40 The Financial Times Guide to Business Development
In the service sector, however, guarantees are not offered as a matter of
course. When I have suggested to some service businesses that they offer
guarantees, they have looked at me as if I were an alien creature and asked:
‘What can we guarantee? How can we offer refunds, we’ll get ripped off?’
Despite these comments, I urge you to be bold and ask yourself, what
element or aspect of your services can you guarantee? For example:
Can I guarantee results?
Can I guarantee time-frames?
Can I guarantee some aspect of service delivery?
Can I guarantee some aspect of satisfaction?
As mentioned, many people and businesses in services are hesitant to use
this strategy, for fear clients will abuse the guarantee offer. In my experi-
ence this will rarely happen and even if it does, the advantages may still
outweigh the disadvantages.
Be open minded and think about this rationally for a second. What are
you really offering and risking? If someone were truly unhappy about your
services, they would probably either refuse to pay you anyway or ask for
a refund regardless of a guarantee. I am merely suggesting to you that the
added attraction of a formal guarantee for some aspect of your service will
not only attract more prospects and customers, but also reduces the per-
ceived ‘risk’ factor inherent in every buying decision. It becomes a powerful
‘weight block’, which can allow you to charge a higher price.
11. Price for specialisation
This is certainly the case in the ‘professional services sector’. Would you
prefer to have a general surgeon or a ‘cardiac specialist’ carry out your heart
procedure? Which would you be prepared to pay more for?
If you are in ‘services’ look for ways to position yourself or your rm as
specialists. You should also consider the possibility of becoming niche
specialists within a particular specialisation. If you are selling goods either
online or in a shop, if you position and brand yourself as specialists in that
sector or as having a ‘specialist department’, you will be able to ask and get
higher prices than generic suppliers.
It will be perceived that you will, as ‘specialists’, have a much wider selec-
tion of goods and level of product knowledge and thus be better able to
identify and match precise customer requirements.
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