What is a Value Ladder?
Today, I want to talk about something that is really important. Any business that serves customers that need to know what the business journey looks like to actually conduct business in relationships with that business, that journey is referred to as a Value Ladder. This is something that is talked about in many books. Russell Brunson has touched on this in several books including, “Traffic Secrets” and “DotCom Secrets” among others. I recently talked to a gentleman who has worked with Brunson in the past. We have been able to implement this principle into our business with the construction company, and the structure has led to some great results. It entails an initial interaction with your customer or your client that is coming into your business.
What Type of Business Can Use a Value Ladder to Increase Sales?
This typically works very well if you’re producing content. Regular content may include recording podcasts, creating blogs, filming videos and the like. Real and practical content that your customer base needs, works very well in answering customer questions across different marketing platforms. Surrounding yourself with knowledgeable individuals and experts that can discuss the topics that you’re solving for people will begin to establish you as the authority in your business.
The Lead Magnet | Step One for Your Value Ladder
Bringing value to your customer base helps build a Lead Magnet. The lead magnet builds out into a free resource to your customer base. Building a Lead Magnet is the first step of the value ladder, or it will function as something to give to your customer base for free and double as an opt-in point for contact information. For our construction business, we’ve built out guides on How to Buy Land, Costs to Build a Custom Home, Remodeling Cost guides along with many other giveaways such as floor plans. We’ll promote these items on social media or any of our channels that we’re on and the opt-in helps us build our email list. The email list is the entire core of the business and allows us to start communicating with our customers that are interested in what we’re doing.
Stay Top of Mind | Value Ladder Step Two
Once we have a customer in the world that we work in, they’re going to hear from us in a few different ways. At the very least, we send out a weekly email to keep on a regular basis. This weekly correspondence is based on the weekly marketing content that we produce. The second step of that value ladder relates to how they do business with you. So you can offer something that’s of value, but doesn’t cost much such as a low priced seminar, zoom call, a Q&A, perhaps even a book, something that allows your customer base a chance to ask you questions and get answers they can’t normally get from you on a regular basis. A more in depth book, such as how to build custom homes or how to remodel homes can bring more comprehensive content and likely lead them to buy from you again. This can actually take the customer to step three, which could be a consultation where you’re charging for your time to meet with them one on one.
Charge for Consultations | Building a Value Ladder Step Three
We utilize this practice and charge a $400 consultation for one hour of our time to meet and talk to someone about their project desires. If they own a lot or have one in mind, we’ll meet them on their lot to look at the whole picture, that is how the land prep and house build needs to come together. This is something that people are willing to pay for and they’re very happy to pay for that consultation because we’ve been putting out content that’s been valuable to them. They’ve been in contact with us through our different avenues of content as they climb up our value ladder and now they’re happy to pay their $400, which allows us to cover our cost for providing that consultation, wherein this kind of service may typically be free.
The other benefit is it helps filter out the people who are not serious about buying from you. They may just want to use you as that second or third opinion, to confirm their project’s cost, but you’re not their primary option. You can eliminate a lot of the non-serious people by finding those that see the value in working with you.
Implement an Agreement or Contract | Value Ladder Step Four
The fourth step would be to implement an agreement or contract. If you’re a builder or remodeler, this could be a design agreement. Once your customer has completed a consultation with you and is ready to begin designing their home. This design agreement could range from $10,000 to $50,000, or even higher, all depending on what goes into designing their project, complete a bid out, and assemble a package together that will complete this project. This step has brought your customer to a much larger product and higher price point, allowing you to make real money on the design, and now you’re not simply breaking even on that design process.
Final Step for How to Build a Value Ladder for Your Business
Another step in your value ladder could be the actual service or product that you specialize in. In our construction company, our ladder leads to a building agreement, that is our large sale. Your ladder may lead to a $200,000 product, or maybe one million or five million, regardless, these are the big dollars that came from that initial free lead magnet. The value ladder increases the volume at the bottom and increases the sales conversion at the top very well.
Additional Benefit for Your Business Having a Value Ladder
Another thing that can result is a backend service or product. In the construction world, we run into people that need loans, or sell existing homes. If your industry has affiliated needs connected with it, you can help meet that customer’s need. These backend offers come about by your Value Ladder. If someone asks you, “What’s the next step that I need to take to do business with you?” you know what that step is and then walk them through that process. The Value Ladder provides great guidance and a good experience for everybody.
How to Increase Sales for Your Business
Think about your type of business. What are some things you can do to initially give away for free that would answer your customers’ questions and give them the kind of value that will motivate them to climb your ladder? Then determine the next product level. After that, determine that next level item that you can sell to help them. Build that value ladder by writing it down and identifying the final steps, visually seeing the ladder will help understand how it works. If you adopt this process I believe you’ll see a significant increase in your sales. Your sales process will also improve as more and more people view you as an authority by the content you give those people through the conversions you have while climbing the ladder together.
Marketing and Website Resources
I hope that helps. If you need more information we have a ton of guides on our resources page about how to get more exposure on Google, build a high-powered website, how to maintain your blogs and lots of other information. Thank you for your time and have a great rest of your day.
BUILD A HIGH POWERED WEBSITE
Do you want to build a website that will make your company stand out from the competition, create a massive flow of leads and earn you more profits? This 10 Step Framework will help you do just that. Included:
- Step by Step Guide
- How to Build a Lead Magnet
- How to Start an Email Campaign
