The economic warning signs are everywhere, and if your accountant is anything like mine, they're already hitting the panic button. But before you slash your prices or cut your marketing budget, take a deep breath. This episode brings together a powerhouse panel of experts to help you not just survive but potentially thrive during economic uncertainty.
What if I told you that recessions actually make millionaires? It sounds counterintuitive, but when everyone else retreats, those who strategically advance can capture significant market share. Our panel dives into why discounting is the wrong move when your costs are increasing, and why marketing is the absolute last thing you should cut (spoiler: cutting marketing creates a 90-day countdown to pipeline drought).
We explore practical strategies for improving cash flow management, including shifting from monthly to weekly financial analysis, optimizing payment terms, and conducting strategic audits of your offers to identify what truly generates profit. You'll learn how to repackage your services into more digestible pieces without sacrificing value, and why this might be the perfect moment to actually raise prices by enhancing perceived value.
Perhaps most valuable is our discussion on maintaining strong customer relationships during uncertainty. Being the "steady hand" that guides clients through turbulent times isn't just good service—it's a competitive advantage that builds lasting loyalty and referrals.
Whether you're feeling the economic pinch already or preparing for what might come, these actionable strategies will help you build a more recession-resistant business. Subscribe now and join the Tiny Marketing community where we're helping B2B service providers do more with less—because sometimes the smallest, most focused actions create the biggest results.
Join my events community for FREE monthly events.
I offer free events each month to help you master your business's growth through marketing, sales, systems, and offer strategy.
Join the community here!
Are you tired of prospects ghosting you? With a Gateway Offer, that won't happen.
Over the next Ten Days, we will launch and sell our Gateway Offers with the goal of reaching booked-out status!
Join the challenge here.
Join the Tiny Marketing Club >>> Join the Club
Come tour my digital home :) >>>Website
Wanna be friends? >>> LinkedIn
Let's chat every Tuesday! >>> Newsletter
Catch the video podcast on YouTube >>>YouTube
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Tiny Marketing.
This is Sarah Norblach, andthis is a podcast that helps B2B
service businesses do more withless.
Learn lean, actionable, organicmarketing strategies you can
implement today.
No fluff, just powerful growthtactics that work.
Ready to scale smarter?
Hit that subscribe button andstart growing your business with
(00:20):
tiny marketing.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, thank you guys for joining me today.
Today we are talking about howto recession-proof your business
, because we all see the newsand hear.
Actually, my own accountant wasfreaking out and I was like
it's okay, chill, so let's getinto it.
First, I want to get into highlevel.
(00:45):
What are the biggest mistakesthat you see businesses making
when the economy takes adownturn?
Let's start with Melissa.
Let's talk finance first.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Yeah.
So what I hear a lot is I'mgoing to lower my prices so that
I don't lose clients or I canget repeat or recurring business
, in which, to me, it's mindblowing because at a time when
your costs are going up, youneed to increase your fees to
(01:19):
reflect that, so that you cankeep being sustainable.
Right, you don't want to shootyourself in the foot so that you
can keep being sustainable.
Right, you don't want to shootyourself in the foot.
So for me, I would say that'sthe biggest one that I am seeing
right now.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Let's go straight to Peter and get your thoughts on
that.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
Well, yeah, I think this panicking ends up being
what moves first, right, andpricing is an easy lever to do
this right.
It also ends up being like arepresentation of us, right and
pricing is an easy lever to dothis right.
It also ends up being like arepresentation of us, right.
This pricing is particularlyhow close we are to being the
price setter or the delivery ofservices.
I see this too.
(01:55):
I see a panicking and I see theneed to discount or I see the
desire to move in a way thathelps try to secure business.
So panicking and pricing is thenumber one mistake that I see
as well, the discount aspectmakes me want to go straight to
Jack.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
So what is the biggest thing that you're seeing
people doing right now?
And I'm guessing discount isgoing to be among them.
Speaker 5 (02:23):
Discounting is huge and also fear when there's any
kind of like uncertainty ordownturn in the economy.
Like we're human beings, eventhough we're business owners and
we're trying to project, youknow, a certain level of
confidence.
We're human beings and we getnervous and afraid as well, and
(02:45):
that's what I hear everybodysaying.
And there's like things thatyou can control and there's
things that you can't control.
And the things that you can'tcontrol are tariffs and like a
recession, whether that happensor not.
The things that you can controlare your prices, the level of
activity you're doing in yourbusiness and the type of
(03:06):
activity you're doing in yourbusiness to try to continue to
keep like your sales momentumgoing.
And one of the things I seepeople do is definitely discount
.
But I also see people reallyspend a lot of time and energy
trying to like being worriedabout the things that they can't
control, which is just humanity.
(03:29):
But if you can kind of try tolike put up as much of a shield
as you can to that and reallyfocus on the things that you can
control, like your salesactivities, running your
business the way you know how torun it you'll see the sales
momentum continue to go.
But it's a scary time, it'snatural to sort of freeze up a
little bit.
Let yourself take that momentand then take a deep breath and
(03:52):
keep moving forward.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yeah, I'm going to jump off from that, because the
thing that I see most often ispeople shutting down their
marketing in.
Is people shutting down theirmarketing Right, not investing?
Yeah, this isn't a profitcenter when it's what drives
those sales conversations andwithout it, you're extending
your sales process.
(04:15):
Yeah, it will take 18 monthspossibly for you to close a B2B
sale when you don't havemarketing and they don't realize
who you are or the value thatyou have, and it's the first
thing that shut down I've seenwith, like the past 20 years.
It's the first thing that thatbusiness has shut down.
Speaker 5 (04:35):
Yeah, I've seen that too, and even when not even
small companies like ours, butbig companies whenever there's a
downturn, marketing or contentmarketing is always like the
first departments that getbudgets cut and layoffs, and I
think it's like just such afoolish mistake as well.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yeah, it's short-sighted.
I have said this a milliontimes, but I've always seen like
a 90-day turnaround.
If you shut off your marketingwithin 90 days turnaround.
If you shut off your marketingwithin 90 days, your sales
pipeline usually shuts off tooand you're creating your own
(05:15):
downturn by doing that.
The next thing I want to getinto is in this tighter economy,
where should businesses doubledown and where should they cut
back?
Should they cut back?
So let's talk double down firstand then ease into the cutback.
Speaker 5 (05:36):
So, jack, let's start with you.
Yeah, this is when I thinkdoing reviews on your business
and understanding, like, what'sworking and what are the core
pieces of your business thatdrive revenue and drive profit
in your business is reallyimportant, because when there
are downturns or when things dofeel uncertain, the best thing I
think you can do is double downon the things that are working.
So, if you know that certainmarketing right to your point,
(06:02):
sarah certain marketing vehiclesor activities, yes, maybe cost
money, but that is whatultimately brings leads into
your pipeline that you are ableto convert I would absolutely
not be cutting those things.
I would be like holding tightlyto that budget and making sure
that you do it.
Sales activities in general youmentioned 90 days to build a
(06:26):
sales pipeline.
Yeah, not pumping the brakes onany of the sales activities or
marketing activities that leadinto sales, I would not do.
I would continue to do all ofthat stuff because we're not
naive to think that everythingis going to be the same.
It may be harder to close dealsor to bring that revenue in, so
(06:49):
the last thing you want to dois take the foot off the gas on
the things that drive thatrevenue.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah, I think I just want to highlight the audit.
We just talked about this,melissa, in the minimum viable
tech stack workshop that I did.
You want to do an audit and seewhere your leads are coming
from, where your referralpartners are coming from, and
double down on those elements,the ones that you know are
(07:16):
driving sales.
That everyone needs to keep inmind is that when everyone else
is shutting down their marketing, if you don't, you're going to
stand out even more.
We have heard a million timesthat recessions make
(07:36):
millionaires and it's because ofthis, because other people are
retreating and the smart peopleare doubling down instead.
So, melissa, peter, do you guyshave anything else that you
want to talk about in terms ofdoubling down?
Because, melissa, I really do.
You guys have anything elsethat you want to talk about in
terms of doubling down?
Because, melissa, I really wantto hear about your cutting.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
Yeah, before we get into the cutting then I'll go
and follow Jack then.
So that way it's a stream.
I look at pricing right.
Look, perceived value getstotally recalibrated and we know
that price is perceived valueright.
And so, even though we want todiscount or we want to reduce
that price, I actually have alittle bit of a differing
(08:13):
opinion, which is this might bea moment to actually look at
your business and see where youcan raise the price or where you
can improve certain areas.
Because this is how I look atit If you want to raise prices,
there's only really three levers, because you cannot raise
prices directly and just be done.
You have to kind of raise thethings around it for price to
actually be impacted so you canreally improve the outcomes in
(08:34):
which you provide.
Typically, that's like value,like people will think about the
word value, but I really wantto stress like find ways in
which you can improve value toyour existing clientele.
Go to them and say what'sworking, like what's working for
you, and if it's hey, you'rereally I really appreciate how
fast you are, then go faster.
Like look for those things thatare actually working, Double
(08:54):
down with existing clients andfinding ways.
So it's like.
So don't just automaticallydiscount in that sense.
So find ways to improve theoutcomes.
The other is right is change theperception right.
How we've just recalibratedprices.
Find ways in which you canrecalibrate the perception back.
(09:16):
Is it?
Are you investing in yourreplacement value or are you
improving those outcomes, like Isaid the first time around?
But the third one I actuallywant to talk about is changing
your buyer.
Now, like you might hear thatand say like total new ICP, but
in reality we are always movingup market in a sense, whether
we're improving our buyer orimproving our market or
improving the stakes, higherstakes this might be an
(09:37):
opportunity to find a newerversion of a buyer, because if
the buyer themselves might belooking down market, you might
be able to capture a little bitof that nuance when you move up
market, because they're taking arisk and you might be taking a
risk and if you have a long-termview on your business, this
might be a way in which you canstart to reposition your
business from a pricingperspective to a new level and
(09:59):
to a new standard.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
I feel like I get smarter every time I have a
conversation with Peter.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Jack was in the pricing watch part.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Jack Melissa.
What are your thoughts?
Speaker 3 (10:17):
I was having a conversation with a client
recently and we were talkingabout how there were some
positions his team was lookingto fill, and one position that
came up was community outreach,so part of business development,
and he said that is one that wedefinitely cannot fill right
(10:38):
now.
He walked me through the otherones and then I said, okay,
let's revisit that conversationbecause your team has identified
that there is an opportunity ora need for business development
and maybe your financials can'tjustify hiring a new person to
go out there into the communityand everything that entails
(11:00):
tails.
But what about rethinking thisstrategy?
So what can you do differentlyto leverage the resources that
you already have and you're notadding additional costs?
Right, like my entire marketingis based on social media.
You know this, and that is verylow cost, and so I think at
(11:21):
this time is thinking about whatyou can cost.
So don't travel, you don't needto go to a conference where you
need to pay for a hotel andmeals and flights and all of
that.
Maybe find something that yourteam can do remotely so that you
can keep them certified,educated and all of that good
(11:42):
stuff, and it still like keepsthe morale up, but it probably
slashes that cost in half, andthen be intentional about the
other areas where you need todouble down.
I think I am the perfect example.
I started zero clients, a verylimited budget of money that I
(12:02):
was putting in.
The thing that I invested inwas marketing, because I needed
to accelerate that timeline,because I did not have a
12-month runway to figure thisout.
I needed to shorten that.
I think the same principleapplies here.
You have to get scrappy, youhave to get intentional, um, and
(12:24):
if you want cut, maybe look atthe efficiency of your current
operations.
So it's like at home we have asubscription to netflix and
peacock and math and all ofthese streaming platforms, but
you know there's one or two thatyou rarely log into, but you're
(12:44):
still paying for them, right?
Because whatever, it's $11 amonth, it's $12 a month, so you
keep paying for it.
Well, now it's a time to lookinto your internal resources and
the things where you'respending money that you really
shouldn't be because you don'tmeet them.
And how can you reconfigureyour teams to make them work
(13:07):
smarter, not harder, and focuson the things that are moving
the needle and not just doingwork, because you know, not just
not to stay busy is what I mean.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Yeah, it really comes down to auditing your offers,
seeing what's making you themost profit and cutting the
things that don't matter soyou're not spending money on
tools or whatever that youmight've needed to be able to
execute that offer before.
Yeah, I do that a lot.
(13:41):
I am constantly going throughand like does this even make
sense?
Nobody cares that much aboutthis Cut.
I'm a big fan of cutting.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
Yeah, there's a.
I'm going to just kind of go ontop of that, which is sometimes
it's good to do spring cleaningright Of your business, right.
This is a forced springcleaning in a sense right, and
so what?
one other way in which you cango about doing this is I don't
know if it's a mindset shift,but ask yourself the questions
like what do I wish would havealready been done for me in this
(14:13):
moment?
Right, so that you canbasically build durability in
your architecture.
Like moving forward, Because inreality, like some businesses
will fail, right, Some willsucceed in a sense.
And it's like what are thethings that you need to do in
order to sustain here, so thatyou can succeed in the future
and succeed the next time thatthis comes around?
Because we know that this is amarket right, these are cycles.
(14:35):
This isn't a surprise to anyone.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Yeah, I'm glad that you said that.
I have said that many timeswhere I'm like we've seen this
story.
We have had cycles like thisbefore and it always works out
fine.
The world has not ended.
That leads into the next one.
So how do you balance holdingyour price point versus offering
(15:00):
discounts or flexible termswhen your clients are coming to
you and saying they can't affordyou anymore, or your prospects
are coming to you and saying,well, that's out of my range
right now?
Speaker 4 (15:12):
I feel like I have to say something first, which is,
while I've started a lot of thisconversation about being a
little bit more aggressive, like, in a sense, I don't hold the
line is also don't be reckless.
Like I understand that thereare times where you do have to
make moves, if they arestrategic in the short term in
order to sustain, to continuefor the long term.
(15:34):
And so when it comes to pricing, and one of these things is
there are other factors liketerms or methods, or you can
change the relationship.
For example is I'm not going tosay this is what you should do,
but if there is a way in whichyou can change the compensation
format from just say hourly toperformance pay, right, it's
(15:54):
like you bet on yourself tobasically say well, instead of
you seeing me as a cost, here'sa way in which you could see me
as an investment and if we hitthis number, then you have
enough cashflow to support meand I will.
I will basically bet on myself.
I'm not saying to do that, butthat is one method in which you
can get a little bit morecreative with your finance or
creative with your pricingstructures in a time that does
(16:17):
demand a little bit of change,more of consider it adaptive
pricing being able to price thesame service multiple different
ways, depending upon the marketor depending on the outcome.
So that is a little bit.
One way that you could go aboutit is to find a little bit more
of a creative approach could goabout it is to find a little
bit more of a creative approach.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yeah, I want to jump on that train of thought.
I'm working with a client rightnow who's nervous about this.
So what we did is we broke downher offer into milestones, so
that someone just had to say yesto one milestone and then they
say yes to the next milestoneand that makes it more
affordable and they're getting alittle win before they move on
(16:58):
to the next one.
So they get the complete offeronce they go through each of
those milestones, but it's morebiteable.
It's easier to say yes to that.
Jeff, what's yours?
Speaker 5 (17:10):
Yeah, I also think in times like this, finding out
what your prospect really valuesout of what you do and pumping
that up a bit.
So, instead of jumping todiscounting the price, try to
bump up the value that they get.
So that might be a little extratime with you or a digital
(17:36):
download or something that, yes,may eat into your profit margin
.
It's potentially something youwould have sold, or it's still
like trading time for money.
But I think in times like theseto Peter's point, like getting
creative about kind of how youpackage and sell, and sometimes
(17:56):
you need to just offer a littlebit more to help people get over
the hump when it feels reallyscary and I am not a fan of
discounting in general there aretimes, if I'm launching
something new, that I'll givelike a special price to people
who you know join early and giveme feedback.
Yeah, exactly, but in generalI'm not a fan of discounting,
(18:20):
but I will give more if that'swhat somebody needs to get them
over the hump within a range.
Right, I'm not going to likegive them everything, and so
that's something that you can doand you can control.
So, if you know, I have a groupmembership program if
one-on-one time is reallyimportant to someone, I can
(18:42):
throw in a one-on-one session toget them to join the membership
the sales circle.
If you know something else isreally important to them, I can
throw in like a littlecustomization of that in order
to get them there withoutdiscounting the price.
So think of all of the assetsthat you have at your disposal.
(19:03):
Yourself, being an asset,understand what your prospect is
really valuing.
If you have a great salesprocess, that should be really
clear to you.
And then you have a bunch oflevers that you can kind of push
and pull to get them where theyneed to be, to say yes.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Yeah, that is a really good point.
So, like, if you have a gatewayoffer, a bridge offer,
something like that, then youfully understand what is
important to them, where they'restuck and what they need to get
over it, and that allows you topick really strategic bonuses
to be able to convert them ifthey're like right on the edge,
(19:40):
like oh no.
Yeah, melissa, my next questionis specifically for you.
But do you have anything youwanted to add to this one?
I do.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
I think this is a good time to think about being
flexible.
So don't flash your prices,don't do a discount.
Add some value, break it downinto a more digestible piece of
the offer and then be flexibleon your payment terms.
By no means so.
For example, my clients.
(20:09):
They pay at the beginning ofthe month.
It's on auto pay.
That's a non-negotiable for me.
But, for example, some peoplewill not accept credit card
payments because they don't wantto incur the fees, and I think
they're missing out on that,because that gives the
opportunity to the buyer tofloat their cash and still be
(20:33):
able to hire you for yourservice that they need, and so
they get the opportunity tofinance it.
But you're not doing thefinancing for them.
And if you're smart about thepricing, you can add a cushion
there so that you're stillgetting paid the amount that you
wanted to get paid originally,but you're covering those
(20:54):
potential fees.
Or you can be transparent aboutit and add those fees on top to
the invoice and let the persondecide.
And what I have found is that alot of people will say, yeah,
just set it on auto pay.
Here's my credit card number,I'll pay the fee because it's
convenient or because I getmiles, I can just set it up and
(21:17):
not have to think about it, orbecause they need the cash.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah, that's a good point and, like Dubsado
Squarespace, a lot of differentcompanies have that buy now, pay
later option.
That is available now, whereyou're still getting that lump
sum, but they can pay over timeif you're doing project-based,
for example.
Okay, so my finance questionwhen revenue is unpredictable,
(21:44):
what key metrics should businessowners really be looking at?
Speaker 3 (21:48):
So this is a time for people to really hone in their
cash flow management.
So in times of abundance,you're probably looking at your
cash flow month over month.
You know, do I have enoughmoney to cover payroll, if
that's something that you haveto pay my bills and whatnot?
I am seeing more and more myclients asking me to look at
(22:11):
their cash flow weekly, and thatis a smart thing to do.
You want to make sure thatyou're being smart and you want
to collect up front on the firstof the month, but whenever
possible, you want to pay on thevery, very last day.
You have to pay right.
It just, it is what it is.
And so for small businesses likeours, there probably won't be a
(22:36):
lot of those bills where youcan delay the payment.
Right, because we're usuallythe type of providers that will
spend an invoice and some peoplewill have, you know, net seven,
net 30, net 15, whatever.
But if you do have those, pushit to that net 30 or net 15 or
net 7.
For bigger clients that Isometimes work with, it can come
(23:00):
to a point where you have todecide we're paying everybody
net 30.
It doesn't matter what the duedate is, because we need to
prioritize our payroll, we needto prioritize our fractional
advisors and things like that.
But looking at that and goingthrough that exercise week over
week is going to help you pivotin a timely manner, rather than
(23:24):
waiting an entire month and seethat your runway is now 30 days
instead of 40 or 50 that you had, you know, 30 days ago.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Yeah, that is a really good point and all of my
bigger clients they do exactlythat.
Doesn't matter when the duedate is, they're going to pay
when they pay.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Okay, so let's talk about customer experience, and
this is probably going to belooking at all of your
experience as service providers.
More than anything, we don'thave a customer experience
expert here today, but how doesit affect your role during a
downturn?
So how can businesses usecustomer experience as a
(24:12):
competitive advantage?
Anybody have any thoughts onthat?
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Steady hand, steady hand.
That's what works for me.
No, seriously, it's creating aspace in moments like this where
you're holding it together foryour client.
You're going through some ofthese anxieties and questions
and we're all living in the sameworld, we hope.
But as a professional, as aconsultant, you have to be in
(24:42):
there with them.
You have to be thinkingcritically the entire time.
I'm not just reconciling theirbank accounts.
I need to wear my consultanthat every single day and treat
this as if it were my business,my problem.
I'm in it with them Withnumbers.
I can provide that.
(25:02):
So, hey, here's the reality,right?
Often it's like the budget ohmy God, we're so under budget.
Okay, let's understand why.
Let's look at these numbers.
Well, yeah, you were overlyambitious and optimistic a year
ago when you set up this budget.
Of course, it's going to lookabysmal now, but if you look at
(25:24):
the numbers this other way,maybe your sales are going up.
You know you have morecustomers now, and so it's just
having that critical mindset andlike, again, keeping a steady
hand to walk them through it.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Yeah, I think that being a service provider also
means a little bit being abusiness therapist.
You have to help people a lotwith their anxieties around
their business.
It's super personal.
Speaker 5 (25:51):
Yeah, yeah, and I think acknowledging the moment
that we're in goes a long way toboth of your points.
It's like actually saying like Iknow it feels crazy right now,
I know it feels out of control,but this is what we do, and
having a good customerexperience, user experience,
(26:12):
onboarding, offboarding all ofthat is important, no matter
what is going on in the economy.
Just to let you know like thatwill make or break whether your
clients stay with you, refer you, you know, sign on and that
starts at the very early timesof the sales process, or even,
(26:32):
like the marketing process, thatcustomer experience it's not
once they sign the contract.
And so you know, now is maybe agood time if you haven't looked
at your user flow and theexperience to go in.
We've talked about some reallyhigh touch.
You know one-on-one ways tolike create a good user
experience.
(26:52):
But in general, now is a goodtime to look at your user
experience and your onboardingflow and all of that and make
sure that it's relevant and makesure that it's the experience
you would want to have if you're, you know, working with
somebody else.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Yeah, that's a good point, Just like and helping
them feel seen, yes, listening,acknowledging and solving the
problem at hand, rather thanfeeling like this is what
everybody gets.
Peter, do you have anything youwant to add?
Speaker 4 (27:26):
We're all in the experience game.
Part of services, part of whatyou're buying, is also an
experience and I can't forgetthat.
And and here's the here's thething is, I might go a little
bit and say there's a differencebetween so steady hand, like
most of those, those perfect,perfect insert, right there I
(27:47):
have to um, there's a differencebetween being nice and being
kind.
While it's always wonderful toboth be nice and be kind,
sometimes you need an advisorwho's going to be kind to you
and being kind might not be thenice thing to do, but it might
be the honest thing.
And I really think that serviceproviders, whether they're
(28:11):
business therapists or advisors,in a sense is they are the
individual who's outside the jar, right, all of you have heard
my favorite saying, as ofrecently it's hard to read a
label from inside the jar.
And now they're really insidethe jar right now, right,
because now everything seems tobe a little bit of an emergency
and everybody's got their guardup and all these things are just
(28:31):
shining lights on cracks andcrevices, right, and you don't
want that crack to become acanyon incense.
And so when I go with thiswhole nice and being kind is
like if you are outside the jarand part of your duty and part
of your belief and part of yourprinciples is like you want to
help people in their experiencebut you also want to help that
business go.
Be kind, like tell them, behonest, be true, be an advisor,
(28:56):
and that's going to allow themto sustain and allow them to
either improve their experienceor improve their business.
Right, be kind, be nice to, butfocus on being kind and telling
them the really important stuffso that they can shepherd
forward or move forward andfacilitate to the next level or
the next version of theirbusiness and facilitate to the
next level or the next versionof their business.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Yeah, I think they're just during this, when anxiety
is so high, being on top of thatand validating their feelings
and helping them through thethings that are hurting them
right now is more important thanever, and sometimes that means
that you're going to spend alittle extra time with clients
than you would have before, butyou know that's okay, because
life is hard and we're all inthis together.
Okay, let's talk about offers.
(29:48):
So I want to talk about rightnow.
Should businesses be looking atand I kind of teased this
earlier repackaging orrepositioning.
Actually, Peter also teased it.
Their offer is in a downeconomy to make them more
adaptable for how people feelright now, when money and time
resistance are a big thing.
Speaker 5 (30:11):
Absolutely yeah are a big thing.
Absolutely yeah.
I don't know if that was foranybody in particular, but a
thousand percent.
I think now is a great time toexperiment with offers and
pricing and positioning and sortof you know, get creative on
how you do things.
If there are certain module, ifyou're a service provider and
(30:33):
you have a big high ticketservice package that you offer,
if there are things you can pullout and offer a taste of at a
lower price point to get peopleto purchase from you and
experience your service for thefirst time at a lower level.
I think it's a great time totest that and just sort of, you
(30:56):
know, again, play around withhow you package, how you price,
certainly how you market,depending on what you do.
Being able to sort of reflectwhat's going on in the world in
your marketing message and likehow what you do like resonates
or solves a problem for today'smarket is incredibly impactful.
(31:21):
People, if you're talking about, like the high days of
everything's going great andblah, blah, blah, blah, blah and
like people are freaking out,like you're really missing the
mark.
So now is the time to sort oflook at everything you're doing
and make sure it reflectswhat're really missing the mark.
So now is the time to sort oflook at everything you're doing
and make sure it reflects what'shappening in the world.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
It comes off as tone deaf if you're just pretending
like you don't notice what'shappening.
It's like okay, yeah.
Speaker 5 (31:49):
For all.
You lose trust, like right away, and people want to work with
people they trust.
So if you're not addressing it,I think you're really missing
opportunity.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Yeah, has anybody here recently repackaged or
adjusted their offers to adapt?
Speaker 3 (32:06):
No, I have expanded my audience.
So, in an effort to support mycommunity of solopreneur, small
business and service providers,I recently launched an email
series to talk about this andwhat people like us can do.
(32:29):
Like us can do.
This is the time where I havehad the most buying into any
sort of lead magnet and I gotpeople emailing me back and
saying how helpful it was or howmuch value it added, and so it
has made me curious and excitedfor me to develop something that
(32:52):
can help serve this communityin a way that it's accessible to
them and also helps my businesswith scalability.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah, I mean, I have to say that you were on top of
it.
You were really quick to adaptand add this into your marketing
on your LinkedIn.
In this email series which Isubscribe to, All of it was
brilliant and timely and helpful, so I think you nailed it.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Honestly, jack and I are members of this very, very
inclusive community, and this isthe chatter that was going on
in the community and it was likeoh, my girls, my ODs, need my
help right now.
What can I do to support them?
This is what I can do.
That's where the inspirationcame, and I think it goes to
(33:44):
like keeping your pulse in whatis happening around and like
having that consultant mindsetand that disposition to serve.
You just have to be creative,right, but you have to pay
attention to what's happening.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a huge thing ispay attention and make sure
you're adapting.
So I already talked about likerepackaging your offers.
I love, Jack, that you pointedout like just break off pieces
of it that are the mostimpactful you really have to do.
I do offer audits veryregularly, Like what are the
(34:22):
pieces that people actually careabout?
Can it stand alone without theother pieces?
Can this take place in ashorter timeframe so they can
get faster results at even alower price, because they're
only getting a piece of it?
It just makes it moreaccessible too.
Peter, do you have anythingthat you want to add to it,
(34:43):
since you teased it out a littlebit too?
Speaker 4 (34:45):
Yeah, All right, I feel like I'm always repackaging
and rechanging my offers.
It doesn't matter, and I thinkthat's just coming from practice
now, like finally learning andrealizing and paying attention
to what people are saying.
But so I let me add a littlebit of context, for mine is I
guess I sell more, I work morecustomized, premium, strategic
(35:06):
work, right, so individuals whoare selling selling that.
So for me it's actuallydoubling down, using terms we
used before in the discoveryprocess and like actually
focusing deeper into not justtrying to take my offers and
square, peg, round, hole them ina sense, which is like, and
(35:27):
actually open up the wholesurfacing instead of selling
approach and like really justopening up the conversations to
see what is the real problem,that the person or the prospect
or even my existing client, thatthat they, that they really
have like what is the true,fundamental, like most impactful
.
If you have to choose one toppriority, what really is it?
(35:49):
And be comfortable, I know, becomfortable saying that my offer
might not be the one that fitsyou right now and being able to
hand them off or shepherd themoff to somebody who I know that
could, and so I know this is notdirectly answering that
question.
But this is an approach I'vetaken to a little bit of my
offers, which is doubling downand leading more into the
discovery process, to understandthat there is more than just my
(36:11):
offers that might fit and thatI know that I have a community
around me that their offersmight fit or as I, as I work
with them and so I think me,I've noticed myself leaning into
this discovery phase, orsurfacing phase, and looking
more into that yeah, I thinkthat I mean Jack can speak on
this better, but I think thatthat is important for all sales
(36:33):
conversations is willing to sayI'm like girl, actually someone
else would be better at this.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
And here's that person being ready with that
referral.
Speaker 5 (36:44):
I totally agree with both.
I don't have anything to add.
I think you both said itperfectly.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
I think this is where we need to have like a little
mic drop emoji that just goeslike this and drops.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
It'll just have to be us miming it.
Okay, melissa, this baby's foryou.
So cash flow we're going to geta little deeper into that, so
it can make or break yourbusiness right now.
So what are companies doing toimprove their cash flow right
(37:16):
now?
What is something that they canadjust or tweak at the end of
this week?
Speaker 3 (37:24):
Yes, I would look at your product offering.
I went through this exerciseabout a year and a half ago with
a client where you know clientsare used to shipping fees.
We pay for them all the timewhen we shop online.
But what other fees areparticular to your business that
maybe you have been eating upand not passing down to your
(37:47):
customers?
Now is the time to look at thatand pass them down right.
Now is the time to look at thatand pass them down right.
Um, depending on the industry,it can be a recycling fee.
Um, as part of what you offerthem, you know, it can be a
fueling fee.
Uh, there's just so many thingsand it will vary from business
to business.
But think about it.
So I am in the process ofevaluating software.
(38:10):
Uh, for the f&A component of myoffering, where you mentioned
this, peter, of like scaling up,like what I am seeing now is
clients are maybe rethinkingtheir payroll expenses and they
need CFO level support, so I'mseeing a lot of demand for that.
(38:32):
So it's forcing me into grow upinto a different sector.
So I'm thinking about thissoftware.
So one of the things that I amconsidering is it's not just
what the product has to offer.
But what is it going to berealistic for me right now as a
cause that I can pass on to mycustomers?
(38:54):
And what can I afford to?
Maybe absorb for a year as anintroductory offer?
But then when I have to go backto them and say, ok, you got a
free year, now I'm going tocharge you for this software
subscription.
That it's not going to be toobig of a hit, and every business
model has something like that,and so I think that is going to
(39:15):
be the lowest hanging fruit.
And then, what can you upsell,even if it's like a small
project, if you're in theservice space, what is that
add-on that you can offer themon top of what you're already
doing?
Nudge that client base that youhave right now.
It's going to cost you lessbecause you don't have to go out
(39:38):
there to find new clients.
You don't have to spend timegetting to know them, you
already know them.
So it's thinking creativelywhen you're working with them
and seeing how else you can growthat business.
And then, going back to thatflexibility in the payment terms
accept credit card, offerfinancing options so that they
(40:01):
can finance your services oryour offering, but you're not
doing the financing for them andfor those clients or industries
that it's inevitable, like ifyou're.
I have seen it where sometimesthe product is bigger and
they'll send an invoice todaybut the client will have 30, 60
(40:26):
days to pay.
Once that client has hit thatpayment date and now the balance
is past due, pass on theinterest costs to them, because
if they made an expensivepurchase, you probably have to
leverage debt to buy that pieceof inventory.
So that means you're payinghigh interest rates on them.
(40:48):
You shouldn't be financingtheir business for free and
maybe you're not charging themthe 7%, but before maybe it was
1.5%, that you were charging ona late fee and you weren't and
you were ignoring it or notenforcing it.
Maybe that fee needs to be 4.5%and you need to absolutely
(41:08):
enforce it.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
That's a good point.
Yeah, because those fees areinsane, like strike fees, good
God.
Speaker 5 (41:18):
Somebody can come up with a different payment system
that would like give me some ofmy strike fees back.
I would move over this.
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
I know, If I had my QuickBooks open I would tell you
how much strike gets of mymoney.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
Well, guys, you're looking at it the wrong way,
though, right?
Because that B is allowing youto automate the cash collection
process and the sales process isshortening your sales cycle,
right?
So why not pay a little?
It's not paying a whole humanto do the work for you.
(41:54):
You're paying around 3% tobring in a sale and, if you're
smart about it, that is sinkinginto your accounting system and
applying the payment to theinvoice directly, and it's also
directly depositing the moneyinto your bank account.
Think about all of theefficiency that you're getting
(42:15):
there, okay all right, but fromwhat you were saying, you could
also include the stripe fees asas part of it okay, thank you,
into your pricing.
Yeah, your pricing and so I'veset up.
I set up, um, I did it, I don'tdo it.
(42:38):
How do I want to say that?
Okay, my accounting power hourI built a cushion for don't
strike speaks in that rate.
Right, it's easy, it was soeasy to collect that money
before the power hour evenstarted.
So to me that's like money wellspent.
(43:01):
So you can do it that way.
Or when I was setting it up,stripe gave me the option of
like charging my base rate andputting in the option for credit
card and letting my customerknow hey, I'm going to charge
you this credit card fee.
That brings a whole other setof complications because you
(43:24):
know you have to understand thelaw and how much.
Like Strike was saying that Icould charge one percentage, my
knowledge of Colorado sayssomething different, so it's
like I'm not even going to messwith it.
I'm just going to bump up mybase rate so that, at the end of
the day, the money that makesmy bank account is what I wanted
to charge.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Yeah, that makes sense, peter.
Were you gonna say something?
Speaker 4 (43:44):
there's a I have a philosophy, which is when it
comes to raising prices, pleasedo not blame it on cost or
inflation.
Find a way to demonstrate value, like there's not but.
And actually, melissa, how youarticulated that, though, was it
right?
We're articulating the value ofthat, and I right you're
showing you're not just sayingit too.
It's not just like, oh, I'mjust going to reposition it as
(44:05):
oh, this isn't a cost, I'm like.
Demonstrate it.
Find the value that's embeddedin that, and that's where where
the price raise can come.
Not just, oh, sorry, I'mpassing on the cost or I'm
passing on the inflation.
To you it may be the case, inreality, like you are actually
increasing price or increasingthe fees, but demonstrate why
(44:25):
that is actually a valueassociated with it.
Connect it to something thathas a greater outcome in the
long run.
Make sure that's in themessaging itself.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
I'm not your typical accountant, peter.
I'm not cheap, I'm not a pennypincher, and this is why my
experience, my time, are worth afortune, right.
So whatever is out there thatwill give me back my time and
let me focus on the things thatI am passionate about.
(44:54):
Take my money, just take itright Like I won't even think
about it, and those rich andseas are one example.
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
I needed that reframe actually, thank you, and we're
helping each other in this panelGosh.
Speaker 5 (45:14):
We talked.
Oh, just to build sorry Sarahon what everybody said is we
talked about it before isauditing yourself.
I mean doing a monthly reviewof your P&L, your profit and
loss statement, all of the moneythat's coming in, all of the
money that's going out.
Where is that?
And Melissa said it before, ifyou are into like a cash
strapped and you're worriedabout cash flow situation, doing
(45:37):
that weekly so that you canreally stay on top of things,
Because the worst case scenarioas a business owner is to get to
a point where you don't knowhow you're going to pay your
bills, or you don't know howyou're going to pay your bills,
or you don't know how you'regoing to pay your employees, or
you don't know how you're goingto pay yourself.
If you are looking at yournumbers and having an honest
(45:59):
conversation with yourself, giveyourself the time to plan for
any kind of scenario that mightcome up in your business and
don't take your foot off the gason selling, because that is
what you need to do to keepbringing the revenue in.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
Yeah, that's a massive one right there is.
Don't ever stop pushing youroffer and selling.
Speaker 5 (46:26):
Yeah, and now would be a good time to actually.
In the Honeybee sales circle, welook at profit margin on our
products and the packages thatwe sell.
Now would be a good time toactually if you haven't looked
at profit margin.
A lot of times as serviceproviders, we don't really think
about profit margin becauseit's our time and so we don't
(46:50):
equate a hard cost to our time.
It's our time and so we don'tequate a hard cost to our time.
But you should be looking athow much time, effort and money
it takes to deliver a specificproduct or service that you have
.
And if there are specificservices or packages that have
higher profit margins than theother, it's okay to push certain
(47:13):
things that are easier todeliver, that have higher profit
margins, that also delivervalue in times like this when
you have a cash crunch or whenthings feel uncertain, or pull
out things that are very laborintensive and maybe don't impact
the deliverability of thepackage too much, or retool it
(47:36):
so that you're able to reallylike kind of, get the maximum
value for your clients but themaximum profit margin for
yourself.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Yeah, yeah.
I would even venture to saylook at those high, like high
time value offers and considerjust cutting them.
What makes the most sense?
Where are you getting yourprofit?
Not all offers, even if they'regood, means that they're
sustainable.
I had an offer called theStrategic Story, which took a
(48:09):
lot of my time and people lovedit.
It was easy to sell, but ittook a lot of my time and people
loved it.
It was easy to sell, but ittook a lot of my time and it
just wasn't worth keeping thatoffer when the profit margin
wasn't there.
This one is for Dak.
It's about sales.
So when decision cycles slowdown, like now, slow down.
Speaker 5 (48:36):
Yeah, like now, what's one sales strategy that
keeps deals moving forward?
Yeah, I think there's a couplethings that you can do.
We all have bandwidth rightwithin our business.
We can only do a certain numberof projects or have a certain
number of clients.
Most of us some of us have likea limited potential, but most
(48:57):
of us have a certain number ofbandwidth, and I think it's a
really good strategy to be openwith people around what that
bandwidth looks like.
Like I only have three spotsavailable in me, or I only have
X number of this thing that Ican sell.
(49:19):
Not to create a fear, right.
I think there's a differencebetween, like, creating a sense
of urgency and then beingemotionally manipulative, right,
but you can create a sense ofurgency around listen, if this
is something you're interestedin, I can only do so many of
these and creating a sense ofurgency around.
(49:41):
You should sign up for this now, because it might not be
available when you want it.
That's one that I think ispeople I have had a lot of
success with and other peopleI've seen implement it and it's
sort of I've purchased.
When they're like hey, I havetwo spots left.
Me, too, I'm like I need a spot.
(50:02):
I need your help.
I was planning to like sign upin two weeks, and now I need to
sign up right now because Idon't want to miss my chance,
and so that's one strategy thatI think you can employ anytime,
but certainly it's a good time.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
Yeah, and that relates a lot with service
providers, who do have a limitedamount of time.
They can only take on so manyclients at a time.
Melissa and I were just talkingabout that.
Does anybody have anything elsethat they have tried before
that has worked well for movingforward a stalled sales cycle?
Speaker 5 (50:40):
I'll jump in.
Yeah, I was going to say theother thing we talked about
before is you know, if you feellike there's a stall offering a
bonus or offering like if you,you know, agree within the next
week, I will add on this rightSomething that you know is
valuable to the client.
(51:02):
And again, don't do this all ofthe time, but I do think that
there are certain times,especially when there are slower
sales cycle and you need tomake sure you are bringing
revenue in, where you can employa tactic like that and have it
feel good for everybody.
Speaker 2 (51:19):
Yeah, that's the exact thing I was going to
suggest.
That's the time-sensitive bonus.
Yeah, that's the only thingthat'll do it, Okay the only
thing that'll do it okay.
Speaker 3 (51:35):
Oh, I want to say I think your gateway offer is
something that I've, you know,used in the past, um, without
knowing that that's what it was.
Uh, we're calling it anassessment, or selling a project
in phases.
So let's do this phase first.
This is how much the investmentis, um, and then you wow them
so that phase two and three justhappen organically and get them
(51:57):
there faster than you wouldhave if you tried to solve the
whole thing.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
Yeah, yeah.
I think that that is whygateway offers work so well,
because you're building out thisfoundation.
This is what would solve yourproblem.
But oftentimes they eitherdon't have the time to execute
that, don't have the inclinationto execute it, or just don't
know how to execute it.
(52:22):
So they'll want you for thatmilestone one, milestone two,
etc.
Let's talk about long-termmoves that businesses can make
right now that can help thembecome stronger on the other
side of this economy crunch.
Is there anything that comestop of mind that you would
(52:45):
change now?
Speaker 4 (52:47):
This is where we're going to go into.
I'm going to mention somethingI mentioned earlier.
There's three ways to raiseprices, three levers.
Right, you improve the outcomes.
Right, you change theperception or you change the
buyer.
And when I say change the buyeragain, I'm not just like just
moving ICPs.
This is an opportunity in whichyou can take a look at your
(53:07):
business model, findopportunities to sell into
different stakes.
Right to move up, and I thinkthis is where you can start to
position yourself in a newpricing structure, a new pricing
model, or changing the buyer.
Speaker 2 (53:22):
Yeah, stakes made me think of stakeholder, by the way
and just making sure that allstakeholders that are included
in that buying decision areinvolved from day one.
So they are being broughtthrough that process with
everyone else, because that'swhat really.
This actually goes into theprevious question, but that's
(53:44):
what causes so much of the stallpoints during a sales process
is, oh, I need to get thisperson's permission to and this
person Just bring them in at allat the beginning.
We'll wrap right here, and Ijust want to say thank you for
joining me today.
I think this conversation wasso valuable, and does anybody
(54:05):
have any last thoughts before webounce?
Speaker 4 (54:10):
Thank you, Sarah.
Speaker 5 (54:10):
Thank you, yeah, thank you for putting this
together.
This has been so much fun.
We should do it again.
I you yeah, thank you forputting this together.
This has been so much fun.
We should do it again I know,yeah.
Speaker 2 (54:17):
I was like, okay, we have just like all of the
perfect people for thisconversation.
Speaker 3 (54:21):
I feel like your show is the show to be, and then
Jack also.
I feel like I'm a long royaltyhere, so thank you.
Speaker 1 (54:30):
If you love all things tiny marketing, royalty
here.
So thank you.
If you love all things tinymarketing, head down to the show
notes page and sign up for thewait list to join the tiny
marketing club, where you get towork one-on-one with me with
trainings, feedback and pop-upcoaching that will help you
scale your marketing as a B2Bservice business.
(54:52):
So I'll see you over in theclub.
Welcome to Tiny Marketing.
This is Sarah Norblach, andthis is a podcast that helps B2B
service businesses do more withless.
Learn lean, actionable, organicmarketing strategies you can
implement today.
No fluff, just powerful growthtactics that work.
Ready to scale smarter?
Hit that subscribe button andstart growing your business with
(00:20):
tiny marketing.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, thank you guys for joining me today.
Today we are talking about howto recession-proof your business
, because we all see the newsand hear.
Actually, my own accountant wasfreaking out and I was like
it's okay, chill, so let's getinto it.
First, I want to get into highlevel.
(00:45):
What are the biggest mistakesthat you see businesses making
when the economy takes adownturn?
Let's start with Melissa.
Let's talk finance first.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Yeah.
So what I hear a lot is I'mgoing to lower my prices so that
I don't lose clients or I canget repeat or recurring business
, in which, to me, it's mindblowing because at a time when
your costs are going up, youneed to increase your fees to
(01:19):
reflect that, so that you cankeep being sustainable.
Right, you don't want to shootyourself in the foot so that you
can keep being sustainable.
Right, you don't want to shootyourself in the foot.
So for me, I would say that'sthe biggest one that I am seeing
right now.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Let's go straight to Peter and get your thoughts on
that.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
Well, yeah, I think this panicking ends up being
what moves first, right, andpricing is an easy lever to do
this right.
It also ends up being like arepresentation of us, right and
pricing is an easy lever to dothis right.
It also ends up being like arepresentation of us, right.
This pricing is particularlyhow close we are to being the
price setter or the delivery ofservices.
I see this too.
(01:55):
I see a panicking and I see theneed to discount or I see the
desire to move in a way thathelps try to secure business.
So panicking and pricing is thenumber one mistake that I see
as well, the discount aspectmakes me want to go straight to
Jack.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
So what is the biggest thing that you're seeing
people doing right now?
And I'm guessing discount isgoing to be among them.
Speaker 5 (02:23):
Discounting is huge and also fear when there's any
kind of like uncertainty ordownturn in the economy.
Like we're human beings, eventhough we're business owners and
we're trying to project, youknow, a certain level of
confidence.
We're human beings and we getnervous and afraid as well, and
(02:45):
that's what I hear everybodysaying.
And there's like things thatyou can control and there's
things that you can't control.
And the things that you can'tcontrol are tariffs and like a
recession, whether that happensor not.
The things that you can controlare your prices, the level of
activity you're doing in yourbusiness and the type of
(03:06):
activity you're doing in yourbusiness to try to continue to
keep like your sales momentumgoing.
And one of the things I seepeople do is definitely discount
.
But I also see people reallyspend a lot of time and energy
trying to like being worriedabout the things that they can't
control, which is just humanity.
(03:29):
But if you can kind of try tolike put up as much of a shield
as you can to that and reallyfocus on the things that you can
control, like your salesactivities, running your
business the way you know how torun it you'll see the sales
momentum continue to go.
But it's a scary time, it'snatural to sort of freeze up a
little bit.
Let yourself take that momentand then take a deep breath and
(03:52):
keep moving forward.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yeah, I'm going to jump off from that, because the
thing that I see most often ispeople shutting down their
marketing in.
Is people shutting down theirmarketing Right, not investing?
Yeah, this isn't a profitcenter when it's what drives
those sales conversations andwithout it, you're extending
your sales process.
(04:15):
Yeah, it will take 18 monthspossibly for you to close a B2B
sale when you don't havemarketing and they don't realize
who you are or the value thatyou have, and it's the first
thing that shut down I've seenwith, like the past 20 years.
It's the first thing that thatbusiness has shut down.
Speaker 5 (04:35):
Yeah, I've seen that too, and even when not even
small companies like ours, butbig companies whenever there's a
downturn, marketing or contentmarketing is always like the
first departments that getbudgets cut and layoffs, and I
think it's like just such afoolish mistake as well.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yeah, it's short-sighted.
I have said this a milliontimes, but I've always seen like
a 90-day turnaround.
If you shut off your marketingwithin 90 days turnaround.
If you shut off your marketingwithin 90 days, your sales
pipeline usually shuts off tooand you're creating your own
(05:15):
downturn by doing that.
The next thing I want to getinto is in this tighter economy,
where should businesses doubledown and where should they cut
back?
Should they cut back?
So let's talk double down firstand then ease into the cutback.
Speaker 5 (05:36):
So, jack, let's start with you.
Yeah, this is when I thinkdoing reviews on your business
and understanding, like, what'sworking and what are the core
pieces of your business thatdrive revenue and drive profit
in your business is reallyimportant, because when there
are downturns or when things dofeel uncertain, the best thing I
think you can do is double downon the things that are working.
So, if you know that certainmarketing right to your point,
(06:02):
sarah certain marketing vehiclesor activities, yes, maybe cost
money, but that is whatultimately brings leads into
your pipeline that you are ableto convert I would absolutely
not be cutting those things.
I would be like holding tightlyto that budget and making sure
that you do it.
Sales activities in general youmentioned 90 days to build a
(06:26):
sales pipeline.
Yeah, not pumping the brakes onany of the sales activities or
marketing activities that leadinto sales, I would not do.
I would continue to do all ofthat stuff because we're not
naive to think that everythingis going to be the same.
It may be harder to close dealsor to bring that revenue in, so
(06:49):
the last thing you want to dois take the foot off the gas on
the things that drive thatrevenue.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah, I think I just want to highlight the audit.
We just talked about this,melissa, in the minimum viable
tech stack workshop that I did.
You want to do an audit and seewhere your leads are coming
from, where your referralpartners are coming from, and
double down on those elements,the ones that you know are
(07:16):
driving sales.
That everyone needs to keep inmind is that when everyone else
is shutting down their marketing, if you don't, you're going to
stand out even more.
We have heard a million timesthat recessions make
(07:36):
millionaires and it's because ofthis, because other people are
retreating and the smart peopleare doubling down instead.
So, melissa, peter, do you guyshave anything else that you
want to talk about in terms ofdoubling down?
Because, melissa, I really do.
You guys have anything elsethat you want to talk about in
terms of doubling down?
Because, melissa, I really wantto hear about your cutting.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
Yeah, before we get into the cutting then I'll go
and follow Jack then.
So that way it's a stream.
I look at pricing right.
Look, perceived value getstotally recalibrated and we know
that price is perceived valueright.
And so, even though we want todiscount or we want to reduce
that price, I actually have alittle bit of a differing
(08:13):
opinion, which is this might bea moment to actually look at
your business and see where youcan raise the price or where you
can improve certain areas.
Because this is how I look atit If you want to raise prices,
there's only really three levers, because you cannot raise
prices directly and just be done.
You have to kind of raise thethings around it for price to
actually be impacted so you canreally improve the outcomes in
(08:34):
which you provide.
Typically, that's like value,like people will think about the
word value, but I really wantto stress like find ways in
which you can improve value toyour existing clientele.
Go to them and say what'sworking, like what's working for
you, and if it's hey, you'rereally I really appreciate how
fast you are, then go faster.
Like look for those things thatare actually working, Double
(08:54):
down with existing clients andfinding ways.
So it's like.
So don't just automaticallydiscount in that sense.
So find ways to improve theoutcomes.
The other is right is change theperception right.
How we've just recalibratedprices.
Find ways in which you canrecalibrate the perception back.
(09:16):
Is it?
Are you investing in yourreplacement value or are you
improving those outcomes, like Isaid the first time around?
But the third one I actuallywant to talk about is changing
your buyer.
Now, like you might hear thatand say like total new ICP, but
in reality we are always movingup market in a sense, whether
we're improving our buyer orimproving our market or
improving the stakes, higherstakes this might be an
(09:37):
opportunity to find a newerversion of a buyer, because if
the buyer themselves might belooking down market, you might
be able to capture a little bitof that nuance when you move up
market, because they're taking arisk and you might be taking a
risk and if you have a long-termview on your business, this
might be a way in which you canstart to reposition your
business from a pricingperspective to a new level and
(09:59):
to a new standard.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
I feel like I get smarter every time I have a
conversation with Peter.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Jack was in the pricing watch part.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Jack Melissa.
What are your thoughts?
Speaker 3 (10:17):
I was having a conversation with a client
recently and we were talkingabout how there were some
positions his team was lookingto fill, and one position that
came up was community outreach,so part of business development,
and he said that is one that wedefinitely cannot fill right
(10:38):
now.
He walked me through the otherones and then I said, okay,
let's revisit that conversationbecause your team has identified
that there is an opportunity ora need for business development
and maybe your financials can'tjustify hiring a new person to
go out there into the communityand everything that entails
(11:00):
tails.
But what about rethinking thisstrategy?
So what can you do differentlyto leverage the resources that
you already have and you're notadding additional costs?
Right, like my entire marketingis based on social media.
You know this, and that is verylow cost, and so I think at
(11:21):
this time is thinking about whatyou can cost.
So don't travel, you don't needto go to a conference where you
need to pay for a hotel andmeals and flights and all of
that.
Maybe find something that yourteam can do remotely so that you
can keep them certified,educated and all of that good
(11:42):
stuff, and it still like keepsthe morale up, but it probably
slashes that cost in half, andthen be intentional about the
other areas where you need todouble down.
I think I am the perfect example.
I started zero clients, a verylimited budget of money that I
(12:02):
was putting in.
The thing that I invested inwas marketing, because I needed
to accelerate that timeline,because I did not have a
12-month runway to figure thisout.
I needed to shorten that.
I think the same principleapplies here.
You have to get scrappy, youhave to get intentional, um, and
(12:24):
if you want cut, maybe look atthe efficiency of your current
operations.
So it's like at home we have asubscription to netflix and
peacock and math and all ofthese streaming platforms, but
you know there's one or two thatyou rarely log into, but you're
(12:44):
still paying for them, right?
Because whatever, it's $11 amonth, it's $12 a month, so you
keep paying for it.
Well, now it's a time to lookinto your internal resources and
the things where you'respending money that you really
shouldn't be because you don'tmeet them.
And how can you reconfigureyour teams to make them work
(13:07):
smarter, not harder, and focuson the things that are moving
the needle and not just doingwork, because you know, not just
not to stay busy is what I mean.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Yeah, it really comes down to auditing your offers,
seeing what's making you themost profit and cutting the
things that don't matter soyou're not spending money on
tools or whatever that youmight've needed to be able to
execute that offer before.
Yeah, I do that a lot.
(13:41):
I am constantly going throughand like does this even make
sense?
Nobody cares that much aboutthis Cut.
I'm a big fan of cutting.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
Yeah, there's a.
I'm going to just kind of go ontop of that, which is sometimes
it's good to do spring cleaningright Of your business, right.
This is a forced springcleaning in a sense right, and
so what?
one other way in which you cango about doing this is I don't
know if it's a mindset shift,but ask yourself the questions
like what do I wish would havealready been done for me in this
(14:13):
moment?
Right, so that you canbasically build durability in
your architecture.
Like moving forward, Because inreality, like some businesses
will fail, right, Some willsucceed in a sense.
And it's like what are thethings that you need to do in
order to sustain here, so thatyou can succeed in the future
and succeed the next time thatthis comes around?
Because we know that this is amarket right, these are cycles.
(14:35):
This isn't a surprise to anyone.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Yeah, I'm glad that you said that.
I have said that many timeswhere I'm like we've seen this
story.
We have had cycles like thisbefore and it always works out
fine.
The world has not ended.
That leads into the next one.
So how do you balance holdingyour price point versus offering
(15:00):
discounts or flexible termswhen your clients are coming to
you and saying they can't affordyou anymore, or your prospects
are coming to you and saying,well, that's out of my range
right now?
Speaker 4 (15:12):
I feel like I have to say something first, which is,
while I've started a lot of thisconversation about being a
little bit more aggressive, like, in a sense, I don't hold the
line is also don't be reckless.
Like I understand that thereare times where you do have to
make moves, if they arestrategic in the short term in
order to sustain, to continuefor the long term.
(15:34):
And so when it comes to pricing, and one of these things is
there are other factors liketerms or methods, or you can
change the relationship.
For example is I'm not going tosay this is what you should do,
but if there is a way in whichyou can change the compensation
format from just say hourly toperformance pay, right, it's
(15:54):
like you bet on yourself tobasically say well, instead of
you seeing me as a cost, here'sa way in which you could see me
as an investment and if we hitthis number, then you have
enough cashflow to support meand I will.
I will basically bet on myself.
I'm not saying to do that, butthat is one method in which you
can get a little bit morecreative with your finance or
creative with your pricingstructures in a time that does
(16:17):
demand a little bit of change,more of consider it adaptive
pricing being able to price thesame service multiple different
ways, depending upon the marketor depending on the outcome.
So that is a little bit.
One way that you could go aboutit is to find a little bit more
of a creative approach could goabout it is to find a little
bit more of a creative approach.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yeah, I want to jump on that train of thought.
I'm working with a client rightnow who's nervous about this.
So what we did is we broke downher offer into milestones, so
that someone just had to say yesto one milestone and then they
say yes to the next milestoneand that makes it more
affordable and they're getting alittle win before they move on
(16:58):
to the next one.
So they get the complete offeronce they go through each of
those milestones, but it's morebiteable.
It's easier to say yes to that.
Jeff, what's yours?
Speaker 5 (17:10):
Yeah, I also think in times like this, finding out
what your prospect really valuesout of what you do and pumping
that up a bit.
So, instead of jumping todiscounting the price, try to
bump up the value that they get.
So that might be a little extratime with you or a digital
(17:36):
download or something that, yes,may eat into your profit margin
.
It's potentially something youwould have sold, or it's still
like trading time for money.
But I think in times like theseto Peter's point, like getting
creative about kind of how youpackage and sell, and sometimes
(17:56):
you need to just offer a littlebit more to help people get over
the hump when it feels reallyscary and I am not a fan of
discounting in general there aretimes, if I'm launching
something new, that I'll givelike a special price to people
who you know join early and giveme feedback.
Yeah, exactly, but in generalI'm not a fan of discounting,
(18:20):
but I will give more if that'swhat somebody needs to get them
over the hump within a range.
Right, I'm not going to likegive them everything, and so
that's something that you can doand you can control.
So, if you know, I have a groupmembership program if
one-on-one time is reallyimportant to someone, I can
(18:42):
throw in a one-on-one session toget them to join the membership
the sales circle.
If you know something else isreally important to them, I can
throw in like a littlecustomization of that in order
to get them there withoutdiscounting the price.
So think of all of the assetsthat you have at your disposal.
(19:03):
Yourself, being an asset,understand what your prospect is
really valuing.
If you have a great salesprocess, that should be really
clear to you.
And then you have a bunch oflevers that you can kind of push
and pull to get them where theyneed to be, to say yes.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Yeah, that is a really good point.
So, like, if you have a gatewayoffer, a bridge offer,
something like that, then youfully understand what is
important to them, where they'restuck and what they need to get
over it, and that allows you topick really strategic bonuses
to be able to convert them ifthey're like right on the edge,
(19:40):
like oh no.
Yeah, melissa, my next questionis specifically for you.
But do you have anything youwanted to add to this one?
I do.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
I think this is a good time to think about being
flexible.
So don't flash your prices,don't do a discount.
Add some value, break it downinto a more digestible piece of
the offer and then be flexibleon your payment terms.
By no means so.
For example, my clients.
(20:09):
They pay at the beginning ofthe month.
It's on auto pay.
That's a non-negotiable for me.
But, for example, some peoplewill not accept credit card
payments because they don't wantto incur the fees, and I think
they're missing out on that,because that gives the
opportunity to the buyer tofloat their cash and still be
(20:33):
able to hire you for yourservice that they need, and so
they get the opportunity tofinance it.
But you're not doing thefinancing for them.
And if you're smart about thepricing, you can add a cushion
there so that you're stillgetting paid the amount that you
wanted to get paid originally,but you're covering those
(20:54):
potential fees.
Or you can be transparent aboutit and add those fees on top to
the invoice and let the persondecide.
And what I have found is that alot of people will say, yeah,
just set it on auto pay.
Here's my credit card number,I'll pay the fee because it's
convenient or because I getmiles, I can just set it up and
(21:17):
not have to think about it, orbecause they need the cash.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah, that's a good point and, like Dubsado
Squarespace, a lot of differentcompanies have that buy now, pay
later option.
That is available now, whereyou're still getting that lump
sum, but they can pay over timeif you're doing project-based,
for example.
Okay, so my finance questionwhen revenue is unpredictable,
(21:44):
what key metrics should businessowners really be looking at?
Speaker 3 (21:48):
So this is a time for people to really hone in their
cash flow management.
So in times of abundance,you're probably looking at your
cash flow month over month.
You know, do I have enoughmoney to cover payroll, if
that's something that you haveto pay my bills and whatnot?
I am seeing more and more myclients asking me to look at
(22:11):
their cash flow weekly, and thatis a smart thing to do.
You want to make sure thatyou're being smart and you want
to collect up front on the firstof the month, but whenever
possible, you want to pay on thevery, very last day.
You have to pay right.
It just, it is what it is.
And so for small businesses likeours, there probably won't be a
(22:36):
lot of those bills where youcan delay the payment.
Right, because we're usuallythe type of providers that will
spend an invoice and some peoplewill have, you know, net seven,
net 30, net 15, whatever.
But if you do have those, pushit to that net 30 or net 15 or
net 7.
For bigger clients that Isometimes work with, it can come
(23:00):
to a point where you have todecide we're paying everybody
net 30.
It doesn't matter what the duedate is, because we need to
prioritize our payroll, we needto prioritize our fractional
advisors and things like that.
But looking at that and goingthrough that exercise week over
week is going to help you pivotin a timely manner, rather than
(23:24):
waiting an entire month and seethat your runway is now 30 days
instead of 40 or 50 that you had, you know, 30 days ago.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Yeah, that is a really good point and all of my
bigger clients they do exactlythat.
Doesn't matter when the duedate is, they're going to pay
when they pay.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Okay, so let's talk about customer experience, and
this is probably going to belooking at all of your
experience as service providers.
More than anything, we don'thave a customer experience
expert here today, but how doesit affect your role during a
downturn?
So how can businesses usecustomer experience as a
(24:12):
competitive advantage?
Anybody have any thoughts onthat?
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Steady hand, steady hand.
That's what works for me.
No, seriously, it's creating aspace in moments like this where
you're holding it together foryour client.
You're going through some ofthese anxieties and questions
and we're all living in the sameworld, we hope.
But as a professional, as aconsultant, you have to be in
(24:42):
there with them.
You have to be thinkingcritically the entire time.
I'm not just reconciling theirbank accounts.
I need to wear my consultanthat every single day and treat
this as if it were my business,my problem.
I'm in it with them Withnumbers.
I can provide that.
(25:02):
So, hey, here's the reality,right?
Often it's like the budget ohmy God, we're so under budget.
Okay, let's understand why.
Let's look at these numbers.
Well, yeah, you were overlyambitious and optimistic a year
ago when you set up this budget.
Of course, it's going to lookabysmal now, but if you look at
(25:24):
the numbers this other way,maybe your sales are going up.
You know you have morecustomers now, and so it's just
having that critical mindset andlike, again, keeping a steady
hand to walk them through it.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Yeah, I think that being a service provider also
means a little bit being abusiness therapist.
You have to help people a lotwith their anxieties around
their business.
It's super personal.
Speaker 5 (25:51):
Yeah, yeah, and I think acknowledging the moment
that we're in goes a long way toboth of your points.
It's like actually saying like Iknow it feels crazy right now,
I know it feels out of control,but this is what we do, and
having a good customerexperience, user experience,
(26:12):
onboarding, offboarding all ofthat is important, no matter
what is going on in the economy.
Just to let you know like thatwill make or break whether your
clients stay with you, refer you, you know, sign on and that
starts at the very early timesof the sales process, or even,
(26:32):
like the marketing process, thatcustomer experience it's not
once they sign the contract.
And so you know, now is maybe agood time if you haven't looked
at your user flow and theexperience to go in.
We've talked about some reallyhigh touch.
You know one-on-one ways tolike create a good user
experience.
(26:52):
But in general, now is a goodtime to look at your user
experience and your onboardingflow and all of that and make
sure that it's relevant and makesure that it's the experience
you would want to have if you're, you know, working with
somebody else.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Yeah, that's a good point, Just like and helping
them feel seen, yes, listening,acknowledging and solving the
problem at hand, rather thanfeeling like this is what
everybody gets.
Peter, do you have anything youwant to add?
Speaker 4 (27:26):
We're all in the experience game.
Part of services, part of whatyou're buying, is also an
experience and I can't forgetthat.
And and here's the here's thething is, I might go a little
bit and say there's a differencebetween so steady hand, like
most of those, those perfect,perfect insert, right there I
(27:47):
have to um, there's a differencebetween being nice and being
kind.
While it's always wonderful toboth be nice and be kind,
sometimes you need an advisorwho's going to be kind to you
and being kind might not be thenice thing to do, but it might
be the honest thing.
And I really think that serviceproviders, whether they're
(28:11):
business therapists or advisors,in a sense is they are the
individual who's outside the jar, right, all of you have heard
my favorite saying, as ofrecently it's hard to read a
label from inside the jar.
And now they're really insidethe jar right now, right,
because now everything seems tobe a little bit of an emergency
and everybody's got their guardup and all these things are just
(28:31):
shining lights on cracks andcrevices, right, and you don't
want that crack to become acanyon incense.
And so when I go with thiswhole nice and being kind is
like if you are outside the jarand part of your duty and part
of your belief and part of yourprinciples is like you want to
help people in their experiencebut you also want to help that
business go.
Be kind, like tell them, behonest, be true, be an advisor,
(28:56):
and that's going to allow themto sustain and allow them to
either improve their experienceor improve their business.
Right, be kind, be nice to, butfocus on being kind and telling
them the really important stuffso that they can shepherd
forward or move forward andfacilitate to the next level or
the next version of theirbusiness and facilitate to the
next level or the next versionof their business.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Yeah, I think they're just during this, when anxiety
is so high, being on top of thatand validating their feelings
and helping them through thethings that are hurting them
right now is more important thanever, and sometimes that means
that you're going to spend alittle extra time with clients
than you would have before, butyou know that's okay, because
life is hard and we're all inthis together.
Okay, let's talk about offers.
(29:48):
So I want to talk about rightnow.
Should businesses be looking atand I kind of teased this
earlier repackaging orrepositioning.
Actually, Peter also teased it.
Their offer is in a downeconomy to make them more
adaptable for how people feelright now, when money and time
resistance are a big thing.
Speaker 5 (30:11):
Absolutely yeah are a big thing.
Absolutely yeah.
I don't know if that was foranybody in particular, but a
thousand percent.
I think now is a great time toexperiment with offers and
pricing and positioning and sortof you know, get creative on
how you do things.
If there are certain module, ifyou're a service provider and
(30:33):
you have a big high ticketservice package that you offer,
if there are things you can pullout and offer a taste of at a
lower price point to get peopleto purchase from you and
experience your service for thefirst time at a lower level.
I think it's a great time totest that and just sort of, you
(30:56):
know, again, play around withhow you package, how you price,
certainly how you market,depending on what you do.
Being able to sort of reflectwhat's going on in the world in
your marketing message and likehow what you do like resonates
or solves a problem for today'smarket is incredibly impactful.
(31:21):
People, if you're talking about, like the high days of
everything's going great andblah, blah, blah, blah, blah and
like people are freaking out,like you're really missing the
mark.
So now is the time to sort oflook at everything you're doing
and make sure it reflectswhat're really missing the mark.
So now is the time to sort oflook at everything you're doing
and make sure it reflects what'shappening in the world.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
It comes off as tone deaf if you're just pretending
like you don't notice what'shappening.
It's like okay, yeah.
Speaker 5 (31:49):
For all.
You lose trust, like right away, and people want to work with
people they trust.
So if you're not addressing it,I think you're really missing
opportunity.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Yeah, has anybody here recently repackaged or
adjusted their offers to adapt?
Speaker 3 (32:06):
No, I have expanded my audience.
So, in an effort to support mycommunity of solopreneur, small
business and service providers,I recently launched an email
series to talk about this andwhat people like us can do.
(32:29):
Like us can do.
This is the time where I havehad the most buying into any
sort of lead magnet and I gotpeople emailing me back and
saying how helpful it was or howmuch value it added, and so it
has made me curious and excitedfor me to develop something that
(32:52):
can help serve this communityin a way that it's accessible to
them and also helps my businesswith scalability.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah, I mean, I have to say that you were on top of
it.
You were really quick to adaptand add this into your marketing
on your LinkedIn.
In this email series which Isubscribe to, All of it was
brilliant and timely and helpful, so I think you nailed it.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Honestly, jack and I are members of this very, very
inclusive community, and this isthe chatter that was going on
in the community and it was likeoh, my girls, my ODs, need my
help right now.
What can I do to support them?
This is what I can do.
That's where the inspirationcame, and I think it goes to
(33:44):
like keeping your pulse in whatis happening around and like
having that consultant mindsetand that disposition to serve.
You just have to be creative,right, but you have to pay
attention to what's happening.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a huge thing ispay attention and make sure
you're adapting.
So I already talked about likerepackaging your offers.
I love, Jack, that you pointedout like just break off pieces
of it that are the mostimpactful you really have to do.
I do offer audits veryregularly, Like what are the
(34:22):
pieces that people actually careabout?
Can it stand alone without theother pieces?
Can this take place in ashorter timeframe so they can
get faster results at even alower price, because they're
only getting a piece of it?
It just makes it moreaccessible too.
Peter, do you have anythingthat you want to add to it,
(34:43):
since you teased it out a littlebit too?
Speaker 4 (34:45):
Yeah, All right, I feel like I'm always repackaging
and rechanging my offers.
It doesn't matter, and I thinkthat's just coming from practice
now, like finally learning andrealizing and paying attention
to what people are saying.
But so I let me add a littlebit of context, for mine is I
guess I sell more, I work morecustomized, premium, strategic
(35:06):
work, right, so individuals whoare selling selling that.
So for me it's actuallydoubling down, using terms we
used before in the discoveryprocess and like actually
focusing deeper into not justtrying to take my offers and
square, peg, round, hole them ina sense, which is like, and
(35:27):
actually open up the wholesurfacing instead of selling
approach and like really justopening up the conversations to
see what is the real problem,that the person or the prospect
or even my existing client, thatthat they, that they really
have like what is the true,fundamental, like most impactful
.
If you have to choose one toppriority, what really is it?
(35:49):
And be comfortable, I know, becomfortable saying that my offer
might not be the one that fitsyou right now and being able to
hand them off or shepherd themoff to somebody who I know that
could, and so I know this is notdirectly answering that
question.
But this is an approach I'vetaken to a little bit of my
offers, which is doubling downand leading more into the
discovery process, to understandthat there is more than just my
(36:11):
offers that might fit and thatI know that I have a community
around me that their offersmight fit or as I, as I work
with them and so I think me,I've noticed myself leaning into
this discovery phase, orsurfacing phase, and looking
more into that yeah, I thinkthat I mean Jack can speak on
this better, but I think thatthat is important for all sales
(36:33):
conversations is willing to sayI'm like girl, actually someone
else would be better at this.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
And here's that person being ready with that
referral.
Speaker 5 (36:44):
I totally agree with both.
I don't have anything to add.
I think you both said itperfectly.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
I think this is where we need to have like a little
mic drop emoji that just goeslike this and drops.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
It'll just have to be us miming it.
Okay, melissa, this baby's foryou.
So cash flow we're going to geta little deeper into that, so
it can make or break yourbusiness right now.
So what are companies doing toimprove their cash flow right
(37:16):
now?
What is something that they canadjust or tweak at the end of
this week?
Speaker 3 (37:24):
Yes, I would look at your product offering.
I went through this exerciseabout a year and a half ago with
a client where you know clientsare used to shipping fees.
We pay for them all the timewhen we shop online.
But what other fees areparticular to your business that
maybe you have been eating upand not passing down to your
(37:47):
customers?
Now is the time to look at thatand pass them down right.
Now is the time to look at thatand pass them down right.
Um, depending on the industry,it can be a recycling fee.
Um, as part of what you offerthem, you know, it can be a
fueling fee.
Uh, there's just so many thingsand it will vary from business
to business.
But think about it.
So I am in the process ofevaluating software.
(38:10):
Uh, for the f&A component of myoffering, where you mentioned
this, peter, of like scaling up,like what I am seeing now is
clients are maybe rethinkingtheir payroll expenses and they
need CFO level support, so I'mseeing a lot of demand for that.
(38:32):
So it's forcing me into grow upinto a different sector.
So I'm thinking about thissoftware.
So one of the things that I amconsidering is it's not just
what the product has to offer.
But what is it going to berealistic for me right now as a
cause that I can pass on to mycustomers?
(38:54):
And what can I afford to?
Maybe absorb for a year as anintroductory offer?
But then when I have to go backto them and say, ok, you got a
free year, now I'm going tocharge you for this software
subscription.
That it's not going to be toobig of a hit, and every business
model has something like that,and so I think that is going to
(39:15):
be the lowest hanging fruit.
And then, what can you upsell,even if it's like a small
project, if you're in theservice space, what is that
add-on that you can offer themon top of what you're already
doing?
Nudge that client base that youhave right now.
It's going to cost you lessbecause you don't have to go out
(39:38):
there to find new clients.
You don't have to spend timegetting to know them, you
already know them.
So it's thinking creativelywhen you're working with them
and seeing how else you can growthat business.
And then, going back to thatflexibility in the payment terms
accept credit card, offerfinancing options so that they
(40:01):
can finance your services oryour offering, but you're not
doing the financing for them andfor those clients or industries
that it's inevitable, like ifyou're.
I have seen it where sometimesthe product is bigger and
they'll send an invoice todaybut the client will have 30, 60
(40:26):
days to pay.
Once that client has hit thatpayment date and now the balance
is past due, pass on theinterest costs to them, because
if they made an expensivepurchase, you probably have to
leverage debt to buy that pieceof inventory.
So that means you're payinghigh interest rates on them.
(40:48):
You shouldn't be financingtheir business for free and
maybe you're not charging themthe 7%, but before maybe it was
1.5%, that you were charging ona late fee and you weren't and
you were ignoring it or notenforcing it.
Maybe that fee needs to be 4.5%and you need to absolutely
(41:08):
enforce it.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
That's a good point.
Yeah, because those fees areinsane, like strike fees, good
God.
Speaker 5 (41:18):
Somebody can come up with a different payment system
that would like give me some ofmy strike fees back.
I would move over this.
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
I know, If I had my QuickBooks open I would tell you
how much strike gets of mymoney.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
Well, guys, you're looking at it the wrong way,
though, right?
Because that B is allowing youto automate the cash collection
process and the sales process isshortening your sales cycle,
right?
So why not pay a little?
It's not paying a whole humanto do the work for you.
(41:54):
You're paying around 3% tobring in a sale and, if you're
smart about it, that is sinkinginto your accounting system and
applying the payment to theinvoice directly, and it's also
directly depositing the moneyinto your bank account.
Think about all of theefficiency that you're getting
(42:15):
there, okay all right, but fromwhat you were saying, you could
also include the stripe fees asas part of it okay, thank you,
into your pricing.
Yeah, your pricing and so I'veset up.
I set up, um, I did it, I don'tdo it.
(42:38):
How do I want to say that?
Okay, my accounting power hourI built a cushion for don't
strike speaks in that rate.
Right, it's easy, it was soeasy to collect that money
before the power hour evenstarted.
So to me that's like money wellspent.
(43:01):
So you can do it that way.
Or when I was setting it up,stripe gave me the option of
like charging my base rate andputting in the option for credit
card and letting my customerknow hey, I'm going to charge
you this credit card fee.
That brings a whole other setof complications because you
(43:24):
know you have to understand thelaw and how much.
Like Strike was saying that Icould charge one percentage, my
knowledge of Colorado sayssomething different, so it's
like I'm not even going to messwith it.
I'm just going to bump up mybase rate so that, at the end of
the day, the money that makesmy bank account is what I wanted
to charge.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Yeah, that makes sense, peter.
Were you gonna say something?
Speaker 4 (43:44):
there's a I have a philosophy, which is when it
comes to raising prices, pleasedo not blame it on cost or
inflation.
Find a way to demonstrate value, like there's not but.
And actually, melissa, how youarticulated that, though, was it
right?
We're articulating the value ofthat, and I right you're
showing you're not just sayingit too.
It's not just like, oh, I'mjust going to reposition it as
(44:05):
oh, this isn't a cost, I'm like.
Demonstrate it.
Find the value that's embeddedin that, and that's where where
the price raise can come.
Not just, oh, sorry, I'mpassing on the cost or I'm
passing on the inflation.
To you it may be the case, inreality, like you are actually
increasing price or increasingthe fees, but demonstrate why
(44:25):
that is actually a valueassociated with it.
Connect it to something thathas a greater outcome in the
long run.
Make sure that's in themessaging itself.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
I'm not your typical accountant, peter.
I'm not cheap, I'm not a pennypincher, and this is why my
experience, my time, are worth afortune, right.
So whatever is out there thatwill give me back my time and
let me focus on the things thatI am passionate about.
(44:54):
Take my money, just take itright Like I won't even think
about it, and those rich andseas are one example.
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
I needed that reframe actually, thank you, and we're
helping each other in this panelGosh.
Speaker 5 (45:14):
We talked.
Oh, just to build sorry Sarahon what everybody said is we
talked about it before isauditing yourself.
I mean doing a monthly reviewof your P&L, your profit and
loss statement, all of the moneythat's coming in, all of the
money that's going out.
Where is that?
And Melissa said it before, ifyou are into like a cash
strapped and you're worriedabout cash flow situation, doing
(45:37):
that weekly so that you canreally stay on top of things,
Because the worst case scenarioas a business owner is to get to
a point where you don't knowhow you're going to pay your
bills, or you don't know howyou're going to pay your bills,
or you don't know how you'regoing to pay your employees, or
you don't know how you're goingto pay yourself.
If you are looking at yournumbers and having an honest
(45:59):
conversation with yourself, giveyourself the time to plan for
any kind of scenario that mightcome up in your business and
don't take your foot off the gason selling, because that is
what you need to do to keepbringing the revenue in.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
Yeah, that's a massive one right there is.
Don't ever stop pushing youroffer and selling.
Speaker 5 (46:26):
Yeah, and now would be a good time to actually.
In the Honeybee sales circle, welook at profit margin on our
products and the packages thatwe sell.
Now would be a good time toactually if you haven't looked
at profit margin.
A lot of times as serviceproviders, we don't really think
about profit margin becauseit's our time and so we don't
(46:50):
equate a hard cost to our time.
It's our time and so we don'tequate a hard cost to our time.
But you should be looking athow much time, effort and money
it takes to deliver a specificproduct or service that you have
.
And if there are specificservices or packages that have
higher profit margins than theother, it's okay to push certain
(47:13):
things that are easier todeliver, that have higher profit
margins, that also delivervalue in times like this when
you have a cash crunch or whenthings feel uncertain, or pull
out things that are very laborintensive and maybe don't impact
the deliverability of thepackage too much, or retool it
(47:36):
so that you're able to reallylike kind of, get the maximum
value for your clients but themaximum profit margin for
yourself.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Yeah, yeah.
I would even venture to saylook at those high, like high
time value offers and considerjust cutting them.
What makes the most sense?
Where are you getting yourprofit?
Not all offers, even if they'regood, means that they're
sustainable.
I had an offer called theStrategic Story, which took a
(48:09):
lot of my time and people lovedit.
It was easy to sell, but ittook a lot of my time and people
loved it.
It was easy to sell, but ittook a lot of my time and it
just wasn't worth keeping thatoffer when the profit margin
wasn't there.
This one is for Dak.
It's about sales.
So when decision cycles slowdown, like now, slow down.
Speaker 5 (48:36):
Yeah, like now, what's one sales strategy that
keeps deals moving forward?
Yeah, I think there's a couplethings that you can do.
We all have bandwidth rightwithin our business.
We can only do a certain numberof projects or have a certain
number of clients.
Most of us some of us have likea limited potential, but most
(48:57):
of us have a certain number ofbandwidth, and I think it's a
really good strategy to be openwith people around what that
bandwidth looks like.
Like I only have three spotsavailable in me, or I only have
X number of this thing that Ican sell.
(49:19):
Not to create a fear, right.
I think there's a differencebetween, like, creating a sense
of urgency and then beingemotionally manipulative, right,
but you can create a sense ofurgency around listen, if this
is something you're interestedin, I can only do so many of
these and creating a sense ofurgency around.
(49:41):
You should sign up for this now, because it might not be
available when you want it.
That's one that I think ispeople I have had a lot of
success with and other peopleI've seen implement it and it's
sort of I've purchased.
When they're like hey, I havetwo spots left.
Me, too, I'm like I need a spot.
(50:02):
I need your help.
I was planning to like sign upin two weeks, and now I need to
sign up right now because Idon't want to miss my chance,
and so that's one strategy thatI think you can employ anytime,
but certainly it's a good time.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
Yeah, and that relates a lot with service
providers, who do have a limitedamount of time.
They can only take on so manyclients at a time.
Melissa and I were just talkingabout that.
Does anybody have anything elsethat they have tried before
that has worked well for movingforward a stalled sales cycle?
Speaker 5 (50:40):
I'll jump in.
Yeah, I was going to say theother thing we talked about
before is you know, if you feellike there's a stall offering a
bonus or offering like if you,you know, agree within the next
week, I will add on this rightSomething that you know is
valuable to the client.
(51:02):
And again, don't do this all ofthe time, but I do think that
there are certain times,especially when there are slower
sales cycle and you need tomake sure you are bringing
revenue in, where you can employa tactic like that and have it
feel good for everybody.
Speaker 2 (51:19):
Yeah, that's the exact thing I was going to
suggest.
That's the time-sensitive bonus.
Yeah, that's the only thingthat'll do it, Okay the only
thing that'll do it okay.
Speaker 3 (51:35):
Oh, I want to say I think your gateway offer is
something that I've, you know,used in the past, um, without
knowing that that's what it was.
Uh, we're calling it anassessment, or selling a project
in phases.
So let's do this phase first.
This is how much the investmentis, um, and then you wow them
so that phase two and three justhappen organically and get them
(51:57):
there faster than you wouldhave if you tried to solve the
whole thing.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
Yeah, yeah.
I think that that is whygateway offers work so well,
because you're building out thisfoundation.
This is what would solve yourproblem.
But oftentimes they eitherdon't have the time to execute
that, don't have the inclinationto execute it, or just don't
know how to execute it.
(52:22):
So they'll want you for thatmilestone one, milestone two,
etc.
Let's talk about long-termmoves that businesses can make
right now that can help thembecome stronger on the other
side of this economy crunch.
Is there anything that comestop of mind that you would
(52:45):
change now?
Speaker 4 (52:47):
This is where we're going to go into.
I'm going to mention somethingI mentioned earlier.
There's three ways to raiseprices, three levers.
Right, you improve the outcomes.
Right, you change theperception or you change the
buyer.
And when I say change the buyeragain, I'm not just like just
moving ICPs.
This is an opportunity in whichyou can take a look at your
(53:07):
business model, findopportunities to sell into
different stakes.
Right to move up, and I thinkthis is where you can start to
position yourself in a newpricing structure, a new pricing
model, or changing the buyer.
Speaker 2 (53:22):
Yeah, stakes made me think of stakeholder, by the way
and just making sure that allstakeholders that are included
in that buying decision areinvolved from day one.
So they are being broughtthrough that process with
everyone else, because that'swhat really.
This actually goes into theprevious question, but that's
(53:44):
what causes so much of the stallpoints during a sales process
is, oh, I need to get thisperson's permission to and this
person Just bring them in at allat the beginning.
We'll wrap right here, and Ijust want to say thank you for
joining me today.
I think this conversation wasso valuable, and does anybody
(54:05):
have any last thoughts before webounce?
Speaker 4 (54:10):
Thank you, Sarah.
Speaker 5 (54:10):
Thank you, yeah, thank you for putting this
together.
This has been so much fun.
We should do it again.
I you yeah, thank you forputting this together.
This has been so much fun.
We should do it again I know,yeah.
Speaker 2 (54:17):
I was like, okay, we have just like all of the
perfect people for thisconversation.
Speaker 3 (54:21):
I feel like your show is the show to be, and then
Jack also.
I feel like I'm a long royaltyhere, so thank you.
Speaker 1 (54:30):
If you love all things tiny marketing, royalty
here.
So thank you.
If you love all things tinymarketing, head down to the show
notes page and sign up for thewait list to join the tiny
marketing club, where you get towork one-on-one with me with
trainings, feedback and pop-upcoaching that will help you
scale your marketing as a B2Bservice business.
(54:52):
So I'll see you over in theclub.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.