"It's a bargain. It was on sale. It was half price."

Something is only worth what someone else will pay for it.  Unless you are in the business of reselling stuff you bought a low price then why bother about the promotion?

If the price is important then there are always alternatives that are cheaper in almost every market.  The designer top that is a bargain because it is half price, is still about 2500% more that it cost to make.  Is it really a bargain?

And if you are a brand owner or retailer, why not sell out at full price?  

Fix your product.  Fix your service.  Customers should be happy to pay more for a scant supply of something valuable to them.

Unless you are a commodity.  Then the best thing you can do is realise you are a commodity and structure and price yourself accordingly.  The problem with a race to the bottom though, as Seth would say, is that you might win.

​When I first started work after University it was as a Sales Ledger Clerk in a small accounts department of a door handle manufacturer.
 
As it was an entry level job and I knew nothing I used to have tasks given to me.  And I used to do them as fast as humanly possible, like a game, before jumping up and asking for the next task.
 
I remember being so amazed that the other people in the office were not working as fast as they could that I told my mom when I got home.  She said, “yes, that’s what people do.”
 
If you get through your work, guess what there is no more work.  You don’t have to be here, in the office, if there is no more work to do.  Or you get to do better work.
 
Now we have the internet.  It was not invented when I started work.  And you can do whatever you want from wherever you are.  It is like a travelator. 
 
And you can still run on a travelator to go even faster.  Why wouldn’t you?

​Cost leadership is broken.
 
“It's cheap, fuck face, what are you moaning at me for?”
 
Caring is the only thing a human can do that a robot can't (currently). If your business model is to get in stock, move them fast, sell them cheap then the customer becomes a commodity as well as the product.
 
Don't want to buy right now? Move on, go somewhere else. “You just lost me a sale” is the mindset of the sales person. There is someone else ready to buy and you are not. 
 
This works… Until the commodity dries up. Until the economy tanks.  Until a competitor has slightly higher (or the same) prices and cares just an ounce more.  Until someone else makes it a slightly more pleasant experience for the customer than you. 
 
Then the only thing differentiating you from everyone else dropping their prices is how much you care. If you want to be a cost leader then the extreme is to employ no people. Outsource. Use self-service for everything. But the barrier to entry for this is low and who is going to buy your products if no-one has a job in your country?
 
Caring is the differentiator.  Care more.  Care for more people.  Care more often.

​The trouble with free advice is that you get what you pay for.
 
This week we took the offer of some free legal advice. The representative had no rules of thumb, no answers to our questions and just went down a form. Guess what, form filling can be replaced by someone cheaper. 
 
When we moved house the Estate agent put house on Rightmove and that was it. Guess what, putting pictures of something on the internet is not a skill I want to pay a percentage of my house for.  This can be done by someone cheaper.
 
If you don’t care, then you can’t charge.  This is the reality of business today. 

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What would you do with an extra hour per day? More from the Blog

Once you have done something, it cannot be undone. 

The only thing in your control is either to try to repeat what you have done or try to do something different next time. 

​This is easy to remember for ourselves.  More difficult is to realise this of others right at the moment of your reaction to their actions.
 
Remember “We judge ourselves by our intentions.  And others by their actions.” Steven R. Covey

​Fed up of meeting hell? Our iPhone app can help. Find out more.

What would you do with an extra hour per day?

Your customers have a mix of personalities.  Curt, brash and focused on getting what they want.  Loud, outgoing and want to chat.  Quiet, reflective and want all the details.

Some are loyal and some are fickle.  Do you know the difference up front?  I doubt it.

Imagine a car salesman that sees hundreds if not thousands of people each year. She knows who will buy and who won’t.  She courts the buyers, expels the time wasters and is always proving herself right.

What if you treated everyone like they might come back? Like they needed more time to think.  Like they were already a loyal customer? You might be surprised.

If you treat some of your customers as if they are not coming back, the danger is you might be right. 

​Fed up of meeting hell? Our iPhone app can help. Find out more.

What would you do with and extra hour per day?