Chances are you’ve been to business meeting, or heard a friend or relative, or seen something on TV where some pretty much deluded person is talking about a product or service is saying ‘Yep it will appeal to EVERYONE and I’ll make a million’
You already know that it won’t work right?
Trying to sell to or even appeal to everyone is NOT a good business strategy.
Experts will tell you not to do this is because ‘How do you contact EVERYONE?’
And there is some truth in that.
There isn’t an ‘everyone’ monthly magazine to place an ad in, as there is if you’re trying to contact lady golfers or tarantula breeders.
It’s easier (and cheaper) to contact a niche.
But for me, the above isn’t the MAIN reason you shouldn’t build your business by going after anybody and everybody.
Nope – the reason is that if you DO go after anybody and everybody, it’s almost impossible to avoid doing so based on PRICE.
And that’s fatal in business terms.
Think of it like this – Rolex didn’t go after everyone who simply needed to tell the time right?
Because your average person isn’t going to spend twenty grand on a watch.
The AVERAGE customer (the bell curve) will want something cheap and functional.
Rolex went after people who wanted to flaunt their status and wealth.
And by going for everyone you’re going to hit that bell curve bang in the middle, and mainly get a customer-base who buy primarily on PRICE.
And in my opinion you really don’t want those people.
It means you can’t position yourself as exclusive or premium.
Even worse, if you attract discount buyers, they will ALWAYS want a discount.
If you attract coupon-clippers they’re always going to be clipping.
If you price low to attract low-price buyers, you’re going to struggle like hell to justify putting your prices up.
This is why I only ever offer discounts to my existing list, not new customers.
(And even then not very often – usually when I launch a new products and even then my discounts are time-limited AND I’m usually split-testing in the background).
It’s also the reason that I NEVER give anything away for free (except free lead magnets) and never lower my prices.
Once I’ve priced a product or service at a certain level it only ever increases. I never lower my prices again with very VERY few exceptions (so rare I can’t actually think of an example).
So what’s my point?
Well it’s simply that if you go after everyone and anyone, you have to compete on price, and competing on price is just plain old silly.
Because if you compete by lowering your prices and succeed in being THE lowest price on the market, you’re only in that position until someone else works how how they can go lower.
And from there it’s just a race to the bottom.
But what many wannabe marketers don’t realise is that pricing at the SAME levels as other marketers – (at ‘industry standard’) – are also part of that race to the bottom.
When I started out it was common to see video or audio courses priced at $2,997.
And the average ebook was priced at $47.
Now where are we at?
Look at Warrior Plus and JVzoo and you’ll find good products priced for peanuts.
Video courses priced at $27 and front-end ebooks on dime sales starting at $2.
The cost of living increases every year, yet if you are a marketer (who prices their products at industry standard) your earning power decreases every year.
How does that stack for you?
The answer is it doesn’t.
If you price-match your competition rather than setting yourself apart and charging MORE than the average (you need to justify it of course but’s that a subject for another day)…
…If you price-match with the average marketer you’re going to find it very difficult to make five figures a month pretty soon, and in five years, pretty bloody impossible.
It took me a while to get my head around this, but WOW what an eye-opener, and in terms of results – brilliant.
My prediction is any marketer who keeps their pricing ‘industry standard’ is either going to have to work much harder to make the same amount of money…
…or they’ll be out of business in a year or two. It’s THAT important.
Don’t try to sell to ‘everyone’ because you’ll end up selling on price, and that rarely works well.
