An old legal assistant of mine shared with me the old saw of “buy cheap, pay twice.” My father-in-law introduced me to “jumping over dollars to pick up dimes.” Then there’s “penny-wise and pound foolish.” What are they all saying? Know the difference between cheap and valuable. Your hard-earned money is literally a part of you, your time, and our effort. Don’t sell yourself short.
What Does Value Mean?
GUEST COLUMN by Scott Plum
I hear the word ‘value’ being volleyed back and forth between professionals and prospects and wonder what each other thinks it means. Often prospects say they want value when making a purchasing decision, but seek the lowest price. A good questions to ask your prospect is, “Are you look for the lowest price or the best value?” They may have a puzzled look before responding, which is the start of a great conversation.
Ok, I agree, they may say, “both.” That’s great! Why? Because it give you a chance to define value for them.
Value is defined by cost minus price equals value (C-P=V). The cost includes risk and consequences of your prospect, potential client or customer doing nothing, which is your biggest competition. A good example of this is not having life insurance when the bread winner of a family with 4 children dies unexpectedly or picking an incompetent patent attorney on a multimillion dollar product. The costs translated into impact – the personal impact – will be compared to your price. The difference is value.
The biggest challenge professionals have in justifying value is not taking the time to build trust and rapport with their potential client, first, before asking the hard-hitting, deep impact, personal questions that help a prospect discover and uncover the consequences of not hiring you or buying from you.
Consequences have a greater impact in making decisions than benefits. So often we think people make decisions on benefits. Consequences are emotional. Think about the biggest decisions you’ve made in your life. Where they preceded by frustration. That’s emotional.
For more information, please contact Scott Plum,