It started accidentally.
She certainly didn’t mean to do it, but it happened nonetheless. Not only did it happen to Jennifer, it seems to happen way too often for many other business owners, particularly at this time of the year.
Certain “behavior” on our part creates unintended, undesirable behavior on the part of our prospects and customers.
Jennifer struggled because what she did became difficult to undue. Her customers now expected it…waited for it. It damaged her bottom-line, put stress on her business and left her feeling helpless.
You might be feeling the same way…because you’re doing the same thing as Jennifer.
You’ve…accidentally…trained your customers to wait for your sale.
Sure, sales will bring in customers. Yet, all too often they won’t buy the next thing from you until it, too, goes on sale. They wait. And wait. And wait. Then you feel compelled to do it again because it’s the “best way” you know to bring in sales.
Of course, there are great reasons to have the occasional sale. What we’re talking about here are sales that become epidemic (like Black Friday, Cyber Monday…you waited for those sales, didn’t you?!).
Frankly, sales do something else even more troublesome. As much as all of us love a good sale, sales can damage your business in another way.
Sales all too often create just that, a sale, a deal, a transaction, a momentary exchange.
What we should be striving to create is a relationship.
Long-term customer relationships mean you’ve cultivated customers who buy from you again and again, who turn to you first to solve a problem, who recommend you to their friends and colleagues.
Let me give you a personal example. We were working with a prospect to do some positioning work for their start-up business. The CEO had said “yes, let’s do this” four times.
However, he had yet to give us a credit card or check.
I could feel something going on he hadn’t shared yet. First, he asked for references. Check. Done. But I could tell that wasn’t what he wanted.
Then he asked for an example of the work. Check. Done. But I knew that wasn’t the issue either.
Finally, we got around to why his “yes” hadn’t turned into money. He wanted a reduced price. A discount. A deal. Yet, knowing he was concerned about money in this start-up, I had already rounded every corner and taken out anything extra.
I told him the price was the price.
The price was the price because I didn’t want to train him to expect a discount. The price was the price because we wanted to do the next piece of work with him and not have the heart of the relationship be the price. The price had to be equitable for both of us, but discounting would have “trained” him to always ask and expect one, and frankly, we were confident it was the right price to great create work.
Be confident in your prices when they are built on sound reasoning and incredible value. Resist the request to discount that equitable price.
Please stop the sales if you’re just training your customers to wait for the discount or ask for a price cut. Use that time, instead, to build and convey the incredible value your services bring.
People will pay for that!
Go forth and do great things.