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Re: Over-pricing?
Listen up. This is the way to avoid this and still keep yourself in business.
In marketing classes, you will learn that the correct price is the price
agreed upon between buyer and seller. Period. You may want to have standard
pricing for your signs to simulate the costs in a customer-intuitive way,
which includes most of your cost variables and still looks intelligible to
customers. But for service, your customers come in different shapes and
sizes. I help out the little guy as much as I can. I have standard pricing
for repairs but often do not apply them the same way. I never gouge a little
guy. I do not gouge anyone, actually. I use some prudence in pricing, but my
goal is to get as much as I can from every job. The big chain locations that
want immediate and reliable, good quality service, can get this but they can
pay for it and are glad to do so. This makes up for the frequent times I do
jobs for a little guy for less. Many little guys can't even afford my lowest
prices and scoff when I tell them that they are getting a good deal, but they
can't be helped at any time anyway. Some people are just broke and will never
do anything, so you don't lose a sale, you just move on. I have a lot of
trouble here with Indian customers (like from India), although I hate to
express this seemingly bigoted thought. This isn't bigotry, it's simply my
inability to do any business with them whatsoever because of cultural
differences. I like them as people, just not as customers. Whenever I quote
them a ridiculously low price for my services, they get brusque after having
wasted a lot of my time and dismiss me if I don't give them another
ridiculously large discount. No matter how ridiculously low I quote them,
they are always dissatisfied with the price and want a lower price. They
really have no idea what a good price is, they just take whatever I say and
ask for less. I have given up doing business with them as customers since I
never have had a single good result. I can do business with Chinese, Iranian,
Mexican, Korean, anyone, but I do not let the Indians waste my time any more,
sad to say. You have to just judge them case by case, that is the point.
Just get used to the fact that there are going to be customers you can't help
no matter what you do, and do not cry over spilled milk. Charge the highest
price you think you can get for your services. No authority exists that can
make this decision of price for you, and you are free to make as much as you
can. You have to charge high for some that can afford it in order to make up
for the losses the rest of the time. And we all know that the customer has no
idea of the time and effort we have to spend to fix their signs when we are
in our shops, and we will never be able to explain it to them.
Jeff