Shorten, simplify, and speed up your selling process by creating and naming packages of your services.
Many of our clients worry about pulling together the services they offer into packages. They fear they will no longer be treating every client as unique and that potential buyers might be deterred as a result.
That fear is unfounded. If you’re like most businesses, 80% of the things you do are always the same. Standardizing around that has the benefit of clarifying what you do – and what you don’t do.
Creating a more standard thought process within your business will also ensure you have a better standard of delivery. That, in turn, will lead to a higher quality of service and a better customer experience.
By understanding which elements of your service are included, you can identify the extra items a customer might want as a one-off. You can charge a lot for that special add-on – and once you have built the processes to create the add-on, you might even decide to make it part of your package down the road.
To scale your business, you must be absolutely crystal clear about what you do and don’t do – and speak that truth through packages that solidify the offering from operations to finance to marketing to sales, and beyond.
Packages Improve the Buyer’s Experience, Too
When you go to a restaurant, you are presented with a menu – a set of choices. It’s very clear what you are buying, and it’s easy to make your selection.
Similarly, when you’re a business selling your services, you want it to be easy for a buyer to make their choice.
If I go to a vendor as a customer, I trust them to be the expert and I want them to recommend to me the things I should buy. An expert presentation (packages) puts less pressure on me to choose from all of the available possibilities.
Knowing that I’m buying something that other people have bought makes the process less scary. Social proof is automatically built into the named package model.
Think about what you are saying to the potential customer; that you are so confident in this collection of services you provide that you spent time and money putting a name and brand on it.
You are also demonstrating that you are not a small shop that has to customize every sale because you are desperately chasing revenue.
Your Packages Are Not Poured in Concrete
Some businesses fear a package is poured in concrete and can never be altered. But that’s not the message you are sending. All you are doing is establishing a standard offering.
Customers will ask for variations and, if enough do so, you may launch a new version of the package that incorporates this extra service.
But if you don’t have that standard, and every deal is customized, where is your baseline? You can’t lead the market because the market is leading you.
When people do ask you to change the package, you have the power to say yes, no – or to say that particular item can be upgraded at an additional cost.
At all times, however, your salespeople have a solid base to stand on and work from, a package that allows you to be flexible and to which you can negotiate premium add-ons.
Your Salespeople Will be Able to Spend More Time Selling
If your sales team is expected to deliver a proposal and a scope design that is customized for every single customer, that creates a lot of work.
Do you really want your salespeople to spend their time custom scope writing, or would you prefer them on the phone closing deals? I know where we want ours!
When you sell packages, the proposal process is much more linear. There may be minor changes; in restaurant terms, maybe one client doesn’t want cheese on their burger, while another wants extra tomato. But these can be easily checked off against the set list of services.
Creating packages also allows your salespeople to think strategically and spend time to grow relationships with prospective customers.
Your Team Will Have a Common Language
Named packages should be designed collectively by the delivery team, product team, customer team and sales and marketing.
The result is that when salespeople sell Package A, everyone in the organization knows what that includes, all the way from onboarding to billing, to delivery and to customer support.
Nobody has to think: “What things are we doing for that client?” It’s standardized. I can close a deal in sales and be confident the other parts of the team know how to make Package A happen.
If every single client has a different set of services, none of that works. Every time I sell something, I need to make a detailed explanation of exactly what I sold. The flexibility you demonstrate at a moment like that can work against you because you give the client tacit permission to change scope whenever they want.
That sets the wrong tone – and that’s how you end up with a client paying $5,000 for what should have cost $15,000.
Packages Create Opportunities For Upsells – And Downsells
If you offer a choice of three packages, people will typically go with the one in the middle. So that is where you try to funnel people in – and you have the opportunity to say there are add-ons.
For just $25 per user per month, for instance, we can add this extra service. Or there may be an enhanced reporting option. Or integration with their CRM or billing system.
Downsells, meanwhile, give your salespeople the opportunity to rescue a deal that needs a lower level step-in.
If a prospect says even your lowest package is too expensive, you can offer an off-label package that gives the same benefits and value but over a longer time.
By offering a step-in price that’s off the rate card, we can work to upgrade them later. It’s a lot easier to get more money from an existing customer than from someone who has never done business with you.
You Will Increase Your Average Contract Value
Packages are a potent weapon when it comes to driving better performance and one of the most important metrics we track in sales, the Average Contract Value.
We package services because psychologically, in the mind of a potential customer, it adds weight and credibility to the offering.
If you offer each service on its own, it’s too easy for customers to say they don’t want one or more of the component line items. In a package, however, there’s a stickiness – as if each service is attached to all the other elements of your offering. The restaurant doesn’t charge you less for the burger when you say, “No lettuce.” It’s the same principle here.
And when we pull services together in this way, the price naturally inflates to the level that we know it to be worth. The package communicates the value of that set of services and it drives up the combined value, which is ultimately what you want to do.
Contact us now to find out more
If you’re a B2B services company, and this information resonates with you, book a free consultation with us, and we’re happy to talk to you about packaging your services.