How You Can Stop Your Business From Falling Into The "Discount Trap"

Discounts are often seen as the best way to attract customers and increase sales. However, discounting is both dangerous and lazy.?

Low-balling your offers through discounts can lead to a race to the bottom, erode brand value, and reduce profit margins.?

So, how can you create a values-based sales process that avoids discounting??

In this post, I’ll share how you can prevent your business from falling into the discount trap.

Truth No. 1:

“People don’t really buy what you do. They buy why you do it.”

You have less than 3 seconds for people to ‘get’ what you do and convince them to buy or take action. As a marketer, it is your job to position your compelling ‘why’ to get their attention.

What is your compelling offer?

What tremendous value can you provide?

Why are you different from all other brands showing up in their feed?

Your sales pitch should focus on these three key ways you can help solve a customer’s problem. Your message needs to be clear, concise, and compelling.

Your goal is to differentiate yourself from your competitors and make it easier for customers to say ‘yes’ to your offer.

Truth No. 2

Give your customers an unforgettable customer experience.?

Your Customer Value Journey (CVJ) is an 8-step process that takes your customers or clients from strangers to superfans. In order to map out the eight steps, we first need to establish the three stages in your CVJ:

Pre-90% Value / 10% Suggestive Selling (low or no cost) - Most people lead with their core offer. By adding a PRE product or service before your core offer, you get to demonstrate ‘what’s possible’.?

Your PRE product should be so compelling that they will find it impossible to say ‘no’ to it.?

This is not about making a profit! Ideally, you want to break even or give it away. It is an easy way for potential clients to experience your service or product with little or no risk. If you’re a product-based business, this could be a complimentary handbook. If you’re a services-based business, this could be an assessment.

This is a time to build trust, give them a taste of what you have to offer, and warm them up for what’s coming next … your CORE service or product.?

Core-50% Value 50% Suggestive Selling (your core service or product offering), - Now that you have added value to the customer, you can now position your CORE service or product. This should be a much easier sale as you have already demonstrated your capability.?

This is not a time to get the sale and move on. You are only halfway there. You need to continue to build trust and continuously add value, so you can move them to stage three, the POST sale.??

Post-10% Value / 90% Suggestive Selling (loyal customers who purchase repeatedly).

Now that you have provided an exceptional product or service, your client is open to making a bigger commitment. This is where you can position a long-term offer. This could be in the form of a subscription, a partnership, or a referral link. At this stage, you can also solicit a referral.

In any sales process, getting your client to the POST stage should be the goal of your company. At Beusail Academy, we call this ‘the holy grail’. After all, recurring revenue has a much higher profit margin than having to acquire new customers continuously.

A lot of companies we see through The Online Masters Program do not have a PRE product. They skip this important step and, as a result, have lower conversions, higher CPA, and longer sales cycles.

Most businesses fail to realize that developing a pre-product by breaking up the sale into three stages is worth their time and effort.?

Truth No. 3

‘Serving to sell’ or ‘solutions-based selling’ gets customers to come back to your company or brand for a repeat purchase.?

When your customer feels like they have received tremendous value, they rarely shop around when it’s time for them to engage a consultant or make a purchase. Why? Because your PRE product has established you as the Expert, Authority, and Trusted (E.A.T).

Many businesses focus on building extrinsic social proof and fail to establish credibility within their target demographics. This is why focusing on giving a value-based proposition on your pre-stage determines the success of your customer value journey.?

Truth No. 4

Use trip wires and call-to-actions (CTAs) as incentives for customers who are on the fence.?

Instead of offering a discount, including an incentive to entice your customers to take a leap is a better way to get them to buy from you.

When selling a product, it may be a gift with a purchase.

When selling services, it may be a bonus 1-hour session.

The key to a successful sales process is to focus on adding value upfront rather than discounting.?

By taking customers on a journey and demonstrating what’s possible, you build trust and establish yourself as an expert. By adopting a solutions-based selling approach, you serve customers first and increase the likelihood of repeat business. And by using trip wires and CTAs, you can incentivize customers without resorting to discounting.

Final Thoughts

Instead of relying on discounts to sell your product or service, it is crucial to master the art of selling your PRE product/service.?

By doing this, it makes it much easier to scale your business, as you'll only need to focus on selling one thing: your PRE product/service, not selling everything, including the kitchen sink (your CORE)!

By focusing on mastering how to sell your PRE, you simplify your sales process and make it easier to scale your lead gen and sales team.