Do we double down and work harder or take three simple steps?
We provide Great:
Products
Engineering
Software Development
Marketing
Construction
Etc.
The world is full of very talented entrepreneurs and businesses. The do really great work. Often, they mortgage their homes to be able to deliver this great service to what they expect to be a grateful market, yet often to feel invisible or unappreciated.
No matter how much they lower their price, even if they offer free samples or trials, they get a polite “NO.”
The world is working with others who don’t do the same job nearly as well and charge a lot more. The next step just must be to double down and work harder, do more with less, and get more hours out of everyone. The sales people need to make more calls and process more RFPs. The entrepreneurs know how good a job they do, they just have to turn up the volume, be heard and prove how good they really are.
Don’t double down, don’t offer free samples, don’t decrease your price and most of all don’t compare yourself to anyone else.
Three things to do to have more fun and make more money, or maybe any money:
First –
- What is the customer’s problem you will solve for them that they will be compelled to solve?
- How will you engage with them to advance them from where they are today, to your solution?
- Be prepared to show the customer a preview of what their world will be like with your solution.
- Say NO to anyone who doesn’t want this problem solved.
Second –
- Stop talking about you and what you do. Don’t use first person.
- Since you solve a compelling customer problem, speak only of the customer, their problem, and the outcomes they will achieve after the joint engagement.
- Use a Joint SOW process to be sure you and the customer understand the problem, the engagement process and the “Ideal Future State” outcome, the “SAME” way.
Third –
Be a partner who always gives and gets value.
- No Time and Material – only fixed price based on the value of the problem you solve.
- No proposals or pricing without a Joint SOW
- Be as clear about your partners roles and responsibilities in the SOW as yours.
- Whatever this SOW is, link it to the next steps after this SOW to continuously improve your partners business.
- Everything is about making the partners business more profitable and your role is based on your thought leadership.
There are a million ways to NOT MAKE money – don’t do all those crazy things and when they don’t work double down.
Do these three things, rather than double down and continuously improve these based on feedback from the market.
Remember it is not about how great you are – it is about the problem you solve for the customer. Focus on the customer and their problem. Learn their language, their metrics, their definition of value, and then have a partnering engagement model to solve that problem.
If you must double down, go to the Blackjack Table.