What are the buying barriers in your business?
What is keeping prospective clients from saying yes?
Take some time and really think about this.
If you don’t know, tell people about your business and ask them the main reason they would hesitate buying.
You can also ask clients who have already hired you what doubts or questions they had before they hired you.
3 Common Buying Barriers
1. Fear of Making the Wrong Decision
Create a way for prospective clients to sample your business to be sure it’s the right solution for them (read more on this in my article, Do You Invite People to Sample Your Business?). You can also offer a guarantee.
2. The Investment is Too Large
Offer a payment plan and/or reduce the time commitment. Cleary communicate the value they will receive.
3. Uncertain About What They’ll Get
Identify and communicate all of the details about what clients will get, how it will work, and the results they will experience. You can put this on your website and create a FAQ section.
One barrier I recently removed from my business is the request to work together for at least six months (now clients can hire me for one month at a time). Yes, I know that if you want to attract more clients and transform your business it is reasonable that it can take six months.
And often times, clients want to work together for even longer than that. But some prospective clients only need help with one specific area and don’t require lengthy support. So by offering coaching for one month a time, they have an offer that fits their needs and allows them to get exactly what they want.
If it is important to the success of your offering to have a required time frame, by all means keep it and explain why it is relevant. You don’t want to reduce the effectiveness of your offerings in order to make a sale.
Focus on the Value
Removing buying barriers is not, I stress not, about discounting your fees. For more about this read my post Why Discounting is Hazardous to Your Business. Because the value is either there or it isn’t. It’s about making it easier for prospective clients to say yes.
You can also choose to offer both fixed packages and cafeteria style offerings (selling individual parts of a bigger offering).
This is what’s so thrilling about owning your own business. It’s your business, which gives you the power to decide how to create, package, and offer your offerings.
To remove the buying barriers in your business: start by identifying what they are, take action to eliminate them, and then communicate your newly structured offer with prospective clients.
© Stephanie Ward
WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR NEWSLETTER OR WEBSITE? You can, as long as you include this information with it: Stephanie Ward is the Marketing Coach for Entrepreneurs who want to create meaningful and profitable businesses. Grab your FREE copy of the special report ‘7 Steps to Attract More Clients in Less Time’ plus business building tips, at: https://www.fireflycoaching.com.
Share your clever thoughts on this topic in the comments section below.
Hi Stephanie!
You are spot on! I’m about to redesign my site and totally rebrand myself because I realized that I’m offering a lot of great info, but I’m not trying to get rid of the fears that people have when trying to decide on a company to work with. This article has really solidified and helped me to determine the right path to dissolve these fears.
Great solutions! Thanks so much! 🙂
You’re very welcome Morgan, I love it when the right information appears at just the right time. Wishing you all the best with your redesign and removing buying barriers. All the best!
Hi Stephanie,
3 very simple barriers, but wow can they be powerful.
Remove the barriers, and you are in business. Simple as. Unfortunately many business owners assume they do not know how to or cannot, as they are fearful themselves.
Discounting is a sure way to a -ve in your Profit & Loss, and bad for business. I truly believe people want value for money over cheap.
A great post, thanks!
Thank you for your feedback Elaine. Great point, fear can stop entrepreneurs in many areas including this one. Let’s face it head on and get them out of the way. All the best!