Do you position your price effectively with customers?
Position the value of what you offer and how much value you can bring to your customers. Customers are far more interested in value than you might think. I say this because so many people we meet when we deliver seminars and training tell us; “Well, in my industry everyone is price driven”. This is a view that lots of people seem to support, they will tell us “Well, I’m not price driven” (we can usually tell this by the clothes they wear, the watch they have on or the car they pulled up in). But, they will say “Everyone I come across is only driven by price”. If only this were true, then the economist in me would get very excited (not a pretty sight an economist getting excited). But it’s just not the case. Let me explain why.
Working with an experienced team recently (one of the sellers had been there 12 years) they brought this point up in a fairly standard way – “Well we always lose deals because of price”. So we decided to have a look at how they position themselves to their clients. We filled a flipchart of all the things they say and do to differentiate themselves. It was an impressive list of some very key points that really excite customers. We then asked them to review all of the 20 or so different points they use and cross out any that their competitors used as well. We stepped back and let them review this themselves as a group, they debated each point and one by one they crossed them all out. Every single way that they used to position what they offered was just the same as their competitors were positioning.
This isn’t startling to us, because a lot of organisations don’t always recognise what they are great at. The net effect, was however, that in the customer’s eyes, the only difference between their offering and competitors offering was price. So what happened? The customer didn’t perceive any real difference between suppliers, so they opted for the lowest price. Hence “Well we always lose deals because of price”. The frustrating thing was that this particular organisation (like most other and almost certainly like yours) has some great unique features, experience and things to offer its customers. They just weren’t being positioned effectively.
How did we solve this? Well we started a discussion around all of the things that this company did, how great they were in particular areas. Once we had identified this, all we needed to do was help them position this at an appropriate time and way with their potential customer.
A simple exercise you can run yourself:
- How do you position your products and services?
- How is this different to what your competitors do and offer?
- What are the things you are brilliant at?
- What do you do differently to anyone else?
Once you have answered these questions honestly you will have a clear way to demonstrate the value of what you offer.
Learning to position what you do, can make a huge difference to you and your business. If you think you aren’t unique or don’t do anything differently, pick up the phone and challenge us, we love to find the reasons why you are different to your competitors.
I came across this blog sometime ago by Neil Baron, an amusing title but makes perfect sense. http://www.fastcompany.com/3000999/takeaway/what-dead-squirrel-taught-me-about-value-pricing
Image sourced from Pixabay
