Last week I discussed how to price your services. I underscored why I believe that value pricing, as a concept, is something of a myth. In reality, there is only one thing that drives the price of any product or service, and that is a basic law of economics; supply and demand. This leaves you wondering, how do you increase demand for your services?
The short answer, which spans over a long range plan, is that you build a community around your target audiences. Now you ask, how to I build a community around my target audience? Before I can answer that, we need to define, in very specific terms, who that target audience is.
At this point, you are going to be inclined to define your target audience in very broad terms. You might say things like, “homeowners, business owners, architects & engineers, real estate brokers." That isn’t good enough. If you said something like, “homeowners with household incomes in excess of $500,000 annually,” now you’re talking.
Here’s another idea for how to define your target audience. You know the services you offer. You have a team of people who are providing those services.
It’s conceivable that you have people who cover a variety of service centers within the broader spectrum of what you offer.
Let’s say that is the case. Then you may want to choose your target audience based on who’s got time to take on more work.
I employ two kinds of service providers in my business. Bookkeepers, and VA’s (Virtual Assistants). When I recently realized that one of my VA’s was looking for more work, I stepped up my marketing efforts, around generating more business for accountants and bookkeepers who need assistance with administrative tasks. Even more specifically, I was looking for those who have cloud-based bookkeeping services, because they are much more likely to want a virtual assistance. They understand the benefits of working remotely, which these days, almost always translates to working in the cloud.
Got BillQuick? Let’s see how BillQuick can be used to help determine who’s got time, and based on that, what kind of clients we want to bring in.
Next week, we’ll take a deeper look at specific things you can do to create and increase demand for your services.
