Graham McGregor: Do you sell money at a discount?

"Doing something costs something. Doing nothing costs something. And, quite often, doing nothing costs a lot more!" - Ben Feldman. Photo / 123RF

A common question we are often asked in business is "What do you do?".

And an interesting way to answer that question might be to say: "I sell money at a discount".

Invariably a person will then ask: "What do you mean?", and you can explain further.

Here are three examples of "selling money at a discount" to get you thinking...

1. Ben Feldman

Ben Feldman is considered to one of the most successful life insurance salespeople in the world. He sold $1.8 billion of insurance policies for New York Life from 1942 to his death in 1993. When asked how he could sell such an intangible product as life insurance, Feldman responded "I do not sell life insurance. I sell money. I sell dollars for pennies apiece. My dollars cost 3c per dollar per year."

In other words Ben sold "money at a discount" to his clients.

2. Steuart Snooks is an email efficiency expert

He has been working with clients for 11 years and in that time his detailed research shows that his clients spend on average 2.3 hours per day or 11.5 hours per week working on their emails.

The average cost to spend this time on emails is $28,000 a year per person.

With the training that Steuart does he is able to help his clients to reduce the time they spend on email by at least 50 per cent (1.1 hours per day or 5.5 hours per week).

This is an instant cost saving of $14,000 a year for each person that he trains.

(Best of all these cost savings continue year after year. So in a five-year period just one person will save almost $70,000 in time.)

Steuart works with a range of organisations to train their people in his email efficiency techniques.

The typical cost for an in-house programme is about $1400 per person.

In effect Steuart is helping each person he trains to enjoy a minimum cost-saving of $14,000 a year for an investment of only $1400.

In other words he is selling $14,000 of money for only $1400.

That's an attractive investment story!

3. Sovereign Health Insurance Policy

I have had a health insurance policy since 2001 with an insurance company called Sovereign.

My monthly premium for this policy is $231 a month or $2800 a year.

In the last 12 months I have made claims worth more than $50,000 on this health insurance policy. (These claims were for a heart operation and a range of other treatments and tests for a condition I developed last year called atrial fibrillation.)

My policy has paid all these claims in full and all I paid (apart from my monthly premium amount) was a once-only excess amount of $600.

So my Sovereign insurance policy has effectively enabled me to purchase $50,000 of state-of-the-art medical care and treatment for an investment of only $3400 over the last 12 months. That was a huge saving to me.

I've also made a good number of other claims on my policy over the 16 years that I've had it and it is likely I will have many more claims in the future as I get older.

I'm super happy to continue paying my premium on this policy because I know that over the next 10-20 years I'll get some wonderful medical treatment and tests at a fraction of the cost I would normally have to pay.

Important Point:

Now 'selling money at a discount' may or may not be not be something that you can use in marketing your business and what you do.

However, it's a good example that having an interesting way to explain what you do can quickly differentiate your business in a positive way from all your competitors.

"Doing something costs something. Doing nothing costs something. And, quite often, doing nothing costs a lot more!" - Ben Feldman

Action Step:

What is the dollar value of all the benefits you create for your clients who use your product or service?

How much money does a typical client invest to use your product or service?

Based on these two figures are you selling money at a great discount?

- Graham McGregor is a marketing advisor and helps businesses who offer an expensive service to quickly attract ideal new clients. You can download his brand new 106-page marketing guide The Expensive Service Marketing Solution at no charge from www.TheExpensiveServiceMarketingSolution.com