Know Your Value. Episode 2 – Structure

The reason I’m making this little series of videos about knowing your value is that I come across lots of people who understand “I’m a good trade,” or “We’re a good trade business, and we do a good job,” but don’t understand how to articulate what’s different, special or better about you than another trade.

You can’t go and say, “The others are all sh*t.” What you can say is, “This particular way is how we’re good.”

I spoke last week about insurance and how insurance can be used. Obviously, it’s a way that protects the customer. It has some value in itself because it protects your customer if you do damage but also it illustrates how you’re doing it properly — which is reassuring in a more general sense for your customers.

If you point out that we have full insurance, you’re doing two things. You’re saying, “Look, we do insurance properly.” You can probably infer from this that:

1. “We do everything else properly as well.”
2. “We’ll do a proper job on your work, and we’ll manage ourselves, and look after ourselves properly, and conduct ourselves properly.”

It’s implied and your customers will understand when you articulate the specific things you do.

Importance of having a business structure

The same is true with structure. Structure is another way to demonstrate that you do things properly. It’s another way to reassure your customers that you’re the good guys.

You’re not going to rip them off, scare them or give them a bad experience.

Whatever that means, you’re not going to be a disadvantage, frustrate them, and jeopardize their commercial projects.

We’re not only talking about domestic customers here.

Structure is a way to reassure people that they’re in for a good ride, not a bad one.

Just like I use structure in my sales process.

I have a very clear and structured sales process. I use a checklist, and a questionnaire, and take people through a very clear and open process and I explain it to them first.

What happens is they find it reassuring that they’re in a process.

They know when decision time is coming. They’ll make their decision, and they’re happy to make one so we know. And they know what they’re in for if we go into coaching together.

They know that I’m going to be structured in how I think, that I’m going to be structured in how I behave, coach, and how I teach.

I’m showing them a little of what they’re going to get and you should be doing the same. You should be using a business structure in your sales process, and you should be using structure when you deliver your service, and when you get paid for your service, and how you manage your people, and how you manage your jobs and all the rest of it.

So all of that is very important. You should be using structure.

Recommended Reading: Jon’s Journey Episode 4: Are you doing your sales process properly?

If you do use a structure, you set yourself apart from the people who don’t do business structure and who are winging it a bit. They’re much higher risk and it will be perceived as a much higher risk.

So, if you explain to your customers how structured you are, they’ll be looking to see if your competitors in a project are structured too. You’re doing yourself a favor in almost every sense of the word.

It’s a big topic. I’m not going to try to explain all the ways you can to be structured in your business, but what I’m going to do is tell you a little story.

A story

It’s something that happened to me last week. I asked a guy’s permission to use this story and it’s a great example of how his business structure and sales process and his payment process made me feel.

I called a plumber (fantastic plumber here in Byron Bay) because the toilet was running constantly and I wanted to get it fixed.

I spoke to a receptionist. She took my call, had a little chat with me, said it’s going to cost me $79 to send someone out. She’s going to take payment on the phone before he would come and if I accepted the quote that he gave me when he came to my house that he would credit it against the final bill.

I accepted that as reasonable.

He came out, looked at the toilet, and gave me a quote to fix it. He fixed it, pulled his credit card machine out, raised me an invoice that was exactly what he told me he’s going to charge me when he quoted me. Then he emailed me with a quote as well, and then emailed me an invoice which I paid before he left.

All very nicely structured and all that I’d been led to expect on the phone and reaffirmed when he arrived.

Of course, what I felt was reassured, confident I was in good hands, and confident that he knew what he was doing because it was very apparent. I felt very confident and I felt I was with the right people.

It was a happy and reassuring experience for me and I want to say that to you. A structure is going to make your customers happy and reassured.

It was a good process for him. He did two visits, but he got paid straight away and he got paid to come out for the first visit. It was a very satisfactory process all around. One visit, do a quote and do the job, payment on the spot.

That’s the kind of process that’s good for him, but it was also good for me. I didn’t feel the resistance towards it at all.

The more you can do using structure to take any uncertainties away from your customers, the better they’re going to feel and the more likely they’re going to spend their money with you.

So I implore you — put structure into your business. Put it into your sales process and obviously, that was a comment about this guy’s sales process.

This is a sales and payment structure but structure goes right through your business, doesn’t it?

Do you want help from me? Of course, that’s my business. My service is helping you put structure and systems into your business.

I’ll do two things:

1. I’ll show you the systems and structures that I’m going to help you put into your business
2. I’ll help you actually put them in your business

So, if you want me to show you those structures, I’ll do that in my structured strategy session which is part of my sales process.