Selling High-End Programs

Last week, I told you that listening was the biggest secret to marketing success. Sadly, most won't pay attention to this as they are out there looking for the "silver bullet of marketing."

A marketing silver bullet is a strategy that takes very little time or effort, and every single time you use it, prospects flood you with calls and emails begging you to work with them, willing to pay any price you ask.

Over my 24 years in business I've seen a lot of pretty good strategies, but never one that good! And every time I see something like this promised in an email (I get a ton of them), I roll my eyes, thinking, "There they go again."

The problem with most of these schemes is that they only work for certain kinds of businesses in certain conditions. And most of the time it's impossible to duplicate those conditions.

Today I would like to share a strategy with you that I've been using for years. It's not a silver bullet, but it can work for a wide variety of professional service businesses. It's not for beginners in business, but if you have substantial experience it can definitely work for you as well.

This is the approach and strategy I teach in my Marketing Mastery Program and the strategy I've used to fill my Marketing Action Groups and Certification Programs over the past several years. I've never talked about this up to this point.

I call it "High-End, Outcome Based" programs, or HEOB for short.

An HEOB Program is a turn-key program, system or service that provides a total solution for a client. This is what you'd offer clients if they really wanted to achieve outstanding results.

The funny thing is, very few professional service businesses offer HEOB programs. Instead, they offer what might be called "generalized services" where they sell their expertise by the hour or the day. They don't sell a solution, but time and materials.

An HEOB Program is like selling a car. It's already designed, has certain components and comes at a fixed price. It's designed to produce reliable results. It comes with a guarantee. Of course you can do a little customization, as needed.

Consultants, coaches, trainers, speakers and many other professional service businesses have successfully developed, marketed, and sold HEOB programs. It's not that hard to do, so why isn't it more common? Good question...

Because HEOB programs are actually easier to market and sell.

I think you don't see this much because most independent professionals aren't using "marketing campaigns" to sell their services. They are networking, talking to people, seeing who needs some help, etc. But this is nothing like an organized, focused campaign. And that's what you need.

An HEOB Marketing Campaign looks something like this:

1. Develop the program or service. It needs to be comprehensive and deliver very high value. It can be anything that will increase results and improve outcomes for your clients. It might be a multi-day intensive training or a full-year immersion program.

2. Develop your sales process. Yes, this is next, and it needs to work like a well-oiled machine. When you find a prospect for your service, you offer them a complimentary session where you discover their needs and challenges, present your services and invite them to participate.

3. Develop your marketing materials. These days this is usually on your web site in the form of a detailed description of the HEOB Program. No price is listed. If they want to know more they need to fill out a form indicating their interest. You follow up with them by email and phone and set up the complimentary session.

4. Develop your marketing strategies. This will usually be several strategies, from networking to speaking, to announcements in your eZine, to mailings to those you joint venture with. The whole purpose of all of these activities is to point them towards your marketing materials online.

There you have it. Using this basic strategy over the past few years I've generated hundreds of thousands in program revenues. When I discovered this approach, I was amazed at how relatively easy it was. And it was a lot less work that signing up clients one at a time for individual coaching services.

Again, it's no silver bullet, there's no such thing, but it sure does work!

Maybe it's time to develop your own HEOB marketing program?

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The More Clients Bottom Line: A High-End, Outcome-Based Program can be the very best approach to marketing and selling your services. If you have a high level of skill in your field and can be counted on to produce the very best outcomes for your clients, this is something you can do.

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Have you offered some version of an HEOB Program? How did it work for you? Please share on the More Clients Blog.

Comments

[michael cardus]

HEOB - is a slow moving silver bullet.
I also spent much time looking for this silver bullet - i feel that it is a sign of maturity (Business and personal) that we realize that there is no silver bullet. The nigerian millionairs skeen is not real, Ponzy skeems only work for a small portion of the bankers.
I agree listing prices on the website develops a "amusement park" mentality. Pay the price purchase the ticket and welcome to the park.

[Carolyn]

For me whether or not to display pricing on a web site for a turn-key program is something of a dilemma. I can see where you might think that some "persuading" may be needed for very high-end programs whose price tags might turn people away. However the flip side of not giving the price up front is that some people will not inquire fearing the price is just way too high. Many people don't want to make an inquiry just to find out the price of something because they fear the hard-sell, or because they are doing research for budgeting purposes.