What’s your runway?
Runway: estimated time you could run your business in the scenario where you would have no income / revenue. Whatever runway you might have right now is fine. When you have this, it’s a good time to raise your prices radically. Ditch the 1%, 5%, 10%, 15% raises. Double your prices. Now, it’s not only about doubling the prices for the sake of it; but to think of what could you do for these new prices. And most importantly, how would these new prices better help your customers? The best time to…
Build it right and they’ll come
Pre-S: Funny thing, friend of the list Genevieve Hayes, just sent an email with an approach to the same subject. Go check it out here. “Build it right and they’ll come” takes a few assumptions in mind: That you’re building FOR SURE the right thing. That your customers will automatically know you built it and will give you their money. That there’s certainty about your offering (aka no risk, since they will come). There’s one more to add: lack of focus. When building your offering, you might…
Politics don’t belong to…
Sure, sure. “Politics don’t belong to business”. You’ve heard it all. Here’s the BUT: Every business is an activist. Either progressive, neutral or regressive. Choosing not to choose is a choice.
Working and Running
Which one are you doing in your day to day? Working your business? Or running your business? Seems like a nuance, yet it goes deeper. One is focused on tasks and getting to the next day, to the next goal. The other is focused on transforming the business and getting to the next stage. Often times, you get sucked into only working your business, into the day to day, leaving out of focus that you also need to run your business. They’re both important, and are intertwined. Give them the right…
Incidentals
WARNING. This is a price-rant. Hotels and hospitality… it’s going ridiculous. Don’t you hate when you’re expecting to pay something… and out of nowhere there (somehow) comes extra costs that you were never aware of? Not even in the small print. Checking into a hotel (in Boston for the week, so if you’re around and fancy a meet up, coffee is on me 😁), rooms paid and they come with – “Will you also like to add incidentals to your card?” – What do you mean “incidentals”? – Oh yeah. Per…
Are you able to ask the hard question?
When selling to another business, both parties tend to see the sale from a cost perspective. However, that’s not important. You can change the way this works and how they see things. In a b2b setting, you need to involve the ones who are making the decision (for this you can deff check The Challenger Sale, The Jolt Effect and Sales Pitch). If you get to talk to Procurement/Purchasing at the very end of the process, you’re out of the game. They have all the power to negotiate (and they’re…
Talk price early
If you’re selling something that is somewhat of a considerable amount ($$$), you want to talk price early in the game. Take it out of the question from the beginning. You’ll respect both your prospect’s time and yours. Going first into the details of what you do / sell [AKA features, or deliverables] to then try to convince is justifying the cost / effort of what it takes towards the price. “It does this, so the price is this”. Think of what they want, their desired state, what they value….
Are your competitors lying?
If you see that in your market, what do you do? Here’s an episode of April Dunford’s podcast about that, and a few smart ways to call them out (with class). 🙂 Give it a go, it’s 24 mins. 🙂 And, please, in case you’re tempted to stretch reality… just don’t. 🙂
On positioning
Positioning is not business strategy. It’s a part of, but it’s not THE strategy. Positioning is a reflection of your business strategy (your business approach). Your position(ing) can shift in time to be better aligned to your approach in business. The simplest way to start with it is: WHAT YOU DO + FOR WHOM. It’s a good way to start.
The breakdown
“Can you show us a breakdown of how the time will be used and how much will each item be?” Client / Prospect ———— “Re: breakdown. I don’t do a breakdown of items. It would mean you’d be working on an estimate —and we all know estimates are always underestimated. I’d rather give you a full, fixed price, so that you can make an informed financial decision at no risk of spending anything extra if the estimate is that: an estimate.” You’re not obliged to breakdown anything at all. Not…
