Howdy pardner,
Remember City Slickers? When Jack Palance told Billy Crystal about the secret of life? “1 thing - you figure that 1 thing out and everything else don’t mean shit.”
Man that’s good.
So what’s your 1 thing?
It’s kind of a hard question to answer isn’t it?
It’s even harder for businesses.
Last week we bought a car for our daughter, and man oh man let me tell you.
Those car salesmen (and maybe women, but we didn’t talk to any women) are hilarious in their belief that car buyers are idiots, suckers, and simpletons.
Why is it that some sales people feel like they need to gain a client’s business by manipulation? Maybe they don’t have a “1 thing”.
But one dealership did. And that 1 thing allowed them to win our business effortlessly.
So here’s what happened in brief:
- We did our research and narrowed our selections down to 2 cars (a Kia and a Honda fyi - very reliable. Very safe for a teen!)
- We sent inquiries via their websites to about 12 dealerships.
- 3 dealerships continued to chat with us via our channel of preference (text message), and gave us pricing. (Now we’re in business, we can start doing some comparisons)
- 1 dealership went further. They sent us the quote on the car over text. We thanked them. But they went on to ask an important (and human) question. “Hey, wait a minute, what are you really looking for?” We told them we liked the car, but we wanted them to remove all the extras they put on the car that inflates the price (like anti-theft protection, added warranties, etc.) They said “we can do that” and sent us a new quote.
- The other 2 dealerships provided quotes, but didn’t ask any questions. They told us we needed to come to the lot to finish the discussion. (Damn, feels like a trap).
Now here was the problem. We narrowed our options to 2 good quotes on the exact same car! And we hadn’t even left our house yet. Yay! But we were gonna have to make some visits to dealerships. Boo!
- Dealer A had already agreed to remove the extras, but the car was slightly more expensive than the other one.
- Dealer B had a lower price, but we hadn’t really talked to anyone about terms. We had to visit to do that.
Looks like we were gonna have to visit 2 dealerships. We started with Dealer B because they had the lower price.
But Dealer B were LIARS!! Lying liars. 😡😤
The real price of the car was almost $4000 more than the quote they gave us over text because of those damn dealer add-ons. And they were unwilling to negotiate!! In other words, it was NEVER GOING TO BE THEIR QUOTED PRICE.
So pissed. Goodbye! Forever!
We headed to Dealer A with fingers crossed they hadn't lied to us too. 🤞
We got there. Sergio said they’d been expecting us and brought the car around. He presented the same quote they gave us over the phone. We bought the car. Easy peasy. Oh, and then the manager called the next day and asked if our daughter liked the car (Because it was a surprise! She wasn’t with us on the lot). And finally, he said that if we knew anyone else who was serious about buying a car, they would love to give them the same great service and would treat them well. Because they are focused on repeat and referral customers.
MIRACLE!
Because of that 1 thing.
I think their 1 thing was “honesty”. They didn’t say it with words. They said it with their actions. There were literally no surprises. They did what they said they would do. Period.
So there’s a few big lessons I take away from this.
- Assume your customers have done their research.
- Ask the next question. What are they really looking for?
- Meet the customer where they are. For us, our channel of preference for the “consideration” phase was text messaging.
- Be transparent in pricing. (More on this one in a minute.)
- Do what you say you’re gonna do.
Now let’s talk pricing. This is a hard one for a lot of us in B2B. And it’s especially hard in consulting. Every engagement is different. But, we’re working on it at Motive3. We’re working hard to standardize some of our offers so we can be super-transparent on pricing. For example, most of our workshops have standardized pricing - $25,000. And our more robust messaging playbook engagements start at $65,000.
But you wouldn’t know that, because we don’t publish it on our site.
Maybe we should.
I follow Chris Walker on LinkedIn and he publishes some of the most thoughtful, honest, transparent posts you’ll find. Here’s what crossed my feed from him just today.
Should we publish our pricing on our website?
The most black & white way to address this at your company - which is exactly what I did in 2017 - was I ran a survey to all the decision makers at our Tier 1 & Tier 2 accounts.
One of the questions was: When buying XYZ technology, what steps in your buying process would you like to accomplish *before* you talk to a Sales representative?
More than 600 total accounts responded.
93% of the respondents said they want to know the price before they talk with a Sales rep.
There it is. Simple. 600 decision makers at target accounts telling you exactly how they want to buy. Are you going to listen to your customers or are you going to be selfish and only think about what you want?
It’s black and white. If you ask your target customers the exact same question, you would get the exact same answer.
If you’re customer-centric, it’s obvious you would publish pricing on your website.
So what do you think? Should we take the plunge? Should you? Let me know. (Just hit reply).
Oh, and did you know there are just about 100 days left in 2023?! 😱Time to get our collective butts in gear and finish this crazy year out strong.
Which brings me to this: We get about 80% of our business through referrals and repeat business here at Motive3. And we’re looking for more business with good people. (We have a very strict no asshole rule). So if you know anyone who needs help clarifying their market positioning, messaging, or storytelling . . . we will treat them with respect and honesty. I mean c’mon. I’m a cowgirl at heart. (My 1 thing is integrity.)
Shout Outs!!
- To Kristan on our team who told me to start following Chris Walker. If you need fractional marketing leadership, she gets it done! And guess what, we’re working on a 90-Day CMO standardized package . . . with standardized pricing.
- To our client Halbert Hargrove who just snagged #8 on the CNBC Top 100 Financial Advisors in the country! Woot! (Plus, we’re working on an awesome new campaign for them. Super excited. Stay tuned. If you need an HONEST and ETHICAL financial advisor, ping me and I’ll give you a personal introduction).
- To our client Circle Prosco who just had an incredible time at FabTech where they got all sorts of traction on Paint Line University that we helped them cook up. When you’ve got big big big manufacturers coming up to you at a trade show saying “we need this” you know you’re onto something.
- And of course to Car Pros Kia who dealt with us honestly and won our business. In fact, we’re so thrilled with our daughter’s new Kia K5 GT-Line (it’s a seriously sexy car and loaded with safety features) we’re considering replacing our Tesla with one of these.
Thanks for reading to the end! Happy humpday.
Ginger 🤠
