MBA1577 Is It Worth It To Switch Providers to Save Money? + Free Ride Friday

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I'm one of those people that if I'm going to switch providers, whether it's a software, whether it's a service, I really have to have a good reason. I value my time and my team's time more than anything. And I know that switching takes time, whether it's migrating information or learning a new system and working out all the kinks. That takes a lot of time and a lot of effort. Plus, all of our SOPs are standing operating procedures in our business and our training videos and modules need to be updated internally for our team because hey, the training is based on the old system or supplier or software. But it doesn't mean I never switch. I recently have switched one of our major tools. So today I want to explain to you, give you a framework of knowing how to make this decision. Because not just about price, not just about, hey, this is cheaper, so let's do it. I'm also going to give an example of when I've recently considered switching a supplier and didn't. Because staying with them is actually better than going. And I'll tell you why. So let's start with the decision making. Okay, first of all, if all things are equal and it's less expensive, a new supplier, that's not reason enough. That's not reason enough to switch because again, there is other costs, switching costs, work, time, effort, all that kind of stuff. So it has to be more than just a good deal, it has to be better, must be add more value to my company, to my customers. For example, if you're thinking about switching email marketing providers and one is cheaper than the other and they both do the same features, they do the same thing, that's still not enough. But if the new provider actually can send your emails at a higher delivery rate and a better open rate because of that, then that's worth it. If it's doing something better and it's less expensive than to me, that's a criteria that is definitely something I want to do because it's actually doing a core feature. A core reason why I use this product is to get emails and inboxes. It's doing it better than the competition. Even if it's just slight, a small percentage of improvement is a great percentage of improvement over time. And for most people you can trial, you can try it out for free, you can even just pay for one month or have a short term contract if it's a supplier for example, or a service provider, just to see if it's worth it. For me, if that is the case, then I switch because it's doing something essentially better than the competition, is cheaper. It's worth the investment to switch because I'm going to reap the benefits for the long term. Something else that could be better is customer support. If their customer support is better, they're more responsive, they have 24, 7 coverage. All that is also something to consider if that's important to you and your business. And for us it is. But even before I switch, I make sure I do due diligence. I have to ask other people that have worked with this company before that are customers of this company personally, like on a chat or a call, what their experience is. I don't want to go into a company that I'm going to regret doing business with. I want to know they've been around for a while, that they're going to have my back for years to come and others had better experiences than I'm currently having with the current supplier or service. This is like checking references for a job interview for a new employee, essentially a service or a service provider or a software. They are all hired to do basically a job. And you're checking references now. You're making sure. And I like to check at least three references to make sure I'm not going into something that's going to be regrettable, right, that I'm going to regret in the long run. I want to make sure that this is a win because I know it's an investment to switch. It's not easy. One, it's not easy to sever the relationship of the current company, but it's also not easy to build a new relationship and move everything over. Now, sometimes I decide not to switch. And I've done this recently and I'll give you a prime example. Intercom. Intercom is a messaging software we use on our website and on our app. It handles our customer support and in app messages. It's a fantastic software, but it's incredibly expensive. It's one of the most expensive SaaS products on the market. If you go to Twitter and check out Intercom and the conversations people have about it, it all deals with the price. People are not so happy about how expensive it is. Having said that, it's the best product on the market. That's just the bottom line. It's the best thing for what it does. And as much as it hurts to pay the expensive price tag and it keeps growing as your company grows and as you have more customers, I can't find an alternative that will do everything Intercom does and better. It just doesn't exist. And I've done my research. I found companies that are a lot less expensive, that do some of the things Intercom does, but they definitely don't do them better. So what did I do? I actually took a look at what I could do to save some money instead of saying, you know, what the hell, Vintercom, I'm going to switch regardless because it's too expensive. It's pissing me off. No, they're a good product and they're serving our customers and it's helping us. And yes, it's very, very expensive. But what I can do is solve that problem. So I just go into my account, I take a look at what we're doing. Is there any way we can save some money, trim some costs? I can message them and say, hey, can you offer us a discount? We've been with you for X amount of years. You can even flat out say we're thinking about switching because it's so expensive and they might be able to offer you something. Always negotiate, always and more times than not. When I've tried this, they have done something to make me happy. Whether it's a short term discount, a long term discount, some sort of consolidation of the bill, they would recommend things like, hey, maybe you should try this plan and it's actually more cost effective. This actually happened a couple years ago with WP Engine. They recommended that we upgrade to a private server because our over discharges are so high because of the traffic. And you know, it's a good problem to have. You know, I'm not complaining, but the point here is that they recommended, hey, I know you know, a private server, $600 a month, but you're paying more than that in overages every single month. It's more cost effective to go with this more expensive plan. So an example like that could is a good one because you're not totally aware of all the options you have. They have all the cards, they know exactly what you can do to really get the most out of their service at the price that best suits your company. And you're not always going to go away like super happy, but at least you know where you stand and you know what you're dealing with. The other thing with Intercom, a service like that, where it's so intertwined with your customer service messages and your onboarding and your app and all that kind of stuff, it's really sticky, it's really hard to leave. If I'm going to switch, it's going to be a lot of work. So whoever I'm switching to, it's got to be brilliant. It's going to be amazing. And to be honest, there just isn't a company like that right now that can compete with Intercom in, in, in terms of what they deliver and what they actually can offer you and your customers. So in this case, I don't switch. It's just not worth it. It's not worth the time, the effort if I'm going to get less than I'm getting now. Why is that so important to me? Why is that part of my decision making matrix? It's because anytime you downgrade, it's not good news for you, your team or your customers. Anytime you offer something that's not as good as what your team is used to, whether it's a tool or service or your customers are used to that's not good news. That's not gonna make anybody feel happy. Okay. It's actually gonna make them feel worse about your company. You don't wanna go backwards. Okay. You definitely don't wanna do that. It's better for you to maintain what you have and maintain your level of happiness with your team.

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To wrap up today's lesson, I want to encourage you to not only see price as dollars and cents, put a dollar amount to the hours it's going to take to switch providers. Who's going to do the switching? Who's going to do the migration? Who's going to do all the onboarding and implementation? Is it you? What's your hourly rate? What's your salary divided by hours? How much is your time worth? Is it somebody else in her team? What's their hourly rate? Do the math. Like break it down. If they have a salary and how many hours is it going to take to do that? Even if it's just a guesstimate, you know, let's say it takes 20 hours to do that whole migration and one of your team members is getting paid $50 an hour. Yes, that's $1,000. But remember, it's gotta be better and it's gotta be worth the switch. It's got to be an improvement. Guys, thank you so much for listening. Today's episode's not over though. It's Free Ride Friday. Let's see who won this week's Free Ride. And the winner is. Dylan. Dylan says very helpful. 5 stars. I just started listening to this podcast and I'm hooked. This podcast provides information in small bite sized pieces. It makes it easy to digest and apply the information. I plan to listen to every single one of them. Thank you so much Dylan for the awesome review and for listening and being a subscriber. You are a Free Ride Friday winner. Make sure you email me over@omar00nba.net so I can hook you up with the lifetime access to EZCOURSE if you want to win a free ride, you're listening right now. You're like hey, how can I win? Just leave us an itunes rating and review and you enter our weekly random draw. Listen in on Friday to see if you won. It's that easy. It's our way to say thank you for showing us love on itunes. Before I go, I want to leave you with this Sometimes we have a few products or softwares that are expensive and we want to maybe switch one of them to save some money. One solution some people overlook is that sometimes there's larger, more expensive software that can consolidate two, three, four, maybe even five other pieces of software you have into one. Maybe that bill is expensive, but it'll end up being cheaper than all five together. An example of this is like HubSpot. HubSpot has really been in the game to do like everything for your website in one shot. And yes, they're expensive, but take a look at all your individual costs and all the individual services you have. Maybe consolidating them into one bill and having one place to do everything will be more cost effective for your business. Look into it. Maybe not, but look into it. Do your homework. Thank you so much for listening and I'll check you in Monday's episode. I'll see you then. Take care of.

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