For all you grammarians out there, please forgive the wordplay in the title, and yes, it bothers me to look at it too. But don’t worry, I’m not going to try to “sale” you anything, and I don’t have anything for “sell.” Cringe. And for those of you who don’t get the pun, I’m not telling you to avoid boats this summer either. Although owning a boat (B-reak O-ut A-nother T-housand) has a reputation for being a very expensive luxury, I want to encourage you to break a habit that could be costing you much more.

Stop discounting yourself when you don’t have to. Especially during the peak times when business is coming easier, stop selling yourself short.

If you’ve been a follower of Hudson,Ink for very long, you know we rarely encourage the super-sale, low price leader mentality. Repeat after me: “I am worth more than a cheap price. I am worth more than a cheap price.”

No, I didn’t switch my job title from marketing coach to guidance counselor, and my main point is not just to tell you, “You’re worth it!” followed by a smiley face emoji. We‘re focusing on improving closing ratios and getting the most profit out of the opportunities you have right now, and it has to start here. The smart contractor has other weapons that can be just as effective in closing a deal before he costs himself money by discounting.

One more thing to repeat: “Customers don’t buy based simply on price.” Until you honestly start to believe that, you’ll be leaving money on the table.

Selling is 90% Psychological

Granted, there are many factors that go into the price you can reasonably ask in a given area. You won’t have much luck selling top of the line systems with no financing in an area with a median household income below $30k. Can’t get blood from a turnip. And, of course, the more work you’ve put into your reputation, image and brand, the more premium price you can demand over the one-truck contractor who just opened. But I also know some strange things happen in the minds of consumers during the buying process. We say we want cheap, but what we really want is smart. We want to find a good deal, call our friends to brag and mount it on the wall like a trophy taken by a great hunter. Buying is about saving money, sure, but we want to feel like we were the ones smart enough to beat the system. Price isn’t the deciding factor in every purchase, or we’d all be doing all our shopping at the dollar store. Selling on price alone introduces a natural skepticism into the minds of your potential customers, and that’s a bad thing.

One of the best business tricks you can ever learn is understanding the conversation your prospect is having in their own head. “How can he offer this tune-up for $15 cheaper than everyone else in town? I know as soon as he gets here, he’s going to try to talk me into something I don’t need. No thanks.” Cheap means strings attached; cheap means it’ll cause me issues later, and even if it really is the deal of the century, you will naturally find a homeowner who is hesitant from the get-go.

Used car dealers started observing this years ago. If a car isn’t selling, they are more likely to go UP in price rather than down. Why? Because once you get below a certain price, our minds start to scream, “Lemon alert!” And even though it might be a steal, it’s going to take a lot of convincing to give us confidence we aren’t being scammed. Remember, the typical consumer has been late night TV’ed so often they believe if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. How do we break down these barriers?

Let Them Feel Like They’re in Control

Robert Cialdini shared a story in his book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion about a clothing business who found a way to take advantage of people’s desire to find a deal, yet avoid their skepticism. There was an old man who sat at the front desk, and when a customer approached the register, he’d say he didn’t have his glasses and couldn’t read the price tag. He’d yell to the back to another employee asking what the price was. The employee in the back would yell the correct price to the front, but he’d act like he heard him say a price that was a good bit lower. When the customer thought they were getting by with something due to the old man’s disabilities, they’d often buy twice as much and run to tell friends about the loophole, while the store was still making a healthy margin. A little shady, yes, but how is that any different than a marked 20% off sale? It’s different because the customer never questioned why the store would want to discount since they didn’t think the merchandise WAS discounted to begin with.

How can you take advantage of something like this? Avoid putting all your cards on the table from the start, and simply play them as necessary. Don’t discredit the benefits of doing business by not making the offering personal. If you’ll let that potential customer feel as though you’re taking care of them in a more special way than their neighbor, they’ll probably return the favor with more business. You might offer 24/7 service, 20% off repairs on systems you install and a whole list of everyday perks, but don’t just run through the list like it’s commonplace and make it seem that level of service is a given with any contractor in town. Quite honestly, most of your customers don’t know all the bullets on your website.

People love feeling like they’re getting something thrown in for free or as though they’re getting preferential treatment. So aim to make it a special experience for them. You’re going to give them all the perks anyway because that’s what you do. There is a mental difference between saying, “Yeah, we offer 24/7 service for everybody…” and saying, “Here’s my card. If you buy a new water heater from me and ever have a problem, just call. I’ll have a tech here day or night.” Your closing ratio will go up if you present a possible replacement like this: “These systems are usually $X, but I think I can get you a discount. Let me make some phone calls and I’ll see what I can do for you,” versus a straight, advertised deal the homeowner knows everyone gets offered. This will also prevent someone from seeing the advertised sale price and asking if you can go even lower. You’re already “doing them a favor” getting to the unadvertised price you just presented them. Do everything you can to give them ways to overcome their own objections. You want their inner dialogue to be, “This is a good deal and I’m being personally taken care of. I can buy with confidence.”

Remember, a homeowner is buying confidence in YOU before they are buying confidence in a product. If you feel like you have to scrape the bottom of the barrel price-wise to get the attention of your market, it cheapens your image and brand sometimes to irreparable levels.

I’ll leave you with this thought. The largest and most successful contractor in town is very rarely the one with the cheapest advertised prices. Why do you think that is?

If you’d like to talk about more sales techniques, best practices or

ways that you can improve your brand setting yourself at a higher price

point, we are here to help. Reach out to us at [email protected] or call (800) 489-9099 to speak with me or one of our other coaches today!