“Warning: do not subscribe to “recession think.” Do not let whatever the media, your peers, your competitors, even your customers may be saying about “things being tough.” People find money for what they really want, period.”
~ Dan Kennedy
Have You Succumbed to ‘Recession Think’?
I was in the middle of a marketing strategy meeting just after Christmas when the business owner said to me,
“Debra, it seems as though people just don’t have the money these days. They’re all buying on price and I simply can’t deliver my products and services at prices they want to pay.”
He had succumbed to ‘recession think’ even though he only needed to look around at what was happening in other areas of the market to see that people were spending freely… On things that they valued.
I had just started working with these guys, but I know their field and the level of demand for this kind of service and was confident that the problem wasn’t lack of money in the market, but the value stack.
Fast forward to this week: in just 3 months they’ve gone from idle-speed to fully booked, and are looking at expanding their capacity and raising their prices for the third time in a few months.
What Made the Difference?
For this business owner two key things shifted:
- When they stopped justifying the price-centric rejections they received and accepting that their prospects had a point, realised that people did have money but were choosing to spend it elsewhere, and decided that this was a situation they could control, they set to work to change it.
- Value-based Offer. ‘Value Stacking’ is a bit of a marketing buzz-word at the moment: it refers to the practice of adding one slice of value to another so that you end up with a giant chunk of deliverables that your clients value (not necessarily the same things you value). At the end of the day, your clients don’t care about your experience, qualifications, or methodology nearly as much as they care about the value they receive in terms of solving their problems. That value isn’t just measured in monetary returns… In fact, the more areas you can demonstrate value, the less price-resistance you experience.
My client shifted his focus from “I” and “We” statements to the “you” statements that Facebook abhors. He also shifted his thinking.
How to Discover What Your Clients REALLY Want to Pay For
If you said to yourself, “Ask them.”
You’d be dead wrong!
Instead, you need to look at how they behave.
Surveys do provide feedback, but for the most part it is misleading. It’s like comparing what an organisation says they believe about [Name any important social hot-button] with how they actually act when it comes to that issue. There’s usually a credibility gap.
It’s the same with your clients.
Some of the ‘extras’ you offer don’t mean anything to them – they’re certainly not things they want to pay for, yet there are also things that you are simply putting in the core offer for which they would be happy to pay far higher prices.
It’s up to you to discover what those things are… And if your existing clients don’t value them, then look for people who do.
Clients, Clients, Everywhere!
“There are all kinds of [clients] around to be found!”
I know the events of the past year have turned things upside down and ‘business as usual’ just isn’t the thing in a handful of industries, but even in the restaurant, hair and beauty, and performing industries which have been hardest hit, there are some surprising outliers… There are people who have figured out a way to offer things their prospects want.
The important thing is to determine WHO you want to work with, WHAT they value, and HOW you can deliver that profitably.
