If you’ve been in business for longer than a minute, you have friends who like you were running their own business, but failed. And there’s a question that nags at every local business owner. Why? Why did they fail and how can I avoid that?
If you’re really trying to grow a local business. I mean, you want to have stores in every city around you. And you’ve seen either friends or competitors drop like flies…here’s my promise to you.
There’s no amount of work you can do to avoid this. If you don’t want your business to be a statistic then you need to keep reading.
Did I scare you? Good. That’s how important this is.
Look, I’ve been around long enough to have seen the opening and closing of so many businesses. Having a grand opening one day and just 5 years later, announcing on Facebook how thankful they are for the support, but they’re moving into a different “season”.
Let’s help you avoid that season. Let’s go.
The Pervasive Problem in Business
#1 The Offer
Always the issue I see is a problem with the offer. The offer is just what are going to give in exchange for the customer’s money. The success of your businesses hinges on how good your offer is.
If your offer is weak you’re putting all your faith in the customer seeing your value rather than you showing it to them. I can promise one thing. They’d rather you do the work to show them what’s so great about your service. You want their business so, it only seems fair.
You Don’t Have a Traffic Problem
I’ve heard it before, and I’ll tell you right now, traffic isn’t your issue. Traffic is easy to get. If you have a credit you can get a lot of it over night.
Just enter your details into Google or Facebook, make an ad and voila…you have traffic. If it were that easy more businesses wouldn’t have to send that “we’re going out of message” post.
No, your main issue is not being able to convert that traffic profitably.
Being able to take complete strangers and make them want to fork over their money to solve their problem. And don’t assume because they have a problem they’ll work with you.
No, they have options. So what do you do?
The Resistible Offer
You make a great offer. But the problem is too many businesses make offers too easy to shrug off.
Oftentimes it’s just the service and nothing else. That’s not even an offer. You haven’t even tried.
Or what about this? “Book a free consultation”. What do they get out of it? Don’t assume that because you know what a consultation for your industry is that your competitors knows what that is.
They don’t.
Got it? Okay, let’s craft that kind of offers that get your phone ringing.
A Godfather Offer
Ever seen the Godfather? “I’m gonna make you an offer he can’t refuse”. That’s the goal here. We want to stack our offer with so much value that the customer can’t believe you’re going to give them this.
The offer should be so good that the customer asks themselves, “how they possibly afford to give this away?”. Or at very least, “Nobody offers this. This is insane”.
What is the Market’s Center?
Your customer’s want is very specific. They might tell it to you like, “I need to update my HVAC”. But that’s only because they don’t know how to articulate it. Make no mistake though, customers know when they know.
Just because they don’t have the words to tell you what they’re looking for doesn’t mean they know a good deal when they see it.
Start from a Position of Power
I know, I know, “get to it already”. You’re itching in your seat to hear how to make offers that have your prospects drooling. I promise we’ve almost arrived at exactly that.
But before we pull our bus into the station, I can’t emphasize this enough, don’t make a weak offer then try to dress it up if the customer needs more convincing. Start with the very best offer you can possibly imagine. Start from a position of power so that you have all the raw materials to be able to attract customers.
Make It Outrageous
Okay, the day is finally here. Let’s make your offer.
1. Addressing Your Customer’s Pain
Thoroughly understand what bothers your customer. What has them looking for an answer? Craft your offer to directly solve that problem.
What do I mean?
Say your customer has a flooded basement.
They don’t know want to hire a plumber because they wanna de-flood their basement. Sure that’s part of it. They hire a plumber because they don’t want to risk further ruining their home. Because they want to be able to turn the water back on. Most importantly, they want to get on with their lives with the confidence that this won’t happen again.
If you say it just like that, “Flooded basement? Want to get on with your life with the confidence that this won’t happen again?”. That’s going to convert a heck of a lot better than, “Flooded basement? We can fix that!”.
Do research. Find what keeps your potential customers awake at night. Then tailor your offer to address those issues.
2. “Act Now”
Includes why they should hire you today or fill out that lead? How many customers can you take per week. Space is limited. Do your books fill fast? Let the customer know.
Maybe you’re running a limited-time offer, a seasonal discount.
How about giving first-time customers a special discount? The idea is to prompt immediate action rather than allowing the customer time to think and possibly forget about the offer.
You want them itching to call or fill out a lead.
3. Risk Reversal
Reduce or eliminate the perceived risk for the customer. This can be done through strong guarantees, like money-back guarantees, or satisfaction guarantees.
Make giving over their information to you feel easy. Take away the risk and now they feel like they can trust you.
4. Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
It’s about being different from competitors in a way that’s meaningful to the customer. Make it clear why your offer is better and different from anything else on the market.
If it’s not than start brainstorming how it could be. There’s no room for commodities in a strong offer. You don’t your service to be easily exchanged with anyone else’s. Do this and you will crush the market and take all the market share.
Service-based businsess don’t this. THIS IS YOUR OPPORTUNITY.
5. Offer Bonuses
What else could you afford to include on top of the service they came for? Make sure it would be meaningful to the customer. Is there another service you could throw in for free?
Now, you’re much more appealing than your competitors.
Test and Refine
Continuously testing different elements of the offer. Experiment with different bonuses, pricing strategies, and marketing channels. Refine the offer based on customer response and conversion rates.
Don’t stop refining till you have customers banging down your door to work with you. Get the offer right and I can promise you they will.
Ethical Persuasion
While a great offer is meant to be irresistible, keep in mind ethical standards in marketing.
Be truthful about what’s being offered. Don’t use misleading claims. The service has to genuinely add value to the customer’s life. If you cheat here you may have a short term win, but your business won’t be around for long. Disappointed customers will tell eachother why they felt tricked and your phone will stop ringing.
Let’s avoid that and get sales from happy customers instead.
Wrap It Up
You now know how to avoid being a business casualty. You understand that great offers is what keeps people buying from you and you alone. There’s no shortcut to this. Avoid selling just your service. Make an offer that customers would be crazy to turn down.
These kinds of offers will keep you so busy you’ll never have a slow month again. Finally, working with the customers you want and that love your service.
If you read to this point, maybe you’re thinking, “this guy is pretty helpful. I like him”. If that’s you and you’d like to see how else I can help you, click on the link and send me a message. I’d be happy to help you get more customers you love to work for.
