If you are selling an expensive product or service, your potential customer might just be too scared to give you a try. You need to make it easy for them to try a sample at low or no cost.
It takes time to build trust and comfort. The easiest way to accomplish this is to let your customer try you out for free. The car industry does this all the time with test drives (which is why taking cars for test drives is one of my favourite hobbies).
Here are some ideas.
- FREE – In your services or professional firm, you can do this by offering free articles and information that demonstrate your expertise and provide value that builds trust. ProActive, an acne medication, is giving away one million free samples.
- LOW PRICE POINT – Let your new customers try a sample of your services for a low fee. Offer a scaled-down version for a lower price and let the customer up-sell themselves and get a credit from their first investment towards future, larger purchases. An example is offering a credit from a workshop against future consulting services.
- BUNDLES – In addition to individual prices for individual services, give customers an incentive for purchasing a bundle of services or goods that make sense. The cell phone companies and television companies do this all the time. You can, too.
- UNBUNDLE – The opposite of bundling, this separates your offerings into smaller, bite-sized pieces.
- ONE SIZE FITS ALL – One of the worst things that you can do in a professional services firm is to have a fixed ‘one size fits all’ price for one of your services. You are probably under-charging (and under-serving) your best customers and putting up barriers for new customers. This transaction price ignores the future life-time value of a customer, including referrals. It may prevent a start-up or smaller company from acquiring your services, even if you could help them grow. One service provider offers ‘scholarships’ to qualified customers who don’t have resources to pay now, but will make great paying and referring customers later on. Another discounts services to attract new customers.
There are lots of ways to provide value at multiple price points. Here are examples of our free stuff.
Copyright 2011. All Rights Reserved. Phil Symchych
