Why you should offer a discount!

Often times when I ask what special offer the customer wants on their marketing piece I hear... "we don't offer discounts." or "giving discounts hasn't worked for us." I say this is nonsense. It's extremely important to offer a discount. But why? There are multiple reason as to why, but I'll address two of the most important.

1) First and foremost, the people likes paying less, period. You see advertisements for cars, TVs, food, etc, all selling the same thing, a DISCOUNTED product. For example... Lexus just had the "December to remember sales event." They weren't advertising cars at full price. Remember... People are not lining up on Black Friday to pay full price!! I use example often, but it's so true. Similar but but different I hear "we don't need to offer discounts because our work speaks for itself!" That's all well and good, and maybe you are the best grass cutter/landscaper/fertilizer technician on planet earth but until you have that customer, they don't know anything about you. In most cases, quality work KEEPS a customer, not gets it! HOWEVER... this brings me to #2...

2) The biggest reason you need to offer a discount is this... In any given year you have these demographics of potential customers... People who don't use a lawn care service, people who do, and people on the fence. People on the fence are the new homeowner making a decision on whether to do it themselves or hire someone, the client who just for whatever reason decided this was the year to hire a company, and MOST IMPORTANTLY... you have potential customers who can be led away from their existing company to yours. This should be your main focus of advertising. The rest of the potential demographics is just too small. You are best to "steal" customers. So how do you do it? I mean no disrespect, I'm in the industry myself, but we're not curing cancer, or sending people to the moon, were cutting grass and fertilizing lawns, it's not a hard job. So chances are you really need to screw up to lose a customer, UNLESS... Someone else "makes them an offer they can't refuse!" they probably aren't leaving. This is where that discount comes in to play. We all learned in "#1" that people like to save money, so your best bet is to offer them something so enticing, that they are willing to leave their existing company for yous! Personally I think it makes sense, I hope you do too. What's a good offer? You can read about that here... What's a good special offer for getting lawn care customers?