In recessionary times, it helps to know your audience’s comfort zones as far as price goes. This mini-tutorial gives ideas you can implement quickly to increase your cash flow by making customers feel more secure about buying from you.
Sometimes a sliding scale works, letting your clients choose the spot on the scale they’re comfortable paying. Just make sure the lower end of the scale is one you can live with. Although, apparently, more people opt for the mid-range rather than the lowest price, probably to save face a little (rung 4 on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Ladder).
You might bundle your services into small, medium and large style offerings. Some people will only be able to afford the least expensive items, but if you bundle two or three things and give a discount for the bundle that prices it less than each item added up separately... you gain a happy customer who has gotten a bargain... and you’ve sold more items. Discounted sold items are better than higher priced unsold items, especially when your business bank account looks thinner than usual.
In the same vein – have a sale. A whopper of a sale. A once a year (or maybe twice a year) whopper. Make sure you have a clear, fairly fast deadline for your sale, though. It’ll unfreeze your cash flow and make you feel prosperous... thereby unfreezing your anxiety at the same time. This lets more good flow in. Some people offer a deep discount to the first 5 or 10 buyers of an item. That speeds up purchasing, too.
You can also extend payment terms. If you’ve ever watched the home shopping channels for ideas (it’s a worthy suggestion, by the way), you’ll notice that every so often they’ll extend their payments from one single payment to two, three or even more partial or “easy” payments. You get your item home after the first partial payment, which includes shipping and handling and, probably the wholesale cost of the item. The rest of the payments are icing on the cake, really. But it helps the customer out financially and keeps the cash flowing in for the vendor. Good for customer loyalty, too. And customers can feel more secure when they can afford the lower, spread-out monthly payments.
*** Don't forget to check out the Tutorial Lady's 6-week Holiday Giveaway... a different tutorial available for free download each week through January 1, 2011. Just visit www.squidoo.com/tutoriallady for details.
This is one of the hardest struggles any business can encounter. I suggest taking these tips into consideration to avoid a huge downturn. It would be advisable for a business to take care of its status. So when the time comes that it’s up in the market, it will be a head turner.
Posted by: Matthew Engquist | 04/11/2012 at 07:22 PM