“I’ve heard you say ‘forget price’ at least 10 times today. Surely that’s key for any business’ success?”
I think I say it for dramatic effect really but having said that I think there is a real relevance to why I say it. The price is something that the seller puts onto a product or service and 9 times out of 10 it dictates the market they want to go to and in reality price is just that, it’s a sellers’ market in terms of what they expect to be paid for it, but the consumer really has only two interests, one which is sort of a condition, which is affordability. If they can’t afford something or borrow the money to buy something they are not in the market for that product. If you want a million-pound house, then great, but if you can’t afford it or can’t raise the money then you can’t buy it, so there is affordability more so than price.
Then there is also value and value is the key driver of everything that we buy, because if there is no value to something or we all had the same set of values we would all buy the same thing or we would all buy the cheapest thing, but we don’t. There are people that pay two hundred pounds for a pair of jeans, there are people that pay a thousand pounds for a pair of jeans and there are people that pay eight pounds for a pair of jeans. Now ultimately in terms of the cloth involved in that item, in that garment, there is hardly any difference in terms of the cost of it, but the value that the brand has, the value that the person gets from buying a brand or how they feel with that brand, dictates the value to it. So when I say price is irrelevant or forget price, what I’m trying to say to clients and potential clients is simply this, that you need to look at whether you can create enough value in the market to charge what you are expecting to charge. So really price is irrelevant, and it borders down to two key things, affordability and value.
There is a third one, which is comparison. If you sell bread or you sell a phone which has a set price from a manufacturer then you have a comparative price, but ultimately affordability and value will outperform price every day of the week.
If you are interested in how we can implement our Behavioural Selling Model™ into your business call us on 0870 742 4458.