When you’re selling, you want to close the deal quickly. But when you’re buying, you want to make sure you’re doing what’s right for you, which can be particularly hard if you don’t have a lot of expertise in the … Read More
psychology
Will the end of the movie business end your business?
In my last post, I made the seemingly preposterous claim that every business is a media business. Some people agreed, some people disagreed, but the hypothesis definitely caught people’s attention. So, it might be worth asking, what’s happening with the … Read More
Before you do your 2017 strategic planning…
It’s almost that time of the year again, when people start 2017 strategic planning. Before you do, look at this chart, from WaitButWhy.com. Each row is a year and each box is a week. While planning for next year … Read More
“Raise Prices” Marc Andreessen says you should
Silicon Valley legend Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) was on Tim Ferriss’s (@TimFerriss) podcast recently, and Tim always asks his guests what they would put on a billboard. Marc said two words: “I’ve got one, I’ve actually thought about hiring a skywriter to … Read More
12 Secrets of Successful Sales Conversations
You’ve finally got a meeting scheduled with your prospect. (If you missed them, you might want to read about how to get more people to convert on your site, and when to call them to get an initial conversation.) I … Read More
Price Competition How to Avoid It and How to Win It
Price competition can seem scary, but many of the wounds are self-inflicted. While that sounds discouraging, it’s actually good, because it means you can take control of them, avoid them, and win deals at better price points. Pricing is the … Read More
Economic Theory vs Human Nature III: 3 Sales Tips
In earlier posts in this series, we looked at why human nature causes you to underprice your proposals and favor sins of omission over sins of commission, even against our own economic interests. Now we’ll look at some strategies for … Read More
Sell More by Selling Less
You walk into the doctor’s office with a cut on your hand. You think you need some stitches and perhaps some antibiotics, but you’re not sure. The doctor says, “great to see you. Looks like you could use a heart … Read More
Selling a Commodity for a Premium Price
How can you charge more for a commodity? Here’s one of my favorite examples. 24 ounces of ketchup at $0.07/oz. Turn that idea on its head. 32 ounces at $0.079/oz. The price per unit goes up almost 13%. Not bad … Read More
Real vs. Perceived Value
If your maximum price is determined by the perceived differential value of your offering, how do you know what value customers perceive. Many of them won’t tell you, especially if they think you’ll use that information to jack up the … Read More