How would your clients describe the experience of meeting with you? How do they feel as you walk out of their offices? How do they feel about your impending appointments to see them?
Here’s the toughest question for you to ponder. I want you to think this through thoroughly. If you are part of a team, ask everyone on your team to work on this question and on ways to implement the answer. Your future in this industry may depend on it.
What would you do differently on your next presentation if your client was paying you $250 to deliver it?
It costs you (or your company) somewhere between $225 and $600 for each sales call that you make. Are you making the most out of each opportunity? If the tables were turned, and the client was paying you that amount for you to deliver a valuable experience, just what would you do differently?
We live in an experience economy. In an age where many goods and services are in a race to the bottom price and being turned into commodities, people not only value experiences, they pay major prices to enjoy them.
It’s why we pay $100 and more to attend concerts, live theater and sporting events. It’s why the average cost of a wedding in the U.S. is $30,000.
You can start by looking at what those who are getting paid premium dollars for delivering experiences are doing, and emulating them. If you see veteran professionals, like Keith Urban and Garth Brooks, or senior citizens, like The Rolling Stones and even Loretta Lynn, on stage, they give you themselves. They deliver all of their energy and their passion for music in every performance.
1. Bring your A-game, all of your passion and your very best to each presentation. If you’re excited, your clients will be, too. If you’re not, they never will be.
Great experiences are different from anything you can get anywhere else. Why else would people pay hundreds of dollars for a live performance when they can buy the CD, DVD or digital download for a few dollars?
2. Are you giving your clients something that they can’t get online or by paging through a catalog? You must be different—different from your competitors and different from your selling tools (be better than a catalog or a webpage).
Experience creators are both subject matter experts and artists. We expect proficiency, but we want to see the surprise, the wow and the relevance to us on a very personal and emotional level.
3. Be an artist as well as an expert. Work on developing your skills and your knowledge of your clients’ business problems and the many tools at your disposal to solve them. And now mix in your personal artistic side to give your clients creative solutions, different approaches and something that is both authentically you and extremely relevant to them.
When we pay our hard-earned dollars for a big experience, we look forward to it with anticipation, we look forward to sharing it with our friends. When we leave the experience, there is a tingling of emotion still running through us. Have you ever tried to comment on a great show immediately after and found your voice quivering with emotion?
4. People shop with their heads, but they buy with their hearts. When you give yourself totally into the experience you’re creating, you are giving the best gift that you possibly can offer. Your clients will feel that. When you help them become better versions of themselves by offering them creatively presented, relevant solutions, you’ll be on your way to becoming a highly valued and compensated experience creator.
