We've discussed this point before - that you and I tend to have more problems with price than our customers do.
Nowhere was that last point more apparent than in a programme done for a Mini-lab company - the people who own and operate 1 hour photo processing labs.
During the programme these mini-lab owners and managers were asked what they charged to process and print a roll of 36 exposures. To my absolute amazement, the range was from £8.95 to £19.95.
I was stunned. I asked one man who was pricing it at £11.95 why that was his price. “It's all the market can bear”, he said. Yet his competitor who was in the room was pricing his happily at £16.95.
But then I got the real surprise. The man who was charging £19.95 was from a city in the Midlands. As he put it, “they have the highest level of unemployment in the country and I can successfully charge £19.95.”
And then the man who was charging £8.95 took him to task. “I bet you have people who come in and ask you what your prices are”, he said somewhat aggressively.
“Yes I do.”
“And I bet some people walk out.”
“About two in every hundred,” said the man from the Midlands.
“Told you so, told you so,” said the £8.95 man. (Mind you, I don't know why he thought he'd won that point.) And then the man from Midlands hit him with a classic.
“Yes, but what you don't know is this - I send those people over the road to a £8.95 shop.”
At this the £8.95 man jumped with glee “told you so - told you so.”
Then, preceded by a lovely pause, the man from Midlands said, “But what you really don't know is this - I own the £8.95 store as well.”
He went on to say that his “rollage” (that's the way they measure volume in mini-labs) was 3 times as much in his £19.95 store. Makes you think, doesn't it?
As specialists in business development too, we can help you build yourself a better business. So give us a call. We can start off simply with a planning session before deciding to go on. That way you are under no pressure, and the choice to go forward is totally under your control. And remember what we said about our guarantee.
