Do you offer discounts on your products or services? We don’t. Never have…well actually that’s not true, I did once, for our first customer – and then never again.
Why? I have 3 reasons:
1 – My background is cruising, I worked as an account manager/business development executive for several years (and loved it!). The travel industry has, for as long as I can remember, a marketplace that has discounts as a core promotional strategy. It’s almost expected that you can secure a lower price or extra perks etc if you try.
Onboard, everyone gets chatting and I swear almost the second time anyone said to each other, after ‘Hi, it’s nice to meet you’, was ‘How much did you pay?’
I knew I didn’t want that. It’s so much simpler to know that everyone pays the same for what they get. No special favours, no do-it-for-one but not another. If we make any kind of decision around pricing changes to the product such as our recent roll-over of hours decision, it’s always for all our members, no matter what level of membership they are on, with no exceptions. Equality is a core value at Collabor8te.
2 – We didn’t build our prices to be discounted. Our rates are calculated and based on our costs plus a margin. Not the energy companies’ hyper-enormous type profits, just a reasonable recompense for all the risks and work that comes with running a business, particularly a bricks and mortar business.
It’s a model that works for some industries for sure, with the buy one, get one free type of offices or the new customer gets a % off their first order and I’m right there if I think I’m getting a bargain. We’re not though, it’s been built into the business model, or that business wouldn’t last for very long. For most businesses, it’s customer longevity which counts the most.
3 – Life is so much SIMPLER! I never have to remember, did I give a 10% discount to that business, or some unusual deal to another. I just don’t have the brainpower to cope with that 🙂
Do you discount your services? I’m sure it works for many so I’m keen to hear what others do and why. Or do you agree and never discount?
