Don was a salesman who sold advertising. His boss set the fees for the advertising, but Don found a way to go into the company computer and change the figures to whatever he wanted on individual accounts. He appeared to be successful because he sold more advertising than anyone else in the company, but in the end someone discovered the numbers didn’t add up.
Craig sold cleaning products to businesses and government entities. He was well liked and served a big area. When customers commented that they felt the price he was charging for certain items were too high he quickly accepted their rebuke adjusted the fee on paper and delivered their products. Craig knew he didn’t have the right to do that so he entered the correct order amount when he got back to the office and most companies paid without complaint, until someone noticed they were paying a higher than the agreed to amount.
Neither men work for their former employers.
If you are to start a moneymaking business you have to have a clear idea about what you will charge in both wholesale and retail environments. If you have a sale price it needs to be across the board and not simply adjusted based on the desire to sell something.
Obviously this would be slightly different with a service oriented business in that you are completing a project with multiple variables. There would not likely be a one price fits all solution to a service unless you could expect the exact same circumstances in every case (i.e. an oil change).
The problem both Don and Craig experienced is the power of coffee shop talk (or in the cyber world – forum boards). Customers will talk and they will often discuss the prices they pay for certain goods or services. If one man buys advertising from Don’s company and pays $100, but another business owner only pays $15 for the same advertising neither customer will be very confident in doing business with the advertising source again.
The same is true of purchasing products. Unless the customer purchases the items at a bulk or a special non profit or charity discount the price should be the same for all other customers. If one business indicates they received a steep discount and another did not then bills are likely to be compared, and that’s the scenario that led to Craig’s demise as a salesman.
Fair and consistent pricing is a key component to any moneymaking business. This dynamic has trust and integrity at the heart of what you do and how you do it. If you only work to try to identify how much someone is willing to pay for an item you risk losing more than one customer.
In most cases your moneymaking business will not be centered around an ideal that encourages price haggling so if a customer has a concern about the price of your product or service then you should listen to them, research their concerns if you like and then if you adjust the price of your product downward make that adjustment on all future sales for every customer.
We all want to find ways to make money, but when you try to do that with an, “at any cost” mentality you will likely find it only damages a business that may have begun with the best of intentions. |
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