Offer Our Best First

Too many of us tend to offer our mid-line or low-end products and services first with a hope of capturing our audiences’ attention with a deal. Consider the value of offering our best products and services up-front instead.

Doing this sets a benchmark that will cause many people to make purchases above the level they would have otherwise. At the same time, it makes less expensive products and service seem an even better bargain for those who are price conscious. We don’t lose those buyers. And they may upgrade with future purchases.

Am I saying discounting or leading with a killer deal has no value? Of course not. Clearly this approach has its place, just like leading with our finest offerings has its place. My point is simply that in testing our options, we often forget this alternative approach that has proven effective for many companies in a wide variety of industries.

Gather your team. Look at how leading with the best you have to offer may open doors that aren’t available when competing on price. You just may find you’ve been missing out on a world of opportunity.

Here’s to your marketing success!

Bryan Waldon Pope

A More Effective Use of Prospecting Time

We all fight the same battle of balancing the time and resources we invest in prospecting for new clients with maintaining a pricing structure that upholds the integrity of our business and its products or services. It’s tempting to slash prices to generate revenues; but being busy without being profitable is a guaranteed trip to the poor house.

Maintain your image and message with prospects, and keep working to bring in new clients; but in the mean time, here’s a way to fill excess capacity in a fruitful way. It’s beneficial in the big picture and sustainable over the course of years.

We all have clients who have been loyal to us. They like what we have to offer. We spend our time making a positive difference for them with whatever we are providing, and not addressing petty complaints or engaging in other time-wasting activities. These are the clients we’d like to clone and with whom we’d like to fill our books of business. Good news! We can.

Go to these clients with an offer that makes sense for them and represents a significant deal beyond the good value they already receive from us. Let them know we’re making this custom-tailored, one-on-one offer because of their history with us--a “Thank You” gift, if you will. Be sincere, and make an offer that is truly something they simply won’t get elsewhere.

In doing this, we accomplish two things: 1.) We fill our time with guaranteed revenue-generating activities that would have been spent on prospecting, and 2.) We build even greater loyalty with those who are already our best clients. Everyone wins. And you know what? Chances are good these happy clients will become your best salespeople as they send quality referrals your way.

Gather your team. Think outside your normal parameters. What do your most loyal clients need that you can offer but are not currently providing to them? Get creative. Get aggressive. Fill that wasted capacity with meaningful, paying work for those who have already said, “We like what you have to offer!”

Here’s to your win-win revenue-generating success!

Bryan Waldon Pope

The Big Middle

Most companies position themselves in the big middle of the spectrum of their industries. They are “me too” businesses. They lack any quickly discernible differentiating factors that would draw prospects to them exclusively. They have not entered the marketplace with a specific focus that speaks to well defined potential clients. Because of this, they struggle.

As business decision-makers, why do we do this to ourselves, our businesses, and our audiences?

Discovering how our market (or potential market) views us, defining ourselves in a way that makes us providers of choice, and remaining true to our focus are all necessary elements of being standouts instead of generics.

How many no-frills price leaders have we seen add features to their products or services until they are lost in the sea of their competitors? And how many times have we witnessed a niche business attempt to go mainstream, only to realize (sometimes too late) that what made them successful was their laser-tight focus?

If we’re not currently meeting our businesses’ goals, we need to identify why. We must invest in discovering our competitive advantage (or developing it, if it doesn’t exist). Being “good” isn’t good enough anymore. We need to be uniquely accessible to and specifically effective for our clients.

Gather your team. Look at your position in the marketplace. Are you differentiated appropriately? Are your prospects clear on why they should choose you? Do you stand out, or are you lost in an ocean of me-too options? If changes are needed, have the tenacity to move forward with confidence in getting your company out of the bog of the big middle.

Here’s to your positioning success!

Bryan Waldon Pope