by JimRaffel on September 6, 2010
My friend Cindy shared the following on Twitter recently.
What does best really mean? Obviously I already tipped my hand in the title of this post. Clearly what Cindy does is deliver the goods at a fair price. That price may not be the lowest and based upon Cindy’s track record I’m guessing it’s not. I find that people always find money for the things they; A. Want; and/or B. Need.
The next paragraph is from the cornerstone post of this blog Real Authentic and Sustainable. In hindsight and with Cindy’s tweet (and the conversation that followed) I now see that my customer was talking about paying for the “best.”
My most striking business example of; real, authentic and sustainable is a customer who recntly turned down a discount I offered on a fairly large order. He said to me; “Jim, price is not the only consideration, your ability to support us in the future matters. You have proven over the years that you are worth the price you ask.” [...]
The price you ask. How often do you negotiate over your price? Please stop doing that. You know your worth. If you know your customer and the situation well (which you should – we call this doing your homework) you have some sense of what the customer can and will pay. Save yourself and the client all the time and hassle of the negotiation and submit a bid that reflects what you are worth and what the customer can pay.
Know your customer. To be your best in the eyes of your customer you must take the time to know thy customer. As a customer begins talking about a new project you should be doing the math in your head. By the time the first serious conversation is over there should be a number in your head that fairly represents what your customer has to spend and what you can afford to do the project for. In my book we call that professional salesmanship.
Am I looking at this the right way? What’s your take?
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by JimRaffel on March 12, 2010
Everything you do in life takes you closer to your goals, or further from them.
Without clearly defined goals you have no standard by which to judge your choices. Yesterday I shared four of the key choices I have made in my life over the past year. Each of those choices has brought me closer to my goals. There is a great deal of published material on goals. Some of it talks about specific goals with specific time lines. Other material leans towards what is working for me, broad sweeping goals.
Goal number 1: Strengthen my understanding of the relationship I have with God. Yes, I believe in God. No, I’m not a huge fan of organized religion. I can tell you almost every real, authentic and sustainably successful person I know puts some form of spirituality at the top of their list.
Goal number 2: Be the most awesome husband and father I can be. Husband is listed before father in the previous sentence on purpose. A healthy traditional family starts with a healthy relationship between the spouses. Cheryl and I devote a great deal of time and effort in our lives to the sustainable achievement of this goal.
Goal number 3: Have a rocking business that supports my family, while giving back to the community that provides that support. There are actually several communities in my case. The graphic communications industry, the Milwaukee community and this great country of opportunity that we live in, just to name a few. Working to achieve financial success, without some plan to make the world a better place along the way, seems like an empty plan to me.
Goal number 4: Share my life long journey to achieve goals 1, 2, and 3 via this blog. It just does not get any better than this. The growth I have seen in myself and chronicled via this blog is here for you all to benefit from. I sincerely hope you are able to take something away from each and every post that enriches your life.
With these goals in mind go back and look at the choices I made. Can you see how those four choices make more sense when framed by these goals? Do you prefer broad sweeping goals like I do, or do you favor the very specific and time based goals I spoke of earlier? Let’s use the comments to get a conversation going.
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