If you are looking for new ways to get ahead in 2009 check out these ideas on Pricing from Seth Godin at his blog.
Go here:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/01/change-your-pri.html
Happy New Year!
Saturday, January 03, 2009
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Are you firm about your price?
Many sales people don’t like to talk about price – they skirt around it, write it down and point to it, but don’t answer the question directly.
The same way sellers do trial closes, the buyer tests the price proposal by staking out the price early on. They get a ‘reading’ of how comfortable you are about price, and how negotiable.
If you look like you lack confidence in your price your customer may doubt the value of what you have to offer. Confidence sells!
Here are some telltale signs that indicate you feel awkward about talking about price:
- You precede your answer with: Are you sitting down? Or: Are you ready for this? How do you feel about $100? What do you think about that?
- Or worse still you ask: What do we need to do to get your business?
- You avoid answering the question.
- You change the subject.
- You don’t answer the question with words, you point to a number.
- You direct their attention to another product.
- You mention price too late – the customer has already starting showing doubt about something else you mentioned; she is on the way out the door.
- You tell the customer your price is today’s price … or the normal price is … or the list price is …
- You avoid eye contact; rub your neck, nose, ear; jiggle your pen; rush to answer the phone – do anything other than give your customer your full attention!
Think about your own mannerisms: How do you betray your confidence in yourself when it comes to discussing price?
©2008 Jane Francis is the author of Price Yourself Right: A guide to charging what you are worth (ISBN: 0-595-38601-6) available at Barnes and Noble (USA), WH Smith (UK) or online at amazon.com or at amazon.co.uk
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
3 price questions for the self-employed
1) Is your price congruent with the quality of the product or service you sell?
2) Does your price reflect your self esteem?
3) What does your client think of your price?
©2008 Jane Francis is the author of Price Yourself Right: A guide to charging what you are worth (ISBN: 0-595-38601-6) available at Barnes and Noble (USA), WH Smith (UK) or online at amazon.com
2) Does your price reflect your self esteem?
3) What does your client think of your price?
©2008 Jane Francis is the author of Price Yourself Right: A guide to charging what you are worth (ISBN: 0-595-38601-6) available at Barnes and Noble (USA), WH Smith (UK) or online at amazon.com
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Price is a metaphor for trust
Chances are, the higher the price, the more expectations you have regarding variables like quality, status, workmanship, reliability …and the more you spend the higher your expectations.
If you spend $2 on a rope ladder you may not be too surprised when it breaks. If you spend $2,000 you are boiling hot angry if it breaks!
Price is a metaphor for trust. Price reflects how much you expect a product or company to deliver on quality issues. Price reflects how much you trust them to keep their word. Price is a metaphor for trust when it comes to service contracts, up grades, follow-up and guarantees.
Here’s an example: The other day I set off to buy THE BEST IRON MONEY CAN BUY. The iron we were currently using had just peed water all over the place. Its predecessor was chucked in the rubbish when it developed a leak and the one before that was replaced because it didn’t press creases firmly enough.
We’ve had a succession of irons that have each lasted around two years and then for one reason or another given up the ghost.I stood before a shelf of irons that ranged in price from $29.95 to $149.95 and to be honest there was little to tell them apart. To simplify the choice I chose only the biggest, heaviest models that looked like they could iron a decent crease. Then, deciding to eliminate a few more, I compared only the range of Teflon coated irons. This left me 9 irons from which to choose. Needing help I called the sales woman over and asked her which iron was THE BEST IRON MONEY COULD BUY. And guess what -- she didn’t know.
She couldn’t give me a single good reason for buying the most expensive iron; in fact, she told me they all would do the same job so I opted for a $49.95 iron.
Why waste $100 when you don’t need to?
If she could have given me a single reason to believe the most expensive iron would do a better job, or last longer, I would have bought it – but no! I didn’t trust the $149.95 iron to be any better. Price is a metaphor for trust.
©2008 Jane Francis is the author of Price Yourself Right: A guide to charging what you are worth (ISBN: 0-595-38601-6) available at Barnes and Noble (USA), WH Smith (UK) or online at amazon.com
If you spend $2 on a rope ladder you may not be too surprised when it breaks. If you spend $2,000 you are boiling hot angry if it breaks!
Price is a metaphor for trust. Price reflects how much you expect a product or company to deliver on quality issues. Price reflects how much you trust them to keep their word. Price is a metaphor for trust when it comes to service contracts, up grades, follow-up and guarantees.
Here’s an example: The other day I set off to buy THE BEST IRON MONEY CAN BUY. The iron we were currently using had just peed water all over the place. Its predecessor was chucked in the rubbish when it developed a leak and the one before that was replaced because it didn’t press creases firmly enough.
We’ve had a succession of irons that have each lasted around two years and then for one reason or another given up the ghost.I stood before a shelf of irons that ranged in price from $29.95 to $149.95 and to be honest there was little to tell them apart. To simplify the choice I chose only the biggest, heaviest models that looked like they could iron a decent crease. Then, deciding to eliminate a few more, I compared only the range of Teflon coated irons. This left me 9 irons from which to choose. Needing help I called the sales woman over and asked her which iron was THE BEST IRON MONEY COULD BUY. And guess what -- she didn’t know.
She couldn’t give me a single good reason for buying the most expensive iron; in fact, she told me they all would do the same job so I opted for a $49.95 iron.
Why waste $100 when you don’t need to?
If she could have given me a single reason to believe the most expensive iron would do a better job, or last longer, I would have bought it – but no! I didn’t trust the $149.95 iron to be any better. Price is a metaphor for trust.
©2008 Jane Francis is the author of Price Yourself Right: A guide to charging what you are worth (ISBN: 0-595-38601-6) available at Barnes and Noble (USA), WH Smith (UK) or online at amazon.com
Sunday, January 06, 2008
A New Year's Resolution?
There's a joke going around the internet that goes like this:
A printer says to his client, ‘Thank you, Mr Brown, for your business. I wish I had twenty customers like you.’
'Gosh, it's nice to hear you say that, but I'm kind of surprised,’ says Mr Brown, ‘because I argue over every bill and I always pay late.’
The printer replies, ‘That’s true. But I'd still like twenty customers like you. My problem is: I have two hundred.’
How well are you monitoring your customers’ impact on profitability? How well are you tracking the time spent on each customer and the return you get from that? Is it possible you have customers you would be better off without? Why not dump them? Or at the very least give them one last chance to shape up or ship out. It's the New Year after all, and it could be the best resolution you ever made!
©2008 Jane Francis is the author of Price Yourself Right: A guide to charging what you are worth (ISBN: 0-595-38601-6) available at Barnes and Noble (USA), WH Smith (UK) or online at amazon.com
A printer says to his client, ‘Thank you, Mr Brown, for your business. I wish I had twenty customers like you.’
'Gosh, it's nice to hear you say that, but I'm kind of surprised,’ says Mr Brown, ‘because I argue over every bill and I always pay late.’
The printer replies, ‘That’s true. But I'd still like twenty customers like you. My problem is: I have two hundred.’
How well are you monitoring your customers’ impact on profitability? How well are you tracking the time spent on each customer and the return you get from that? Is it possible you have customers you would be better off without? Why not dump them? Or at the very least give them one last chance to shape up or ship out. It's the New Year after all, and it could be the best resolution you ever made!
©2008 Jane Francis is the author of Price Yourself Right: A guide to charging what you are worth (ISBN: 0-595-38601-6) available at Barnes and Noble (USA), WH Smith (UK) or online at amazon.com
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Understanding price, interruptions and efficiency in your home-based business
Emails, mobile phones, texts have shortened our attention span and people expect responses pretty near immediately. Companies with global call centers offering service 24-7 have trained customers to become really impatient if they have to wait for an answer. If you aim to offer good customer service and take pride in efficiency it becomes a matter of principle to respond as quickly as possible.
Yet, the less people in an organization, and the more important a customer is, the more difficult it is to deny access.
So how do you charge for interruptions? Or don’t you?
First, here’s some perspective: If you weren’t in a home-based office but working in a corporate office in town your company would be charging out your interruptions. They would, for example, have made allowance for meeting times and budgeted for them so that somewhere along the line the client pays. If the client wasn’t paying the costs of internal staff meetings the company would soon stop being viable and you would ultimately find yourself looking for a job. So you be like the company and do the same and make allowance for a reasonable number of interruptions in your day - just think of them as unscheduled meetings!
If you work on your own you may well be taking on many roles – for example, secretary, treasurer, operations manager, credit manager, sales person, cleaner and production worker.
Don’t make the common mistake of thinking you are just a production worker, make sure you charge for all those other roles you do.
No matter where you work, life crops up, interrupting the flow. Minimize interruptions as far as humanly possible but factor in a percentage as part of your working day – just make sure there are not so many you become uneconomic. Build enough fat into your prices so you can take the occasional interruptive phone call, demand from a child, request from a friend and knock at the door.
© 2007 Jane Francis is the author of ‘Price Yourself Right: A guide to charging what you are worth’ [ISBN 0-595-38601-6] which is available at Barnes & Noble (US), WH Smith (UK) and at amazon.com.
Yet, the less people in an organization, and the more important a customer is, the more difficult it is to deny access.
So how do you charge for interruptions? Or don’t you?
First, here’s some perspective: If you weren’t in a home-based office but working in a corporate office in town your company would be charging out your interruptions. They would, for example, have made allowance for meeting times and budgeted for them so that somewhere along the line the client pays. If the client wasn’t paying the costs of internal staff meetings the company would soon stop being viable and you would ultimately find yourself looking for a job. So you be like the company and do the same and make allowance for a reasonable number of interruptions in your day - just think of them as unscheduled meetings!
If you work on your own you may well be taking on many roles – for example, secretary, treasurer, operations manager, credit manager, sales person, cleaner and production worker.
Don’t make the common mistake of thinking you are just a production worker, make sure you charge for all those other roles you do.
No matter where you work, life crops up, interrupting the flow. Minimize interruptions as far as humanly possible but factor in a percentage as part of your working day – just make sure there are not so many you become uneconomic. Build enough fat into your prices so you can take the occasional interruptive phone call, demand from a child, request from a friend and knock at the door.
© 2007 Jane Francis is the author of ‘Price Yourself Right: A guide to charging what you are worth’ [ISBN 0-595-38601-6] which is available at Barnes & Noble (US), WH Smith (UK) and at amazon.com.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
The best way to win new business
In order to make a sale your customer needs to believe you are the person with the product or service who will solve their problem. They need to get to the point where they trust that you will make things better for them.
Just because you know all about your products and services, your client will not. There may be huge gaps in their understanding of what you do and how long it takes. They may be ignorant of the knowledge and skill required to do what you do and what’s more: they do not know what they do not know. They may not see the value in what you provide so it is your job to educate them. Can you demonstrate your product? How many of the senses can you involve? Can you prove your cost-effectiveness? Do you have a graph to show savings? What about case studies, before and after pictures, or testimonials from happy customers?
Teachers of fiction writers repeatedly tell their students: ‘Show, don’t tell’. In other words, don’t tell the reader the soldier went to war and felt miserable. Show the reader his misery – the rats in the trench, the incessant rain, his cold hands against the steely bayonet and the mud that made the flesh around his finger nails rot like … you get the picture!
Show your clients the advantages of your product or service. Show them what it means to them – how it will save them time, make them more money, make them thinner, younger, more gorgeous. For example, if you are selling tax advice show your customer a testimonial from a happy client that saved $5,000 in taxes last year after spending just $400 with you.
Imagine you’re selling a pre-cracked fresh egg mix to a meringue company; work out the savings in breakages, transportation and packing costs of a liquid delivered in a bucket rather than eggs in cartons. Work out the labour savings in egg-cracking time and add up all these savings in a week, a month or a year. Now show your client a picture of the increase in meringue sales and a graph of the extra profits, and how one cent more per meringue converts to $100,000 in extra sales per annum. Whip up a batch of fresh meringues and let them taste the difference. The best way to win new business is show – not tell - your customer how much of a difference your product or service will make to them.
©2007 Jane Francis is the author of Price Yourself Right: A guide to charging what you are worth (ISBN: 0-595-38601-6) available at Barnes and Noble (USA), WH Smith (UK) or online at amazon.com
Just because you know all about your products and services, your client will not. There may be huge gaps in their understanding of what you do and how long it takes. They may be ignorant of the knowledge and skill required to do what you do and what’s more: they do not know what they do not know. They may not see the value in what you provide so it is your job to educate them. Can you demonstrate your product? How many of the senses can you involve? Can you prove your cost-effectiveness? Do you have a graph to show savings? What about case studies, before and after pictures, or testimonials from happy customers?
Teachers of fiction writers repeatedly tell their students: ‘Show, don’t tell’. In other words, don’t tell the reader the soldier went to war and felt miserable. Show the reader his misery – the rats in the trench, the incessant rain, his cold hands against the steely bayonet and the mud that made the flesh around his finger nails rot like … you get the picture!
Show your clients the advantages of your product or service. Show them what it means to them – how it will save them time, make them more money, make them thinner, younger, more gorgeous. For example, if you are selling tax advice show your customer a testimonial from a happy client that saved $5,000 in taxes last year after spending just $400 with you.
Imagine you’re selling a pre-cracked fresh egg mix to a meringue company; work out the savings in breakages, transportation and packing costs of a liquid delivered in a bucket rather than eggs in cartons. Work out the labour savings in egg-cracking time and add up all these savings in a week, a month or a year. Now show your client a picture of the increase in meringue sales and a graph of the extra profits, and how one cent more per meringue converts to $100,000 in extra sales per annum. Whip up a batch of fresh meringues and let them taste the difference. The best way to win new business is show – not tell - your customer how much of a difference your product or service will make to them.
©2007 Jane Francis is the author of Price Yourself Right: A guide to charging what you are worth (ISBN: 0-595-38601-6) available at Barnes and Noble (USA), WH Smith (UK) or online at amazon.com
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