035 The Invisible Touch – The Two-Dollar Excuse

The First Key: Price

How many times have you heard someone say they lost business to a competitor because of price?

Would you believe me if I told you that price is usually the EXCUSE but not the real reason?

In my own businesses, I have plenty of proof. I'll never lose business to a competitor because of a couple of dollars' difference. For you see, if you provide enough VALUE for your price, the client/customer/patient/investor will almost NEVER go to someone else because of price.

Oh, sure… they may TELL you it's because of price – that's a much easier excuse when they decide to work with someone else. But usually it's they felt more comfortable with someone else, they LIKED someone else, they thought someone else was more qualified and would get the job done on time/with fewer errors/without their having to nag.

Admittedly, it's very hard for you to find out why someone went with a competitor and not you… after all, why should the buyer tell you anything? And you can't "push" too much for the answer because that might keep them from working with you in the future.

Is Price Not Important At All?

Sure it is. I have a buddy who deals in carpeting and flooring and he bids projects for hospitals, universities, city governments. Price is USUALLY a determining factor for him since the contracts are put out to bid and the bids are made public.

But for the rest of us, it is MUCH more elastic than we often want to believe.

Here's a personal (and a bit crazy) example.

I'm working on my next big project: I Learned It All From My Kids – Life Lessons Are All Around Us. I was in my local Staples needing to buy a notebook to keep my research notes in. (Funny… I LIVE on the Internet and on my computers, but I still take lots of handwritten notes before typing them – there's something about the connection between physically writing something and the brain!)

A lady I've seen before and I were in the aisle where the note pads were and we started to chat about how much time we were spending looking at the various books in which to keep our notes.

There were cheap note pads, almost like steno pads. There were also some really nicely covered Journals with faux leather, lined paper, ribbon markers, and designs on the cover. So instead of purchasing the note book or an old-fashion essay-exam book (for under $3.00), I spent close to $9 for a hard-cover journal.

My thinking was that if I were going to spend a lot of time writing into and reading from this book, I wanted it nice to look at. ALSO, the project is an important one, so spending a bit more would be worth it – "I would TREAT it like an important project when writing into THIS book," I reasoned.

Do you see that our customers do the same thing with us? If they feel that the project is important, if they feel they will be around us for a while, they are willing to pay more if we are the RIGHT person for the job.

They have to LIVE with the results for a long time (depending on what they are buying from you) and they want to be sure to enjoy the PROCESS as well as the OUTCOME.

See?

Best,

Charlie Seymour Jr
Blogging, Podcasting, Consulting

PS: You can find me here:

http://twitter.com/UltimateWAHDads

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PPS: Do you have trouble writing? Turn Your Words Into Gold – Go Here To Learn More! NOW is the time to start.

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Charlie Seymour Jr is an entrepreneurial evangelist and marketing-success coach helping individuals and companies (up to $100MM) explode their success through online and direct-response marketing. He specializes in blogging, podcasting, photography, video, and Facebook applications. Visit his blog at http://bit.ly/24eYTO to learn more about his successes.

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Fallacies of Marketing

035 The Invisible Touch – The Two-Dollar Excuse