Dri­ving home the oth­er day I passed a van for a glazier and proud­ly plas­tered all over the side and back of his van was the phrase “Why pay more?”

And it got me thinking.…of plen­ty of rea­sons to pay more. Qual­i­ty, deliv­ery time, a guar­an­tee to name but a few.

Imag­ine if you had two com­pet­ing quotes and one glazier offered you a slight­ly low­er price and the oth­er was a bit more expen­sive BUT they guar­an­teed that they would be on time so you don’t have to take a day off work only for them not to show up (and if they were late then you would get a reduc­tion in your bill). They also guar­an­tee that they will arrive with a smile, be clean and tidy leav­ing your house as they left it AND they will guar­an­tee their repair / work for a year. I don’t know about you but I would pay more for that kind of ser­vice and guar­an­tees.

As well as result­ing in you work­ing hard­er rather than smarter, a dis­count­ed price can also have a neg­a­tive impact on your brand — if you don’t val­ue your ser­vices why should any­one else. Just look at Stel­la Artois’ old brand­ing “Reas­sur­ing­ly expen­sive” to see the oppo­site impact on valu­ing your prod­uct can have on per­ceived qual­i­ty.

The prob­lem with mak­ing price your only dif­fer­en­tia­tor is that there will always be some­one who can do it cheap­er. But the real ques­tion should be can they do it bet­ter? Have you reviewed your pric­ing late­ly?

http://www.russell-russell.co.uk/blog/you-re-fired