Is it something personal?
“No. We won’t buy from you.” What do you feel when you’re in a sales conversation and hear that? That it’s a No against you? That you didn’t convince them enough? That you weren’t good enough to close the deal? That your offer is sub-par? That you… . . . It’s hard hearing a No. Until you seek for it. Hearing a No felt like something against me. That if I didn’t get a Yes, then I wouldn’t be as good as I could have thought I was. Or that I lacked the competence. It felt personal. Then the…
Not all will follow. And that’s ok.
That’s Blair Enns’ proclamation in his manifesto. That not everyone will do business with you. And that’s ok. Same applies to your current customers. When shifting your pricing and pricing policies, current customers won’t like it. They’ll fight you over small things —that are totally fine if it comes from somebody else (at even higher prices). 🤷♂️ And that’s ok. It’s a sign to start looking into the future and find better fits for your business. It’s your decision to keep them in your…
Wordplay on prices and rates
Friend-of-the-list Brandon Hughes started an interesting discussion on price and rates, and how that shows your expertise. Excerpts of our convo (w/permission to share). If I have rates, I’m not an expert or I’m leaving money on the table. If I find the price, I could probably do the job in my sleep, giving the customer extra value. —Desmond If you have rates, you could very well be an expert. Yet, you would project less confidence in your work, as the customer is the one who bears all risk….
Rates vs prices (a dissection)
That’s one of the things that state you care about your customer, because price is all about them (and their certainty). The difference between a rate and a price. Rate: a variable that needs to be calculated with other(s) to have a final figure. Price: a variable that is final. Dissecting yesterday’s reply. “We don’t work with predefined rate cards, as all you could get is an estimate based on assumed calculations of the rate, times X, Y, or Z. And you know estimates are just that, they…
You’ve been taught pricing… backwards
Friend-of-the-list Brandon Hughes started an interesting discussion on price and rates. “If you find the price, you would give the extra value.” This makes sense on the way we’ve been taught about pricing and prices. We need to find the right price. But there’s no right or wrong price. Just a price. We’ve been taught that first you find how much it costs you, then you find the right price, and then you see the value that can be added to your customer. That’s backwards. You don’t find the…
Simple ways to kill a business —and a fix.
Those are actually the little things that go unnoticed —until they don’t. Not taking responsibility for what’s going on. Misleading with promises that will not happen. Over promising. Under promising and over delivering. Ghosting your clients. Ignoring them when they know you’re there. Working (constantly) for free. Focusing on revenue and sales. Inaction. The list can go on and on and on. You get the gist of it. The fix? Caring for your customers.
Too good to be true?
If your prospects think that what you offer is too good to be true in comparison the competition, raise your price 3X…. or 5X. Only then they will seriously consider buying from you. Too good to be true: too risky (there’s a catch). Too good to be true + high price: makes sense, it’s a lower risk. Same offering, different contexts.
You got approval and now… Procurement
You got through the hard part of the sale, you got the approval and now comes Procurement saying: “We’re about to place the order. Do we get a discount?” There are 3 possible ways you could go on it. Say no and call it out. “We got approval and agreement for the price. I’m curious, what’s the reason for this to happen?” “Sure. I could do a 1-figure discount for early-payment, etc.” “No can do for this one. However, with the following projects we could take this into consideration.” It’s…
When you’re asked about rates…
When you’re asked about rates and that with that (and your rates “being competitive”) you’ll move to the top of the line when procuring your expertise, you can reply something like this: “Thanks for asking about rates. We don’t work with predefined rate cards, as all you could get is an estimate based on assumed calculations of the rate, times X, Y, or Z. And you know estimates are just that, they could go up or down (they almost always go up). We do work, however, with fixed prices, as our…
Market prices
What would push you to know what the prices in the market are? And once you find out, what’s next?