Why You Should Stop Discounting Your Services
All right, business owners! Let’s go over three reasons I highly recommend that you stop discounting your services.
1. Discounting leads to upset customers.
Let’s say you have an outdoor living company and you build outdoor kitchens and gazebos, or you have a pool company and build nice luxury pools. You have a great customer who purchases a nice pool or outdoor kitchen from you. Then next month you run a special to give a discount on those services. The customer who bought from you last month is going to be upset! They don’t want to have paid more for the same product. Many of your clients may want to use you again for different projects—maybe this year they had you build an outdoor kitchen but next year they plan to put in some landscaping and a gazebo. If these customers find out that other customers got the same product for a discount, they may think twice before offering you their repeat business. If these customers have been with you for years they will be especially upset if they didn’t get in on the discount.
My tagline is “When you Market With Mario, you profit with Mario.” I am focused on profitability for my clients. That’s what all of my social media marketing, email marketing, and blogging is aimed at. I’m trying to make my clients more profitable. By reducing your prices you’re not helping your bottom line profitability. But more importantly, you’re upsetting your customers who paid full price.
2. Once a discount customer, always a discount customer.
I say this often. Once you start offering discounts you are not going to have people use you again unless they can get another discount. You’re training people to only buy from you when you have certain offers available! This cheapens your service.
When I look at branding a client I want people to choose you regardless of price. As they check out your social media and your website, I want them to understand the difference. I want them to think, “Wow! We can see why they’re a little bit more expensive than the other companies.” We want to build that value that helps people see why they should spend more money with you. If you offer discounts it devalues your high-end quality service.
3. Discount work gets you discount referrals.
People hang out with people just like them. If you have someone who is only looking for bargains, the cheapest price, the best discounts, they’re going to know people who are looking for the same things. What kind of customers do you think they will refer to you? They are going to refer people just like them. This sets up a continuous stream, a domino effect, of people always calling you up looking for a cheaper price, a discount, a deal, as opposed to people who understand the quality of your work and are willing to pay full price. You’ll get more people looking for deals, and then they’ll refer you to people looking for more deals.
I recommend that you charge what you think you’re worth and have your online reputation back that up. Post before and after pictures and videos. Blow up your social media. Show people why you’re different!
Your Next Step
If you need help with that, that’s what we do! We help with your Facebook branding, email marketing, and blogging so that you can charge what you’re worth and put more money into your bottom line!