Take a moment to consider the following questions:
- Has the length of time increased between first meeting a prospect and that prospect purchasers your services or products?
- Is it getting more difficult to convert prospects into clients?
- Do prospects for your services of products ever shop around for a better price?
If your answer to any of these questions is “yes,” then becoming a thought leader can prove amazingly beneficial to the sales success of your business.
Generally, among professional services such as law, accounting and management consulting as well as with a wide variety of products especially luxury products such as cars and jewelry, the purchasers are in a very strong bargaining position. The prices for these services and products while “officially set” can often be negotiated.
For example, the price of high-end jewelry can be discussed resulting in a sale at a lower price. Similarly, corporate legal services can often be renegotiated after the fact.
This is a function of the fungible nature of the vast majority of services and products. That’s not to say that certain accountants, for instance, aren’t technically superior to their peers. However, most clients are not adept at making the distinctions resulting in one accountant readily replaceable by another. Intense competition among service and product providers coupled with more discerning and demanding clients makes for more difficult sales and the potential to have to adjust pricing downward.
Service and product providers can do a lot to proactively mitigate and sometimes completely negate these adverse conditions. As noted, the answer is by being an industry thought leader.
According to Bruce Rogers, Chief Insight Officer at FORBES and one of the world’s foremost authorities on thought leadership, “By being recognized and strongly appreciated as one of the leading experts in your field, you’re engaging in a form of business development where qualified and already motivated buyers of your services or products are seeking you out. By being a thought leader, you’re perceived by clients, prospects, and key referral sources as the go-to source for your services or products.”
When done well, thought leadership campaigns (also known as content marketing) result in buyers of your services or products coming to you directly or by introduction. Thus, they’re well primed to purchase. Since they’re prepped to buy, the time between initial meeting and purchase tends to shrink. This also results in a very highly likelihood that the buyer will indeed buy. In other words, thought leaders tend to have a disproportionately high closing rate. A lot of the decisions around the nature of your offerings have already been made. Hence, the final obstacle is the purchaser’s chemistry with you.
Not only is the sales process accelerated and enhanced, but also you’re able to charge handsomely for your services or products. Because you’re one of the best at what you do or can deliver some of the very best products, and this has been confirmed, as you’re a thought leader, then you’re very likely to be able to get premium prices. In effect, you’ve successfully differentiated your services or products from those of competitors so that the purchasers with whom you connect are willing to pay for the exceptional quality and expertise only you can provide.
