Learning Objectives:
1. Find their weaknesses
2. Shop the competition
3. Offer what the competition can’t
4. What do people hate in the industry?
5. Increase the value proposition
6. Service, add-ons, front end load
7. Increase perceived value
8. Create your USP
Shop the competition: where are they strong, where are they weak?
What do you know about your competition? What do they sell, what do they do? What are the strong points? Why do people buy from them? How are their prices? What are their policies, procedures, guarantees, etc.
If you don’t know your competition very well, they will kill you. Don’t let your assumptions blind your judgment.
Example: A printer I know found a competitor was charging much less than he. He said, “They can’t possibly sustain that pricing. They will go broke.” Well, they did sustain the low pricing and increased their market share while my printer friend lost sales and market share. Know their prices, terms, delivery, distribution, and know everything. Put time and effort into it.
What do people hate in the industry? In the medical industry people hate to wait. Doctors have a bad reputation of double booking and making patents wait too long. I have walked out of a doctor’s office before when I had to wait 45 minutes. Printers are often late delivering a printing order, it is almost a given.
Re-modelers are known for taking much longer than originally promised to complete a remodeling job. Customers buying a car hate the back and forth the sales person does with the sales manager, and they feel like the sales people are lying to them to make the sale, you can’t believe them.
What do people hate in your industry? Take that problem and solve it. People hate to take off work to get things done like buy new tires, and get mechanic work done, go to the chiropractor or dentist. How about not having prices on mdse at the grocery or department store?
Offer what the competition can’t.
Example: www.familyvaluesvideos.com free lifetime video replacement guarantee.
Extend warrantee: Grandfather clock, the manufacturer offered a one year warrantee. The grandfather clock offered a three year warrantee because he knew very little chance of things going wrong.
No haggle car buying. Tell sales person at the beginning how much they can discount the car to the customer. Let him make the decision.
Create your USP: Make your business different from the competition. Most businesses in a category are pretty much the same. (Check out dentists in yellow pages)
Example: Toothpaste example, Tuff Shed, Three Day Kitchen and Bath.
Read Positioning: Battle for Your Mind by Rice and Trout
Increase the perceived value. What can you offer that costs you little or nothing but increases the value of the purchase?
Example: www.familyvaluesvideos.com , free life time replacement guarantee on all videos.
Electrician offers to check all outlets and fuse box at no charge while at the home doing the job they hired him for.
Front load the value proposition, increasing the value proposition. Add as much as you can to the offer to get the customer to buy from you.
Example: Internet offers, buy my course for $500 and you get my” how to make money on the Interne” course.
If you order today you will also get “Little Know Secrets of Internet Millionaires” e-book. But wait! You will also get three additional e-books, “Marketing your ecommerce b\Business,” “How to get Ranked on the number one page of Google,” and “Free Internet Resources You Need.” All a $79 value. Talk, talk, talk…and finally……… you almost can’t resist buying their package.
If you are a restaurant, perhaps offer a sandwich for $2.99 but a meal is$4.99 for a sandwich, drink, and fries. But, if you also buy three cookies for .99 you also get a fourth cookie free, plus a coupon for another free cookie next time they come in.
If you are a used car dealer you could offer… “If you buy today you will get a free extended warrantee worth $150 that covers any problem the car may have in the next six months. In addition, you will get free oil changes for the next year worth $150. In addition we will give you a coupon worth $200 for a year of free tire rotations at the Big O Tire store. If that’s not enough, you also get 12 free car washes worth $98. All total, a $600 package…free.
You make agreements with the tire store for the tire rotation, and oil change at a discount. Tell the tire store when they bring in their car, it gives the store a chance to sell additional services like tune up, front end alignment etc. The six month warrantee will likely cost nothing because repairs are not likely to occur in that short period of time. All these add value and cost almost nothing.
Most business owners and managers don’t do the basics very well. If they will implement just a few of the tactics above they will increase sales.
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