When you’re out on the web checking out blog posts, articles, white papers, podcasts, and webinars, do you get bored? I know I do. Save for a few of my favorite writers, presenters, and sources, I find so many people say the same things—provide the same advice—and don’t offer original viewpoints.

Maybe I read more than the typical person and so I notice it more. But if I were searching online for a provider, weighing their expertise in certain areas, most of the time I’d have a hard time choosing one based on their content marketing or thought leadership marketing strategies. Search results offer up a wall of noise with most people parroting one another.

If you can separate yourself from that and offer interesting and innovative ideas—and in an exciting way—then I and many other buyers will take notice.

RainToday contributing editor Michael W. McLaughlin has also noticed how service professionals and their firms are failing to stand out. Many are failing miserably with their thought leadership marketing strategies, he says in his article, Is Your Thought Leadership Strategy a Waste of Time?

“Thought leadership marketing is shaping up like an arms race, with no apparent goal except keeping up with the competition by churning out more of the same,” McLaughlin says. “In spite of the volume and intensity, a lot of the material that firms tout as ‘thought leadership’ just isn’t.”

Their thought leadership isn’t original and lacks hard data to support the arguments in it. Their thought leadership lacks leadership.

That doesn’t mean thought leadership is a lost cause, however. It means you have to ask the right questions when developing your strategy, such as these: Are these leading ideas? Why should anyone care about this? Do you have facts to back up your statements?

Developing Trust

A strong thought leadership marketing campaign can go a long way toward developing trust with potential buyers. You don’t want to destroy that trust by following unethical marketing practices, says Janet Kyle Altman in her article, Wrestling with the Ethics of Marketing? 7 Rules to Consider.

You can start by always telling the truth, she says.

“Don’t write or say anything—anywhere—that isn’t true. True is not a relative term—it’s black and white. If it looks a little grayish, don’t say it,” Altman says.

And if you use research to support your statements, make sure you credit the source.

“We all do research before we write. It’s so easy to get information these days, and much of it is free. But that doesn’t mean you can take credit for someone else’s work,” Altman says.

Get Your Message Through to Buyers

With a strong thought leadership strategy in place, more buyers will start to notice you. That notice, however, won’t win their business. You must still persuade them of the benefits of working with you, and that takes careful communication skills.

Those potential buyers may have approached you, but they are still on the defensive. In initial conversations they think with their crocodile brains, which are instinctive and care about their own survival, says Oren Klaff, author of Pitch Anything, in his podcast interview, Getting Through to Your Buyers’ Crocodile Brains.

“When you make a pitch to someone, you develop that pitch and you communicate it or send it from your neocortex—from the smart part of your brain,” says Klaff. “The problem is it isn’t received first in the other person’s neocortex. You’re not communicating from the smart brain to the smart brain. You’re communicating from smart brain to the crocodile brain. It has to get through that defensive, keep me alive part of the brain first before it gets up to the other person’s neocortex. ”

That means you have to tune your message to the crocodile brain’s inputs, not how you want to pitch it but how that part of the brain receives messages, he says.

How do you get through to the crocodile brain? Your presentation has to be safe, visual, fast, novel, and concrete, Klaff says.

How Much Does It Cost?

Equally important in attracting and retaining clients is your pricing strategy. Often firms turn to pricing methods based on calculations that allow competitors to one-up them and make them look less appealing, says Eric Rudolf in his article, 3 Pricing Strategies that Hurt Your Business.

One such strategy is penetration pricing in which you “set a low initial entry price with the intent of raising the price once market acceptance has taken place,” Rudolf says. The downside to this is the Internet makes it easier and faster for buyers to find another provider willing to provide services for less. Not only that, but what do you do when a competitor reduces prices to match yours?

“Determining an optimal price for the things your company sells has little to do with math, formulas, and complex calculations,” Rudolf says. “It is based more on perception, convenience, and competitive positioning.”

What perception do buyers have of you and your services? Do they see you as providing high value? Do you offer something that can’t be found elsewhere? And are you communicating that through your content and thought leadership marketing?

Photo by Felix Atsoram

Is price competition your boogeyman? (Photo by jazzydan)

Price competition is a boogey man that can keep even those best at selling products and services awake at night. Like a boogey man, sometimes it’s real and sometimes it’s not. How we think about it and confront it is often the difference between the two.

Last week I was interviewed by Dianne Crocker over at Market Maven, which focuses on the emerging trends and strategic challenges faced by environmental consultants. She asked a series of questions about price competition (Boogeyman! Smoke monster!) and its forever companion but not BFF value (Jacob!).

Here are some of the questions she asked:

• What are your options when facing chronic price competition?
• What advice would you give consultants when prospects say they can get your services for a much cheaper price?
• What marketing strategies can consultants use to command higher fees?

You can find my comments here.

Choose your words wisely when answering questions about costs. (Photo by pfla)

Here’s the situation: it’s the first, maybe second, serious conversation with a prospect. You’re asking questions, you’re building great rapport, you’re uncovering a slew of needs, and you’re already seeing how you can help this prospect in 10 different ways. The conversation is going great. That is until the prospect says, “Wow, this all sounds good. So, what’s something like this going to cost?”

You freeze up. Your heart starts beating fast. Your hands begin to sweat. Your mouth goes dry.

You know you don’t have quite enough information to determine the exact solution or where you’d recommend starting. You know you don’t yet have enough trust built at this point in the relationship to introduce fees. And you know the prospect does not yet see the full value of your services. Yet you feel obligated to respond to their request, and you throw a number out hoping it doesn’t knock them off their seat.

Stop right there.

If a client or prospect asks about the price and they do not yet fully understand the value of your services, don’t give them one. If you quote a price too early, you lose control of the conversation. From here forward all conversations will focus around price when you want them to focus around value.

What Do You Say?

Buying professional services is an investment, and it is your job to convince clients and prospects that investing in you and your services will produce good ROI. This is done by communicating the value of your services and keeping the conversation focused around this value.

When the prospect  asks, “How much does it cost?” and you’re not ready to share that with them, here are a four ways to respond:

1. Offer a range in price: We all sell complex services; however, some of our services are more complex than others. For a fairly straightforward service delivery, it is acceptable to provide a price range. You don’t want to make the range too large or it won’t mean anything, plus the prospect will remember only the lower end. You also don’t want to provide such a narrow range that you back yourself into a corner.

A good way to frame it is like this: “While it does depend on the exact deliverables we decide upon, it generally ranges between $35,000 and $45,000.”

When to use this tactic: This tactic works very well when you (1) have a sense of the budget the prospect has (and it falls within your range), (2) have a fairly straightforward service you are discussing that you’ve delivered profitably for other clients within this range, or (3) want to weed out the tire kickers and prospects that have little or no budgets.

2. “It depends”: This is every consultant’s favorite phrase, and it works very well in this situation. Best of all, it’s the truth. Early in a conversation we often don’t know what it’s going to cost. Answer the question with, “It isn’t one size fits all. It really depends on a number of factors, and I’m afraid I don’t know enough yet to determine where we can really add the most value. Do you mind if I ask you a few more questions that will help me better understand your situation and what you’re looking to do?”

Even though you don’t answer the question directly, you help build rapport and trust. It opens up the conversation and allows you to start asking more in-depth questions that get to the root of their needs and focus around the value you can provide.

When to use this tactic: Anytime when you haven’t touched upon the full value of your services. If the prospect has not articulated the value, it will be an uphill battle if you give a price too early.

3. Present your fees next to expected returns: This changes the conversation from being about a “cost” to being about an “investment.” It works best when you get the prospect to articulate the expected returns. Questioning skills are very important to facilitate this information out of your prospect. For example, you may ask a line of questions such as this:

• “What are you currently spending on this process?” Pause and let the prospect answer.
• “How much time and resources do you think you’d save if we implemented these three recommendations we’re talking about?” Even if the prospect can’t answer this question, it’s OK. You are just setting yourself up.
• “The costs you reference are in line with what we typically see in our clients businesses before we start working with them. Through our X, Y, Z service we typically save our clients $200,000 – $300,000 in costs just by making the process more efficient. For example, we were working with one client last month in your industry…” Now you can go ahead and present your price in the context of the typical savings.

The key here is to make your service and the results you can achieve tangible. If you can tie it back to something financial—a decrease in cost, increase in revenue, or increase in profitability—you are focusing on the value and positioning your services as an investment.

When to use this tactic: Use this tactic whenever possible—in conversations and in proposals. It works well with the other tactics here and reinforces the value of the investment.

4. Ask the question back: When you think the prospect has a good sense of what they’re willing to spend on your service, consider asking the question back to them.

For example, “I know that you’ve been doing research on this and speaking with some other companies that offer similar services. What do you expect something like this to cost?”

This tactic works well to get a sense of whether you are in the same ballpark. Avoid the “what’s your budget” question, as often there is no budget for the types of complex services we offer, and if you’re talking to the right decision maker, she’ll have the authority to make her own budget.

When to use this tactic: This tactic works best if you know you are in a competitive situation and if you know the prospect has done a lot of research.

***

When considering any of these tactics, you need to use your own judgment based on the situation and the individual you are speaking with. Asking the question back can make you come across as a “know it all.” “It depends” can be perceived as you hiding something. Gauge your audience before you respond.

Most important, when some asks, “How much does it cost?” remember you don’t need to jump to answer the question. Be prepared and keep control of the conversation by focusing on the value you provide and the results you can help the prospect achieve.

How do you answer the question: “How much does it cost?”

Choose your words wisely when answering questions about costs. (Photo by pfla)

I was recently talking with a marketing services professional about buying her company’s services. The conversation was going well: I was interested in what she had to say, she asked good questions, provided intelligent project insights I hadn’t thought about, and convinced me she could provide the value I was looking for.

Everything was going great, until I asked the question, “What does something like this cost?”

She launched into a spiel about her project base rates and retainers, and then digressed back to what her hourly rate was (in case I was wondering). And, when I took more than a second to respond (not because I was blown away by the fees, but because I was still writing them down), she started talking about discounting these fees and coming up with a better price.

Not only did she devalue her services right then and there, she made me wonder whether or not I even wanted to work with someone like this.

How can you avoid such confused approaches to pricing and discounting and what are the sensible approaches to take? Here’s a peak at some advice from your fellow professional service providers from our Fees and Pricing Benchmark Reports:

• Other than for prepayment in full, never discount pricing. Once you do that, the client assumes you will do it again. It makes your relationship to the client about price, not value.
• Don’t compete on price, because you will lose on price. Compete on quality, value, and service.
• Never start low and expect to increase your fees easily. Your starting rate is the most important negotiation of all.
• Don’t price anticipating a steep decrease in negotiation. Rate decreases should include a slight scope reduction.

So, when it comes to pricing your services, present your price in a way that focuses on the value and outcomes of your services. That way, if you do get resistance on the price, you are better able to:

1. Defend your price
2. Decrease the fees (if you absolutely have to) while making a comparable decrease in the deliverables

Now, I only wish I could go back to the marketing service provider and let her in on these little secrets.