Sales and Marketing Newsletter #228: Sing and Dance, Price objections, Art

GREG’S BUSINESS GROWTH NEWSLETTER #228
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Quick notes to help you grow your business in less time with less effort. . . sometime next week.

In this issue:

– Techniques for FIT
– Being Human
– Random Stuff

Techniques for FIT
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• Dancing and singing, they say, releases dopamine and makes us happy. So, sing. And dance. Get some dopamine flooding through that bag-o-bones tonight.
• Everyone knows using absolutes always gets bad results. Nobody understands absolutes will never give you what you want. Absolutely don’t use them when arguing.
  

• Reaching out to prior clients, prospects, and suspects can be a rewarding experience. Things change and lately, a lot of things are changing. Check in.
• This is Memorial Day weekend in the USA. A time to reflect on Horace’s virtue, “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.”

Being Human – Pricing objections
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“The worth of a thing is what it will bring.” – English proverb 

This week’s theme is price objections. Which means I received multiple questions related to price and pricing or reps not holding value. As a manager, what should you do?

Tell your team, if they’re working through the process with clients, make sure price is the very, very, very last objection. Tell them, before they come to you they should hear something like, “Yes, [associate name], I’m telling you the truth! If it weren’t for the 7% price difference, we’d go with your firm. I promise!”

When they hear that, they’re ready to take an offer to management, along with a reason for discounting services. Tell your associates the reasoning behind the price reduction can be something like “we’ll charge the discount to marketing because the client is going to commit to doing a video testimonial for us if we do a good job.” Or, “we’ll charge the discount to operations because they promise to pay for the month in advance, so we don’t need to collect or write anything off.”

Of course, before the rep can say either of those things, they’ll need to get a promise from the client. However, remind the associate if the client loves you and sees the value only your firm can provide, they’ll be willing to do something for you in return for a price concession.

Good stuff.

Random stuff
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““You’re not recording this, are you?” “No, never, never.” – Fletch

Back when I used to travel a lot, the organization I worked for started putting limits on expenses. During my first years at the firm, I used to book everything with one airline, one hotel brand, one car rental company, and even used to use my own credit card. I was almost a complete points-whore when the edict came from above. Cut expenses. So I did.

The result was a lot of random hotels and random car rental brands, but one bonus was Southwest Airlines. Their prices were firm-expense-friendly, their planes were on time, and they showered me in free drink tickets. Travel life was bearable.

The one issues I had with SWA is their gate locations. The cities I traveled to always seemed to be in the back of the terminal where six or seven gates were jammed together. More than once I’d get in line at my gate only to discover when trying to board that I was getting on the wrong flight. I know, it sounds ridiculous, but it happens! They were always very nice and redirected me before I made a terrible mistake.

My daughter is working for an art auction house now. I have no idea how it all works, but she calls and asks if I will do an online bid on a print for her. She tells me where to go and how much she’s willing to spend. It makes me nervous because I don’t want to mess up. I log in early and have to sign up for an account. It’s pretty straightforward, but I can’t tell if I’ve done it correctly. Not wanting to bug her because she’s working, I hatch a plan.

Pick a piece of art and bid on it. If I jump in early, someone will outbid me and I’ll be ok. If it’s broken or if I didn’t register correctly, it will give me an error. A Matisse print comes up next. I’ve heard of this guy, so I figure it’s a good fit.

I bid. It goes through. Then I wait. And wait.

No one else bids.

I win.

It takes all of 60 seconds. There isn’t a nice SWA person to gently re-direct me. Nobody to turn to, shrug, and say, “oops, my bad. I’m an idiot.”

It’s mine, baby.

All mine.

I know how it works now. And before you ask, no, it’s not even naked. It’s just art.

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