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How strategic are you being about what you sell to your clients?

When you are struggling to attract enough reliable and predictable business, it can mean you do your best to stay flexible and open for any new work. It can feel that by offering a big menu of services, quoting for bespoke work, and creating lots of online courses or workshops, you are offering the right things to the right people at the right time.

But the reality is that you may be spreading yourself too thin, often with clients on lots of different price points, and making your business more complicated and harder than it needs to be.

Many years ago, I used to create something new several times a year. I was more in love with the creation process than I was with digging into the sales strategy of my business, and when I wasn’t creating new things to sell, I would be either promoting or delivering, and consequently bounced from product launch to the next. This not only meant my business was very transactional and price sensitive, it also meant that I was working too hard for the results I was getting, and this way of working contributed greatly to my peri-meno health crisis in my 40’s.

So I know your pain if you’ve ended up with a business with clients on different price points and a huge list of products or programmes you’ve created over the years. It can feel messy and that you are out of control of your business. But you are not alone! Not being strategic about the products and services you offer is one of the huge opportunities for growth that we often miss.

And when we get it right, the results can be huge.

Sell the products and services that truly meet the needs of your clients at the right stage of their journey with you, and you’ll see an increase in conversions, a boost in client loyalty, and more consistent and predictable revenue.

Let me explain and share what goes in my business today.

Today, I have a core product – some may call this a signature programme – called Momentum, a one year business growth programme. It’s a brilliant programme but I know that the time and money investment means that it’s rare that someone would buy this on impulse. I also know I am one of many thousands of business coaches out there, so someone has to have a level of trust in me, as well as get to know my style and what I stand for. I simply can’t sell this, expecting everyone to say yes the first time they discover me.

So alongside Momentum, we also have Ignite, a one day business growth workshop that I have been running for several years. It’s a low risk purchase, whilst still giving high value, and also allows someone to experience me and my team.

Plus I now have Leap, a brand new 28-day business accelerator, designed to give you the clarity and roadmap you need to build a better run, more rewarding business. Again, it’s a lower risk purchase than Momentum, but higher than Ignite, and meets people where they are at, i.e. needing help with their sales and reducing the stress levels in how they run their businesses.

But here’s the thing; both these lower risk purchases have been designed to be pre-cursors to Momentum; people don’t have to buy Momentum if they attend Ignite or Leap, but if they want to continue to work with me and my team, it’s a natural progression. So the job of both these products is not necessarily to be big revenue generators, but to help give solutions to my clients before they feel ready to commit to Momentum.

How do you apply this to your business? Now, of course, my product strategy is not a cookie cutter solution and I wouldn’t expect it to work for you without knowing what goals you have and the market place you work in. But the principles of working out an efficient and effective flow to your products and services are the same.

To get you started in your thinking, here are three practical steps you can take to make sure you’re selling the right products to the right people at the right time:

1) Know your target market

This may seem obvious, but the real difference you can make here is knowing the journey of your ideal client; mapping out what your client needs at the different stages of the problem you can solve for them. The better you understand this journey, the more effective you’ll be able to start a relationship with them and for them to become a longer term client who buys from you again and again.

2) Develop your core product or service and be on a mission to make it as good as you can

If something is working, don’t distract yourself with new, shiny ideas. Get feedback, make your product or service better, go deeper with the results that you get for your clients and develop the systems to enable you to deliver this product or service as simply and easily as possible.This will also enable you to keep your core product relevant and adapt as your clients’ needs may evolve over time, plus it gives your client a simple, yet effective menu to choose from.

3) Back engineer new product ideas from your core product

Diversify too quickly or end up bespoking your core product for too many clients, and you are going to spread yourself too thin again. I get that you may like to be creative in your business and you enjoy doing new things, but don’t let this be to the detriment of your goals and the business success you want. So before you get excited about a new way of working with your clients, sanity check the idea against the journey of your ideal client; are you meeting them where they are at, or is your creativity distracting you.

If you are interested in knowing more and deep diving into what the right product strategy is for you and your business, then I invite you to check out my business accelerator program. It’s designed specifically to help business owners like you grow their businesses in a smart and sustainable way, and our second module is all about simplifying your sales and what you sell to your clients.

Plus it’s a great opportunity to work with me, an experienced business coach and mentor, who can make sure you are on the right track, especially when there are so many distractions out there with regards to product creation and new ideas!

If you’re ready to take your business to the next level, I encourage you to check out the programme and see if it’s the right fit for you. Click the link here to learn more and book your place.

Until next time,

 

 

 

 

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