It’s not about how much it costs your company to do business, the customer does not care. It’s about how much the market will pay. It’s also about how to make your company’s service stand out so different that customers will pay a premium to get it.
How often do your customers play the ‘price is right’ game with you?
Do your homework on the marketplace. Investigate what other options does the customer have? Why would they potentially choose those options? What would make your option more attractive and more unique to them.? What do customers need that they haven’t even thought of or heard yet? How can you add value to the buying experience? In the end, you need to set your company’s service apart from everything and everyone else in the market place in order to boost the premium you can command.
Make sure customers know what services you have available and how to find your company when they want it. Help eager customers to comparison shop by having a ready list of evaluation points that differentiate your company and its offerings from other competitors. Hone in on why a ‘bid’ or ‘price’ might not be apple-to-apple.
It’s always valuable to gather testimonials from satisfied customers. Request customers to help you get work by asking them to cite your company attributes based on their satisfaction. Use social media. Spread the word about how your company has helped its clients solve their needs. Put out suggestions that lead prospects to make inquiries.
Pay it forward by helping people to get to know each other. Connect successful clients with prospects through referrals, networking sessions and specific, targeted introductions referencing how they can be useful to each other. They’ll have your company in common and can talk about how you’re helping them each to succeed.
If a prospect balks at a price, it doesn’t necessarily mean its priced wrong. Many times people will value something that seems just out of their reach, because it is out of their reach. They see affording the prize as moving into another strata. When your services are priced too low, and is too easy to afford, it may be assumed to have limited value. It’s not unusual to overlook a perfectly good solution, figuring something that good couldn’t possibly be available at that price.
‘In the landscape industry, customers are often confused by pricing and how to compare apples to apples’
Be prepared to wait it out when a customer negotiates by asking if you can lower your price. A smart customer will always ask that. It doesn’t mean you need to give. Instead reply that your price is your price and look them in the eye when you say it.
If you do feel the need to drop price in order to secure a particular order, make the discounted product or service look measurably different. Take something away. The last thing you want is customers comparing notes and asking why one paid half what the other one did, with no appreciable difference.
Even at the top of the market prices eventually need to be raised to keep ahead of inflation. Set up a schedule to regularly review your company’s prices versus the market. Scatter price increases, rather than raising prices on all of your services at once.
At the end of the day we are all in business to make money. What we do and how we do it is the key to our success. Never diminish the value of your company’s offering by being enticed by the clients financial demands.
About the author; Steven Cohen is a landscape industry business strategy expert & chief innovation officer at GreenMark Consulting Group; a Landscape-Snow Industry Business-Consulting/Advisory firm that specializes in helping small-medium sized growth oriented companies grow from under one million dollars to over five million dollars. Do you have a business or marketing question for the GreenMark Consultants? You can reach Steven Cohen by phone at 610.905.3637. Email Steven at scohen@greenmarkgroup.com or visit our website at www.greenmarkgroup.com to learn more about our services.
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