How to create a signature service that makes your pet business unique!
If you are a dog trainer, dog walker or dog groomer and you want to stand out from the competition then read this blog now…
Have you ever flown first class across the Atlantic? Or sat in the house seats at the Royal Albert Hall? What about watched a concert in the ‘VIP Golden Circle’?
No?
You need to get out more…
I want you to imagine you are on holiday with your partner, or a friend.
You head out for a meal together, but because you aren’t familiar with the city you are staying in (and you didn’t pack a guide book), you don’t know where are the good places to eat.
Then you come across two restaurants side by side.
One is dark, dingy and dirty with two customers eating from a plate of plentiful but unappealing food, and the sign on the door says ‘Happy Hour every hour’.
The next restaurant is heaving. The smell coming from inside is enticing and the buzz of activity is drawing you in. However, there is a small waiting area that is full of people and a sign hangs from the door which says ‘1 hour wait for a table’.
Which would you prefer to eat in?
Most people (myself included) would rather sample the food and atmosphere in the second restaurant.
If it’s busy, it must be good, right?
The fact that there is a queue of people waiting only makes it seem more exclusive and desirable.
That is scarcity and exclusivity in action, and you can implement the same exclusivity in your own business too, which will make your services more desirable.
Here are a couple of things you can do to make your services appear more exclusive and desirable.
Have a signature service
Change your offering from just a dog walk to a specialised signature service.
When is a dog walk not a dog walk?
When it’s ‘Tammy’s Gold Standard Terrier Trek’, which includes:
- Breed-specific canine adventure
- Five-point health check
- Personalised play and train programme
- A happiness audit
- Daily socialisation checklist
And also comes with a fun-factor guarantee!
You get the idea, I hope. There really is no limit to the amount of extras you can bundle together into different combinations to make your service different to all the other standard ‘dog walkers’ out there. This brings me nicely on to tiered pricing options.
Many dog walkers make the mistake of having one standard walk which only varies in price based on the amount of time the dog is walked. This is a huge mistake and leaves a lot of potential money on the table. A better option is to have, well, more options.
So take the services I described above and bundle them into different price bands where the emphasis is on the experience the dog has and not the time he spends walking.
So you could have bronze, silver and gold star options for your walks with different extras added the more your clients pay.
Pricing your services like this will often lead to some clients upselling to a better, more expensive service offering. It also makes lower-priced options seem more affordable in relation to a similar premium-priced option.
Action Point from this blog
Think of a way you can package up your dog walking into a signature service that no other dog walker in your town, or even your county, is offering.
Once you do this, your business will appear unique to your prospects, and you will easily stand out from everyone else. Because there is only one business offering your signature service (i.e. you!), then you can charge more for that service too.
Your prospects can get any old dog walk from any dog walker, but they can only get ‘Tammy’s Terrier Treks’ from you, and because there are only a limited number of spaces available each day, you can charge more for them!
This blog is an extract from the ‘Be Inaccessible’ chapter from Walk Yourself Wealthy, to get your own free signed copy of the book (and a special gift) direct from Dom please click here now.
You can get a kindle or paperback copy of Dom’s pet business bible ‘Walk Yourself Wealthy’ from Amazon by clicking here.
Uk pet business owners can get the audio version and start a free trail with Audible here
USA pet business owners can can get the audio version and start a free Audible trail by clicking here.
The Dog Walkers business bible Walk Yourself Wealthy