Some more pricing stuff

I’m often found on the small business forums, because I like talking business, and that’s a pretty good spot.

There’s this guy on there whom I like a lot (he’s in one of the professional trades – if you spend some time there, you’ll get to know him, but I’d rather not ID him here.) But one thing he’s constantly fixated on is price. In a nutshell, he wants to be high end in his business, and he sort of dismisses people who shop on price. Now, I kind of don’t blame him here, but the reality is, in his own personal life, HE’S a price shopper himself (he’s admitted such).

Just today, he was mentioning he was thinking of charging a service charge to show up and assess jobs – like a $50 trip charge, etc. This is quite common with your better tradespeople, etc – I pay it for the tradespeople that come to my house, etc, because I want the best guy.

But here’s the kicker – he stated in the same topic that he personally  would NEVER pay such a charge, though. So here’s how I replied:

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You have no business asking for the trip charge, then, because you personally do not see the value in it.

You have this contradiction a lot – you have stated before that you shop on price often yourself, but don’t like it when its done to you. I have to tell you, you will never find what you are looking for in terms of a happy medium then – you will always have this price battle that you hate so much. Because your mind is conditioned to have it.

I’m the opposite of you – I almost never shop on price. It’s generally never even a consideration. I like what I like, and I’m willing to pay for the best that I can reasonably afford. Because in the end, in 99% of the things we buy, etc, the price really isn’t that much different anyway.

I’m not saying one must buy the highest price TV (etc), but make price the last thing you look at – get a nice TV first (when I bought mine, in the models/size I was looking for, I could have had a “decent” Vizio for about $1,100, or a beautiful Samsung for $1,400. I bought the Samsung without thinking twice.) I also go to nicer restaurants, I book nicer rooms on vacation, etc. I don’t “blow” money, but I definitely do not mind spending it, either. I’ll hire the better plumber who can come soon, despite the $50 trip/assessment charge… it doesn’t faze me one bit.

I wasn’t always like this – I became this way more after I was in business a few years. I am high end in my business, and I figured I should be that way in my entire life. And I noticed I got better clients the more/longer I practiced this. The attitude simply permeates into everything I do – my website, my writing, etc. Yes, I still get shoppers and cheapies, and I ignore them without a second thought.

Money goes and comes the same way. If you are tightfisted with a buck, expect to always deal with tightfistedness.

I promise you, this works.