The first thing most potential customers want to know about your product or service is the price. Especially the price shoppers & bargain hunters, but even those seeking value over price will likely ask. Should you tell them?
Should you publicise prices on your website so they have all the information to had to make an informed decision? Or could you in fact be pushing them away before they even had a chance to understand what you do and what you can do for them?
If you ever reveal the price or your product or service when asked, especially if you have a service, or your fees are at the higher end, or you don’t have a commodity product, it will be like getting naked in front of your potential customer and jumping up and down in front of them.
And even when you put your clothes back on they can’t unseen what they just saw. It will burn in their mind. They may not like the image! Sorry to do that to you!
When potential customers lead in asking about price first, before knowing about the value, relevance & utility of your product or service, and before knowing you, then you are set up for failure no matter what you say:
1. If they think it is cheap, then they think it is cheap
2. If they think it is expensive, they will always think it is expensive (they can’t unseen the price & unfeel their first feeling of shock)
Often people have no time invested in you, message you randomly asking about price, and it is almost like a trap.
I made this mistake recently. Someone direct messaged me, apparently knowing nothing about my services, & asked how much my mentoring fees are. This happens many times a week, & I usually ask a few qualifying questions first. As I have a waiting list, I broke my own rule, and told him directly.
He replied with letters that expand into swearwords and said “that’s how you can afford a Ferrari!”
That was the last I heard of him.
Now, he did nothing wrong. I did nothing wrong. He asked a fair question & I can have direct, no fluff, honest answer. That should be enough to win business, right? It’s all about integrity. Well actually no, not in this case. Because I have not read from him again I could have in fact pushed him completely away. So in this instance I should have answered what I felt was right for him, not what he wanted.
Your potential customer needs to know these way before they know the price. These are important:
1. What value they will get from you, FIRST, so that it…
2. Sets a contrast to the price (they feel they get more value for less price)
3. They need to buy in & feel desire FIRST
So NEVER put your prices on your website, unless you are a direct price comparison type product, you have tested that people go directly to buy (like on Amazon) and price is your main or only benefit.
Give them information you know they need, and take them through baby steps towards the price. Here are those baby steps:
1. Help them discover the value first
2. Give them the contrast of what they will get, & make it look bigger than the price
3. Create some buy in, interest & desire for your product or service
4. Help them invest time into you (which they will want a return from)…
5. And as such can visualise a return and benefits to them
Remember the famous quote: “Price is what you pay, value is what you get”.
“Price shoppers” & discount hunters are likely to be your hardest and most demanding customers & likely to cost you the most amount of money in overhead, customer service, time and energy. So test them first. Make them work a little for your product or service. Qualify them. Show them value first. Make sure it is right for them before you get naked in front of them and start jumping.
Find ways of giving them, value first, on their own terms, and follow the 5 steps above, even remotely, by:
1. Educating them as well as selling to them
(Articles & blogs, Podcasts, YouTube videos, Facebook & other social media posts, Live videos, books, etc.)
2. Give them a chance to get to know you on THEIR terms
(Brochures if relevant, be seen where they look (Magazines, online, ads, trade shows)
3. Contact them to prospect not on the first touch point, but the 3rd, 5th or 9th
Don’t break these rules, even when you are tempted, convinced they will buy or feel too busy to take them through this process.
