Category: Sales

People don’t buy features.
They don’t buy products.
They don’t buy services.

They buy benefits.

Carmine Gallo
shares

“Your listeners are asking themselves,
“Why should I care?”

The clearest messages require
a specific, tangible explanation.
If your product
helps your customers make money,
tell them.
If it helps them save money,
tell them.
If it makes it easier
or more enjoyable for them
to perform a particular task,
you guessed it… tell them.
Tell them early, often and clearly.
Don’t leave people guessing.”

How do people
benefit from your products?

A $2.99 priced story
marked down permanently
to $0.99
will sell over 10 times more
than the same story
priced simply at $0.99.

Readers believe
they’re getting a deal,
that they are ‘wise’ shoppers.

Geoff Williams
shares

“You see a $56 shirt
on sale for $32
and think,
“Hey, that’s quite a deal.”
Of course, the store never intended
to sell the shirt
for $56.
The plan all along was
to charge $32.
The retail industry calls this
“price anchoring.”
JCPenney tried ending price anchoring
in 2012,
but sales plummeted.”

Consider price anchoring
your products.

I get asked at least once a day
what I believe publishers want,
what types of stories,
characters,
story lengths
they’re interested in.

I can’t remember the last time
a writer asked me
what I believe READERS want.

This is antiquated thinking.

Publishers, in the past,
pushed the books they liked
to readers.
They had to do this.
Development times were long
(three to five years).
Publishers didn’t have the ability
to pander to readers’ tastes.

And this worked,
in the past,
because supply was limited.
If a reader wanted to read,
she had to buy a book
the big 6 or 5 or 4 publishers produced.

This doesn’t work today.
With self-publishing,
there are unlimited publishers.
With eBooks,
development time has been reduced
to days, sometimes minutes.
Shelf life is now forever.
The reader can find exactly what she wants.
The publisher/middleman is either
aligned with the customer
or they aren’t selling books.

This is happening or will happen
in every industry.
Middlemen are either
asking for what the end consumer wants
or they aren’t selling products.

What does this mean?
If there’s a disconnect
between what the end consumer wants
and what the middleman wants,
find yourself a new middleman
or eliminate the middleman completely.

None of my stories
are priced in a figure
ending with zero.
Many of the stories
are priced at
$X.99.

Why does this work?

Bruna Martinuzzi
shares

“A Scientific American article
from a few years back,
Why Things Cost $19.95,
showed that using precise numbers
when pricing items for sale
was more persuasive
than using round numbers.

The author cited a study
that spanned five years of
real estate sales in Florida
and compared list prices
with the actual sales prices of homes.
The study revealed that
homeowners who listed their homes more precisely
—say $494,500
as opposed to $500,000—
consistently got closer to their asking price.

In other words,
when faced with a precise asking price,
buyers were less likely
to negotiate the price down.”

Consider pricing your products
precisely.

“CNBC recently cited data
from the NPD Group
indicating that jeans sales
are down 6% year over year.”

6% doesn’t seem that significant
except
I heard this information
on multiple newscasts
and
multiple media outlets today.

The response from women
I talked with?

“Oh sh*t.
I’m out of style.
I’m still wearing jeans.”

Fashion is about trends
so announcing that a garment
is not selling as well
as it once has
signals the end of that trend.

I saw this with vampire romances.
Sales of vampire romances dipped slightly.
This dip was covered by media,
with talking heads declaring the theme out of style,
and then sales plummeted.
Readers didn’t want to be caught
reading an untrendy romance.

If you see a sales dip in your industry,
consider keeping that information to yourself
and planning for the worst case.

A company recently approached me
asking me to fill out a survey
about the pricing of their products.

I answered the survey
as I suspect every customer did.
I said I’d like them to decrease pricing
and chose the lowest price offered
with every selection.

Asking customers about pricing
is a waste of time and energy.
It is like asking an employee
about her salary.
The employee always feels
she should be paid more.
The customer always feels
she should pay less.

So how do you determine the right pricing?
(or, more specifically,
the price elasticity of your product)
Trial and error.
Either with your products
or watching your competition.

The bad thing about this method is
it’s difficult.
It requires compiling and analyzing data.
The good thing about this method is
it’s difficult.
Not everyone will do it.

Question if asking customers about pricing
is worth the time and effort.

Many newer speakers don’t know
what to do with their hands.
They fiddle with things in their pockets
or wave them over their heads wildly
like they’re conducting an orchestra
or grip the podium
as though it were the last life raft.

In a recent newsletter,
Carmine Gallo
advises

“Take your hands out of your pockets!
One hand is acceptable
as long as the free hand
is expressive.
Remember to keep your gestures
within your power sphere
(that space starting at
eye level out to your sides,
to core and back up to eyes).”

Watch your hands
because the audience certainly is.

How do you control
how customers use your product?

Short answer –
You can’t.

Yes, you can advise customers,
build preventative measures
into your product,
put warnings on your marketing,
but the customer can ignore
all of this
and do whatever she likes.

As a best selling writer once told me
“Once you have your story published,
it belongs to the reader,
not you.’
Once your product is sold,
it belongs to the customer.

My advice is,
unless the customer is physically hurting themselves
or others
by using your product incorrectly
or for other purposes,
leave them alone.

And consider tracking these different usages.
They might be another possible market
for your product.

You WILL have to raise
your product’s prices
eventually.

When I worked with a major beverage company,
we raised prices in multiple ways
(not all at once).
We changed unit sizes
(7.8 oz vs 8.0 oz),
package configurations
(a 2×12 pack vs a 4×3 pack),
units in a package
(a 10 pack vs a 12 pack),
added a bonus with a smaller pack,
late payment fees,
etc.

Rieva Lesonsky
shares 12 tips to raise prices
including

“Customers are far more likely
to accept higher prices
if they’re getting something extra
in the bargain.
Consider what you could throw in
with your current product or service
that would cost you little
or nothing
but would have higher perceived value
to the customer.
For instance,
you could offer free gift wrapping
or a free ebook about a relevant topic.”

Have a strategy for raising prices.

In May’s CPA Magazine,
Julie Miller
shares

“If tardiness is a habit
-if others expect it from you
rather than being surprised by it
-you’re not being accountable.
In effect, what you’re saying is,
“I don’t value your time.
I believe I’m more important than you.
It’s not important to me
to honor the agreement we made.”

When I consider partnering with someone,
I look at what they do
vs what they say.
If they show up late once,
I assume they’ll be late for everything,
that they won’t make any of their deadlines,
that MY project will end up
launching late
because they can’t stick to a time table.

This prospective partner
is STARTING with this mark against them.

If I have a choice,
I don’t partner with people
who show up late.