|

















|
"[One of] The 7 Essential Popular
Business Books"
—Today's
Librarian
Sample Chapter
More Info
Barry Maher
Call Toll Free:
1-866-243-8062
No
travel costs for Las Vegas, Nevada; Los Angeles; Palm Springs; San Diego
& Southern California areas
Visit our online shop for
Filling the Glass
T-shirts, cards, caps, etc
Motivational Speakers Are Not Enough |
| |
"Why Do I Charge So Much? Because I
Can."
Motivating with Value, Not Price
By
Barry
Maher
It’s axiomatic that every business, every manager, every employee, every
one of us is in sales, in one form or another. Of course, for companies with
sales teams, we expect the “real selling” to be done by the sales professionals.
I’ll never forget the day I watched a secretary outsell a team of
sales veterans.
The company sold consulting services. That morning I’d met with some
of their less successful reps. Most of them knew exactly why they weren’t
selling. “Our prices are just too damn high,” they assured me repeatedly. I’d
heard it before. As we all know, price is often the single biggest obstacle for
acquiring new business. It’s also the number one excuse of unsuccessful
marketing and salespeople.
Now, I was riding with Helen Daniels, secretary to the boss and the
person who’d handled new business inquiries before the pros had been hired:
handled them, I’d been told, with great success. I wanted to see just how she'd done it.
We were meeting with the VP of Operations of a good size uniform
company. Sure enough when the issue of price came up, the VP acted exactly as
the reps had predicted, using almost the exact same words they’d used.
“Sounds to me like you people are awful damn expensive,” he said,
accusingly.
“Absolutely,” Helen agreed, offering her brightest smile.
“So why do you charge so much?”
“Simple,” she said. “Because we can!”
“What?”
“We charge that much because we can. Because our clients are not
just willing but happy to pay those kind of rates for the results we generate.”
“But can’t they find someone else to do the job for less?”
“Absolutely.”
“Somebody who will do the exact same job for less?”
“Well, they could certainly find companies that will charge less.
I’m no expert on the kind of work these people might do, so I really can’t say
whether or not they’ll do the exact same job.”
“So you’re saying, You get what you pay for?”
“No,” she smiled, “I’m saying to get us, you’ve got to pay for us. I
really don’t know that much about the kind of work these other companies do. Or
why they charge less. Maybe you should ask them. I don’t know a lot of
businesses that charge less if they could charge more, but maybe they’re
humanitarians.”
“I seriously doubt that,” VP said.
“Well, like I say, I’m no authority about their work. We charge more
because our clients are happy to pay more for the results we generate. Maybe
these other companies charge less because that’s what their clients are
willing to pay for the results they generate.”
“But your rates . . . ?”
“Expensive.”
“Very expensive.”
“Exactly. And worth every penny. And let me tell you why.” Which
she then preceded to do.
That’s Making the Skeleton Dance. Helen took the potential
negative of price and bragged about it so hard she not only made that skeleton
dance, she made it polka. Twenty-five minutes later we walked out of there with
a signed contract.
© Copyright 2009, Barry Maher, Nevada (Las
Vegas)
Sign up for our newsletter
Return to
articles page
Return to newsletter archive
|