People buy what they value. People pay more for what they need and value the most.
Here are four ways trusted advisors like agency owners and strategic consultants can showcase the true value and worth of their services to clients and prospects.
The Teaser Talk. The Teaser Talk is an appetizer. Like dinner appetizers offered as a tasty treat to get the diner ready for the main course, Teaser Talks should give your clients and prospects a little taste of what it is like to work with you.
A Teaser Talk is not a discovery call where we spend most of the time learning about the needs and challenges of the prospect. A Teaser Talk is a short value experience for your prospects.
My favorite Teaser Talk is the problem solver call where I spend 30 minutes with a prospect solving one of their business challenges. It is about offering one solution to a core problem they are facing today. It starts by listening to them, talking them through different ways they could solve the problem, and finally offering real recommendations and solutions. Another Teaser Talk option used by my publisher Henry DeVries and others is the open mic Q&A. This is about giving a short topic talk and then letting the audience ask you anything.
The Struggle Walk. The Struggle Walk is helping the prospect frame the problem with a new perspective, giving them a tool to use or an approach to take, then standing back and letting them struggle with how to solve the problem. You are there to facilitate but not to provide the answer. We do this at Octain Growth Systems in our client collaboration sessions where we work with our clients to build their marketing blueprint.
That was a big change for me. In the past, I did all the work for my clients behind the “black curtain.” My clients got a great finished product, but they didn’t understand the process and didn’t always see the value because they weren’t in on the development. Now when I use value builders like the Struggle Walk, I get comments like, “Wow, this is really hard. I didn’t know this much went into doing this.” Value point made!
The Client Collaboration Model. First cousin to the Struggle Walk is the Client Collaboration Model. It’s the structure of this model that sets it apart from the kind of collaboration we all do with our clients.
At Octain we structure the collaboration for the three ways we find our clients work with us best: First we have the Back and Forth. It starts with a modified Struggle Walk, giving the client our assessments to prefill with their current thoughts, ideas, and perspectives. We take that first client draft, add our questions and comments, and return it for their review. We go back and forth until we have a final product we are all proud of.
Second is the Done with You. That is when every session is a collaborative discussion meeting. We are building the blueprint together, step by step, line by line. Each decision is made by the team. It’s my favorite because it drives the most value and buy-in from the client. This approach is the hallmark of the way my colleague, Renae Scott of Be Collaborative, has designed her entire business.
Third is the Done for You. That’s when we do the first draft of a marketing blueprint, review it with the client, then finalize the final deliverable. We collaborate on the changes and reviews. It’s my least favorite because the collaboration is minimal, but for some maxed-out clients, it’s the only way to get the job done.
The Advisory Board. The fourth way to showcase your value to your clients and prospects is to provide them with an advisory board. Most of our midmarket scaling clients are under-resourced, especially when it comes to executive talent. That’s why a fractional executive team is so critical to success.
We like to present an advisory board to our clients and prospects early in the discovery call or session. We look for ways to open our entire network to our prospects. To show our value to them extends far beyond what Octain can personally do. So, we try to get all the business issues on the table, not just those related to marketing. Perhaps they need a fractional HR or CFO or VP of sales.
When we present these as resources and make introductions early in our work or even before the prospect has become a client, we give them multiple reasons to bring us into their organization. Plus, we put the power of our partners behind our value proposition.