Why a “No Apologies” mentality might work for your business.
Not too long back I had some miscommunication problems with a service provider.
I use the word ‘miscommunication’ rather loosely and euphemistically to be truthful. I’m trying to be positive about it.
If I was being blunt, I would say that they never listened to me. I was never heard. They attempted to make decisions on my behalf, and really, just never got to the point where they understood why I was so annoyed with them. Which leads to my second big issue in our relationship. Assumptions. In order to explain, I’ll need to digress slightly into some background on our company.
I’m an avid student of e-marketing, normal marketing, and any other kind of marketing. I devour article’s books, blogs, LinkedIn discussions and any other type of advice I can lay my hands on. This is a necessity, as a business owner, CEO and entrepreneur, I am the head of the marketing department. I have no formal training or education in marketing, so it’s really up to me and my own discipline to find out how to do things; and then make it work. Sink or swim baby. Sink or swim.
So I know all that stuff about the personal touch, how a handwritten note makes all the difference for example. Or congratulating someone with flowers when an event happens. If you’re a local or small business owner then you are perfectly positioned to know about these events, because you generally know a good portion of your clients personally, and behaving like a human being makes doing business with you a pleasant experience.
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Myth: Your time costs you nothing
Being your own boss is quite something. Challenging. Yup you betcha. Tough. Most Definitely. Tricky? Truckloads of it.
One of the most common, and most dangerous myths to believe, is that your time doesn’t cost you anything. I won’t go into detail where that particular misconception comes from, rather, I am going to take a quick look at why it’s a bad idea to think that way, and how to cost your time properly when your product is you, your skills and your services.
Know thy costs, know thy client
In a previous post, we briefly discussed what pricing on value is, and touched on why you should be pricing on value and not direct cost.
This post will dig down a little more into the 2 things you need to know before you start pricing on value.
The first is your cost of manufacture. It seems a bit counter-intuitive, and quite a few MIS and production software providers will tell you that super accurate costing in your quotes doesn’t matter. That’s because they either can’t do it, or they can’t do it at a price that works for a quick print shop. And you end up thinking - “If I’m selling on value, then I’m going to be way above my costs anyway, so close enough is good enough”
The truth couldn’t be a starker contrast: