“OMG!! That’s the eighth time we have had to do that this week!”
“Do what?” said I with confusion in my voice. “Match the price on a leaf blower that my competitor has on sale.” I will never understand why some make pricing the ultimate king in business. All pricing does is enable you to win the race to the bottom. A race no one should be anxious to win.
Businesses have to come to their collective senses. Those who have followed my blog for a while know that it is NEVER about the pricing. It is the value consumers seek. Do you win ALL of the business when pricing rears its ugly head? No, but you can win the majority of them by using creativity and by adding value to your product.
Recently, I was helping out a friend by doing a survey on the trucking industry and found something rather interesting. The reason for gathering the data was to understand why there is such a shortage of truck drivers. What the data showed primarily was that first, there really does not appear to be as large a shortage as people perceive. Secondly, the major reason for any perceived shortage is not due to lack of manpower, yes, this includes women also, but the lack of compensation. It seems that trucking companies are involved in a race to the bottom by continually dropping their prices so they can win the business.
If we follow the prevailing thought that everything that there is can be found cheaper somewhere else in the world, then why would anyone need you to sell them a product or service?
I was working with a client that was upset that there was a brand new competitor in his market offering an alternative to what he sells at a price that would put him out of business if he were to price match. The truth is, if you get into a price war, it becomes a race to the bottom which is a race no one should ever want to win. Therefore, what kind of strategy can one use to battle the price war?
This week, I was witness to a sales ‘train wreck’ that I thought I would never see. Where the ‘value’ of a product was so cheapened as to make me, and I’m sure others, to actually question its true worth. We have seen it all before, but it is generally reserved for late night, or, early morning infomercials and not by what I thought were, but obviously are not, true professionals.