For years in my career as a pool guy, whenever a potential customer would call me, within the first five minutes of a conversation I would almost always hear the same question:

“Marcus, I’m not going to hold you to it, but could you at least give me a feel for how much something like this is going to cost?”

For a long time, that question bothered me as a business owner. I wanted to talk about products, benefits, and features, but the customer wanted to immediately know about pricing.

In hindsight, the fact that I let this bother me so much was foolish. If roles had been reversed, I would have wanted to know the same thing.

In other words, as consumers and buyers, we at least like to have a sense of how much things cost before we spend hours upon hours dedicated to learning about that product, service, company, and so on.

Once I stopped thinking like a business owner and started thinking like the consumer (They Ask, You Answer), I realized one of the most important pieces of content I could produce would be the one that addressed the question, “How much does a fiberglass pool cost?”

So after years of not wanting to address this subject until I was face to face with a prospect, I shifted and wrote the article shown in Figure 11.1 on my company website.

In it, I explain how buying a fiberglass pool was much like buying a car—there were many options, accessories, and so on. I listed each one, offering to the consumer a true sense of the potential scope of a project.

Next, I explained different types of packages we offered as a company: how some buyers wanted a pool in the ground without any patio, landscaping, or other features, and how others were just the opposite–wanting a true “turn-key” installation, complete with patio, fencing, landscaping, and so on.

With each of these, we gave large ranges as to what the buyer might expect to spend, but ultimately, after 1,000+ words of explanation, we said the answer to the question of “How much does it cost?” was “It depends.”

What happened next was very, very interesting.

You see, when I wrote this article “How Much Does a Fiberglass Pool Cost?” on our website in 2009, take a guess as to how many other swimming pool builders had addressed this question on their company websites?

If you answered zero, you are correct.

No one did it. Out of the thousands of pool builders around the globe, every single one of them was the ostrich with its head in the sand.

And of course, the reasons why they didn’t address it were the same reasons we discussed earlier:

1. Each project is different and therefore costs vary.
2. They didn’t want their competitors to see their pricing.
3. They were afraid they’d scare prospects away if they honestly discussed pricing.

But for us at River Pools, the fact that no one had addressed this question meant a blue ocean of opportunity for the business. The marketplace was dying for someone to be open and honest enough to address this question, and so that’s exactly what we did.

We saw immediate action on two fronts.

Within days of posting the article on our website, we noticed an increase in qualified, productive conversations with leads who contacted us. Many people commented on how impressed they were to “finally” find a company that was willing to discuss the subject of cost and price.

But with search engines like Google, things got even more interesting. Within forty-eight hours from the time I posted the new page on our site, the article became the first article to pop up any time someone went online and searched anything to do with how much a fiberglass pool cost. In fact, here is a list of keyword phrases for which this article ranked number 1 in Google search engine results, all within days of publishing the post:

• How much does a fiberglass pool cost?
• How much does it cost to install a pool?
• Cost of in-ground swimming pool
• Fiberglass pool cost
• Fiberglass pool pricing
• And on and on

Now, you might say, “Well, that’s fine, but website traffic doesn’t necessarily equate to money. It takes more than traffic to get a customer.”

And if you were thinking this, you’re exactly right. What we’re discussing here isn’t about getting more traffic to your website. Fact is, Web traffic doesn’t pay your bills, sales do.

Luckily, the tools (in this case HubSpot) we used on our site allowed us to track how people were finding our company and what they were searching for when they found us. So over the course of time, we saw how this one article would send our company more than 1 million new visitors, thousands of whom would eventually become leads and hundreds more who would “request a quote”—all because they originally had searched a phrase that had to do with the cost of a fiberglass swimming pool.

But here is the key question that one must consider: If that article had never been written, would any of those sales appointments have ever occurred? The answer, of course, is no. The prospective buyer (very likely) never would have found us and shown up to our site in the first place—all because we hadn’t been willing to address the subject. But in our case, we were willing to address the question. And because of this, search engines like Google showed that article (and our website) to thousands and thousands of potential buyers. And because of that, many of these potential buyers were able to say to themselves:

Okay, now I have a much better sense of what would drive the cost of a fiberglass swimming pool up or down. I now know what to expect.

With this education came a feeling of trust, and many visitors eventually filled out a form to get a quote for a swimming pool. Because we’re able to track the people who filled out a form (from the cost article) and know which ones bought a swimming pool, we know the value of each one of these customers—a value that can be directly tied to that one article that was written about the cost of a fiberglass pool.

Here is the culminating point: We know that since the time this article was written on our site in 2009, it has made our company more than $3 million in additional sales—revenue we would not have gotten had we been an ostrich with our head in the sand.

Think about that: $3 million in sales simply because we were willing to explain to prospective customers that the cost of a fiberglass swimming pool depends on several factors. Without exaggeration, this single article saved my business. It saved my home. It saved the homes of my two business partners. It also saved the jobs of all of our employees.

But the funny thing is, we never specifically stated how much a fiberglass pool costs. We simply answered the question the best we could. We were honest. We openly discussed the industry as a whole. And in the process of doing that, my entire business, and ultimately my life, was altered dramatically.

Fellow reader, this is the power of honesty, transparency, and seeing yourself as a teacher. But sadly, most businesses, especially in the B2B space, still don’t recognize this massive need to openly discuss the issue of pricing, budgets, money, and related topics on one’s website.

As mentioned earlier, I now have a digital sales and marketing agency that helps companies all over the world generate more trust, traffic, leads, and sales. More than 50 percent of these clients are B2B. And with more than 80 percent of all of these clients, the number 1 traffic, lead, and sales-generating content has to do with money, costs, and even salaries (if you’re looking to recruit great people, answer their questions about salary).

Remember, it doesn’t necessarily matter what you specifically say in terms of the numbers. What matters is that you’re willing to teach your prospective customers what would drive the cost up or down and help them get a feel for the marketplace.

Over the years, I’ve had dozens upon dozens of companies approach me and discuss this matter of pricing, only to tell me how they simply can’t discuss numbers on their website because their competition charges so much less than they do. My response is always the same:

“Why is their product or service cheaper?”

Almost always, the response has to do with overseas manufacturers, low quality, customer experience, and so on.

Once again, my retort is always the same:

“Have you bothered to explain these factors well on your company website?”

In almost every industry, consumers make poor buying decisions and purchase the “cheapest” products and services, not because they are solely price motivated, but rather because they don’t know any better. They haven’t been educated. No one has bothered to truly explain the good, the bad, and the ugly of the industry. And that, once again, is the fault of the business, not the consumer.

Along these same lines, at the Sales Lion any time a client of ours states specific pricing on their site, they inevitably find such a strategy generates better, higher-qualified opportunities. With specific pricing on their site, they spend less time dealing with prospects who never would have been a good fit in the first place and instead focus their energies on educated, ideal-fit prospects who aren’t just looking for the cheapest thing, but rather the best value.

My point to you and your business is this: When it comes to money, you cannot be the ostrich with your head in the sand.

You must be willing to address the most important questions—regardless of whether you’re a service, product, value driven, and so on.

Remember, it doesn’t matter what you and I think—what matters is what consumers think, how they behave, and what they expect.

So the question is, Are you willing to meet their expectations?

Or, would you prefer that the competition be the one who answers the question for them?

Remember, they’re going to get their answers from someone, so wouldn’t you prefer they get their answers from you?

Putting It Into Action