Julie Steelman
Sales & Business Bankability Mentor - CEO, SellebrateKAILUA KONA, HI
http://www.JulieSteelman.com
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I heard a story about a woman who worked at the jewelry counter at Macy’s. She had nabbed a guy who was trying to purchase thousands of dollars of merchandise with a stolen credit card. When the police asked her what had tipped her off, she said,
“He didn’t have a coupon. No one ever buys anything here without a coupon.”
It made me wonder: How many entrepreneurs are doing what Macy’s does?
Training your customers to never pay full price.
You are if you always find yourself in a cash crunch, slashing prices to generate a cash quickie. What you’re doing is training your customers to WAIT for your desperation.
If you always use this tactic to generate fast sales, you will become known for it. Your customers – and even you – will know that when you say something costs X but you can have it for Y, you never had any intention of selling it at the higher price.
Unbeknownst to you, you are training your customers to always wait for the better deal. And after a while, they will start to lose respect for your "make money by price slashing" strategy.
Even worse, you start believing you cannot get paid what you want because you train yourself you can only earn money when you create a special offer!
Customers want to know that you believe in your prices. Ever notice how some stores almost never have sales? And if and when they do, the sale is for 10% off?
Fast and deep-discount sales are not profitable or bankable practices because they preclude you from creating a sustainable and reliable cash flow.
I don’t want to scare you, but if you do this year after year, you cannot and will not get ahead. You will see massive sales slumps. You will burn yourself out. And you will risk going out of business. Not to mention never achieve Bankability!
Your panic will also wear out your customers. They get tired of responding to your panic cry. They get tired of the pressure to pay a lower price. They will still like you, but respect for you as a business owner will erode. And they will lose interest because they are not sure they can trust you to stick to what you say.
You become the boy who cried “wolf.” Except you’re the entrepreneur who cried “sale, time is running out.”
Feel free to post your comments so we can all learn from each other.
