Dedication, Resilience and Practice: What you can Learn from David Beckham about pricing and conversion for your HR Consultancy

CREATING AN EFFECTIVE SALES & PRICING STRATEGY IS MORE THAN A ONE TIME EXERCISE. IT EXTENDS FAR BEYOND SETTING YOUR PRICES AND HOLDING SALES MEETINGS. YOU NEED TO ANALYSE THE RESULTS AND REFINE YOUR OFFER.

I know what you’re thinking…

You are a HR Consultant. What could David Beckham possibly teach you about operating your business?

I get it. It certainly seems like a strange concept – but only at first. The more you think about it, the clearer it becomes that sports people embody many of the same qualities that successful businesspeople possess. The application of these qualities may be far different, but the principles are still the same.

And in the case of pricing & conversion, there’s a lot that you can learn from Sports people.

Take David Beckham as an example. A megastar both on and off the field, but Beckham was best known on the pitch for his ability with free kicks. Over the course of his career he scored 65 goals from free kicks making him the most accomplished British free kick taker and in the top 5 of all time internationally, even inspiring the title of a Rom-Com Film.

DEDICATION & PRACTICE - WHY WAS DAVID BECKHAM SO GOOD?

It can be tempting in business to have a hit and hope approach to your sales meetings and pricing. By this I mean you go into your sales meeting and tailor your price to the client in the hope that they sign up. This often results in you offering the same level of service to different clients at different price points. Not only is this an administrative nightmare but also clouds your own sense of the value that you provide.

In reality setting your sales & pricing strategy consists of a series of tweaks and adjustments each refining your overall strategy for your target market.

It is these tweaks and adjustments that made Beckham such a force with a dead ball.

He didn’t step up to the ball and hit and hope.

Instead he spent years perfecting his craft both with a ball of the training field and at home as a child taking free kicks inside the house using his sisters care bears.

He knew that there was no “magic pill” that would enable him to just step up and bend a ball into the net. So he set about trying to improve by small incremental amounts through regular training.

Now I am not suggesting it will take you years to refine your sales and pricing strategy. But it is worth spending the time to regularly refine it.

RESILIENCE – WHY CHASING HIGH CONVERSION WILL LEAD TO A BUSINESS YOU DO NOT ENJOY WORKING IN

We have already highlighted that Beckham was the most accomplished taker of free kicks in Britain. But did he convert every free kick he took?

NO!!

In reality Beckham’s conversion rate was well below 10%, yet he was still one of the most successful players in this element of the game. Why? Because he possessed resilience. He did not get phased by missing a free kick he got up and took another regardless.

In business and more so in HR consultancy we have an inherent fear of hearing a prospect say no. This is because ultimately our services are an extension of ourselves, and no one likes to feel rejection in any form.

This often leaves you running a nightmare business, working all the hours under the sun and having little to show for it at the end of the day.

The cold, hard truth is that it is these no’s that enable use to ensure we pitch our offering at the right level.

If you currently have a sale conversion ratio of 70-90% the likelihood is that you are charging far too little for your services, and in turn attracting price sensitive clients.

Figures from Capterra indicate that the average conversion rate for professional services stands at just 10%

It is a case that, in order to achieve maximum value from your offering that less truly is more, when it comes to conversion at least.

To achieve maximum value from your clients will involve a shift in mindset in order to remove your emotional connection to a prospect saying yes. But when you have successfully done this you will start to reap the rewards for your business.

 

STRATEGISE, TEST AND MEASURE

When running a business, rarely will you get things right first time.

The important thing is that you are able to learn from the mistakes that you make.

To do this you need to be able to test your strategies and measure the results to understand your success.

You could do a lot worse than to look to the qualities shown by sportspeople like David Beckham when adjusting your strategies.

Look for small improvements that move the needle in your business rather than big fixes which will overwhelm you.

Emotional resilience is a big, yet underrated concept in business.

Things will undoubtedly go wrong, but keep stepping up to the ball, and you will eventually hit the net.

 

P.S. Whenever you’re ready, here are 3 ways that I can help you to increase your value to clients, realise higher prices and achieve greater profitability.

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