When you’re with your competition…
Could you sit down next to your strongest competitor and have a conversation that feels like this? Where your prospective customer, your competitor and you are at the same table. where you see if there’s a right fit for you and your customer. Where you say what you’re amazing at, and what you’re not. And if it’s not the right fit, recommend them to go with your competitor? A conversation that looks, feels and goes like this ????? It doesn’t feel like “losing” business to me. It feels like…
The only power
The only power you truly have in business: to walk away. And that, it gives you freedom.
The safe way to increase prices
Raising prices based on inflation, higher costs or whatever you choose. It all goes drip by drip. Not too much so that your customers don’t run for the hills. To not disrupt the system. Slow: 1,3,5,10… Small changes to increase. Safe: Keeping what you have. Short term: Not big changes now. Sales to keep. Revenue to keep. Profit not to lose. Don’t stir the pot. It’s a safe way. It focuses on the present. And it is irrelevant. Why would your customers have to pay for it? It’s not their fault…
Raising prices
It’s not a money problem. When your customer (or you) think that raising your prices is a matter of price-sensitivity, think again. It’s not necessarily that. Is $5 expensive? Is $25 000 reasonable? Maybe. Maybe not. It depends on the context AND the value your customers assign. When you get to set the context first, it’s simpler to get your customers to understand what’s going on. On how they can translate value into something tangible for them. When they don’t understand that, the only…
You’re more expensive than your competition.
Yes, I am. [Silence]. What you’re looking for with this answer and this extremely uncomfortable silence: the reaction that will unfold what’s really behind the price objection. In this game, the one who speaks first, loses. ○ Why is this so expensive?♠ Based on situations like these and businesses like yours, that’s the price.○ So, if we were bigger/smaller the price would be different?♠ Yes. If you were bigger, the price would be higher. ○ What are your costs?♠ I’m curious, how would this…
Justifying yourself. A breakdown.
Justifying yourself Someone is telling you “you’re too expensive” and they compare your product or service to the competition.[Here’s what you should do:]Ask them, “If I charge the exact same amount as my competitor, would you go with me or with them?” In customers’ language it means: If I go as low as them, will you buy from me? (pretty, pretty please? I’m willing to do it.) You’re setting the context at the bottom, in your competition’s playfield. With their rules. With your customer’s…
Provocation
In business You price is a provocation. Your insight is a provocation. Your voice is a provocation. They’re not a response to the market. The provocation To push them to consider. Think. Wonder. It’s to shift the conversation from “Could this expert help me?” into “How could this expert help me?” (compare your proposed options) Because, if you can’t provoke them to think different of things, how can they innovate and take better risks?
The thing about experiences
Designing experiences (so you can “sell” experiences). Saying so is like arguing that cultures can be designed. That they can be made “on purpose”. And that’s far away from reality. It would mean that every aspect of an “experience”, from inception to the thing itself, was done with a specific metric, process and outcome, in mind and execution. And that they all would be equal. Standard. The same. For EVERYONE. An experience, just as a culture, can’t be designed because: It depends on the one…
The best in business
What’s being “the best” in business? Who determines what AND who the best is?
Just one Why
Your Why is the same as mine, and the same as the one next to you. We all have ONE Why (unless you’re a psycho, of course). It’s to elevate ourselves by elevating others. We humans are wired to help. The thing here is that the way we make that Why real, is different for each one. How you articulate it will vary on your unique thing, the one thing it’s like breathing to you —and that you think everyone can also do as easily as you.
