Why You Shouldn't Drop Your Prices (and What to Do Instead)

Hello and welcome. My name is Tavishima Aede. I'm the host of the podcast that I'm making today's recording at home. So there will be noise in the background today on the podcast. But when you'll be looking at should pricing be an issue when you sell complex products or services? Again, the question for today, should pricing be an issue when you sell complex products or services? Now, the reason why we're tackling this question today is obvious.

I'm coaching a bunch of people and they keep on saying I've told my Olga the price, the price, the price. So I hear that a lot. And my answer has always been that, look, we're sales people, Let's forget this whole thing about price. The price has already been fixed. The price is beyond our control. And the truth of the matter is, if there are other people that are selling this product or this service at this price, then it means there is a way.

So let's just be coming down and let's figure out how we can sell this thing instead of saying the price, the price, the price. Apart from that, I found a natural practice that even when the ogre or Madame reduces the price, guess what happens? The next complaint is still people are complaining about the price. There's a client of mine currently coaching their staff again and it's something that they went through last year,

sorry, the year before people complained the price, the price, the price. Our guy said, OK, no problem, let's go and look for a cater of products that we can sell within the same range but a lower price. And they went ahead and they did that. And guess what the main complaint was? The price, the price, the price. So this thing is never going to go away. Salespeople, I'm telling you now, you will always meet someone who will say you are too expensive.

Even if you know that you're the cheapest in the market, people will still complain about the price. This price thing is never going to run away. So that's why we're looking at the question, should we be saying that price is an issue when we sell complex products or services? Oh, by the way, if you'd love to connect, you can call, you can SMS or WhatsApp me on 08064662140. So like I've mentioned today on the podcast, we're looking at whether pricing is an issue when we sell accomplished products or services.

And the reason why we're tackling that today is because lots of people assume that pricing is a problem. The salespeople assume pricing is a problem, and lots of business owners assume that pricing is a problem. Now, there are times when your price is genuinely too expensive, but that's a separate podcast episode. But lots of times the price, it's not really the issue, but it's also an interesting dynamic. When people assume that price is the problem, what do they want to do?

They want to reduce price. And this creates A downward pressure in this particular sales situation that you're in. Because let's face it, the average person wants to do business in Niger is talking to two or three vendors, two or three service providers and the person has three quotes. So you're quoting 15, the other people are quoting 14, Somebody's quoting 1/3. The person tells you, yeah, but I have this quote for 1/3.

So what do you do? You try and drop it to 1/3. The other person drops it to 213. Maybe one person tries to be ambitious and they drop it to 1250. And what do you think the client is going to do? Potential client is going to go and I say I found another quote for 1250. So you see how it works. You're now creating downward pressure on price. You've now engaged with the price war that you don't know about. And truth of matter is that nobody wins this price war,

nobody because the person who drops margin to the least price to the least, the person is reducing their margins. You are eroding your profits. Business is really hard enough as it is. And let's be honest, how much are you making on one product per one that you're selling? So the margins are tight enough, you're already dropping the profit, the margins even more. Nobody wins in a price war. Nobody. So no point starting it, no point taking part in it.

And see, this is even the funniest thing about price wars. When you get into a price war and you drop your margin, you now have to sell harder. At the end of the day, you need to get more customers to make a living. In fact, those one particular case study, I can't remember because I heard it on a podcast, but the consultant I was working with them, the guy did the math for them. The guy brought a board for them, things on YouTube I should try and remember, and the guy calculated everything.

So, OK, look, all of you are salespeople happy I say yes. So all of you, if all of you decide that let's give these people 5% discount, what will happen? They couldn't answer. So the guy did the math. He did it 5% discount each person. To make up for that 5% discount, each person now had to sell 33% more. Hope you guys hear what I'm saying. Each person now had to sell 33% more to make their quota. Sorry, not to make their quota.

Asking to make the level of Commission that is OK for them. So in other words, in your head you already calculated a certain amount of money that is good for you, that is good for house rent, that is good for school fees, that is good for Internet, that is good for every everything you need. You have that amount comfortable in your head. To reach that amount, you have to call a certain number of customers. So if that amount is, let's say one M is that amount and on each customer you're getting 100K

profits. It is all simple mathematics that you need to sell 10 people and once you sell that 10 you have one M in your pocket. You now know that. OK, this month is settled. I'm worried about next month or next quarter. No, let's say next month there's nobody that can spend 1,000,000 in 1/4. It's as unrealistic. Cost of living is too high. SO1M for this month I'm sorted. By the time you start discounting everybody 55 percent, 10%, you're moving 10K

on each person. You're only collecting 90K per head. You now have to sell some extra people to now meet up with that one M that you need at the end of the day. So that's the funniest thing, that by dropping the price now, you're increasing your work in the future. You're giving yourself future headache, serious headache. Because sales is hard. Selling 10 people was hard enough as it is by dropping the thing, the price.

Now see, I'm not good at math, so I can't do it, You know, I don't know what The thing is, but by dropping it, collecting 1990K, you don't have to sell some extra people to meet up without one M Selling 10 people was hard, and you're doing the thing that will now give you extra heads that you need to sell so that you can make up on the margin that you've lost people. I'm not explaining this incorrectly, but the example that I saw because Alton did it on this case on the whiteboard is very, very simple.

OK, Well, not simple because we need to know some math. I mean, I don't know math. When I saw it, everything really expanded my eyes. I say what? I give somebody 5% discount. Because of that, I need to sell 33% more. In other words, if before selling 100 people would have gotten me to my goal, I would now have to sell 120 something people or 130 something people to not meet up with my goal. That's some serious headache by giving yourself.

So honestly on this price thing, nobody wins. So for those of you who are responsible for selling the price is the price, just leave it. Is somebody selling at that price? 1 moment. OK, I'm back. Sorry about that. We've been having some really wonderful weather in Abuja. It's been raining almost every day for the last week or so, and the rain has started again, so I needed to go close the windows. All right, so where was I?

OK, now I was in the middle of explaining how when you drop the price because you think you're trying to close this deal, now, you don't realize that you're giving yourself extra headache for the future because you already have a target for the week, for the month, for the year. And that target demands that you talk to a certain number of people. When you reduce the amount that you're collecting per head, you are increasing the number of people that you have to sell.

So selling is hard, but they put it this way. If you had a choice, as I mean you are capable enough to sell four people at 250K each to get one M or to sell 1,000,000 people at one naira each to get one M, which would you prefer? Let me repeat, four people at 250K each to get one M, the other one sell 1,000,000 people one naira each so you can get one M. That is the kind of basic I'm talking about that you are putting yourself in that you don't realize you're giving yourself extra work.

So selling is hard, you might as well go through the trouble of selling to four people and make your quota than to sell multiple number of people to make your quota at the end of the day, well profit margin. And if they move on from this, because I know that somebody who is good at mathematics with having a look guy, your numbers are wrong. So yes, even if my numbers are wrong in principle, what I'm saying is correct.

By reducing the price, you are increasing the amount of work that you have to do in the future. Now let's see, OK, so is price the only factor that we can tweak now when we're trying to close a deal or we're trying to make a sale? Because you're talking to someone, it looks like this thing is neck and neck. You know, if it be you might be you, it might be somebody else. And say, you know what, if you pay now, I give you 5% discount,

is price the only thing that you can tweak, the only thing you can drop, the only thing you can adjust, the only thing you can make concessions on, the only thing you can push forward. Is it only price? The answer is a capital NO. But before we go into some definitions, let's talk about what complex sales are first of all, so that those of us who are listening will now know whether we fall into this complex sale or not.

So what is a complex sale? The complex sale is when your product or your service has any one of the following, what will I say? Features or characteristics, so #1 what you're selling is complex. Complex just means the things has many parts. Your solution or your service has many parts. That's what makes it complex. So selling a Gucci, like I'd like to say on the podcast is simple because how many parts are there to a Gucci?

Not that many. Everybody knows what a Gucci is. Number 1, you can see it on sight #2 the thing has to be fresh. If you see it and the thing has some black, black color in it, it means that The thing is no longer fresh. It's not going bad. Then what else? So you can see just two features. It has to look right. The thing has to be fresh. If it is, and let's not pricing, you see, it's not complex, but it's sending a car.

On the other hand, now that's complex because there are many moving parts you have to consider. Is it Toyota? Is it Corolla? So is it Toyota? Is it Mercedes-Benz? Is it Mazda? Which year was it? Is it fairly used? Abby is brand new for the fairly use, is it fairly use UK or fairly use America or is it fairly use Niger? You can say the number of things that we're beginning to consider, many and many and many. So considering some things like commodities, Agusi, Gary Groundnut, it's relatively simple.

Buying a car, you can see it's getting more and more complex because one has the number of things you have to consider and the number of moving parts that put together to make this thing a deal. The number of moving parts are more. So is this simple or is it complex? The more parts you have, the more complex your thing is, the closer you are to being in the complex sale. The next we have to consider the price. Typically complex sales turn out to be more expensive.

So agusi doesn't cost much. OK, well agusi it does cost much, you know, because of hyper inflation. But relatively speaking agusi doesn't cost that much. Meat doesn't. OK, well meat cost that much is 7 five per kilo, but you get the point relatively speaking. But then the car on the other hand, it's been a while since I asked. The last time I asked, I heard that if I was going to get my own current version of the car that I use now and it's second hand was to buy it in the market that half dropped between 11 and 14 M So you can see the price goes up.

So real estate houses, expensive, What else? So you can see as the price is going up and up and up, the more complex things are getting. Then relationships. There are some relationships, there are some industries that relationships are required to close the sale. If you're in one of those industries where relationships are really important, then you are in a complex relationship. So real estate, for instance, yeah, there's some complexity involved because people don't just walk up to strangers and then just give them money like that.

People like to get to know each other, do some research, you know, things like that. Establish one or two relationships before you drop money. So relationships are important to closing the deal in real estate. Relationships are not that important to closing the deal. If you go to the market and you want to buy. So yeah, or you want to buy a Gucci or you want to buy beans. So the more relationships are required, the more the complex.

The scenario that you are is another reason why relationships are required in complex hill scenarios, because it's a form of risk mitigation. Like I said in the real estate thing, I want to know this person, what kind of person is this? Is he a correct person? Does it sound shady? Does it sound shifty? So it's a form of risk mitigation. Building relationships. You're trying to size people up before you drop money. Trust becomes an issue and then also competency becomes an issue.

They're trying to feel people out. Are they competent? Are they credible? Does it look like they can do what they say they're going to do? Does it sound like they can do what they say they're going to do? Do they have a history of doing those sorts of things? These are the kind of things that people try and source out when they're in relationships in a complex sale. Then sales cycle, complex sales cycles, sorry, complex sales scenarios usually have long sales cycles.

The sales cycle just mean the time between when you say hello, when you say what's up and when you now collect your money. So a goosey sales cycle is very short. 5 minutes. You walk through the shop. Madam, how long time, how have you been blah blah. How your children? This economy got the help. Also you get a goosey. How much is it? 5000 per cup? Madam, Last time I came here you said it was 35 per cup. Now you're saying 5.

Hi Madam, why now? OK, I want to buy 5 cups. Yeah, but you have to drop. You have to reduce money for me, man. Instead of that 5K for per cup, let me pay for two. Then you have back and forth. But you know, tops 5 minutes. You're done. Maybe 10 minutes. If you're like my auntie, one of my auntie, she can price for Africa. You spend 30 minutes in one spot. I really hated going to the market with her when I was a kid. Because we'll go to the market 8:00 in the morning.

We'll leave the market until 2:00 in the afternoon. Like what kind of madness is that? And I'm the one that will be carrying the bag, spending 13 minutes pricing one person. Some people are terrible when it comes to pricing. Where was I? So that sales cycle. But now when it comes to buying a car or to buying real estate, the sales cycles are longer. Somebody will come, he'll look at the car, he will test it. Let me think about it.

Come back again, call you one or two times. So bottom line, somebody comes to look at the cars you're selling today, January 1st, it might be until maybe like January 28th before the guy pays longest sales cycle. Then the risks that are involved in complex sales are usually more costly. If you buy a bad batch of a Gucci, what do you do? You just throw it out and you go and buy a new one. When you pass by the market again, you're harassed.

Do my same Madam, you showed me by the Gucci. You might be able to guilt trip her so that she can give you some some more of this one this time for free. But when you make a mistake in simple sales, it's not that costly. But in complex sales, if you buy a car that was accidental, maybe the song was damaged, you didn't catch it, but you bought the car. You don't have to replace your song or when you're spending money. So the risks involved are much more costly.

And then the number of parties, that's also what determines is if a sale is complex. So in simple sales, you're usually talking about one or two people. So going to go and buy a Gucci is just you and woman 2 of you going to go and buy a car. On the other hand, you know you will talk to your friend, you will talk to your wife, you talk to some people at work, you will bring your mechanic. You can see that number of people is beginning to expand to buy the car.

Now like 4 people are involved. If a man is buying the car, so this man, his wife, then his friend, and then this mechanic, you know 4 people. And then as you go up and up and up, the complexity of increases. So these are the factors that determine whether you are in a simple or a complex sales scenario. The reason why I was splitting it up is because when you're on a simple sales scenario, price now assumes a different dimension.

Because in simple sales scenario, like you're selling commodities, well, unfortunately price is more important there. So you know you will price and well, you know you price whatever can price the best win. But then when you're in complex sales scenarios, it's not that simple. It's not just the price because remember we spoke about price as one factor, but then we also have to consider the complexity, consider relationships, consider the sales cycle, consider the risk and consider the number of parties.

So you can see that there are lots of things that we have to play with when we are in the complex sales cycle. So if you sell banana and groundnuts, then your situation is effed up because price is the only thing you can play with. If you can price well, you will stand your ground. If you can't price well, you know people, people will ride you. You can do some smart moves like there's a lady who sells bananas and what she does is.

Every day outside my wife's office, the lady is there with her tray and the bananas are always clean, like they look like wonderful, like shaped from Indonesia or someplace always yellow looking like the bananas, you know, like they bath with truer soap or something, like very clean. And the woman sells out quickly, quickly. Like one hour. She has sold every single thing, but The thing is she's there every single day.

So that woman, you know, she's smart. So all I put it because it's good. Bananas is fresh bananas, no wound, no stain, very clean. She's in front of the office, so high traffic, you know. So for highs, either you buy or you don't buy. So yes, people who are involved in commodity businesses that are some things that you can do. But generally speaking, if you are in a simple price scenario, well, you know demand and supply, the price is the price.

But if you're in a complex sale scenario, there are other things. Remember the complexity of the product itself, we can play with that. The price, we can play with that. Relationships, we can play with that. The sales cycle, we can play with that. The risks involved, we can play with that. The number of parties, we can work with that. There are a number of things that we can work with when we are in complex sales scenarios.

So you don't always have to drop the price. You are not selling banana and groundnut. So let's look at examples of industries in Nigeria that have complex sales scenarios. So obviously, let me start with oil and gas because that was my second degree oil and gas. So oil and gas is very complex because you have different stakeholders now, lots of people in the decision making unit, lots of people you have to consult before you close the deal.

So oil and gas, depending on what you sell, sometimes you talk to engineer, sometimes you talk to procurement officer, sometimes you talk to the finance executives, sometimes you talk to MD managing director. Everybody has their own different priority. Everybody has their own different technical specs that they need you to make and to meet. Everybody has their own budget, everybody has their own return that they're looking at.

So you can see that if you're in the oil and gas space, it's complex because they have different stakeholders. Then of course, you know the price. The thing is high value in oil and gas, everything we're talking about is millions of dollars, not millions of naira. Everything is millions of dollars. So the financial risk is high. Then long sales cycle because you have to do technical demonstration, you do due diligence, there's competitive bidding, you know, contract negotiations, you know,

sometimes this thing can last, you know, 8 months, nine months, one year, two years. And of course, after sales support is something you can throw into, you know, sweeten it. But since it's not just about the equipment, then after sales support becomes important in in this situation. So you can see that if you're in the oil and gas space, you're in a complex sales scenario. Don't be focusing so much on the price. There are other levers that you can pull on.

If you're in good terms with multiple stakeholders, you might be able to maintain your price. You'll be able to demonstrate good return on investment, what people are getting for their money. You might be able to maintain your price. If you realise that this is a long sales cycle and you play it out the best that you can, you might be able to maintain your price. So that's one oil and gas. So all of you that are in oil and gas, you're in complex hill scenarios.

Then telecommunications, you know, MTN and all that, mobile Internet technology, Internet connectivity, all those things that is complex because you're dealing with different stakeholders. If you're selling into a business, you have to talk to the chief information officer. The CFO might want to know also chief financial officer, the compliance department, they need to be brought into this deal as well because nobody wants to buy something that does not integrate with the systems that they already have or that you will now run into some compliance issues from a legal standpoint.

And then you also have to worry about regulatory requirements. So like Central Bank of Nigeria, for instance, for banks who have some kind of requirements for the solutions that you're trying to sell. So you have to worry about these sorts of things. So it's complex. Healthcare and pharmaceuticals that is also complex because the person who is selling there, the person needs to have specialised knowledge. You need to understand the medical fields, you need to understand the specs of the drugs that you're selling or the equipment that you're selling.

You need to understand all these things. Reputation and trust becomes an issue. And of course construction there's that's also a certain level of if I there's a lot of complexity that is involved there. So you see, these are some of the industries that if you're involved in, you're in a complex sales scenario. But the thing to note is this, that when we say complexity, complexity and simplicity is a scale. So things get more complex and more simple.

But you can't say this thing is complex, this thing is simple. For instance, accounting services. Is that simple or complex? It depends. If you're talking to one person and it's just for bookkeeping services and the person is a simple sole trader, well, maybe that's a simple sale scenario. But if you're trying to sell accounting and auditing services to a bank or to a government, OK, no bank already have their own to a government parastatal.

So you think they're getting more complex? So accounting services, is that simple or complex? It depends. Legal services, it depends. Could be simple, could be complex. Solar installation, it depends, could be simple, could be complex. In fact, I'll say solar lots of the time, I'll say is mostly complex. It's just that sometimes you're dealing with somebody who's really, really paid up and can't be hassled. So in that particular situation,

it might come off more as a simple sales scenario. Weddings and event photography, is that simple or complex? It depends. Event catering, simple or complex. Commercial cleaning services, cleaning people's house, cleaning people's office. Is that simple or complex? It depends. But just think of it as a scale. Things can get more complex, things can get more simple. So everything has levels of complexity. But the first set of industries that I mentioned, those ones are always complex.

There's no oil and gas whatever. That is simple. None. Now when you sell in these kinds of environments in complex hill scenarios, what are the different things that you have to play with apart from price 1 is I already mentioned it, the return on investment, what are people getting back or the business impact or your value proposition. As a very powerful level, the idea behind value proposition, return on investment or business impact is if you're dropping X

amount of money, you are getting Y&Z benefits in return. You have to be able to make that kind of argument when you are in a complex hill scenario. Like when it came to buying cars, buying my first car got a Toyota was, you know, I looked at some brands that were cheaper, but the guy said bro, yes, these cars are cheaper and it was a matter of, you know, just money. I'll say and bring it and take it. But the thing about Toyota is that Toyota has resale value.

So why not just take the Toyota even though you pay more? But The thing is when you're even ready to sell, you can even come back to me and I'll even be able to buy from you because Toyota has resale value. And when I look at it like that was one of the things I discussed with my wife, I said, look, you know what, these are our brands. We can buy these brands or cars cheap. But what this guy is saying about resale value and then maintenance be like everything is making sense.

So there was some value proposition, there was some return on investment, there was some financial impact or business impact or some kind of impact conversation that was had in that case. So when it comes to complex selling scenarios, you should not just be looking at price. You can be having value conversations and impact conversations that yes or guy, I'm asking you for one M but is 1 M by the time you pay it. This is the value that you're going to get for this one M.

You can and you should be having those sorts of conversations. Financial impact. This thing I'm selling you. This is how it will increase your revenue or this is how it will make it easier for you to run your business or this is how it will make you much more profitable. Be arguing those things. Don't just say OK orga just OK instead of 1.2 just just bring 1.1 or just bring one M Don't just be so quick to drop your, you know, don't be exposing yourself anyhow.

Argue the value. So there's financial impact. This will make you money. In some cases. There's operational efficiency. It will make it easier for you to do XYZ. Then we can also play with relationships and then build trust. Complex sales are built on trust. Let me repeat, complex sales are built on trust. You can play with the trust. We can play with trust no more by building consensus. Consensus just means we're talking to multiple people within the account, which is why I keep saying that when it comes to complex sales, some of you are single threaded.

It's a bad idea. Single thread means you're only talking to one person in the account. Nigerians, we already know this kind of thing that if you want to get, you know, maybe your uncle is in State House and you think you can get the contract. If your uncle is the only person you're talking to, you, you have lost, you should be talking to your uncle, you should be talking to chairman of the House, you should be talking to chairman of the committee.

You should also be talking to somebody in the state office for procurement. You know, the more people you're talking to, the easier it will be for you to secure this contract. You don't just say my uncle is on the inside, let me go and sleep. No, even along party lines you don't just talk to OK, your uncle is within the ruling party, so you now go and sleep. The more people that you talk to, the better. Build consensus, get lots of people to trust you.

The more people that you talk to, you'll be able to figure out who is interested, what are their motivations, what is their interests? Who can I schmooze with? Relationship trust? We can play with that. Then there's also customisation. That means you just tailor the solution to fit this particular situation. Somebody can be saying one M is too expensive, I guess. OK, well, you know what? Bross is true. One M is on the high side.

Things are expensive these days. Yeah, I get you. But The thing is this one M, these are the outcomes that we're trying to give you and these are all the features and the whatever that we've thrown in. But however, pricing is not much of an issue. It looks like we can remove this element and we can remove this element, it will still solve your problem. And if you bring it within this budget that you've spoken about. So Bros, what do you think about that, Madam?

What do you think about that? That is customisation and that is trying to tailor the solution because when it comes to complex sale scenarios, it's not one-size-fits-all. So solution design as some people call this is very, very important. This solution that we're trying to provide for the product or the service, how can we design it so that if it's this exact person's needs, that's one of the ways that we're controlling the, the, the, the conversation around budget.

That's what I've said in the past, that as salespeople we should not be making on principled concessions. And on principled concession it does means this. If somebody asks you for something, you say OK, That is our principal concession. What we should be doing is we somebody ask you for something, ask for something else in return. If somebody says drop this price from 1.2 to 1.1, you can say, OK, you know what, I'll drop it from 1.2 to 1.1, but then I'll need you to help me.

I can't go back to my organ and say that I dropped this price to 1.1, maybe only bought one. If I'm dropping this price to 1.1, you should help me and buy 4 instead instead of 1. See, that's an that's. That's not an unprincipled concession. The president asked for something. He asked for something in return. Now, the good thing about this habit is when you get into the habit of asking for something, every single time they ask you for something, guess what happens?

People will stop asking you for things. I've seen this one first hand. By the time people asked me to drop my price and I said OK, cool, no problem, we can do that. We can drop the price, but we have to now take out a couple of elements. Which element would you like to remove? By the time we do that two or three times they stop asking me for stuff because they have seen the handwriting on the wall. And I learned that from my wedding photography days.

They've seen the handwriting on the wall. Every single time I establish him how to drop something, he too want to drop something. By the time to remove price, he wants to drop something and so they stop playing those games, stop giving on principle concessions. Now this whole thing of customizing sometimes it also means you can be give some some flexibility when it comes to payment terms. You can say, you know what, this 1.2 I can't drop it to 1.1.

But what we can do is that for you to take possession and bring 80% now the remaining payment terms will start guide at so, so, so percent over the next three months while I talk to you guys. See that is OK for you see that's flexibility in payment terms. We've kept the price. We're trying to make payment terms easy for them. Sometimes implementation is not just contract terms, implementation terms, when are we going to start?

So it depends. We can play with that instead of dropping price all the time. Then social proof, credibility, that is also something that we can play with. Social proof just means people outside live in the field. They're already using this product, already using this service. These are the results that they're getting. So come and see for yourself. Taste and see that this boy is good. You don't have to be afraid doing business with me.

That is social proof. Last year we dealt with 50 customers, all the 50 customers that we did, 47 of them gave us five star ratings. Come and see our Google profile. See everything here. In fact, out of the 4732 are so impressed that they sent us video testimonials. Madam, this is my phone. See see my WhatsApp, see them, see them, see them. Let me play this one for you. In fact, Madam, this one was in a similar situation as you.

Let me play her own. Instead of going straight to drop price, play up social proof. You're trying to show their your credibility. You're trying to tell them taste and see that this boy is good taste and see that my product is good taste and see that my service is good taste and see that this girl is on point. That's what you're telling them. Social proof, case studies, testimonials, all these things are very, very important.

That's why we should try getting these things from people. References, word of mouth, endorsements. In fact, by the time we're done with Madam So our souls wedding Madam Casey was really really Madam Casey. Which Madam and Casey the same one that you know, ma'am, in case you were before really. She said she was impressed. No, I'm telling you, ma'am, I'm serious. The fact she said that if that she wouldn't mind talking to any of her friends.

In fact, after we leave here, I'll Call My Name and kitchen so that she can talk to you. That's testimonial there. That's word of mouth. Those are some of the small, small tricks that some of us used to play in the wedding space. So very, very important. Then you can also play up your industry expertise. That is what I am doing with this podcast. I'm trying to to play off my expertise. I'm trying to position myself as a thought leader.

When we will see as a thought leader, see Nigerians will price everything. But The thing is at least when you're a thought leader, the level of pricing will is different. So I'm not happy that I'm at the stage where when it comes to pricing, it's not like before that somebody will not be calling. The difference will now be 100 grand or something like that. So people will always price. So yes, I have to sometimes get away with dropping 25K here, you know, 30K here, 10K here, you know, that kind of thing.

While this is not like before, when starting off a wedding, in the wedding and event space, you give the person a bill. You say your bill is 400, they say what? 250 is all I have, so people don't price me that much anymore. So if you can build up some industry expertise, please do. It helps. Your pricing will still be there, but don't be pricing you like Groundnut so well. For me it's podcasting, public speaking, webinars, conferences.

Let people be seeing my face. Let them hear my voice for you. Do it in the way you can. If it is something as simple as you show up on your Instagram every single day and you answer customer questions, even that you're showing you that, you show people that you have the authority. OK, let's go back to this groundnut thing. Let's say you make groundnut milk for mothers who can't like it. Let's say, hey, let's say that's your business.

You want people to stop pricing you. Anyhow, every single day go on your Instagram Live and answer questions. Hello, my name is Cami, the Cami the milk booster and today I'm making a video to respond to questions that mothers have. The more question is truly, can taking groundnut milk help in improving lactation? Yes, it can because the World Health Organization says that so so so and so different cultures also say this how some people do this, Yoruba people do this blah blah blah blah blah.

Apart from that, groundnut has the different Groundnut has a different vitamin, this different, this different, this different that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. In fact, apart from lactation, these are the other benefits why you should be using groundnut milk, not just as a milk booster, but also because of the health benefits they will provide to your baby. Thank you very much for listening. I'm going to be back tomorrow to answer another question.

Until then, it's your girl Kemi, the milk booster. You end the video. Just keep doing that everyday. The mothers who are watching, the potential mothers who are watching and who want the best for their baby, they'll say that this Commission knows what she's saying. When it comes down to pricing. If you tell them that 15 litre keg of your, of your groundnut milk is IS35K, even if they are pricing, you don't say 35 K, please, we take 22 could be the thing that you say 35 K, they'll be saying, I beg, can you take 33 K for one?

I want to buy 5. So you don't have to do something as fancy as a podcast like I am doing, but there are ways that you can build expertise in whatever industry that you're doing. And you see, I just picked this random case of lactation. Well, the reason why I picked lactation actually is because they actually are people who do that. I mean, when we, our kids are much younger anyway, I used to be in this world, Let me put it this way, as a concerned parent,

you see all kinds of things and you're worried about all kinds of things because my baby eating well is my baby healthy, you know, blah, blah, blah, Basha, you can show some kind of expertise. So there are things that you can play with that will even stop people from pricing you like Groundnut every time that they see you. And then another thing that we can do is service and support. You can say, oh look, you know what, 1.2, that's the price.

1.2, we can't drop the price. But however, as a token of our support, what we can do is we will give you one or two extra services. Somebody has just done on me before. That's the second investor that I bought. That's what the guy said. The guy said look bro, you know the price is the price. The only thing I will do for you is the first servicing is supposed to be on year 1. So that year 1 servicing, I will do it for you for free.

Then after that, the next servicing will be 6 months after. That's six months after servicing, I will do it for you for half cost. How do you see it? That's OK, no problem, let's go ahead. So you see he kept his price, but he say year 1 servicing for free. Then the next six months servicing, we'll do it at half cost. The other servicing that we're doing, you pay me the full price. So, and this is the price, I know some of you say he kept, he gave money anyway.

Anyway, let me just leave it. I'm just trying to say that look, there are ways that we can, we can look at this thing even if he gave up margin, he didn't give margin on the system itself, the expensive 1, he gave margin on the servicing end of it. So service and after support or the after sale experience, we can play with that. So, OK, this is almost 45 minutes, let me just bring this thing to a close. The point I'm just trying to say is this, if you're in a simple sale, if you sell banana and groundnut, you are in a tough situation and I sympathize with you because nowadays that in Abuja bottle of groundnut is 2K25, you know, I feel for you because unfortunately the price is the price.

I mean, how much did you buy it that you don't want to sell it and put your small margin on top? You know, if you drop your price, you're in a bad situation. So I feel sorry for those of you who are selling in simple in simple sales scenarios. But for those of us who are in complex sales scenarios, we can stand our ground. And I have discussed a number of things that we can do to help us stand our ground. We don't always have to drop the price because remember, when you drop your price, you're making things unprofitable for you.

Your margins are going down and you're creating more homework for yourself because you have to sell more people. In fact, this is even the biggest problem for me. When you drop your price, you're giving your competition the opportunity to shine because when you drop your price, there's somebody who comes and the person sells on value. The person will now look like the experts. Those of you who are dropping the price, you will now look like the cheap.

Anyhow. Anyhow, people as was part of all this and there's one bid that I lost. This was in Kano. I won't call the organization. You know, I called the lady up and you know, she said it, that I dropped the price so much that they could tell that I was not going to fulfill it myself, that I was going to get somebody local to do it and they were worried about quality. Man, nothing was a slap in my face. I have. That was the first time that I

lost a bid because I was too cheap. I say so you actually can lose a bid because you are too cheap. If anybody had told me, I would have said is a lie that I can't happen. But it has happened to me. I have lost a bid because I was too cheap. Now I do some business with that organization and the difference is clear. Yes, they complain that I'm expensive and the last time I worked with them I know that I was the most expensive bid but I

still maintain them. Especially since you know like 6 years ago that once they gave me that slap to my face. They say man, you lost it because you are too cheap. So if you didn't know, know now you can lose a deal because you are too cheap. You're so cheap they don't see value in this thing. Again, it can be so cheap that you're an unattractive partner at the end of the day anyway. It doesn't mean that if you're the most expensive that you're the most professional optional it.

It doesn't mean, but I'm just saying beware, you can drop your price so low that you end up being the unattractive partner. So think about it. I know that there are times when we are broke, like we are mad broke. And so we say, you know what, let me just drop price now. Let me just close my eye. At least if I collect this one, I should be able to put fuel in the car for at least for like 2 weeks, 3 weeks at least, at least fuel is sorted.

So I understand that there are those situations and I'm not going to tell you that in situations like that, you should stand on principle and say no, I'm not collecting this thing. You know, that's for you to decide. So, but I know we we've all been there, but this thing is not going to last forever. So in those situations, you know, I'll leave it up to you, at least if you close your eye and you say this new give me one month of fuel.

Yeah, one month of fuel is still is still something. At least you won't have to remove that money from your house savings. But sharp think about it. If you're on the complex sale, you don't always have to drop your price. There are other things that you can play with that will allow you to keep to stand the line and collect the healthy profit margin that you need because times are hard. Nigeria will go through hyperinflation.

This is not the time to drop your margins. If you cannot increase price, at the very least don't be dropping your margin anyhow because times are hard. You drop the margin now, you're increasing the amount of work that you have to do in the future. Anyway, let me stop there. So that's it, that's all. Remember, if you'd love to connect, you can call, SMS or WhatsApp me on 08064662140. Thanks for your time and attention.

I'll catch you next time. Same place in your headphones or in your speakers.