Business
Ugly Apples Selling Cheap Our last episode covered off on apples and oranges, and how they can't be the same price. How is that going to work? Obviously, you can't compare apples with oranges, but this comes down to another big problem, and that's having your price as your identifier. Learn why price should not be your identifier at dorksdelivered.com.au You Can’t Have Price As Your Identifier The moment that you have your price as your identifier, you're comparing yourself with a rotten fruit. Don't compare yourself with a rotten fruit. Think about that analogy for a moment. How is the service that you're giving costing you so much, and the service someone else is giving costing them so much less? If their price is that much cheaper than yours, there's got to be something wrong with it. I buy fruit in wholesale of occasion, and I buy the fruit that's called the nearly dead fruit. It's nearly out of its time, but it's cheap. It's very, very cheap. But I know that I'm buying something very, very cheap. I know when I'm buying that, I'm getting something cheaper. I know that it literally will be probably rotten in a couple of weeks, as opposed to some of the stuff you can get from the fresh produce. I know that I'm getting that, and that has that risk associated with it. Be Fair With Your Product Or Service So I'm not saying be the cheapest and be the most expensive and always charge more. But what I'm saying is make sure that you don't have price as your identifier. If you've made it clear that you've got a B-grade product, and you're charging an A-grade price, you're charging, that's not very fair. If you have a product that sells for $10 and you're charging six, but there's no service and support, that's not very fair. That's when it becomes very, very hard for people trying to compare apples with oranges. Do the Math Work out what the difference is and how someone else is able to do that cheaper, and then you will be able to charge what your product is worth. That's what's important. This fruit would never have ended up at Woollies or Coles because it was not to the level of what Woollies or Coles would sell, so the fruit wholesalers would end up taking this fruit and just throwing it out. They then thought, "Let's make a market for it. Let's say that it's ugly fruit," or whatever they're marketing it as, "and say that it doesn't have the same warranties, but you're also getting it for a ripper of a price." They've removed wastage. They've moved items off of the shelf. They've made their whole business more efficient and more profitable than if they didn't do that, but they made it very clear, and they changed it around. What is Your Example? Price wasn't there identifier. The quality of their food was the identifier. When they changed that, and they said, "You are getting this price because the food isn't as good," no one cares if they get a full box of lemons, and there's two rotten ones down the bottom. They go, "Oh, well, you know, shit happens," verse if you buy a full box of lemons, and you're paying the normal price, the A-grade lemon price, and you buy this box, and at the moment it's about $85 for a full box of A-grade lemons, because I drink a lot of lemon juice, and that's when you buy that, and then you see a couple of rotten ones, you feel like you've been tricked. You feel like you've had someone pull the wool over your eyes, and that's no good. So make sure that you make sure your price is not your identifier. Make sure that when you're comparing apples with oranges, your customers understand the apple that you're selling is different to the orange of your competitors. The Final Word I hope you've enjoyed this, and if you have, make sure to let us know. What do you think about this fruit theme? I don't know what I'm doing with it. It's something fun, something different. I think I'm just feeling a bit fruity. I'd be very interested to know how you guys separate yourself from your competitors. If it's not on price, what are you doing it on? Is it service? Is it on support? Is it on extended warranties? Is it on going the extra level, having a 24-hour call centre in Australia or something like that, like what the Commonwealth Bank has done? What are you doing differently to allow for them to come to you? For our IT support business in Brisbane, we have dedicated account managers. We make sure that we're on top of everything financially, and if something does go wrong with any of your IT systems, we pay you for the downtime and problems that you have by giving you the whole month for free. So that's our difference, and I'd love to hear yours. Stay good.