Jim's Marketing Blog

Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

How to avoid fee sensitive clients and customers. Yes, it works in your industry too

By

Marketing pester, don't bother

Photo: Shutterstock.

You don’t need to sell your services or products based on price. You don’t need to waste your time on fee-sensitive clients or customers, either.

In today’s post, I explain why and provide an example of exactly what I mean.

Sort by price

One of the most common features on shopping sites, is the “sort by price” filter. It lets us see products in the category we’ve searched for, listed in price order.

The reason sort by price exists, is that the marketplace demands it. When presented with 5 or 50 options for a commodity product, the lowest price wins. This is known as the race to the bottom. Bottled water is bottled water. It makes no sense to pay more for it than you need to.

Right?

Wrong!

But what about Bob?

Bob is passionate about helping people worldwide have access to clean drinking water. He then finds a water brand, which donates money from every bottle sold, to build wells in areas where there’s no clean water.

So, Bob’s happy (very happy) to pay more for his bottled water from this well-building brand. Plus, because people like Bob know lots of other people like Bob, he tells his friends. They do the same.

Water gets sold.

Wells get built.

And people get to make a meaningful difference to the lives of those who need it.

What’s the lesson here?

If you want potential clients or customers to stop caring about your prices or fees, give them something more important to care about. This means differentiating your products or services from the competition. The moment you do, you’re no longer offering a commodity. And customers are no longer buying based on price.

The good news? If you’re thinking this approach couldn’t work for you or your industry, remind yourself that it works for a commodity as common and utterly indistinguishable as water.

What really matters

By

Stalling tactics, marketing tip

Image: Chris Barbalis

It doesn’t matter what brand of laptop or phone you work with. Leonardo da Vinci used a quill and parchment. Einstein used a pen and paper… and a chalkboard.

It doesn’t matter how motivated you feel. You don’t wait for inspiration to appear. You command it to appear.

It doesn’t matter what negative or peevish people tell you. Great ideas are not anointed!

It doesn’t matter if others can’t see your vision. Steve Ballmer famously laughed on camera, when interviewed about Apple’s first iPhone. He said no businessperson would use a phone that didn’t have a hardware keyboard.

What matters

What matters, really matters, is that you get started.

This means taking the first step, despite being fearful, tired or nervous… rather than waiting for that mythical perfect time to arrive.

Sometimes we are our own worst enemy.

Unconsciously, we develop stalling tactics and end up standing in our own way. We need to identify the things that cause us to stall, and call them out for what they are (excuses). When we do, we’re free to get started.

Free to unleash our full potential.

Your road to better clients, higher fees and less competition

By

Marketing value, meaningfully different

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 it 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 super-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

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 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.

So let your creativity run wild. And aim for maximum impact.

How to be number one, in a category of one!

By

It’s tough being a service provider. There are so many of us in every industry. Not only that, a prospective client can find lower priced alternatives to us, on Google, in seconds.

With so many competitors, what can we do?

  • We could try and out-spend them on advertising. Of course, this eats into our profit margins.
  • We could try being the lowest priced. Of course, this almost eliminates our profits.
  • We could try joining a networking group. Of course, we’d be relying on fellow group members to provide us with leads… the very same people who need to attend the group because they can’t even get enough leads for their own businesses.

There are better alternatives though. And one that works extremely well, is to become number one in a category of one.

It’s the strategy I follow for my own business and one that could be just as effective for you and your business.

It works like this

Let’s imagine you’re an accountant. (You could equally be a mentor, financial advisor, lawyer, designer, trainer, marketing consultant or whatever). Anyhow, unlike your fellow accountants you choose to work exclusively with creative professionals. This immediately places you as number one in a category of one.

  • The fact you understand their profession at a super-deep level, sets you apart from the rest.
  • The fact you understand their terminology and speak their language, sets you apart from the rest.
  • The fact you understand the threats and opportunities specific to their industry, sets you apart from the rest.
  • The fact you understand their unique requirements, sets you apart from the rest.
  • The fact you understand the creative mindset, sets you apart from the rest.

And because you’re set apart from your former competing providers, your prospective clients will see you as massively more relevant to them and their business!

It’s hard to think of a service provider in any industry, who couldn’t transition themselves into being number one in a category of one.

Including you, my friend.

It’s okay: Even Superman struggled with kryptonite

By

marketing superman

Image: Esteban Lopez – Unsplash

Every business owner has weaknesses.

Every single one of us. Including you and me.

But that’s okay.

After all, even Superman has kryptonite to contend with. He knows that this mysterious substance weakens or eliminates his super powers. So he does everything he can to avoid the problems kryptonite causes, and comes out winning.

Business owners. Not so much!

Unlike Superman, business owners are usually aware of our weaker areas, but unaware of the often serious damage caused by them.

Here are a few common examples of how this looks and why it manages to persist.

  • The business owner who starts too many sales presentations with an excuse for being a few minutes late, may think it doesn’t matter. They’re unaware that every prospective client who values punctuality will feel very differently about it. The business owner will wonder why they never won the contract… and write the prospect off as a time waster. So the problem persists.
  • The business owner who avoids making big decisions until the last moment, may think it doesn’t matter. They’re unaware that leaving things until the last minute means they have fewer options open. They lose valuable time, end up with vastly limited choices, are forced into making a worse decision, and blame it on bad luck. So the problem persists.
  • The business owner who does pretty-much what they’re paid for and very little more, may think it doesn’t matter. Their customers end up with the minimum required, not outstanding value, and seldom recommend them. The business owner then assumes that their customers just aren’t the kind of people who give referrals. So the problem persists.
  • The business owner who thinks it’s okay to develop their business as if it was a Do It Yourself hobby, may think it doesn’t matter. They’re unaware that their DIY approach to systems, marketing, legals, planning, financials and strategy, etc., is making it impossible for them to succeed. The business owner assures themselves they’re saving money, when they’re missing out on a fortune. So the problem persists.

Jim Rohn used to tell us that the reason failure is so common, is that it’s incredibly subtle. The vast majority of businesses tend not to fail overnight, the result of a single, cataclysmic event. It’s the smaller errors in judgement we regularly make, which rob us of the success we want.

That’s why it’s so important to pay attention to what we do and how we do it. Even those things that may not seem obviously important.

No. I take that back.

Especially those things that may not seem obviously important.

Excuses and explanations. Time machines and chickens

By

There are explanations and there are excuses. Although some small business owners often use them interchangeably, they have very different meanings.

When you consciously understand the difference, it can transform your business, just as it transformed my own business. I explain how in a moment.

First, here’s a very simple look at the difference between explanations and excuses.

  • Explanations explain why or offer reasons.
  • Excuses deny responsibility.

Here are a couple of common examples.

Explanations and excuses

The small business owner who says there aren’t enough hours in the day, for them to correct a business problem, is not giving an explanation. They’re making an excuse. They have enough time. They get the same 24 hours every day as the most successful people in their industry. By believing that they don’t have enough time, they’re excusing themselves from making the improvements required, for their business to operate effectively. At least until they discover a time machine.

Maybe the most common type of excuse in business, is the famous chicken and egg scenario. This excuse is used when someone wants to avoid making a decision. A decision where there’s risk involved.

For example, ‘I can’t hire my first employee until I’m making enough money, but I’ll never make enough money until I hire someone’.

Because they unconsciously want to avoid making a decision, they choose to believe that there is no way out. This approach to decision making is toxic, because we place a very low ceiling on our potential, if we dodge the major decisions. All of which come with an element of risk. That’s why you have never, and will never, hear a successful business owner described as a poor decision maker.

Excuses and explanations feel similar

I’ve found that business owners don’t intentionally make excuses. They almost always believe they’re giving an explanation. This was certainly how it was for me! I used to believe that my excuses (I had lots) were actually reasonable explanations. It was only after I learned the difference between excuses and explanations, that I was able to correct things. As a direct result, I was then free to start making better decisions.

Take some time to look at explanations you have made (to yourself or others) regarding your business. Look closely for explanations, which could be excuses in disguise. This includes the chicken and egg / time machine kind of examples I gave earlier.

By making yourself consciously aware of the difference between explanations and excuses, you’ll find it easier to make better decisions. It certainly worked wonders for me and my business.

More importantly, I hope it does the same for you and your business, my friend.