Packaging Yourself for Success

If the circus is coming to town and you paint a sign saying, "Circus is coming to Fairgrounds Sunday," that's Advertising.

If you put the sign on the back of an elephant and walk him through town, that's a Promotion.

If the elephant walks through the Mayor's flower bed, that's Publicity.

If you can get the Mayor to laugh about it, that's Public Relations.

And, if you planned the whole thing, that's Marketing!

The American Marketing Association uses the following description: “The process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives.”

From this definition, we see that:

• Marketing involves 2 parties

• It is an ongoing process of delivering what the consumer wants – it’s “dynamic.” This means that the market tends to change—what customers want today is not necessarily what they want tomorrow. For example, sales of beef are declining in the United States because consumers have become health oriented.

• The more a marketer understands the target consumer, the more he can anticipate their needs and offer solutions, in the form of products or services to meet those needs.

• This process involves both planning and implementing (executing) the plan.

I know from experience that marketing can be exciting, but many entrepreneurs cringe at the thought of 'marketing' their services. The two main reasons that service professionals and entrepreneurs say they hate marketing and selling is because:

1. They try to market without having a clear vision of their target and service offering; and,

2. They believe that self-promotion is pushy and self-centered and it makes them uncomfortable.

Let’s look at the first reason: not having a clear vision of the target and service offering. We’ll define the service offerings later on.

In terms of not having a clear vision of the target: when you don’t know who your audience is and don’t know what you want to communicate to them, it is pretty difficult to craft a compelling and effective marketing message. Imagine manufacturing orthopaedic shoes and placing advertising on MTV…you’d be wasting your time and money, AND you’d be the laughing stock of the shoe industry!

Even though today’s topic isn’t about defining your target markets and niche, suffice to say you can’t market effectively to your target until you understand who they are, where they are and what they want. What is their pain? What is the solution that you offer? What are the benefits of your services? What motivates them to action? And you need to articulate this in a way that will be immediately understood by your target.

Let’s look at the second reason many entrepreneurs say they hate marketing: the belief that self-promotion is pushy.

The marketing vs. the selling concept.

Two approaches to marketing exist. The traditional selling concept emphasizes selling existing products. The philosophy here is that if a product is not selling, more aggressive measures must be taken to sell it—for example, price cutting, advertising more, or hiring more aggressive (and sometimes obnoxious) sales-people.

The marketing concept, in contrast, focuses on getting consumers what they seek, regardless of whether this entails coming up with entirely new products. It is a client –centric approach.

Many entrepreneurs fall into the trap of feeling uncomfortable with marketing because they are not experienced marketers – they don’t understand the principles of marketing. For some, ‘marketing’ is a bad word, often confused with ‘selling’. It conjures up images of aggressive salespeople, who push their products on an unreceptive audience. In truth, marketing is a science and in its most simplistic terms it is about understanding the psychology of the consumer and leveraging that knowledge to deliver exactly what he wants. That’s why the marketing ‘best practices’ of major corporations work – they are tested and proven concepts.

Another reason many entrepreneurs aren’t comfortable with marketing is they don’t place a high enough value on their services. Whether you are a music teacher, a yoga instructor, a dentist, a coach, a chiropractor, or a spa owner, why is valuing what you do SO important?

People hire you because they want and need your services. You help people affect positive CHANGE in their lives! Hopefully you make them feel good. For every one person you help, hundreds more can be positively affected.

So VALUE what you do! Remember, you make a difference.

To put it in different terms, as an entrepreneur it is important to differentiate your Goal from your Role -- just like Mother Teresa!

Her goal, as Mother Teresa described it, was to offer "free service to the poor and the unwanted, irrespective of caste, creed, nationality or race."

But her ‘Role” was not to continue working among the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta, where she could only help hundreds of people, it was to market herself and bring worldwide awareness to her work so she could achieve her goal on a larger scale.

The Missionaries of Charity, which began as a small Order with 12 members in Calcutta, today has more than 4,000 nuns who help hundreds of thousands of needy people each year, in more than 100 countries.

Mother Teresa understood that her ‘goal’ was different from her ‘role’.

What is your ‘goal’?

Define the noble vision or mission for your practice – what do you want to achieve? What do you want to be known for? What other expertise do you bring to the table that makes your service offering special? Tip: you can often find your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) – what set’s you apart from the competition – in your goal or mission statement.

If you own a spa is your goal to provide a haven for stressed women, a place where they can safely and comfortably recuperate and rejuvenate from their hectic lives and return with a renewed sense of peace and strength?

If you are a dentist is your mission to help improve the quality of life for your patients, to enhance their lifestyles and to radically increase feelings of self-confidence, self worth and self-esteem?

These are noble goals!

Once you have clearly defined your goal, understand that your ROLE is to MARKET your services so you can attain that goal. Because if you don’t market….you likely won’t be able to achieve your goal – and then everybody loses!

Let’s talk about the Benefits of Packaging or Bundling products or services because they provide a huge leverage in your business and your marketing efforts. Think of the Fast Food industry, where meals are bundled – you get the fries, burger and drink at a better price than the ala carte menu. For the customer, this is a greater perceived value and an incentive to purchase the ‘combo’ rather than the individual item.

Assembling multiple products or services to sell in a package not only increases your
overall sales but it also…

Before you can develop Packages there are some basic steps you need to take:

1. Assess your target’s needs and wants. Get into the heads of your prospects. What do they want? BTW, people will often buy what they want and not what they need! Are there key life or holiday events (like Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, engagement, wedding, birth of a child, etc.) that could trigger the desire for a particular service or product? What is the hook or angle? For example Valentine’s Day is for lovers, but if you are a relationship coach targeting singles, should you scrap Valentines as an opportunity to connect with your target?

No! Think about the hook: singles dislike valentines because they don’t have a partner and that bothers them! Leverage that feeling and spin it. What about planning a singles mingle event on Feb 14th with the theme: Valentine’s is the start of a New Year for finding love. Promote your upcoming workshop and offer a tip sheet for Dating Skills. Think bigger and more conceptually or intuitively.

2. Take inventory of all existing and potential services Categorize them by level of importance – that means is it in alignment with your business goals, does it solve or address your target’s problem or need, and does it generate reasonable revenue for the effort required? Remember the Pareto Principle or the 80/20 rule – 20 % of your efforts are always responsible for 80 of the results, so focus on the 20% that works.

Years ago I developed a concept called The Marketing Tree TM as a way to categorize a client’s services and products based on whether the offering was core, secondary and tertiary.

The concept of The Marketing Tree TM is simple:

Visualize a huge oak tree…the roots of the tree represent your noble mission or goals. Let’s go back to my earlier example of the spa owner whose vision is to provide a relaxing haven for stressed women. That goal anchors and focuses her business.

Next, look at the core service she provides – this is the trunk of her marketing tree - the Spa services, such as facials, massage, different types of baths, manicures, pedicures, etc. This is her main service offering.

Now let’s look at the secondary service offerings, which are the main branches of the tree:

Next let’s look at the tertiary services she offers to her clients, which are the smaller branches of the tree:

She has established referral systems with:

The idea is to focus on your core business and then define any supporting services that are a great fit because they provide your clients with additional services or products that they want…or don’t know they want until they see you offer it!

For service providers like coaches, consultants, accountants, dentists, etc., your supplementary offerings may take the form of a newsletter or a special report. Maybe you offer a Tax Tips CD in January.

3. Take inventory of your skills and expertise. Are there ancillary services or products you could provide based on your past experience, that meets your target’s needs? One of my clients is an organizer who spent many years as an administrator of a retirement home. She recognized that many people didn’t understand the ins and outs of transitioning into a retirement home, so she developed a guide that provided a lot of valuable information to the elderly and their adult children who were often responsible for organizing the move. Because of her past expertise, she has been able to grow this niche into a very lucrative segment of her business. And she gets a lot of referrals from Retirement homes who provide her guide to their prospective clients.

In my situation my coaching practice focuses on relationships, but because I have such a strong marketing and business background, approximately 30% of my business is coaching entrepreneurs to help them develop their marketing plan and structure their service offerings.

So mine your own skills and expertise to see if there is some unique way to incorporate your previous expertise into your current business.

4. Assess Joint Venture Opportunities or cross promotions with companies who share the same target market as you do and who offer complimentary services or products. One of my clients is a small designer and manufacturer of high end costume jewellery. Her main product line is wedding jewellery and accessories for the bride and bridal party. She routinely creates JV alliances with wedding planners, hair salons, makeup artists and wedding apparel retailers to cross promote products. She has shared booth space at wedding shows with a violinist. Because of those alliances her business has increased 300% in the past 6 months. She is now in prime wedding season and expects an even greater increase this year.

The end result of your assessment is that you will have a 360 degree view of your business. Now you are ready to develop different package offers.

Look at your Marketing Tree. Begin by thinking about the problems that your customers often experience and the potential solutions that you can offer to help solve the problem. Next think of something else you may be able to add to the package that costs you little, or nothing, but adds great value.

Ask yourself these questions:

What are the opportunities for Packages?

Who is the Target?

What is the Need?

What is the Offer?

What is the hook?

Who can I partner with?

How and where will I market the package?

Can you take a service offering and put a different spin on it rather than offer it up in a conventional way? This is especially true for providers of hourly based services – we’ll talk about that in a few minutes.

Let’s go back to the earlier example of the spa owner. Most of her core services are offered ala carte. In October, had she done this evaluation she might have developed a Gift Package for women. Her target audience however would be men who wanted to provide a special high end gift for their wives and girlfriends at Christmas.

As an example she might call it “12 Months of Pampering the Goddess in You” and she advertises it in her local paper and provides information brochures at the local gym.

She has answered all of the aforementioned questions.

In developing this package she would consider several points:

1. How to structure the package so that the client gets maximum exposure throughout the year to the full range of services and products offered at her Spa? Perhaps these are the high margin items that people usually don’t buy, but once they are introduced to the product or service will make repeat purchases.

For example each month’s package might include a mini-facial, a full body massage, a manicure and pedicure as the core offering. In addition, every month might include one different product or service. This client would be exposed to 12 products or services over the course of the 12 months – some of which she might never have tried before. For example if she offers a $15 would add that treatment as an extra in subsequent months

2. How to price the package so that clients immediately see the value of the offer. The higher the perceived value of the bundle the more compelling it is and the more willing people will be to buy it.

As an aside, it is important to note that when clients buy packages they often don’t use all of the products or services that they paid for. This can definitely increase your margins.

3. How to leverage some of the relationships she has with her JV partners. An example might be to offer an introductory yoga class in the January package, with a coupon for a 15% reduction on any yoga programs in 2007. The JV partner would not charge for the intro class and provide a referral fee to the spa owner for every coupon redeemed. Maybe the gym, where she promoted her brochures, offers a special trial membership.

For businesses that bill by the hour you can use packaging of your services with intellectual property to crack the billable hours ceiling. Here are a few ways to start tapping into this opportunity:

1. Package your process. Sell a process rather than your time --clients will pay to access your previously developed materials. Examples are workbooks, forms, assessments, surveys, self-paced programs, and train-the-trainer packages. You could bundle the materials with a fixed number of ‘training’ hours.

2. Give a class. When you assemble a group of people to learn together, you can earn more per hour than working with them separately. Classes can be given at your office, or a rented facility, on the phone, or on the web. Your market for classes is not just your clients -- think about what you could teach your colleagues as well. You could offer a special rate for attendees. If you charge $100/hour for your services, offer 3 hours for $250.

3. Give a free presentation to a group. Service groups or organizations often welcome speakers who can present information to their members during meetings or lunch and learns. A free presentation, bundled with an offer – it could be a discount, a complimentary assessment, or even an offer to provide a free report on a relevant subject, can work well to acquire new clients and increase your email database. Again you could offer a special rate for attendees – maybe an introductory session rate that is 50% off your regular fee.

4. Record a tape, CD, or video. The simplest way to make recordings is to capture your live classes or speaking engagements on audio or video. Make your unedited recordings available immediately on the web or by phone. More polished recordings can be made with the help of a local studio or editor, or you can learn to do this yourself with the right equipment. Bundle the recording and your special 3 hour rate – it’s a terrific offer!

5. Write a white paper, workbook, or booklet. Short publications like these are easily within your reach, even if you don't consider yourself a writer. A simple 20-page booklet might have as few as 4000 words in it. If you've written four articles to promote your business, you've probably already written this much. These are perfect formats for e-books, which cost you nothing to print. Again…think about the opportunities to bundle the report with something else.
I recently did a $20.00 Tele-Class for Singles and I offered them $15 discount on any of my 2007 workshops, plus they received a mini-guide on flirting that has a retail value of $9.95. Pretty good deal, huh?

6. Market other people's products. If you don't yet have your own product, don't let it stop you. You can begin earning passive income by selling other people's books and tapes, becoming a re-seller for software or assessment tools, licensing someone else's process, or joining affiliate programs.

Any of these products can be marketed in conversations with prospects and clients, in your standard marketing kit, in mailings or newsletters, and on your web site.

In conclusion, keep in mind that you have numerous opportunities to cross promote, to bundle, to upsell your services and products. You just need to understand your client and your business. The only limitation is thinking too small.