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At a home accessories and furniture store
I saw a couple of large metal wall pieces I
liked for my office. This place looked like a
family-run operation. The owner saw my
obvious interest in one, came over, and
asked if I liked it.

I tried not showing too much emotion and
asked how much better he could do. His reply
was brilliant:

“These are almost double this amount at Robb &
Stucky’s (a high-end furniture store in Scottsdale).
You can have it for only $295.”

Great answer!

I’m always prepared to pay full price, but I also
like to ask for the sport of it, and, well, because
it works. So I then said,

“How much better can you do if I also get that
one over there,” pointing to a similar piece on the
wall.

I expected something solid like, “Same thing with
that one. Together, you’ll double your savings from
anywhere else.”

Suddenly, though, he turned into a different person.
He caved in, saying,

“Ah, well, OK, I can give you $75 off if you get both.”

He gave away pure profit.

Here’s something that’s not too profound at first glance:

“A dollar in cash money or credit that you give away is
always a dollar of lost profit.”

However, this has enormous implications when you
put it in the context of price objections, negotiations,
and concessions, and also special offers, discounts, and
incentives to purchase.

And with that context in mind, here’s another piece of
wisdom:

“The perception of the value of what you give away—
in the mind of the receiver—can be greater than its price
tag.”

OK, so what does all this mean?

Here's an example. A printer had missed a deadline
date for an order. It caused me inconvenience. In the past
I’ve had printers who knocked something off the price
when they screwed up. Instead, she apologized profusely,
and recovered with this:

“Here’s what I’m going to do for you. I’ve run 20% more
than what you ordered, no charge. And the next time you
do a black and white printing job like this, I’ll throw in a
second basic color at no charge.”

If she would have knocked $100 off the bill, that would have
cost her $100. I imagine she probably has to do at least $400
worth of business to make $100 net profit. Instead, she offered
to give me 20% more than what I ordered, which cost her very
little, since she probably ran 10% more than what I ordered
anyway and would have just wasted it, and her additional
cost was essentially just for the paper.

As for the second color on the next job, not only is
that a clever way to ensure future business (kind of like
having a gift certificate—who hasn’t made a shopping trip
to redeem it even if we didn’t need anything?) but it also
had a high perceived value to me because it’s something
I normally pay for.

Her only cost is to run the job through the press a second
time, and for the colored ink (which she’d likely have on the
press for another job anyway); again much less than the
perceived dollar value.

Think of how you might be able to use these ideas to avoid
giving away dollars in cash, and persuade people to
buy, or buy more quickly.

Here are some ideas.

Understand what’s important to them. Of course, all selling
gets back to this. Money often takes a back seat to other
priorities. For example, if you’re in a price negotiation
and you also know the buyer is under a time crunch,
you could offer quicker delivery instead.

Give product instead of dollars. Instead of dropping price,
throw in some additional products. Give them something
they’re not buying from you now. It gives them the opportunity
to test something out, which could lead to future sales of
that product. This also works great if they are a reseller. They
can then make a profit from what you give them. Also, the
actual retail price of the product could be much greater
than the concession or discount they want, but your actual
cost is lower.

Offer services. How many people do you know who buy
extended warranties, and then actually take advantage of all
the free services that come with them? Sounds valuable at
the time of purchase, but probably a very low redemption rate
by customers.

What can you offer that is high perceived value, high margin,
and low redemption?

Use cross-promotions. One of the discount stock
brokers offered 10,000 frequent flier miles from one of the
major airlines to open up a brokerage account with them.
Every party in the transaction wins there.

Get creative, and don’t give away those hard earned dollars.

A dollar given away is always a dollar of profit.

And, oh, want more word-for-word techniques on how
to deal with price resistance, even avoid it, AND get
full price for what you sell? I suggest you get the one-
hour audio interview/seminar I did with sales expert,
Bill Lee, "How to Sell Value, Get Full Price, and
Overcome Price Resistance and Objections" Go
to http://businessbyphone.com/tss.htm
and scroll down to that title.
__________________________________________

QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"Being busy does not always mean real work.
The object of all work is production or accomplishment
and to either of these ends there must be forethought,
system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose,
as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing."
Thomas Edison

Planning Your 2008 National Sales Meeting
Or In-House Training
If your company or association would benefit from a content-packed,
entertaining, interactive, how-to customized workshop on any
part of, or the entire telesales and prospecting call and process,
let's talk.

I specialize in developing and delivering programs
that get sales reps saying and doing the right things, right
away, to get more YES answers from prospects and customers.
Isn't it time that the organization does something special
for the most important part of the sales process?

Contact me at ArtSobczak@BusinessByPhone.com, or call
me at (402)895-9399. (Special incentive for Scottsdale/Phoenix
programs)

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