If you read my content, you may know how I like to talk about all of the pricing mistakes I did years ago. Which could sound like that was all in the past. Well, the good news is, I made a fresh one, recently. The bad news is it’s not only serious, it’s also impolite.
You know that iconic scene from “Pretty Woman” when Julia Robert’s character returns to the retail assistants who refused to wait on her, shows them the expensive purchases she made in another shop, and asks them if they work on commission? Well, her very next words in that scene were “Big mistake. Big. Huge.” Yeah, that.
While pure dumb luck managed to shield me from being faced with the same consequences as the clerks in the movie, I in fact did do the exact same mistake they did: I assumed that a potential client couldn’t afford my services. At loud, in front of her, and also, wrongly. Her next words were “Is cash ok”?
As Alan Weiss says, in our context money and time are priorities, not resources. They are there, but the question is how they will be allocated.
So now let me make this clear: it’s never a good idea to talk like you are sure that a client can’t afford the time or money needed for your services. Even if all the clues point in that direction and you strongly suspect that’s true. If it is true, they will be sure to tell you that themselves.
I made that big mistake, but now you can skip it.