Increase Your Business Profits Using A Value Ladder

business value ladder

What would it look like if you were able to increase the profit and value of every single sale in your business?

Imagine if you could encourage your customers to spend more, increasing your income by 30%, 50%, or even 200%.

It probably sounds very attractive. But I bet you’re thinking it sounds a bit pie in the sky.

However:

If you have a clearly conceived Value Ladder, then these sales increases are very much possible.

In this article, we’re going to share some important insights about how you might restructure your product range in a way that encourages your clients to spend more.

We’re going to show you how to build a Value Ladder, how to increase your revenue, and help you build an ongoing relationship with each client. If you’d like the video version, you can watch here:

What Is A Value Ladder?

We get asked this question a lot: what exactly IS a Value Ladder?

Think about the services and products you currently offer. Chances are you have a range of products covering different price points.

Of course, we always want everyone to buy the most expensive products because they generally create the most revenue and are likely to produce the best profit margin.

But:

Not everyone is going to be ready to launch straight into your premium product or service.

So, your Value Ladder allows you to recognise the ascending value of your products; helping you take your customer on a journey – up that ladder – from your cheapest services through to the ones that have the higher profit margins.

Consider your low-ticket items as a hook

When you’re thinking about how to create a Value Ladder, consider your low-ticket (low cost) items as a means of tempting your potential customers onto the first rung (and into the opening of your sales funnel).

You could start with a low-ticket offer that introduces them onto your ladder. Once they’re there, you can start encouraging them towards your pricier offerings on the upper rungs.

But – essentially – without the low-price/free option, you might struggle to get them onto the ladder in the first place.

Consider:

Once they’ve taken that first step, it helps increase the profit and revenue of each individual customer as opposed to businesses that offer just one level of service.

Example Value Ladder: A Dentist

Value Ladder For Dentist
The diagram above shows a typical Value Ladder for a dental practice.

At the bottom of the ladder, they might offer free content:

  • Blog content
  • Videos
  • Complementary information that might be of interest or educational value to their customers.

This level helps draw in interest in your services, but – critically – the customer might not be ready to buy.

This is a valuable rung of the ladder (it’s your sales funnel opening) – it’s how we get people on that first step, so free content is essential.

You might offer a free offer that encourages people through the door. For a dentist, they might provide a free tooth cleaning service. That gets them in the chair in the first place.

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Upselling

Once we have the customer through the door for the free/low-cost option, we can begin to upsell our more premium services.

In the case of the dentist, you go in for your free teeth cleaning session, and the dentist looks at your teeth and suggests whitening. They might offer teeth whitening at a cost – say $100.

Maybe the dentist spots that there’s some misalignment because wisdom teeth are coming through – they might suggest straightening services with retainers or cosmetic procedures. Each step of the ladder increases the value to the dentist while maintaining a longer shelf-life for that customer.

Perhaps as the customer climbs the ladder, they’ll have spent – say – $7500 by the time they go for the cosmetic procedure.

So, that customer came in for a free tooth cleaning service and ended up – over a period of time – spending $7500. And it’s all because you offered tiered pricing for a range of services – hooking in the customer with your free/low-cost offer.

How To Build A Value Ladder

Think about the services you provide and arrange them in ascending order so that you have a Value Ladder.

Know the journey you want your customer to make before you approach them.

Know how you can hook them into your sales funnel by understanding the ascending value of the products or services that you offer.

Take our business model at MrGavinBell.com. We offer:

  • Free blogs
  • Free videos
  • Free podcasts

This is the first step of the ladder. And hopefully, you subscribe to our services because you find them useful and you learn something new every time you engage with us.

You can decide that you want to take the next step or you might be happy with what you’re getting already. Either way, it’s fine. You just consume the content that you need to help you grow your business,

The next step on my Value Ladder is my Pro tier. For $197 per month, you get access to all the best content from me on building your sales funnels and developing your Facebook marketing strategies with extra one-to-one support. It’s more of a consultation/coaching-type level.

If you want everything done for you, then we offer complete managed services starting at $2,000/pm.

So, you can see how from offering free content that’s informative and useful, you can develop a customer base of clients with an ascending value to you as a business. And it all started from the free stuff because that got you into my sales funnel.

Why would you want a Value Ladder?

Are you letting people ascend your ladder?

If you’re a marketing ad agency, each customer is likely to want different things. You might specialise in Facebook ads, and you might provide those for your customer.

But:

Are you allowing your customers to know about your other services? Some people want to buy more than the basic package – are you letting them?

If you’re not, you’re missing out on profit and the potential for that customer to become a long-term concern.

When it comes to paid advertising and client acquisition, it’s far more expensive to acquire a customer than it is to upsell a customer.

We’re providing more value, and it costs the customer more money. It’s a symbiotic relationship and one that can help grow your usefulness to that customer – and your income from the services they pay you to do for them.

How Do I Create My Value Ladder?

It sounds pretty cool, doesn’t it?

So, where do you start?

1️⃣ List Out Your Services and Products
You might not have a portfolio of services – you might just have one service or product that you sell or trade.

Think about how you can add extra value to your existing portfolio by – perhaps – adding additionals for which you charge more.

You might have a Do-It-Yourself, a Done-For-You, an Inner Circle, a Mastermind. Think about the different ways you can break down your existing offering.

2️⃣ List Out Your Price – create a list of each service and attribute a financial value to each element.

3️⃣ Put them in order of Price.

Don’t forget your entry-level, free services. You’re likely to need those to get your customers into your sales funnel in the first place.

At the Very Top Of Your Value Ladder

At the top of your ladder goes your premium offering – the most valuable service or product you can provide.

It’s likely to be the case that not every customer who climbs up your Value Ladder get to the top; paying for your premium offering. But if you’ve increased the lifetime of your relationship, gathering more revenue along the way, then it’s been worth it.

Your Value Ladder Becomes Your Business

One of the most useful elements of creating a Value Ladder is that it quickly becomes a model of your business.

It allows you to see how your customer enters your sales funnel and how they become a paying customer. It gives you a clear overview of your business – making your job of selling that business easier because you have a clear journey for the customer to follow.

Your job then begins to be how to get people to join your funnel in the first place.

Different stages of the ladder require different funnels – but that’s the subject for a future article. Get in touch via the comments box below to let us know whether that would be useful for you to read.

You Can Turn Things Around With A Value Ladder

Your business can become much more valuable by incorporating the Value Ladder model.

You can grow your revenue and provide more value to your customer or your audience.

Sure, it might cost $100 to acquire a customer that brings in $50 at the beginning of the ladder, but over the lifetime of that relationship, that on-going provision becomes profitable.

This gives you a predictable, consistent, and scalable framework with which to grow your business over time; developing relationships of trust with your clients, so they see you as the on-going solution they need.

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