Make More Doing Less

There are a lot of people overwhelming their clients in the name of over-delivering. Are you one of them?

Two Types Of Over Delivering

There are two ways to over-deliver; one bad and one good. You can over-deliver in terms of features, and you can over-deliver in terms of results.

It's always good to over-deliver when it comes to results. Over-delivering on features can be a disaster.

When you over-deliver in terms of features, you will:

  • Strip your profits
  • Flat-line your marketing message
  • Commoditize your business
  • Overwhelm your leads
  • Land fewer clients

Overwhelming Offers

It is tempting to build a package that offers more features than anybody else – especially if you can come in at (or even below) the expected price. It feels like you're providing the best value possible – and it may be.

For example, what if you assembled a package like this:

  • 5 page website (up to three revisions)
  • Logo (up to three revisions)
  • Online calendar integration
  • Live chat on your website
  • Email newsletter sign up form
  • Send weekly email newsletters
  • Social media header/banner images (three platforms)
  • Nightly backups
  • Weekly plugin and theme updates
  • Unlimited monthly site content updates
  • Unlimited video editing
  • Google Business Profile optimization
  • Up to 10 email accounts
  • WordPress tutorial video library (unlimited access)
  • Live monthly WordPress training
  • Social media content calendar
  • Detailed Google Analytics reports

To make sure it's the best deal anyone can find, you slap on a price of just $100 per month. With great expectations, you announce this to the world… and nobody cares.

Why Doesn't Anyone Care?

With a list like this, you won't make it more than five bullet points in before your client's brain turns off. Clients do not want this.

If I'm the client, here's what I'm thinking:

  • OK… so what? What am I actually getting?
  • How am I going to use the unlimited hours of site updates?
  • I don't need video editing. We don't produce videos.
  • Nightly backups and updates? Why isn't that free?
  • What am I going to do with Google Analytic reports?
  • I don't have the time to watch WordPress tutorials.
  • I don't want WordPress training.
  • What is a social media content calendar?
  • How much of MY time do I have to spend to get this to work?

I feel like I'm going to have to invest a lot of time learning stuff I don't care about or else I'm wasting my money. Even if I did try to carve out the time to do my side of the project, I don't have any confidence I would get the results I need.

I leave feeling overwhelmed, a little embarrassed, and discouraged.

Package vs. Purpose

The problem is not the content of the package. All of these services are good (except maybe the training that nobody wants). But you can say less and make more.

Instead of listing all of these features, what if you talked about the purpose of the package and said something like this?

A quick search on Google for accountants in Williamsburg, VA showed me that you've been in business for over five years but I'm also seeing that you've got a 3 star average rating and only 4 reviews. Obviously, your in-person reputation isn't shining through online.

In my experience, you could at least double the leads you're getting from Google if we gave your online reputation a boost.

I specialize in fixing this problem. All I need is for you to share access to you Google Business Profile with me so I can optimize and manage that for you. I'll also make sure your website and other social media accounts are optimized for local discovery.

I might need your help answering a few customer questions. If so, I'll just text you and you can let me know what you want me to say. Other than that, you can expect more leads to start rolling in organically in as little as six weeks. Are you too busy to handle getting more leads online?

How Clients See Value

When it comes to web design and marketing, clients don't think of value the same way you and I do because we're insiders. That means we don't experience the two factors that crush the client's perception of the value we're offering them.

Time and Pain

When clients look at a huge offer like the one above, the two factors that squash the value are:

  1. That's going to take a long time
  2. That requires a lot of my attention and energy

Whatever the value of the outcome is, you have to divide that by the time and pain the customer has to invest in order to get that outcome. Ideally, there would be zero time and zero pain which would make your offer infinitely valuable. The more time and pain involved, the lower the value becomes.

The Key To Landing Clients At Higher Prices

It all comes down to this:

  1. Simplify the offer down to the main result
  2. Reduce the time and pain the client must invest
  3. Value price the package

When you offer a package like this, the value is on the results – not the implementation. Therefore, set the price as a percentage of the results rather than based on how much time and effort goes you are investing. This enables you to do less and make more.

Check out this next video and let's look at another example of converting a service-driven package into a results-driven solution.

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