Posts Tagged ‘win’

Last week I was having a conversation in the business mentoring group that I attend, and I was asked how much I was willing to pay for future events. I won’t tell you the actual figure, it’s irrelevant. What is important is the conversation that followed with my wife, and a few friends about the amount I said I was happy to pay. All thought I was mad – it was way too much. After all, their logic was that with 5 or 6 people attending and all paying that same amount, if it was projected forward for a whole day, it would come to over £2000 pounds.

Which bring me onto the difference between the cost and the value of things. I could see their point from one side – would I pay somebody £2000 a day for business advice – most likely not. Is anybody really worth £2000 a day? But, my logic was that for the couple of hours each month, I get to sit down, talk about my business and how I can move it forward, and get feedback. And its not £2000 a day because we are only there for 2 hours, and we are not paying for the whole day – just the 2 hour portion (its only £2000 if you project it forward to 8 hours and therefore multiply it up). Plus, and this is the big factor for me, I can pinpoint some advice that I received in previous mentoring sessions which directly lead to sales worth tens of thousands of pounds.

So let me ask you dear reader, if I was to say to you that for a fee I could get you tens of thousands of pounds of revenue – what would that be worth to you? If you are honest – what would you pay?!? And that is my argument.

This is the difference between the cost, and the value. Things may look very expensive, but when you work out what they save, what they generate, or how much use you get from them, are they really that expensive?!? And there may be cheaper options out there, but would I get the same value, the same results?!?

Which is why some salesman do really well – they are the ones that when presenting a proposal which is in the enterprise/luxury side of the price scale, they can sell the value, compared to the cost.

It’s also why we don’t all fly Ryanair or Easyjet.

There was no entry on this blog yesterday as I had a pretty full day.  But yesterday was a good day.  Actually, scrub that.  Yesterday was a great day.  A fabulous day.

Part of this fabulous day was down to a customer agreeing to more work (based on a recommendations report I had created).   There was no budget for the work, and management were not so keen to do more work as my company had already delivered was what they wanted.  However, luckily for me, I had two team managers in this company who took it upon themselves to champion my recommendations, and to sell my services to full fill the extra requirements to their manager.   With such a persuasive show of demand, the budget holder somehow managed to move budget around, and a fresh new order for the extra work was in my hand. 

Whenever such events occur (and I love the times when I don’t have to do any selling, but the company sells my services to themselves), I like to show my appreciation to the people that made it happen.   I know from when I had a day job, that whenever the boss or supplier said “thank you” it was good, but when they showed their appreciation with a small gift or gesture, it said a lot more.   So as a way of saying thank you to the customer, I bought the whole department some mixed cakes to share, and for the 3 people who made it happen (the two line managers and the budget holder), they got extra special cakes all to themselves – with a word of thanks for their trust and support.

It may sound old fashioned or unimaginative, but having secured a few thousand pounds worth of extra work, a small treat is deserved and will be appreciated and welcomed.  Most importantly, it will be remembered.  I like to offer such rewards not only to those people that give me work, but other contractors who provide me with good service, and anybody else who moves me and my company forward.

But I also treated myself (my treat was a packet of Jam Cream sandwich biscuits (which I love)) as a way to remind myself (or my sub-conscious self) that I did a good job to up sell my services in the first place.