Are you using a value ladder in your window tinting business?

Hey, my name is Ralph and I'm with Flexfilm. In this video, I'm going to help you decide what window films to carry. You might be looking at Flexfilm or another brand. Every distributor or supplier seems to have a lot of different window tint choices. The first question that you have to ask is, "How many window films should I carry?" You know, the most common answer to that question is three options, such as good, better, best. I've heard arguments for offering just better and best. A lot of window tinters want to carry it all. They want to have four or five different choices. Any business that I've ever seen that's successful has a value ladder.

Now, let's go away from tint for a second. Sometimes we get emotional about tint and can't see the forest because the trees get in our way. Let's talk about a different type of business for this example. Let's talk about a dentist office. Dentist's may have ways of finding out that you have dental insurance. That may lead to a postcard showing up in your mail. Maybe the postcard says such and such of dentist office, you are entitled to one free teeth cleaning. You're like, "Hmm, cool. I think I may go get my teeth cleaned for free." You present your card for the free teeth cleaning. They sit you down in the chair and next thing you know, as they're cleaning your teeth, they may ask you, "Hey, have you smoked or maybe used tobacco? Your teeth have a little discoloration. We could fix that!" You say, "Oh really? You can fix that? How can you fix that?" "Well, we have a whitening process and if you'd like, after we're done cleaning, we can actually do the process and whiten your teeth." "Hey, that's kinda cool." "You know, I noticed your teeth are starting to shift a little bit. Have you had braces in the past? We have a retainer program. We can put a retainer on your teeth and straighten 'em out. Would you like to do that?" "Yeah, yeah, I'll do that." Ultimately, there may be the highest level of help or they have some sort of continuity program that they want you to come back for every six months to get your teeth cleaned. That's when you pay them over and over and over again.

In your window tinting business, you need to think about a value ladder. How are you gonna bring people in and escalate them to the top? You may want to test your customers. You don't know if you have a price shopper. You don't know if you have a value shopper. If you have a way of bringing them in with some sort of a entry level product, then you can present them with other product choices. A lot of people say, "Listen you came in because of our lifetime warranty, you've probably heard about our reputation, you saw our five star reviews, you got your friends telling you that we're great, but did you realize that we carry other products? We actually have some films that perform better than the one we quoted you over the phone. I would like to show that to you. Would you like to see these films?" It depends on what films you choose. If you're going to go with another level of film, you may want to use a heat lamp demonstration. You may even want to use a BTU meter or some sort of quick method of showing the customer why that film's going to perform better and be worth your price. You've gotta be ready to price it a little higher. You don't know if you have a value shopper or a price shopper. If you do have a value shopper, these people are willing to go a little higher up the ladder because they're seeking value. They want the best for them and their family. They want the better performing film. I you don't ask them to consider better films then present them better films, you're never gonna find out how far up the ladder they're going to go. Some value shoppers may stop at the $200 tint job. They just don't have any money. Maybe some of them see that you have ceramic and are going to be willing to pay $400. Some of them will pay a $1,000 if they know you've got a super ceramic. You will never know until you test them.

This video is for you to consider a value ladder in your business. Always test your value shoppers. Use this information to decide what films you're going to carry. Sometimes people decide they only want to carry two films because they have a good and a best. Some people decide they want to carry four or five films. It's all up to you. There's no right answer and there's no wrong answer. If you think about your business in terms of a value ladder, this will influence what and how many films you carry in your shop.