[Business Growth] Focus on Your Core Service

Consider your pest management program’s development from a marketing perspective. Did you use the slower winter months to find out what your clients’ pain points are and set up a service program that addresses those clients’ needs by applying your core services? The main idea is to stick to what you’re good at and promote it to the masses in need.

The first step in attacking the pain points of a "hungry market" is to consider how to identify the share that’s relevant to your business and its service offerings:

• What is the customer’s problem (pain point) and what does that customer want?
• What solution can you provide to end your customer’s pain and what is the value you offer?
• Seek out villains in your industry. A villain doesn’t have to be a guy with a mustache dressed in black. The villain can be a person, an organization, a thing or even just a concept.
• How large is the market for such a program? Size up your hungry market to determine how much money there is to be made.
• How will you sell this program?

Defining Pain Points. Defining pain points and identifying a hungry market is a great approach to building a business. There are a lot of good examples of pain points in different industries. For instance, in the accounting profession, paying too much tax is the general pain point. The hungry market is anyone who completes a tax return. And the villain is the Internal Revenue Service.

This concept really lends itself well to the pest management industry. The reason people call your firm is because they have a problem. For instance, termites are eating away at their house, bees have created a nest underneath their deck or perhaps a little animal is running around in their attic.

These pain points are very easily communicated to your clients. They know what the problem is. The idea is to identify those pain points and provide peace of mind solutions to your customers. As always, remain focused on the results of the service and alleviate any fears that the client may have.

Selling peace of mind. Once your hungry market is defined, you need an approach to attack that market space. Create programs that offer peace of mind in terms of continuity of service. You are putting an end to your client’s sleepless nights. Be results oriented and earn the trust of your customers by delivering high quality pest control services that are both professional and effective. Just remember that a "worried public" is your target market and "peace of mind" is your product offering.

Most customers don’t have half of the covered pests that most programs protect against. The client might have carpenter ants or bees or mice or whatever. But they probably don’t have all of them.

What you’re trying to do is sell your customers the entire program and get them to sign on for an all-inclusive standard treatment plan. Most customers are really just interested in getting rid of a specific type of pest that they have. But by packaging it and stacking one service on another, the perceived value is a lot higher and you can get a lot more money for it.

Marketing intangibles. Pest control services are an intangible product. They can’t be packaged or put on a shelf. The customer cannot hold it or touch it. So, here’s the most effective approach to marketing your company’s pest control services. What you have to do is sell pest control services based on their perceived value and the end result that you offer.

Focus your marketing efforts on the results of the delivered service. If you can convince your prospective client that you can put their worries at ease, then you’re on your way to making the sale! And what are you offering here? You might think that you are offering professional application of chemicals. But, what you offer is something much more important and extremely valuable — you offer peace of mind.

Tiered pricing. Develop different tiers of pricing levels and packaged services to create perceptions of value to drive them towards a certain pricing level. You have to develop different pricing strategies and price points according to the services you offer and the market you intend to sell to. There are a number of factors that come into play when determining your pricing strategy. Some things to think about when setting your price strategy are:

• Total value of service
• Customer’s perception of value
• Cost of service
• Market price (what your competitors charge)
• Price ceiling (the maximum price the market would bear)
• Overall comfort level
• Mix of services offered (this is where tiered pricing will come into play)

Funnel service. When you strategize about your pricing tiers, think of your portfolio of service offerings as a funnel. You want to drive each customer through the funnel to the point that maximizes your profit from that specific client.

When you have several different programs with different levels of service you are offering a choice of service options. This is important, since every client is different. What your pricing accomplishes is it helps you guide your customers to take on the behavior that you desire. This desired behavior is of course the very point where you capture the maximum profit from that customer.

Capture the perceived value. In some instances you may find that if you’re not charging enough, the customer may not believe that you are qualified to do the job. Your pricing has to reflect the perceived value your customer places on your service. Interestingly, price and the perception of value are linked very closely, as each will clearly have an impact on the other.

If you price your services below your customer’s perceived value, then you’re leaving money on the table. The key here is to survey your market and try different pricing schemes. Of course, constant adjustments will be necessary once you have read the marketplace.

Focus on your core. Do what you’re good at. Set up a service program based on your company’s core competencies. In doing so, you are better positioned to dominate the competition.

Be sure to stick to your core competencies. If you have a popular service program that’s really taking off, promote that service even more and set up your business to deliver that service profitably and efficiently. If you have a "bread-and-butter" service, then you want to be the king of that type of service program and rule that market space!

Take a look at Michael Jordan’s basketball career with the Chicago Bulls. You couldn’t have asked for more in terms of skill and accomplishment from this basketball legend. Now contrast that with Michael Jordan’s attempt at a baseball career in the Chicago White Sox minor league organization. It was a dismal failure and he never even made it to the Major Leagues. It turns out that, despite Jordan’s incredible athletic ability, playing baseball wasn’t one of his core competencies.

Build around your programs. When growing your business, stay program-centric. The thought chain here is as follows:

• Your wealth is (either fully or partly) dependent on your business’ value.
• Your business’ value is based on how much renewable work you perform year in and year out.
• Your renewable work is reliant upon how many service contracts you have sold.

So, get your clients converted to your program-centric model of service agreements. This is a key part of your business’ success and will be critical to your ability to build wealth.

By the way, it’s fine to sell add-on services, but be careful to not dilute your company’s core image or core presentation. In order to offer add-ons you will need to work towards developing additional competencies within your business. Be clear about what you’re offering your clients. Do what you can do, and do what you’re good at.

Gordon and McHale are principals at PMP Wealthbuilders (www.pmpwealthbuilders.com). Gordon owns an accounting firm that serves PCOs (PCO Bookkeepers) and can be reached at dgordon@giemedia.com.