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Not being the expert
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Not behaving like the expert can take many forms. One of them: trying to avoid pushback, arguments, or resistance in your relationship with clients. It can hurt you more than help. You can be in the order-taking business, if you prefer. And that's fine. The impact that comes from it, though, will be smaller. You can be in the service business, where your impact will be higher. Or you can be in the transformation business, and help them achieve the potential your customers have. How you want to be the expert —or not— is up to you. |
Rod Aparicio
Get one tip, question, or belief-challenge that just might change the way you market, to help your customers buy. A *daily* email for b2b founders on improving your business —without the bullshit.
One way to protect margins is by being more efficient (though always taking your costs as the base for it). What if you forget about your costs for a moment? What would make what you're offering worth their money to your customers? A way to define that is by what it's worth to them. Not you. Not your costs. Not your margins. Not your offering (be it a product or a service). You can start by figuring out what it is that they're after. What's the outcome they seek. And work your way down from...
Protect your margins overall. Find ways to improve your efficiencies. Cut costs. Add extras to what they pay. Transfer costs out (to your customers). Control scope better. Adjust your rates to inflation. Sure. Makes sense when thin margins is all you have. And when you know only that cost reduction is what keeps you alive. What if you shift from costs to value?
Being transparent about how you set the price you give. It has nothing to do with your customer. It's all internal. It's about how you can capture the most of the value your customer gets from you, and that's it's clear to you and the people who are involved in it, at their own levels. aka. from marketing to brand to accounting to finance to sales, etc. "But what about being transparent with them? It feels like we'd be lying." Understandable. And your customer doesn't actually care. If they...