It’s a myth to believe the best way to get more clients is to be good at what you do.
Many people who start a business believe the best product or service wins. However, we know from experience that providing the best service doesn’t keep a business sustainable in the long term.
The most recognizable clinic isn’t the best in their field.
If the best hearing care is all you need to do business, why do some audiologists not reach their full potential?
Look within your industry and think about the person who has the most authority or recognition. Are they necessarily the best audiologists in the industry? Many of you may say yes; others will disagree and tell the person leading your industry isn’t the best in their profession.
Being the best is relative and personal. So being the best isn’t always enough.
Social influence is controlling the narrative.
Social influence plays a vital role in clients’ decisions to choose your business over another.
All businesses can start on equal footing, but the person or company that consistently gets reinforced or shown in the client’s mind often becomes the chosen one.
Who gets to decide what gets seen more?
On social media via organic content, it’s the algorithms that decide what we see.
In actual day-to-day activities, our friends or our community influence our decisions.
Or it’s the company with a large marketing budget and plenty of money to spend on ads that appear in people’s faces and minds repeatedly and as often as possible.
Clients can’t know how great your service is without trying.
We can’t assess a business before we try or buy it, which is even more difficult for a service business. You can’t expect a customer to know as much as you do in the hearing care space to make the same level of decision that you would.
So instead, the following things are happening to help people decide:
- The most popular brand that comes to mind.
- The one that has been referred to the most, either using reviews or word of mouth.
- The one that signals it’s okay to proceed.
- The one that’s the cheapest.
In any market, some people choose a product based on price because that’s all they can afford. Others choose a premium product because they have values that need to be met.
The idea is not to tell you to focus less on quality services. It is essential to do this, plus more.
- Continue to make excellent services a table stake.
- Find a gap in the market that doesn’t provide what is most important to people and use this as a differentiator.
- Provide a service for what the customers want and are willing to pay for.
- You need a clear value proposition that stands out differently from what others say.
Don’t only play the better service game.
You’ll need to continue providing a service people perceive as a great deal. The cost of your service will always be lower than what the client perceives it’s worth and is willing to pay.
Clients’ decisions are never rational based on what you think is the right thing.
What’s important to consider is what’s in the minds of your clients.