Technical Tidbits™

This is a bit off the normal subject matter I usually post but one that I feel needs to be recognized.

We’ve all heard the marketing phrase, “Perception is everything!“  I’ve never had that hit home more so than recently when I was on an on-site tech call with one of my clients.

As a tech, there are times when I have to wait for installations, or updates to finish. That often gives me time to talk to the client, find out what’s going on in their business, and see where I might be of further service.

This particular client has a cake decorating business.  And as I was waiting for an update to finish, the client began to tell me the story of a problem customer she encountered recently.

A woman came into her retail location and ordered a single layer sheet cake and other items for a family party.  My client gave her an estimate of what the cake and other items would be. Several days later, the woman called and changed the cake order from a single sheet cake to a layered sheet cake with filing in the middle and a slight change to the decorating on the top.  She also added more “items” to her order.

When it came time to pick up the cake and her other items, the woman complained because the cost was higher than the estimate. My client promptly explained that not only had she changed the original cake order from a single layer to a filled cake and changed the decorating significantly, but she had added additional items to her order which also increased the cost. There was also the additional cost of sales tax on the final order.

A small disagreement ensued while the woman tried to argue that the estimate included tax and other reasons why she felt she was correct in her assumption that the estimate should have been the final cost.  Long story made short, the woman gave my client a check for the difference.

A few days after this incident, the customers daughter called and said she would come in and replace the check with cash since her mother ordered it on her behalf.  A discussion continued between my client and the daughter about the events leading up to the order and why there was an additional charge.

The daughter proceeded to tell my client that the reason she had her mother order from my client in the first place was because she knew she could get a “good, cheap cake!” Realizing what she said, she promptly changed her wording but it was too late.  My client got the message loud and clear!

My client had started out in this business pricing her cakes in the range of a local major grocery chain in the area. Her feelings were that if customers were given a choice between the grocery chain and her cakes at the same price, they’d soon find that her cakes were far better – although they were priced similarly.  A lot can be said for that logic.

However, the statement that the customers daughter voiced spoke volumes about perceived value in the eyes of the consumer.

Yes, my clients cakes were good and better than the grocery chains.  But her price didn’t speak, “bakery quality” either.

One of the problems we all have in our businesses – whether it’s cakes or technology, coaching or business services – is perceived value for what we are selling.  Pricing yourself too high, can limit your market, but pricing too low puts you into the “good but cheap” category, as my client discovered.

Another problem with pricing yourself into the “good but cheap” category is you attract customers much like this woman and her daughter who expect to get a lot for a little.  Cheap pricing attracts customers who are cheap and they have a different mindset than customers who know the value of what you are offering.

Jennifer Gniadecki of Marketing Curve said it well in one of our previous BlogTalk Radio shows when she spoke about her affordable pricing policy.  To paraphrase, she stated that she knows the value of her time and what it costs her to produce the service they offer.

Being affordable is not being cheap. It’s all about knowing and understanding your market and pricing yourself within the parameters of that market without selling yourself short.

If you are in the market to buy a cake, you know that there is a distinct difference between the one you buy at the major grocery chain bakery  and one you buy in a real bakery. But if the bakery is charging the same as the grocer, what kind of cake are you going to expect? The same as being offered at the grocery chain!

While my clients marketing intentions were good, the “perceived value” of what she was offering was sending a mixed signal.

Are you sending mixed signals to your customers too?

This is a reprint of a recent article under our Business Bits section of the Technical Tidbits™ Newsletter. I was asked by a subscriber to put it online so it can be accessed by non-subscribers.

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I was agonizing over what to write about in this portion of the newsletter when a conference call this morning provided me with the content!

This particular call involved me, a staff member that we call our resident marketing guru, and a gentleman he had connected with that needed some help. As it was explained to me, the man needed my help because he had all this content and was not selling a thing.

The first warning signal I received about this man’s issue was that he had published two books on his area of expertise and refused to sell them on Amazon because they require a commission. I asked if he had sold any on his own, to which he replied, “a few.”

Before I could hit him with the fact that Amazon would be much better at reaching an audience then he could ever hope to reach, he said something that made everything quite clear. He said that much of his accompanying material was not perfected yet and therefore he couldn’t proceed with his sales of the books or his courses until it had been “perfected.”

Now, to back step a moment here, my degree is in Applied Behavioral Science and I/O Psychology (Industrial/Organizational). I took that educational path because it is what corporate trainers do, which was what I wanted to do in my career – train people in technology. Much of what I learned was not only about how people learn, but barriers to learning. Often times, these barriers can be emotional or psycho-social within the person themselves.

For example, I was once hired by Motorola Corporation to personally tutor 1-on-1 an executive assistant in the fine art of using PowerPoint. Within two visits to this young ladies desk, I told Motorola that she was un-trainable. There was nothing wrong with her mind; she was a very bright young woman. What was wrong was she was unwilling to learn. She had a mindset that PowerPoint presentations were beneath her and therefore had no intention of ever learning it. Administrative assistants did PowerPoint presentations – not executive assistants!

That being said, I recognized a pattern in this gentleman on the conference call. So I probed further. The man has literally hundreds of training courses and material available but has not sold a single item. His insistence on the fact that none of the developed materials had been “perfected” and the constant reaffirmation that his content was so unique that it couldn’t be sold the way I was suggesting (online) led me straight to his problem.

So, I asked him if he knew of some very powerful people in his field and I named the names of 5 people I knew carried a lot of weight in his area of expertise. He agreed that he indeed knows of them and that they were fine examples of the field. I then went on to inform him that these 5 people were selling EXACTLY the way I was telling him to sell his material. These people were involved in online marketing, had a website, engaged in social media, and so on.

He reiterated that he could not sell online.

I know many of you reading this are shaking your head because you know how well online marketing and sales works and you know that your business probably lives and dies by it!

But the point I want to make is that this man was not blind to the opportunities technology is offering him, he’s suffering from Perfection Paralysis.

One of the comments he made during the conversation was that he was spending much of his time packaging and shipping his content. (To who, I don’t know because he still said he wasn’t selling anything!) So, I diffused this objection and told him to go check out CafePress.com. They have an excellent print-on-demand program that could free up his time.

But again, objection after objection when our marketing guru pressed him to take one step forward into the online arena, was always the fact that it needed “perfecting.”

I don’t know about you, but I know I’m guilty of that same paralysis in my own business. The newsletter has to be just perfect or I can’t send it. The course has to be just perfect or I can’t post it and sell it. And so on…..

When you get caught in the trap of Perfection Paralysis in your business, there is a tip you can take away from Bill Gates and Microsoft. If Bill Gates and Microsoft waited for the operating systems and products they produce to be perfect, do you think you’d be reading this on a Windows operating system?  Do you think Microsoft would have become such a large corporation?

Now don’t get me wrong! I’m not telling you to plan your business model around Microsoft and issue products that require patch after patch and only works some of the time. That’s not my point.

My point is that sometimes it just has to be GEFN – Good Enough For Now.

And with that closing comment, I’m going to take my own advice and get this newsletter sent!