When a “tax” becomes a benefit

​Are you scaring away the very prospects you seek to attract?
 
This is a good one. We’ll bet you’ve encountered a situation like the one we’re about to describe—specifically, an offering to your clients and prospects—and been faced with the same dilemma. 
 
This is a “silver lining” story if ever there was one. 
 
Let’s dive in. 
 
What does your business offer?
 
For this assignment, we were helping a business to launch a new brand, and its associated website. So everything was pretty much from-scratch. We’d helped our client to ideate some elements, but many others they did on their own. We—us and the client—were both working hard, and fast, to meet a set-in-stone deadline for the unveiling of the new site, and business. 
 
Then it came at us. 
 
And by “it,” we mean, the “Services” page. 
 
Okay, you’re asking: How can this become an entire blog article?
 
Even more astutely, you’re asking—you’ve been asking--What on earth does this have to do with the words “tax” and “benefit” in the title of this story?
 
Stay with us. 
 
This client gave us the raw input for writing the copy for the new business’ Services page. To our client’s credit, they endeavored to keep everything as simple as possible. We can’t divulge the details here, but suffice to say that our client was looking to “product-ize” a number of service-based offerings, and list them on the Services page under five different categories, or tiers, of offerings. 
 
Our job, ostensibly, was simply to clean up the copy for this five-column matrix. So far, so straightforward, right? 
 
A sticky sticking point
 
This is where we saw a problem—and a huge opportunity. The input went something like this (again, we need to be fuzzy here for disclosure reasons): 
 
There were five different offerings. Well, actually, there were really only four: Four one-off service packages that this client of ours wanted to sell. 
 
Huh? 
 
What, then, was the fifth one? 
 
The fifth one, as we were told, was a requirement for any prospective client. It said that, “If you buy Services 2, 3, or 4, you also need to buy Add-On Number 5, which is a monthly maintenance package.” 
 
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re smart. You’ve figured out this entire thing—including the teaser words “tax” and “benefit” in our headline—already. Haven’t you? 
 
Don’t worry. We’ll spell it all out anyway. 
 
Here’s the thing: Our client wanted to—and had every right to—demand that their new clients who signed up for Tiers 2, 3, and 4, should also sign up for Add-On Number 5: the monthly-maintenance package. This is because the actual baseline offerings of Tiers 2, 3, and 4 were pretty complicated things, and thus needed ongoing maintenance in order to function properly, and keep working as advertised. 
 
So, on that basis, it was a reasonable demand. 
 
The thing that was unreasonable, in our eyes? Demanding it. 
 
When bad becomes good
 
As soon as we saw the five columns of input, we could see not only what was wrong, but the simple way to fix it: 
 
Eliminate Add-On Number 5.
 
Done. Why list an additional charge, as some kind of requirement, some kind of tax, for something else that a customer would want to buy already? 
 
In other words, don’t force it on them as an add-on. 
 
Instead, bake it in, as a feature of Tiers 2, 3, and 4. 
 
Ta-dah. 
 
Now it’s not a tax. It’s a benefit. It’s a feature. Indeed, it’s an incentive to upgrade. 
 
Think of ordering a new car online. You’re accustomed to seeing the columns of different feature packages: Base, Upgrade, Ultimate. Same thing here. 
 
The “base” is Tier 1. You get what you get. But when you upgrade to Tier 2, not only do you get more bells and whistles, but you also get professional maintenance, month after month, to make sure you get the most out of your investment! How wonderful is that? 
 
Tiers 3 and 4 each add more features (and thus value, and thus price), and also include the monthly maintenance—again, as an added benefit.
 
This sure is making Tier 1 look pretty bare-bones by now, isn’t it? 
 
Not only that, it’s radically streamlining the “Services” page. Four columns are that much easier to digest than five, and that whole fifth column was confusing and off-putting, anyway. 
 
Take it to the bank
 
Now you know how that “Services” page ended up getting structured. The client was delighted with our suggestion, and let us run with it. 
 
This story, and our reason for telling it, extends way beyond that one client of ours, and that one offering-matrix and “Services” page. It speaks to the the panoply of value that you offer to your customers and prospects alike. It frees you from the fear of “needing to ask for more.” It enables you to make more, while making your clients even happier in the process. Everyone wins. 
 
The stumbling block, then, is perceptual. You just need to see this story—and others like it, which will confront you frequently—in the proper light. 
 
Need help with a challenge like this? Contact us. We solve these kinds of issues all the time. 

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