Business Growth Ideas #264 – This week: Taking stock, Price objections, Airplanes

GREG’S BUSINESS GROWTH NEWSLETTER #264
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Quick notes to help you grow your business in less time with less effort. . . sometime next week.

In this issue:

– Techniques for FIT
– Being Human
– Random Stuff

Techniques for FIT
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• Early in the year it’s normal to take an inventory noting where you are and planning where you want to go. While you’re at it, pick a point 10-12 years ago and note your progress too. You’ve come a long way.
• During times of upheaval it helps to express how you’re feeling and work through what it means to you, your family, and your workplace. Refer to yourself in the third person as you do it. It helps frame what you do next. (if anything)

• Dig through the stack of magazines and catalogs piling up in the corner. As much as we do online, it’s amazing how much paper still finds its way into a pile.
• January is a good place to focus on momentum. Start by identifying resistance. Momentum may be force multiplied by mass, but remember it is net force, action and resistance. Work on removing an obstacle to movement next week.

Being Human – The hidden price objection
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“You can’t understand someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.” – Anonymous

The first sale you need to make, the old saying goes, is to yourself. I’m reviewing a Zoom sales presentation and when the salesperson gets to pricing, he says, “. . .but instead of breaking the bank right now, you can get started with . . .” the lowest price option.

The problem is I don’t remember the buyer mentioning a budget or constraint or anything hinting at a price that would break the bank. I review the recording to make sure I didn’t miss anything, then ask the rep why he went with the lower option. He said, “looking at him and his office I made an assumption.”

This was a Zoom call. Besides the company’s website, a quick LinkedIn search, and 15 minutes of introduction, we come to the conclusion it was a big assumption to make. However, the next presentation I review he does the same thing. Puts a price objection in where there isn’t one.

I am beginning to think he doesn’t believe the service is worth the price. I know because I’ve been there myself.

Back when I was a very young person trying to sell life insurance, my manager demanded I buy a one-million-dollar insurance policy on myself. It was a long time ago and $1MM put me in the way-over-insured category. The whole time I thought to myself, why am I doing this? I can’t afford it. It’s overkill. Much later, long after leaving the insurance biz, I asked myself, why did he do it?

Besides his override commission (my first thought) I think he was testing my commitment to the product. Giving me skin in the game, so I could say, “Hey! I believe in this so much I am paying as much as you can possibly pay for it! You should buy it too!”

I don’t know if one has to go that far, but I appreciate his intentions. If I wouldn’t buy it myself, how could I sell it?

If your people are discounting or offering a lot of comp work, it’s worth asking them, “would you pay this much for our product?”

The first sale is to yourself, even in complex, business-to-business, professional services.

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“I feel sorry for people that don’t drink because when they wake up in the morning, that is the best they’re going to feel all day.”

As the Packers make another deep playoff run, I’m thinking of one thing. Beer. Hinterland beer.

My in-laws gastropub will be where my heart is this weekend, but  my physical manifestation will be dropping the youngest off at school in St. Louis, MO.

Maybe they distribute Hinterland nearby? Only one way to find out.

Cheers to all and Go Pack Go!

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