PDA

View Full Version : dont lower your prices



huggytree
04-30-2013, 01:54 PM
had another customer try to get my prices down yesterday.....he called in the morn. and got a quote from me, then got a few competitor quotes and called me back

'i got a few quotes for $50-75 less.....ill give YOU the job is you lower your price to match them'....my reply 'my prices are fair and i never lower them'

his response ' well i want you, my neighbor used you a month ago and i guess ill pay full price'

100% of the time when i hold my prices i win....this guy is calling ME back for a reason

i know tons of guys who drop their prices when this stuff happens......


if you guys do this sort of thing----dont!!!

Freelancier
04-30-2013, 02:13 PM
Pricing is part of your marketing message. When you devalue your pricing, you're devaluing your business in the eyes of the customer. Offering a limited time discount to all new customers is not the same as cutting your pricing, though, because you can use it to get customers in the door and rely on repeat business at full price.

MyITGuy
04-30-2013, 02:45 PM
had another customer try to get my prices down yesterday.....he called in the morn. and got a quote from me, then got a few competitor quotes and called me back

'i got a few quotes for $50-75 less.....ill give YOU the job is you lower your price to match them'....my reply 'my prices are fair and i never lower them'

his response ' well i want you, my neighbor used you a month ago and i guess ill pay full price'

100% of the time when i hold my prices i win....this guy is calling ME back for a reason

i know tons of guys who drop their prices when this stuff happens......


if you guys do this sort of thing----dont!!!

Agreed - But only as long as you can differentiate your service from the other providers.

Sometimes I get people who are shocked to hear my hourly rate for computer repair...but they don't understand that my experience likely means I can get the job done in a 1/4 of the time as those other people who charge less.

Then other times I get a client like the one I have today that tells me to continue to bill them even if I'm sitting around doing nothing during their committed time (They booked me for Thursday and Friday all day, and Monday for half a day to install 5 VoIP phones)

billbenson
04-30-2013, 05:13 PM
In my case it depends on who the customer is. If its a consumer sale, it would be very rare that I would discount. If it GE with a 50k PO I discount. If it is a reseller buying my stuff to resell it, he has to be able to make money. I discount it enough so he can win his bid as long as I can make a decent amount of money.

It's not the sort of thing you can make a blanket statement about.

Tal210
04-30-2013, 07:46 PM
I have the exact experience with the poster. I can not remember a time in the past couple of years that when the client asked me to lower my prices and I didn't I lost the project. Just say no! It is very difficult to compete only (or predominately) on price. It is also difficult to be successful when you are trying to be the Walmart of your niche.

broudie
05-01-2013, 10:13 AM
It really depends. If this is results in a continual loss of revenue (for example, permanently lowered the cost of pool cleaning), definitely a bad idea.

But if it's a one-off, for example a sale for a durable good. It may make sense just to get inventory off your hands.

Wozcreative
05-01-2013, 01:47 PM
This reminds me of a funny questions I had the other day. I gave a client a quote for a website, she came back and said ok thanks, does the quote change if I want to design and build a second website? What are these guys sniffing?

patrickprecisione
05-01-2013, 03:32 PM
100% of the time when i hold my prices i win....this guy is calling ME back for a reason

Great story, thanks for sharing!

We occasionally will lower our prices, or perhaps we'll toss in free shipping, but nothing too drastic. We had a guy recently who we gave a quote to, so he called us back and said "this guy's giving it to me for lower, can you beat it?". We told him that our prices are fair, etc. etc.

He calls back 30 minutes later and says that he decided to go with us. Although I think in that particular instance, it has less to do with our reputation and it was more that he was trying to pull a fast one on us.

huggytree
05-02-2013, 06:55 PM
the only time I ever lowered my prices was on a $40k plumbing project(7 bath new house)

I only lowered it because it was such a large project and also it was November and was about to get slow

they were the worst customers....the builder was also horrible (I never did a job w/him again)....the job was over 1 hour away and they had me doing 1-2 hour projects instead of a 8 hour day.....I most likely broke even and just made my wages (no profit)

would I do that one again?...depends on how slow my winter looks...better to work for wages and make $15k than sit at home

broudie
05-02-2013, 08:42 PM
the only time I ever lowered my prices was on a $40k plumbing project(7 bath new house)

I only lowered it because it was such a large project and also it was November and was about to get slow

they were the worst customers....the builder was also horrible (I never did a job w/him again)....the job was over 1 hour away and they had me doing 1-2 hour projects instead of a 8 hour day.....I most likely broke even and just made my wages (no profit)

would I do that one again?...depends on how slow my winter looks...better to work for wages and make $15k than sit at home

What does "made my wages" mean? Like paying yourself if you were the actual plumber (and not the business owner)?