It’s no fun when clients shop your ideas. If you ever came up with a brilliant idea for a promotion, only to have a prospect think it over, say they’d get back to you, but then ghost you and buy it from someone cheaper, you know the pain of being the unpaid consultant in the room.
Being the brains behind a competitor’s sale is not ideal.
You’re the one who did the work, thought it through, created the ideas, sourced the products, and made the recommendations only to have someone else place the order and cash the check.
What’s up with that?
Why are some ideas purchased immediately, while others are stolen, ghosted, shopped around, or just ignored completely?
That’s what we’ll explore in today’s episode.
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If your best ideas keep ending up on someone else’s commission report, you may think you have a pricing problem. But it’s more likely you have a positioning problem.
And it starts with the way you build out the experience of doing business with you.
You’re Not Just Selling Products—You’re Selling a Process and an Experience
You already know that prospects and clients can buy promotional products from ANY of a never-ending lineup of distributors, both online and off.
That’s not what sets you apart.
What sets you apart is the experience you create for them, from your First Contact through every other aspect of dealing with you and your organization. This includes:
- The clarity you bring to the project
- The confidence they feel in your guidance and
- The relief of not having to think through all the moving parts themselves
Those are just a few of the differentiators, and none of them happen by accident.
Instead, they’re the result of:
- The Messaging you use to position yourself as a valued resource, instead of just another product peddler.
- The marketing Vehicles you use to reach, impact and motivate recipients to get the desired response from them, and of course…
- The People you are proactively choosing to engage with. Not just anyone, but those who are less likely to shop and more likely to buy.
If you don’t have those three pieces firmly dialed in: Your Messaging, your Vehicles, and your People, then the right experiences are far less likely to happen.
Why the Experience You Create Beats Product Alone Every Time
Let me ask you this. What does it feel like to work with you?
Years ago, salespeople had a much easier time getting away with selling features and benefits. “Here are the features of what the product is, and here are the benefits of what the product does for you.”
But in the information age, that doesn’t begin to cover it.
A spec sheet can do it adequately. They don’t need you for that.
So what are your best clients actually buying from you?
More often than not, it goes way beyond features and benefits. It also goes way beyond branded merchandise. It’s:
- The confidence they get from the recommendations you make
- The trust they have in your ability to deliver what you promise
- The experience they have when interacting with you
Ultimately, it’s the emotion they feel as you bring all that together for them, taking the stress off their plate and knowing you’ll make them look like a star to their target audience.
It’s very difficult to shop that, because so few businesses deliver it consistently.
But that’s what they’re buying from you. Clarity. Confidence, and Certainty.
If your messaging doesn’t communicate that, then your value is invisible.
Without that, you end up with people asking for ideas, shopping them around, and awarding the business to the lowest bidder.
Not Every Prospect Wants or Needs Your Full Process, and That’s OK
Of course, not every prospect needs a full consulting experience.
Some just want a quote on a pen. Others want pricing on 50 business cards. Still others will just ask you to put together your best ideas and tell you they’ll get back to you.
All of that comes with the territory. But you don’t have to play by those rules.
Does everyone get full access to all your best ideas, insights and pricing right out of the gate?
Or do you qualify them first?
Do you have a procedure, in place, to reduce the likelihood that you’re dealing with an idea thief, a cheapskate, or a price shopper?
Just as your clients get to choose you, you also have the right to choose which prospects get the benefit of your ideas, insights, and expertise.
When your approach feels like it’s made for them—when it’s tied to their goals, objectives, and business challenges—they don’t want to shop it.
Because the offer didn’t come from a product peddler, it came from an expert. Someone they trust. You!
If you’re ready to make that shift in the mind of the buyer, from product seller to trusted resource, Go to TopSecrets.com/shift
Download the free PDF, stop giving away your best ideas, and start getting paid for the results you create for your clients in the real world.
- If your Messaging doesn’t differentiate you…
- If your marketing Vehicles don’t reach, impact and motivate your ideal buyers…
- Or if the People you’re reaching are unethical, low-dollar, price-shoppers, you wll never earn up to your potential.
So let’s make the shift. Download the free pdf now at TopSecrets.com/shift
Do Clients Shop Your Ideas?
If so, download the PDF. Then check out the five primary ways we help promotional product distributors grow:
- Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just starting out in promotional products sales, learn how we can help.
- Need Clients Now? If you’re already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here.
- Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry veteran doing a significant volume of sales? If so, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry.
- Time to Hire Salespeople? If you want to hire others to grow your promo sales, click here.
- Ready to Dominate Your Market? If you’re serious about creating top-of-mind-awareness with the very best prospects in your market, schedule a one-on-one Strategy Session here.