Creative Versus Competitive

One of the most amazing things I have learned since helping business people over many years, is that competition with other businesses, is sometimes the start of a race to the bottom.

What do I mean by that? Well if you are always checking what price others are charging, your only weapon is price and if you are competing on price, there are not many occasions that putting the price up will encourage sales.

So by checking the price of your competitors will actually put you in the mindset of always having the lowest price and eventually you will find that the price you are charging does not have enough profit in it to cover your expenses. Trying to then start adjusting your prices becomes a very difficult situation, because the only way is up and you have already stated that you want to be the cheapest.

The best sales tool you have is to show that your value far exceeds the price you are charging so it is up to you to find out what problems your customers or clients are experiencing and let them know that you have the solution. It is funny how far down the order of importance price is, if you can genuinely solve someones problems.

The best way to do this, is to profile your perfect customer and work out what problems they would have that you can solve.

Everyone seems to be strapped for time, so anything that you can offer as a business that saves them time will be a winner.

What can you add to your service or product that will save your customer time?

If for example you sell flat pack furniture, can you offer an assembly service? If you run a mechanic shop, can you offer “We’ll get you to work” service. If you coach businesses, how does your service save them time etc.. You get the idea. These simple things will give you a point of difference and even if you are a few pounds dearer I guarantee that you will get the business.

So what “We will do it for you” offers can you think of for your business? This is just a very simple way to be creative and help you sell your value.

It is also strange that people are rushing around so much that they often do not realise that they have a problem and these situations are gold for you, because you can point out the problem and solve it. So look at your ideal customer, find out what challenges they face, tell them they have a problem, and then offer your UNIQUE solution.

The take away message here is that being creative in business will produce far better profits than being competitive. As always though this is not something that will produce overnight results but once you establish yourself as the go to person in your industry or profession, you will be surprised how easy it is to charge the correct price for your product or services.