How’s that going?
Have you ever done work for free? If so, how did it go for you? Did you get what you were excpecting at the beginning of the engagement? Quite curious on that one. 🙂
Approaching pricing different
The one thing that can drive a higher impact in your business is your price. From all things, increasing your price (and charging differently) can improve the way your business does. There’s this McKinsey study from 20 years ago —yeah, that far back— where they show that a 1% increase in the price, would generate 8% increase in operating profits. Way larger of an increase if you’d get to improve your costs in the same 1%. Yet, the question remains in: what are you doing to price different —if…
Revisiting pricing studies. A trend to see.
Digging deeper into more sources and resources of that McKinsey study re: how your best chances at improving your profit rest more on changing how you price than looking for higher volumes or cost efficiency, I ran into this graph presented (and visiting a more updated version of that report in 2016) by Tim Williams, pricing specialist. You can check out his full presentation (40 min —you’ll find this explanation within the first minute) on this here. The trend to see. On the first study…
Doing business with people who believe what you believe.
Today’s daily is this one by Blair Enns: Ideological Resonance. TL;DR: it’s about your perspective and how your insights make you stand out from your competitors. That’s originality, authenticity, and finding your tribe. What’s your view of the world, how you do what you do and approach your market to serve?
Why should we hire you (or your firm)?
That’s the tricky question that pushes you to start thinking on how you’ll convince them. What can you say that will make them want you SO BAD, that it’s only logical to go with it? Well, it’s definitely not logic. And has to do the opposite to convincing. What if you stop from going full-speed? Breath. Stop. Think on their words. Why We Hire Why? It actually has nothing to do with you. It’s about them talking to you. If they’re in that conversation, it’s them who saw something to talk with…
It’s a year from now…
It’s a year from now. We’re having coffee together and you’re happy. What has happened in your business in that year for you to be happy? I’d love to know. 🙂
It’s a year from now… (cont.)
Next time you’re on a sales conversation with a prospect, ask them this: “It’s a year from now. We’re having coffee together and you’re happy. What has happened in your business in that year for you to be happy?” [Now you don’t say a word. Embrace silence. Bite your tongue if you need to. :)] This question will push them to think. And you need to give them space to do that. If you talk, you take it away from them. When they talk, they’ll give you A TON of valuable information to start seeing…
10 years from now
What do you see yourself still talking and interested in in 10 years from now? How many of the current things you do/research/write/publish/work on are in that spectrum? Think it’d be worth going on one of them deep enough to experiment and build new offerings/products/services? That’s a quick way to see if what you’re working on is aligned with what you see in a (not-so-distant?) future. 10 years can pass quickly. And 10 years can also be long enough to figure out if what you’re currently…
Involution
When moving prices up little by little, it’s all about the seller (you). About their costs, their margins, their “compensation” on inflation, etc. It has nothing to do with the customer. It’s involution. Because it focuses more and more to the inside. The short term. The survival of today.
Pop Quiz
Can you charge different prices for the (very exact) same thing? For services. For productized services. For products. Let me know. 🙂