Happy, happy day Unleashed Tribe! I hope that you are having a perfect 10 day so far, and that the sun is shining wherever you are in this wonderful world.
On today's show, we are going to be discussing the reasons why someone would want to spend their hard-earned money with YOU, instead of the guy down the road……. and I will share a recipe that will make you want to start cooking right now. I can't wait!
Regardless of what you are selling, I guarantee there is someone else out there selling it cheaper, better and faster. So why would customers pay more for your products or services? Well, the key is in your perceived value. Customers need to "think" they will get more from you than the guy down the street. There in lies the challenge in today's show.
Welcome to another edition of Business Edge Radio, where we discuss all things business, and life! I'm your venerable host Mitche Graf, and I'm very excited about our show today. Let's get started…
I want to take you on a journey to a place where everything is perfect, where there is no stress or worry, and the streets are made of cheese. It's a place where you can buy anything, do anything, and be anything you want to be. This place is called your mind, and it is the most powerful tool we have been given.
Imagine it's a beautiful, warm Saturday afternoon in the fall, and you decide to go for a drive in the country. With all the hustle and bustle of everyday life, you don't get this opportunity as much as you would like, but today is your day. Along the way, you notice that the leaves on the trees next to the road and on the hillside are slowly beginning to softly fall to the ground, as they create a bed of color on the pavement in front of you. With the window down, you can feel the wind tickling your face and you can smell the mustiness of fall. The sun is directly in front of you, and as the sun hits your face, you feel the warmth of its touch.
You come to the road that will take you to a little lake down the road, and you take notice of the fact there are no other cars on the road coming or going……. The road is yours.
As you approach the lake, you find a place to park your car, and you notice two little stores next to the road… Your eyes first are attracted to the rustic-looking brown building on the right. You notice the broken rain gutter that is filled with moldy leaves from last season, and the grass hasn't been cut for quite some time.
There is a bike lying on its side in front, and you can tell it has seen better days…. The handlebars are covered with rust, and several of the spokes are missing from the rear tire. The dark brown paint that is around the windows and door is beginning to chip from age, and there are a couple of spiders that have made their home in the upper corner. The sign above the door reads…. Lakeside QuikMart. The smaller sign in the window above the spider web reads: Lemonade .50 cents and cookies - 10 for a dollar.
Your eyes then meander to the little white building on the other side of the road. There are bright red geraniums neatly planted in oak barrels that are placed along a cobblestone walkway leading up to the front entrance. The white picket fence the surrounds the entire building has tulips all around, and a Post Office box in the shape of a Trout sits atop a cast iron stake. On top of the building, a freshly painted sign reads "Heaven on Earth Country Store" with beautiful blues and greens and yellow throughout…. And then on a smaller sign below, the words, "Where Friends Meet." It almost makes you feel like you are at Grandma's house when you were little…safe, kind, and friendly.
You notice a small sign in the window that says, "Hand-squeezed Country Style lemonade made fresh this morning… only $2.00 a glass. Your mouth begins to water as you imagine drinking that glass of hand-squeezed Country Style fresh lemonade. The side windows are cracked open just enough that you can smell the fresh chocolate chip cookies that must have just pulled out of the oven only 10 seconds before. You would pay just about anything to have a bite of one of those cookies right now.
You pause for a moment, and glance at the brown building on the right side of the road, and then you glance back to the white building on the left side… You must make a choice of which place to go. Hmmm…Your mind is made up. You are going to ________.
Was there really any doubt as to which business you were going to go into? I don't think so. It didn't matter that the price was more, did it? It came down to the image that each business created in your mind…. And once that impression is made, it's virtually impossible to change how we feel.
The QuikMart may have had the best cookies in the world, but they sure didn't create much desire on our part to give them a try, for any price. The same process happens with your business. Judgments are made about you long before you speak the first words to a prospect.
If may have something great but if you don't have a way of letting people know about it, and create a high perceived value……….. you will fail.
Pricing is a very interesting part of a customer's perception. If you are known to be the lowest priced business in your market, you will never be associated with high quality or great service. If you walked onto a car dealership and saw a BMW for sale for the price of a Ford Escort, you would be leery and suspicious. Something must be wrong with it to be priced that low. The opposite is also true - If a Volkswagen were for sale for the price of a Mercedes Benz, there wouldn't be many takers.
A few years ago, I had a riding lawn mower I decided to sell, and so I took an ad out in the local paper asking $50. It had seen better days, but it still ran and would cut grass just fine. I just didn't want to be bothered with the hassle of trying to sell it. A week went by and not a single call. The second week went by, nothing. By the third week, I began to realize what was taking place, and raised the price up to $200. BAM! The calls came flooding in, and I got the asking price. Priced at $50, people thought there must be something wrong with it, and so there were no takers.
"We always expect to pay more for good quality, and great service".
No questions asked. When you want to go out to a nice meal complete with soft candlelight and romantic music playing, with a gourmet wine selection and hand-carved chocolate bunnies for dessert, you will pay a premium fee. We call this selling the sizzle with the steak. When you want something quick and easy without all the glitz and glamour, you will pay substantially less.
How do people perceive your business? Are you the intimate little bistro where you would expect to spend $100 on a nice meal, or are you the drive-through where $2.95 will get you the works? More importantly, where do you want to be in the future?
There will always be plenty of business at the bottom of the pile, but it comes with a very high price. The old saying, "It sure is lonely at the top," but the lunches are much better.
If we show up 10 minutes late for a meeting wearing flip-flops and a T-shirt, it shows the customer we don't value ourselves very much, so why should we expect them to value us? If you want to be a Cadillac, act like a Cadillac, dress like a Cadillac, and project an image like a Cadillac.
If people like you and refer others to you- that has tremendous value. It means there is a demand for your time, which means you can charge more for your products and services.
You cannot NOT brand your business, just like you cannot NOT communicate. If someone calls you and you answer the phone, you are branding. If someone calls and you don't answer the phone, you are still branding your business. If your business card is wrinkled and stained and is in the shape of your butt, you are communicating a message.
Positioning comes down to how others view you. It's in the way you shake hands, the way your voice sounds on the phone, how you look, how you walk, it's as much style as it is substance. The best marketing plan costs your absolutely nothing.
When you go to the store and buy something, you aren't just buying a product you are buying a perception that the product is going to fill a need that you have.
If you want to be viewed as a professional you must dress, act, and be a professional. Don't walk into an important meeting with a 50-cent pen and expect them to spend $5000 with you. Something as simple as a pen can paint a picture in your client's mind, either a positive image or a negative one. If you are the $99 Get-You-Everything guy, then a .50 cent pen will be more than enough, but if you have bigger fish to fry, you need to be aware of what is happening.
I love a group called Mannheim Steamroller and their leader Chip Davis. Many of you may recognize the name, and if not, you would be familiar with their music if you heard it on the radio, especially around the holidays. You can walk into any music store year-round and find a big display of their music, and it's never on sale. What they do to motivate us to purchase is they will include a free CD of holiday music, or will send you a free BBQ sauce kit, or a large tin of gourmet hot chocolate.
I am one of those people who will always look for the unique and different, and their approach to branding is just that. With millions of album sales to their credit, I'm surprised more musicians haven't borrowed the technique. From personal experience, I can tell you the BBQ sauce goes great with chicken, and the hot chocolate is wonderful on those cold nights in front of the fire!
Here's a rule of thumb that I encourage you to make part of the fabric of your business. Don't discount…. Give stuff away… Let me say that again…. Don't discount. Give stuff away.
"When you discount- you penalize good customers and attract the price shoppers"
Instead of offering some sort of discount that attract clients into your business, and diminishing the perceived value of your products, give them something for free that adds value to their purchase, or brings some joy to their lives."
The fun part for you as a High-Voltage Branding wizard, you can do anything you want, just make sure it's something they can't get from any of your competitors. That way you continue to gain ownership of your hook and category each day. Obviously, whatever you do needs to make sense financial, and only you know what your restrictions and limits are.
One thing you will find as you begin to brainstorm and come up with creative marketing and branding programs is that you will have some good ideas, and some not so good ideas, and you have to be willing to try them both.
Whether you are Bic pen in your market or the Cross pen, and there is plenty of room for both, adding value to your customer's lives should be one of the most important aspects of your branding philosophy. There is always a way to add value, whether it be real or perceived.
The most difficult part of the wonderful world of Branding is in learning to understand the way the world around us works. The way perceptions are created, and judgments are made about you, and by you. How value, and perceived value, is ultimately controlled by you, and how the entire process begins with the creative juices only you can provide. Your brainstorming can lead to incredible breakthroughs for your business, and your life.
Let's say you have a product in your business that sells for $100, or should I say you want to sell for $100. Through all your marketing efforts, and advertising, and promotional pieces, and positioning, and image creation, you want customers to flock to your business, whether it be physical or online, and pay $100 for let's say it's a Black Super Sonic Whatsahoosit-Plus widget. Now, whether you are successful at selling the Black Super Sonic Whatsahoosit-Plus widget is completely dependent on the value or the "perceived value" it has to your client. Basically, one of three marketing phenomenas is going to take place.
First, your client's perception of your widget is only $50, in which case you would have to discount by 50% in order to have a successful campaign. This is a popular technique before the holidays, or after the holidays for many of the chain stores. They motivate us with a very deep discount to lure us into the confines of their retail store, in the hopes you will purchase more than the item that is 50% off.
Groceries stores are famous for this technique. They will run an ad for $1.49 milk, or .29 Black Olives, or ears of corn 10 for a buck… and on your way to the farthest corner of the store to pick up your gallon of milk… you pass large end cap displays with 600 rolls of paper towels, or 1000 cans of pumpkin pie filling, or cherry cordial for .99 cents, and you can rest assured those items carry with them a nice profit margin.
The stores know intimately through their marketing research that for every 10 gallons of milk they sell at $1.49, they will also sell a fair number of other products as well. They make up for their discount on milk with sales from other high profit items. This technique is called using a "loss-leader" to attract customers in the door that can easily be adapted to a smaller business.
Second, the customer's perception of your widget is right at $100. Not more, not less. Right at $100. This is strategically worked to perfection by companies like Starbuck's, Apple, and Tesla. They create a demand for their products in such a way that we will gladly pay the asking price, just so we can be associated with that product. It's more about our image and making us feel special than it is what price we pay. They have made us believe that the price really isn't that important. We want to belong to the "club" so to speak.
When you go to buy a Tesla, the asking price is also the selling price… No dickering, no negotiating. If you want to drive a Tesla and belong to their "brand", this is the price. If you are a 'Buckhead", someone who gets their coffee at Starbuck's, the same dynamic is at play.
Third… You manage to create a "perceived value" in the mind of the customer some point more than $100. Maybe it's $120, maybe $150, maybe $200 or more. The greater the discrepancy between the selling price and the perceived value, the higher the level of motivation your customer will have, and the greater the level of sales you will have. This is done primarily by adding additional value to their purchase. The sky really is the limit here, and the more creative you get, the better your response will be. Remember one of the basic rules of marketing…
"Either you are different and unique, or you are out of business. Find out what everyone else is doing, then don't do it. Run as fast as you can in the other direction"
This is how you guarantee you will separate yourself from the rest of the pack.
Look at the infomercials on TV. They will spend the first 25 minutes of the show creating a value in our minds of $19.95…. And most of the time, we probably believe that's what the product is worth. Then suddenly, they sweeten the pot and say, "If you call in the next 7 minutes, we will include a second one absolutely free." You see it time and time again, so it obviously works, or they wouldn't continue doing it.
If the value in the mind of the customer is greater than the asking price, BOOM…. You have a good chance of making the sale. The bottom line in all this is simple…
"Always give your customers value that is greater than the price they pay".
That's the question of the day… How can we create a value in our products (perceived or real), that motivates people to want to do business with you? Perceived Value is strongly influenced by emotion, ego, personal image, things that are intangible and should all be considered in your marketing programs.
One thing you will find as you begin to brainstorm and come up with creative marketing programs is that you will have some good ideas, and some not so good ideas, and you have to be willing to try them both.
Whether you are the top of your market or somewhere in the middle, and there is plenty of room for both, adding value to your customer's lives should be one of the most important aspects of your branding philosophy. There is always a way to add value. Not everyone can be the Cadillac, in fact there's only 1, and not everyone wants to buy a Cadillac. Some people want to buy a Lexus, or a BMW, or a minivan, or a Ford Escort, or a Mustang.
It's okay to borrow other ideas from within your industry, and outside of your industry. You don't need to reinvent the wheel. Just find an idea that already exists and customize it to meet your personality and style.
"Since you can't be all things to all people, find what you are good at, and make it your trademark- your personal stamp."
The day of Jack-of-all-Trades is long gone, and the age of specialization is upon us. Whatever position or niche you want to occupy in the customer's mind, everything you do should be with that in mind, and be consistent with your goals and objectives.
We have the honor and the privilege to not only sell fine products and services to our customers, but to sell ourselves as well. Believing in yourself and your abilities as a branding powerhouse can bring you rewards too great to number. The challenge of creating effective branding programs that position yourself in exactly the place you want to be, can be difficult at times, but also one of the most fulfilling and rewarding feelings you will ever have, but you have to be willing to run away from the rest of the crowd.
Separating yourself from the rest of the pack is never easy, but can take you to places never dreamed of, if you are willing to take the risk.
Now it's time for Cooking Corner with Mitche, where I share with you a tantalizing recipe that you can try at home this week. Today, we are going to be making a beautiful
If you aren't familiar with Chimichurri, it's is an Argentinian uncooked herb sauce.
What is Chimichurri Sauce Used for?
Chimichurri is served with steak and other grilled meats, or with chicken or roast beef. Mix it into rice to make a fragrant herb pilaf. Chimichurri can also be used as a marinade, for example for beef skewers that are threaded onto skewers and grilled.
You can also use it in an aioli, or a flavored mayonnaise, as a salad dressing, or you can use our favorite way…..as a garnish on our Family street taco night at the Graf house.
First step, grab yourself a nice adult beverage, or some of that fresh lemonade from the QuikMart.
Open up your food processor and add the following ingredients……1 bunch of parsley, 1 bunch of cilantro, 4 gloves of raw garlic, ½ of your favorite onion variety, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, 1 teaspoon oregano, ¼ cup red wine vinegar, ¾ cup of olive oil, and salt & pepper to taste. If you like things a little spicy, you can add about ½ of a seeded jalapeno to the mixture.
Give it a nice tumble in the processor for about 30 seconds, pour it into a bowl, and you will have the perfect sauce for just about any occasion. Give it a try with crackers, in your scrambled eggs, as a pasta sauce, or as I like it…by the spoonful….don't tell my wife.
Well, that will do it for this edition of Business Edge Radio…….my parting shot today is this….What's money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do….Bob Dylan.
Until next time this is Mitche Graf, reminding you to live with passion……I'll catch you later.
