Five Ways to Make Price Less Relevant to Your Customers

By Jeff Mowatt

Depsite in ation being a hot topic virtually everywhere, there are ways to ensure that price becomes a less relevant factor for your clients.

is is an all too common conversation I nd myself having with more and more business owners: “My sales people complain that our customers keep pushing back on prices. How do I get my team members to stop selling on price?”

A er years of training numerous sales and service teams (whose prices weren’t the lowest), I’ve discovered that you can employ these tips below to help take your clients past the price objections and to make it far less relevant.

1. Know what Your B2B Customers Value

When you’re selling business to business, remember that your customers are not usually spending their own money. ey’re spending their company’s.

Whether you save their company a bit of money or not doesn’t impact them personally. However, customers will happily spend more on suppliers who: a) make them look smarter to their bosses or b) make their jobs easier (or more fun). Make your b2b customers look like heroes, or simplify their day-to-day business dealings and suddenly your prices won’t need to be the lowest.

2. Replace Order Takers

Order taking has no value. Read that again.

If your clients know exactly what they need and want to buy, then you don’t need a human for the transaction. You need an online shopping cart or a self-serve checkout.

If your team members merely send out price quotes, you’re overpaying them. ey can be replaced by an algorithm.

When an internet search reveals thousands of buying options, the service that customers value is that of an Advisor who will A.I.D© customers to make the right choice.

A.I.D. is a memory jogger I created that means:

A- Analyze available choices

I- Interpret based on the customer’s unique needs,

D-Direct the customer to a maximum of three choices.

Massive selection is available on the internet for free, but making the wrong choice can be extremely costly. Customers will pay premiums for trusted advisors who can prove that they can help them make better buying choices.

3.

Tap the Convenience Advantage

How does your company compare when it comes to convenience? We all expect neighborhood convenience stores to charge more for household goods than big box stores. Perhaps customers can secure multiple products or services through you - the one-stop shop - and therefore not have to worry about going through other vendors. at’s a signi cant bene t (you are making their jobs easier, and helping them make better choices).

It’s not enough though to just provide these conveniences, we also need to draw attention and educate your customers on just how easy and bene cial it will be for them to use you for all their promotional branding and decorating needs.

4. Create added value

In a world that is saturated by choice in every possible area of life, if you don’t create added value in your business, then you have relegated yourself to commodity status and you will be forced to compete on price. And this is precisely what you are trying to avoid.

You’ve likely heard customers don’t buy features, they buy bene ts. e problem is far too many sales and service reps inadvertently focus on product and service features.

To get employees to talk more about bene ts, encourage them to use two words more o en: “So that”. For example, “Our turnaround is X and we deliver, so that we save you a trip and the stress of worrying about delivery.”

O en we don’t need to lower our prices, we just need to add value and highlight those bene ts to the customer.

5. Create pricing perspective

Whatever you charge can look like a lot of money if you don’t provide context. For example, training team members on how to enhance their service and selling skills can sound expensive. at needs to be contrasted to potential revenues generated by that training resulting in gaining or keeping just one repeat customer.

When put that way, training becomes an investment that easily pays for itself. e more you talk about return on investment, the less your actual prices will matter.

Bottom Line: Most managers know they can’t lower prices and reduce pro tability, especially in this current in ation- ary cycle. Instead, they need to think about how to add value and how communicate the bene ts they can and do provide. Could your team members use some refreshers on enhancing value-adds over price?

Sales Funnels, continued from Page 1

The Stages of the sales funnel

ere are generally ve to six steps to any sales funnel, but every sales funnel has a top, middle and a bottom.

Stage 1: Awareness is can be achieved through word of mouth, cold calling, cold email templates, your company’s outbound campaigns, a viral piece of content on social media, or a podcast.

You can’t make a sale if your prospects don’t know who you are! e awareness stage is where your buyer discovers your company and your sales funnel starts.

Stage 2: Interest e faster you respond to these B2B buyers, the better. is strategy is called: speed to lead.Meaning your reps need to contact a potential customer within ve minutes of them requesting information. Make their user experience a positive one, and you’ll have no problem moving them to the next stage.

How you respond to a potential customer will set the tone for your relationship going forward. When a prospect is interested in what you’re selling, they’ll ll out a form on your site, give you a call, or send you a message.

Stage 3: Evaluation at initial call is important not only for the customer but also for your sales reps. ey’ll ask a couple of qualifying questions to see if their product will be a good t for the prospect. No lead should go past your quali cation stage if it doesn’t meet the criteria of your next best client. Once a lead is qualied, they’ll likely do a bit more research to make sure your product or service will help solve their pain points. en they’ll leave the bottom of the sales funnel and enter the middle of the funnel.

Stage 4: Engagement

You’ll want to do whatever you can to keep your brand at the forefront of your prospects’ minds. Especially while they are in the consideration stage of your purchasing funnel.

One way to do this is through lead magnets which we dis- cussed in the previous edition of Imprint Canada.

Stage 5: Action

At this stage of the B2B sales funnel, your prospect has entered the top of the funnel and nally made their decision. If your prospect does sign on the dotted line, congrats, they’re now your customer!

Stage 6: Retention

Just because you’ve sealed the deal doesn’t mean the funnel ends. Not only does this type of demand marketing help you bring in more revenue, but it bene ts all future funnels by feeding back to stage one with more brand awareness. Focus on measuring your sales funnel metrics or lead generation Key Performance Indicators throughout to ensure your funnel works from top to bottom. is way, you can be certain of conversions no matter the types of sales funnels or customer journey.

How to build an effective sales funnel

Step 1: Know your audience

Determine your ideal customer by creating a list of data points such as time spent on page and the content they interact with on your social accounts. You want to understand what actually in uences your ideal customer to buy.

Once you have established what interests your buyers, you can then start mapping out their buyer journeys and creating new buyer personas for future prospects.

You’ll want to nd out the things your prospective customers don’t like as well, such as pain points.

Step 2: Establish goals

It’s helpful to separate your sales funnel into top, middle, and bottom for this step. en ask yourself: What would you like your prospects to do at each stage?

Do you want to increase tra c to a speci c page on your site as your top of funnel goal? Are you looking to increase engagement during middle of the funnel outreach? Do you want to double conversions at the bottom of your funnel

Every business will be di erent.

Step 3: Create

Knowing your buyers and establishing your goals will help you narrow down the type of content to share at each stage of the sales funnel.

Your content strategy should be educational, valuable, and promote brand awareness. Pay-Per-Click ads, search engine optimization, videos, and blogs are great for engagement. Prospects considering your product will appreciate case studies, how-to guides, and product explainer videos.

You can also implement a drip email campaign to ensure your buyer gets what they need at the moment they need it while building the relationship. is is best practice for customer sales funnels before pushing a product demo.

Pro tip: Look at what your competitors are doing and then do it better!

Step 4: Engage

Your sales funnel is your opportunity pipeline; think about how you want your prospects to engage at each of the three funnel steps: Top, Middle & Bottom

When you create engagement for the middle of the sales funnel, you’ll need to build trust with more of a direct approach. Don’t just call a prospect for the sake of calling. You’ll want to focus on sharing high-quality content via email or making calls with an educational purpose in mind.

Step 5: Encourage action

One of the most important steps for building a successful conversion sales funnel is to ensure that you include a clear and purposeful call to action at the end.

Pushing for a sale too soon might annoy your buyer while waiting too long could have them choose a competitor.

So time really is of the essence!

But how you present the sale is equally as important. O er some free added value and include a summary of next steps.

Step 6: Communicate

Always communicate positively and professionally. Once your prospect converts, you’ll have to retain your relationship with them; you want that to go o to as great a start as possible.

Speaking of retention, always continue your communication:

• Check in on how they are doing

• See if they need help using your product or service

• Send educational content you believe will bene t them ey may also refer your business to everyone they know, bringing more customers into your pipeline sales funnel. Follow these steps to start building your successful sales funnel and start turning more prospects into customers!

If they’re pleased, they will continue to be a happy customer for many years to come.

Good Luck!

2023 Trends, continued from Page 1 platforms will become even more crucial.

It’s also worth noting that consumers want to communicate with brands via DM’s, especially younger consumers.

2. Video marketers will keep content short Short-form video has taken over. A whopping 90 per cent of marketers using short-form video will increase or maintain their investment next year, and one in ve marketers plan to leverage short-form video for the rst time in 2023. While long-form videos can o er depth and large amounts of information about a product, brand, or services to audiences, both B2C and B2B marketers have learned that getting to the point with short-form videos can actually be much more e ective.

Not only does it take less bandwidth to create a short-form video, but this type of format aligns well with the fast-paced attention spans of online audiences in a variety of demographics. is is likely why platforms like TikTok, Reels, and — in previous years — Snapchat have gained quick growth and marketing interest.

3. Leveraging Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Marketers must ensure that websites and content are as discoverable as possible — especially on Google — which can provide both long-term and short-term tra c returns. And, while SEO is not new, it’s strategies are becoming even more ingrained within modern day marketing strategies.

When it comes to the trend marketers will invest the most money in for 2023, SEO ranks third behind short-form video and in uencer marketing. Further, 88 per cent of marketers who have an SEO strategy will increase or maintain their investment in 2023, which is a slight uptick from the year before (84 per cent).

As the interest and need for SEO strategies grow, so do all search optimization opportunities. As Google algorithms have evolved, SEO has become about much more than churning out basic posts that answer simple search queries. Now, brands are investing in SEO experts who can help them with everything from search insights reports, to multimedia optimization.

4. Mobile optimization will be even more important.

Consumers are spending more and more time on mobile devices. In fact, more than half of annual online website trafc comes from mobile devices, including tablets.

As younger audiences’ buying power grows, mobile-optimized digital experiences will be even more vital to consider as a business owner who markets to these fast-paced, highly connected generations.

Mobile experiences aren’t just important on brand websites, they’re also important in other key marketing strategies. For

For instance, 50 per cent of Gen Z-ers and 40 per cent of Millennials want companies to take a stance on social issues, speci cally racial justice, LGBTQ+ rights, gender inequality, and climate change. When companies advocate for these issues, it has a strong impact on their purchase decisions example, 56 per cent of marketers who work with email are focused on delivering mobile email experiences to subscribers.

With all of this in mind, companies have begun to pivot social media strategies to focus more on inclusive initiatives, promotions, and o erings, while highlighting causes or missions they support. Although this might not sell products immediately, showing a sense of social responsibility is still both thoughtful and e ective.

5. More companies will prioritize social responsibility

A whopping 89 per cent of marketers who create social responsibility content plan to increase or maintain their investment in 2023, which is almost double from the year before e trend is clear: social responsibility, ethics, and transparency matter to the modern consumer.

6.

Inbound marketing will remain a best practice for growing brands

In a time of digital transformation, embracing inbound marketing is an incredibly smart move. roughout the last two years, the world’s dealt with unprecedented change, and outbound marketing tactics have become even less e ective in reaching prospects and leads. e shi from in-person to hybrid work from home (WFH) business practices have made inbound marketing come to the forefront of e ective tactics.

continued on Page 30

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