Brad Swezey: Hi there. Today’s topic is going to be how you can easily get more customers and clients to pay more for what you offer.
The problem with many small businesses is they think that they have to compete on price. That the lowest price is going to get people to choose them.
The problem with that is you’re trying to get more and more customers because you have to make up in volume what you’ve given up in price. What happens with that is you’ll lose one of your key competitive advantages, which is very often customer service.
Today, we’re going to talk to you about some tips to help you charge more for what you offer and do it in a way that your customers are actually happy about it.
The first thing that you need to realize is you have to understand what do you do better than anyone. By that I mean better than any of your competitors or even their own solution. What do you really do better? Because if you think about that, you’ve now defined yourself as the leader in a particular niche and said, “Listen, this is what I do better than anyone.”
By doing that, you, then, start making yourself a little bit more valuable. For example, what I think we do better than anyone is we really understand a client’s market and a client’s needs, and we take a look at everything that that client can use to grow their business.
We don’t care if it’s somebody waving a flag. If that’s the best way to get customers, we suggest that. We’ll take that holistic approach. We do that for small businesses only.
The second thing is don’t compete on price. Don’t, because then you’re just a commodity. Commodities, nobody really cares about. They’re just, “Let me find the cheapest option.” For example, this is not the greatest example because some people actually pay for nitrogen in their tires. But for the most part, most people put air in their tires.
You put air in. You don’t care if it’s air from Place A or Place B. You buy the air.
Probably even a better example is gas. Do many of you really shop around for gas stations that offer better quality of gas? Probably not. If you do, more power to the gas station that has you as a customer.
The third is thing you’ve got to target the profitable customers. Not every customer/client is right for your business. It’s tough. I know it’s tough when you’re starting out or even if you’ve been there for a while. You don’t want to turn away business. We, as small business owners, typically like business. We don’t want to turn away business.
But what you have to do is you have to learn to turn away people that aren’t going to be profitable for you and not invite that. You’re not going to be profitable to them. You’re not going to be able to offer them the level of service that they need because their price structure is different than yours. I’ll give you an example again in my own business.
I can’t do a thorough job for a client with our full service for less than a certain amount of money. I can’t do it. To put a marketing plan together, it takes between 10 and 15 hours of research and work to get that done right. I can’t do it for any less.
If I did decide to price it lower, then I’m going to do a worse job. That’s not going to help anybody.
What you do is you learn to say no to certain businesses, or as the case of what we’re doing now, for example, is offer a guided self‑help option. Offer a lower value of products to help them. But for the most part, define who your customers are. Focus on your profitable customers. Get rid of the customers that aren’t profitable.
We’re small business owners. We all could go and work for corporations or big institutions, etc., and have to deal with the hassle of the bureaucracy that goes along with them. I know, I did it. We’re our own business owners, so you don’t have to deal with people that you’re not comfortable with, so find those profitable customers.
The final thing is you really just find a way to make them feel special. They’re coming to you to feel special. If people feel special, they don’t mind paying more for it. The big problem comes when they do pay extra money for something, and they don’t get treated with care, and they don’t get treated like they feel special. Then, they feel like they got ripped off.
People don’t like to feel like they got ripped off. Make them feel special. If you’re going to charge them for it, make them feel special. Don’t say someone’s a VIP, and then don’t treat them like a VIP because that’s just going backfire on you.
In conclusion, if you really understand what you do better than anyone else, you don’t compete on price, you target profitable customers, and you make those profitable customers feel special, you’re going to have a much better chance at succeeding where many other businesses fail.
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