Is your company accessible?

Posted by: Michael Goerlich in Company.

When Josh and Dave asked me to take over the sales department at Designing Interactive, we sat down and talked about the direction we wanted to take with regard to marketing. After looking at the web solutions other companies had been offering to the small to mid-sized business market, we felt we could offer some significant improvements to that demographic.

Based on that conclusion, we developed several product offerings specifically tailored to the needs of small businesses. I set out to market these, and quickly developed a respectable pipeline of prospects and working business.

This seems too easy…

One prospect was progressing nicely. Initial meetings had revealed that our product met their needs, and so I prepared and delivered a formal proposal. Our quote covered developing their corporate branding and a simple brochure-ware website, and totaled just under $8,000.00.

The owner agreed that, even with the most conservative of estimates, the work we would be doing for him would ultimately increase his sales by thousands of dollars every month.

He liked our product. He recognized its value. On paper, the project would pay for itself in just a few months. But he would not enter the contract. The deal nearly died because I overlooked a key aspect of his business.

Financially Handicapped

His gross monthly sales only averaged $15,000.00. I was asking him to spend better than half of his entire month’s revenue on that project. It wasn’t a question of whether he wanted our product; the question was how he could possibly pay his other bills if he spent the money on our proposal. I had quoted the job based on what was best for our company, rather than what was best for his. He was financially handicapped, and our solution was at the top of a flight of stairs.

This client’s predicament forced me to re-think how we approach all of our small business prospects. I had several courses of action from which to choose. One would have been to walk away from the deal. Or, I could have slashed my prices to the bare bones and hoped that rumors of my price-slashing, charitable ways would not get out to other prospects.

In the end, our solution was dirt-simple. We went against our industry’s paradigm regarding billing. Web developers like to get paid in full by the time the website product goes online. This ensures that we don’t waste billable hours creating a website for a client, only to have him stiff us on the payment. But in this case, we took a gamble and offered it to the prospect as a monthly rental.

That was all it took. He signed the contract, and I walked out of his office with a check in hand for a deposit and first month’s rental payment.

Our developers freaked at the idea. The notion of “renting” a website to a customer was extremely uncomfortable for them because the customer could possibly go out of business before the development cost has been paid off.

After considering the options, I decided that if operating within our comfort zone is causing us to miss out on new business, it’s time to rethink just how important our comfort really is. Sometimes it’s not a question of “can he pay?” but rather, “can I make it so he can pay?” If your client is financially handicapped, you have to make your product “financially handicapped-accessible.”

Building the ramp

Selling to small businesses can be extremely lucrative when done correctly. The important point to remember is that they typically work within much more constricting financial circumstances than larger companies. They rarely have much in liquid cash in the bank, and their credit is often limited (especially if they have less than two years business history).

Car companies learned this lesson decades ago. If you want to sell a $40,000.00 sedan to a man who only makes $50,000.00 a year, you’d better come up with some way for him to break the cost up into manageable bites.

Regardless of what product or service you provide, you’ll be amazed at how much more you sell when you make your fees more digestible by your customers. Consider these following ideas to make your company more accessible to small business:

• Use a third party lender to enable you to lease high-ticket tangible goods to your client
• Explore the option of allowing your customer pay part or all of his bill through barter
• Offer payment plans or extended terms
• Give customers “in-store credits” they can apply to their bill in exchange for qualified leads and referrals
• Offer a bare-bones, entry-level-priced product or service in addition to your normal line-up

Our blog here at DI often preaches the necessity of making your website accessible and easy to use. I propose you do the same with the rest of your business. It usually means more work for the bookkeeper, but he’ll quickly stop his complaining when he’s recording ever-higher sales figures.

Now go build that ramp…