September 8, 2018
A “remarkable conversation” from reader Luca Ingianni
List member Luca Ingianni wrote in with a story that warmed my heart (shared with permission):
Hi Jonathan, I’ve been enjoying your emails for a long time now; today I found an opportunity to return the favour. I recently witnessed a remarkable conversation: I’m part of a group of trainers. Recently we were discussing writing our own courses materials instead of buying them from a materials provider, as we currently do. One of us, who had heard the customer complain that the materials were rather expensive (they are), mentioned that this would be a welcome opportunity to lower the price of the materials. Another colleague replied thus: “How can you justify lowering the price? Is our product somehow worse? Does it provide less value (I think it’ll actually be better than what we have currently)? If not -- what’s your story towards the customer to be able to lower the price?” We pondered this for a bit, and couldn’t think of a credible excuse to lower our price. Who’d have imagined? Have a great day —Luca
Thanks for sharing, Luca!
IMHO, Luca’s colleague who asked the “How can you justify lowering...?” question absolutely nailed the crux of issue. I’m glad that the group saw the logic and didn’t irrationally default to lowering the price “just because.”
While we’re talking about it...
There’s an unexamined line in Luca’s message that really jumped out at me:
“the customer complain(ed) that the materials were rather expensive”
If anyone - a colleague or a partner or a prospect or a client or anyone - ever says something like, “Hm... that seems expensive,” I want you to resist the temptation to immediately lower your price and instead ask:
“Compared to what?”
Yours,
—J
P.S. Are you sick of competing on price with amateurs?
You might want to check out The Pricing Seminar. 60+ people have already registered for the beta session and the conversation is well underway. You can read all about it here:
The price goes up on Monday with the release of the first lesson, so now is the best time to join. Look for the blue bird for a few bucks off ;-)