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?
Jim, you have some important concepts that are true take-aways in this post – real, authentic, value, deliver, fair pricedoesn’t equal lowest, sustainable, know the customer. All of those require a great deal of listening compared to talking. I’d like to add food for thought regarding sustainable – tenacity – staying focused on the goal even when there are bumps in the road. Cindy
Cindy, Thanks for stopping by to comment. My brother made a great comment on Linkedin about this post. I’m going to write an entire post about it but basically he suggests dropping the words customer and client from our vocabulary and replacing them with business partner. I’ve been struggling with both those words and the fact that at least in my business they no longer describe the relationship I have with my business partners. I’m taking his advice 🙂
Jim, You’re welcome! In past lives, internal legal has nixed the use of “partner” when referring to a “client” or “customer”. There were other words that were on the no-no list, “expert” comes to mind. I’m interested in seeing your brother’s side of the discussion. I definitely prefer client to customer. I see both sides….to be continued!