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What are the buying barriers in your business? What is keeping prospective clients from saying yes? Take some time and really think about this. If you don’t know, tell people about your business and ask them the main reason they would hesitate buying. You can also ask clients who have already hired you what doubts or questions they had before they hired you. Some common buying barriers are: - Fear (fear of taking action, of making the wrong decision) - Investment (price) - Uncertainty (about what they’ll get) Removing buying barriers is not, I stress not, about discounting your fees. Because the value is either there or it isn’t. It’s about making it easier for prospective clients to say yes. So how do you address buying barriers? Here are some solutions: FEAR BARRIER: Create a way for prospective clients to sample your business to be sure it’s the right solution for them (more on this http://tinyurl.com/pajmez). You can also offer a guarantee. INVESTMENT BARRIER: Offer a payment plan and/or reduce the time commitment. Clearly communicate the value they will receive. UNCERTAINTY BARRIER: Identify and communicate all of the details about what clients will get, how it will work, and the results they will experience. You can put this on your website and create a FAQ section. One barrier I recently removed from my business is the request to work together for at least six months (now clients can hire me for one month at a time). Yes, I know that if you want to attract more clients and transform your business it is reasonable that it can take six months. And often times, clients want to work together for even longer than that. But some prospective clients only need help with one specific area and don’t require lengthy support. So by offering coaching for one month a time, they have an offer that fits their needs and allows them to get exactly what they want. If it is important to the success of your offering to have a required time frame, by all means keep it and explain why it is relevant. You don’t want to reduce the effectiveness of your offerings in order to make a sale. An option to remove a buying barrier in this case is to offer a payment plan where you spread the investment out over a few weeks or months. You can also choose to offer both fixed packages and cafeteria style offerings (selling individual parts of a bigger offering). This is what’s so thrilling about owning your own business. It’s your business, which gives you the power to decide how to create, package, and offer your offerings. To remove the buying barriers in your business: start by identifying what they are, take action to eliminate them, and then communicate your newly structured offer with prospective clients. © Stephanie Ward WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR NEWSLETTER, BLOG, OR WEBSITE? You can, as long as you include this information with it: Stephanie Ward is the Marketing Coach for Entrepreneurs who want to set their profits on fire! Grab your FREE copy of the special report '7 Steps to Attract More Clients in Less Time’ plus monthly business building tips, at: http://www.fireflycoaching.com.
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clients, buying barriers, fear, price, package, business growth,
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