(Expansion) – Inevitably, any entrepreneur ends up finding himself at a classic crossroads: raise prices and lose customers or attract customers at the expense of lowering prices. However, the above is a false dilemma.
To a large extent because it is based on three erroneous ideas: 1) that any client is good; 2) that costs can always be sacrificed in order to offer a better price and 3) that providing a service necessarily implies solving a problem.
The above at the end of the day leads entrepreneurs to feel that undertaking is almost an ordeal. Either because customers will never be satisfied, because the company must always be at its best to be profitable, or because the competition is so rapacious that the entrepreneur must keep in check to retain consumers.
But the truth is that a company can get the clients it deserves, working less, and making everyone (entrepreneur and clients) happy. In short, you can increase your sales by raising your prices. However, to achieve this, it is necessary to rethink different aspects of a business so that it reaches that ideal balance point; more importantly, meeting all the expectations of your consumers.
“Breaking mothers”
Talking about a business meeting as a pitch implies that someone is either going to hit or strike out. Like it’s a zero sum game. The reality of a presentation of products and services is much more complex than that and requires starting from a principle that entrepreneurs often forget: knowing their customers thoroughly, but from a clear idea of what types of customers are looking for and willing to accept.
If a company does not clearly define its buyer persona , it will end up catching everything that falls and, consequently, accepting prices and terms that are not convenient for it. As they say in Mexico, it will end up “breaking the mother” constantly. Working to work, and piecework all the products and services you can at the lowest cost.
The opposite, as it is also said colloquially, is “break mothers”. That is to say, do everything spectacularly, but for the few clients that you really want to keep in your portfolio.
The key is trust
The key to achieving this, however, does involve work, but well spent and well managed. As they say in Anglo-Saxon countries, “Working smarter, not harder”. To stop working hard, you need to develop more skills that pay off in higher prices that even the most demanding customer is willing to pay.
Constantly sharpening everything that can be done about the operation of the company gives greater confidence in what can be offered. Those who do not trust their solutions are reduced to not being able to raise the prices of their products and services. And boy, those abound in any market and industry.
To increase sales by raising prices, an entrepreneur must trust fully, absolutely in the results that he can offer and that is achieved by trusting in his abilities.
A problem worth solving
Not all products and services truly solve a problem. Or, rather, not all of them address a problem that is, in fact, worth solving. Depending on the size of the problem, it may or may not be worth a service to take care of it.
That is where an entrepreneur can really increase their sales by raising prices and without having to work more: when comprehensive, specific strategies are offered, with human resources of the highest quality. In short: solve problems instead of providing services.
Of course, the path is not easy and every company is guilty of becoming cheaper in times of learning curves or crisis. The important thing is that this does not become a permanent state of mind or disposition. Work must be done to consolidate the trust necessary to solve major problems, without working to the point of exhaustion and getting paid exactly what you deserve for doing so.
Editor’s Note: José Sevilla is Happy’s Director of Innovation. Follow him on . The opinions published in this column belong exclusively to the author.
