Important lesson on positioning — it came up earlier this week in a meeting with one of my Mastermind Group members (for more info on this group head on over to http://www.kingofcopy.com/mastermind)

When you have a “consulting meeting” with someone, and then you go and send them some kind of a “proposal” or a “bid quote,” this is very bad. See, when you do this, you hand over all the decision-making power to the recipient. It puts all the leverage in their lap and makes you the needy service provider who needs them more than they need you.

And unless you’re a glutton for punishment, then you don’t ever want to be in this position.

Instead, what you want to do is NOT have a consulting meeting, but have some kind of an “audit” or an “exam” that’ll reveal several performance flaws or other mistakes you consult on, or that your goods and service remediates. (“Remediates,” that’s a five-dollar word, isn’t it?).

Then, inside your audit or whatever you wind up calling it, you list all the remedies, all the solutions to the problems you’ve identified, and you let your prospect know that as part of your service or product or whatever it is you’re selling, you’re guaranteeing to fix these problems, and you extend some kind of an offer at a FIXED price.

Not a bid, not a negotiation, but a FIXED price.

Understand the difference?

Then you may also let them know something like, you can only keep your offer open for so many days at this price, because of your busy schedule.

But stick to this. Don’t be like the woman who recently came out here to try and get some landscaping business from us. All I wanted was a pair of jeans, and she tried to put me into a tuxedo. Then she sent me a “bid” with something that said, “Good for 7 days only.”

After this, she proceeded to stalk me by phone for the next two months!

This isn’t good for her business, her credibility, and when it comes down to it, it’s GOT to be bad for her self-esteem. And since you spend LOADS of time working, you should do things that make you feel good, not things that make you feel like crap.

There’s enough other stuff going on in this world to contend with, no?

Anyway, see how this changes the dynamic, drastically? Now you’re not “bidding” on anything. Now they have to come to you.

Do you have any idea how much this is worth, both in financial terms and in terms of your dignity and how you control the relationship and not the other way around?

This is very critical to your positioning and to ultimately, your freedom. So don’t ignore this strategy. If you have problems with clients, this may actually be the one thing that changes your outlook on who you are in your business, and restores your passion for what you do…

Or not — depends on you.

Now go sell something, Craig Garber

P.S. Finished. I just finished this month’s issue of Seductive Selling, and inside this issue, a detailed description of how to make an offer, along with 3 live marketing examples. And if you’re going to work hard anyway… Then You Might As Well Get Rich At It — And The Quicker, The Better, Right? So find out more, right here: http://www.kingofcopy.com/ssnl

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