect is making financially, plus the number of people involved with the decision-making process, the size of the overall risk, etc.

Don’t rush the other processes

Obviously, the ‘don’t rush the process‘ advice has much wider marketing utility than I’ve mentioned here. It holds true for everything, from building rapport, copywriting, outreach and growing a valuable network, to developing new products, adjusting your pricing and hiring team members.

Important note: Don’t confuse rushing the process with being appropriately proactive.

There are times when we need to be swift. To move quickly. Most opportunities in life and business come with a use-by date. If we take too long, we’re often too late.

The advice is don’t rush the process.

Fast is fine.

Too fast is rushing.

I hope you find this idea useful. More importantly, I hope you do something with it.

Small business owners come to me regularly, asking for something they don’t want and they don’t need. I’m sharing this with you, because it’s a symptom of a problem and you’re probably making it, too!

Here it is. Plus how you can avoid it.

First, here are some examples of dangerously misleading statements. I see these pretty-much every day from small business owners.

• I need more leads for our sales team.
• I need more enquiries from my website.
• I need more social media followers.
• I need more traffic to my website.

They’re wrong!

One hundred percent, provably wrong.

More sales leads, additional client enquiries, bigger social networks and more website traffic are not their desired outcomes. That’s because they’re not end results. What business owners actually need, is more customers, higher profits, bigger contracts, higher revenues or more sales, etc.

The challenge with searching for the wrong thing, is that it will lead you down the wrong path. You’ll ask the wrong questions, get the wrong answers and end up with the wrong outcomes.

Start with the end in mind

This means you need to decide what your desired outcome is. In other words, determine exactly what you need your business to achieve. Focus on your desired end point and NOT on a particular process or marketing strategy.

Here’s an example of exactly what I mean.

I was thinking of a business owner earlier, who decided to start with the end in mind. Sarah identified a contact who owned a business that offered a complimentary, non-conflicting service to hers. They agreed to do some joint ventures. Sarah achieved 7-years worth of business growth in just 11 months. Previous to using this idea, she’d wasted years doing what everyone else does.

Start with the end in mind. It will help you get your marketing on the right track and ensure you’re aiming for the correct targets.