{!date dayname+0}, {!date long+0} Dear {!firstname_fix} Two weeks today will be Christmas Day - are you ready.....or are you leaving the shopping to the last minute? In spite of the internet's ability to help us all be organised - with things like online shopping, buying everything in advance, having the turkey delivered - many people will still be tearing up the shopping aisles at 4pm on Christmas Eve. Leaving things to the last minute is a common human characteristic. Indeed, most people do not prefer to plan, to be organised or to get things done in advance. Most of us suffer from "last minute-itis". It's why people leave booking an annual event, that they have known about for the past 12 months, until the week before. It is why people keep on saying "I must write that book I have inside me", but only get round to it when the publisher's deadline is looming. And it is why more and more online retailers are having to offer delivery times right up until the close of play on Christmas Eve. So it begs the question, what does your online business offer to help all of your customers who have "last minute-itis" get what they want from you? If your business cannot cope with the ever-present "last minute" requests, you are missing out on potential income.
YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED: How do I get people to pay higher fees? Aha - the perennial question - more money please...! The financial wizards would argue, for instance, that you pay more for a luxury car - such as a Rolls Royce - than a standard vehicle like a Ford Focus because of all the luxurious refinements and added "value" in the Rolls. A Ford Focus will set you back about £11,000; a Rolls-Royce starts at 20 times that...! Yet, both can only legally travel at a maximum of 70mph. Both will get you from A to B in the same amount of time. Both work the same way - put foot on pedal, steer wheel, look out of front windscreen. Functionally, they are the same. Inside, yes, they are different. But is the extra padding on the seating, the added extra of the wine cabinet and the quieter running of the engine actually worth an extra £200,000...? Do you think those extras actually cost anything approaching that? So why do people pay such vastly inflated prices for a roller? When your logical brain kicks into play, you realise the additional value you derive from the car is nowhere near the same as the required extra money. Yet, year on year, thousands of people cough up. So what twists their minds away from logic so they part with so much additional cash? The answer comes in an experiment conducted on a TV show in New York with magicians Penn and Teller. They had people in a plush restaurant offered a variety of different options for bottled water with their meals. Naturally, the bottles ranged in price, with some being rather expensive - $7 per bottle. Yet the contents of the bottles were identical - they were all tap water. People paid $7 for a bottle of tap water...! Not only that, in another TV experiment, people were offered samples of water such as Evian and other well-known brands to taste. Almost half the participants all rated one particular water as the clear winner in terms of taste. You guessed it, the water they liked the most was plain tap water. Several "blind tasting" experiments on water have led to similar discoveries. When people are given water to taste, they prefer ordinary tap water to any bottled stuff. So, why are they prepared to pay $7 for it? It's simple - because they expect to. When people are shown a really fancy bottle, they simply expect to pay more, so they do. When a typical combustion engine, four wheels and a few seats are wrapped up with a Rolls Royce body, they simply expect to pay more for it than when it has a Ford badge stuck on it. What this all means is that if you want more money, you need to package your offer in such a way that people simply expect to pay more. For instance, merely wrapping a DVD box in shrink-wrap causes people to expect to pay more for it. You can raise the price of a DVD in a shop simply by slipping it in a cardboard cover. The more you make it look like it is should be expensive, the more people pay because they expect it to cost more. So, if you want people to pay more for the work detailed in your proposals, for example, print them out on quality paper, rather than email them. Bind them in nice covers and get them hand delivered in a suitably "posh" wrapping, perhaps together with a box of chocolates as a "thank you" for the opportunity. The extra costs to you might be £50. But the recipient reckons what you are offering is bound to be much more expensive and so would not be surprised by the high fees you are suggesting inside...! Essentially, if you want people to pay you more, you have to look like you should be paid more. Online, that means making your website look good - rather than like a typical scrolling sales letter, for instance. You could sell the same ebook - but at a much higher price than the competition, providing you package your offer in a way that makes people expect it to be costly. Remember, you can always ask your question and get it answered in this newsletter by going to: http://www.grahamjones.co.uk/questions
WHAT I LEARNED THIS WEEK: It is always worth looking twice Earlier this week I was due to fly to Edinburgh to give a talk on "The Future of Speaking". Unfortunately, Edinburgh Airport had been closed, several members of the intended audience were snowed in anyway, so the event was cancelled. "Never mind," I told the organisers, "I'll do it live as a webinar." I have given several "webinars" - live online presentations - and recently changed my supplier to DimDim. Before the change I had used services like GoToWebinar and WebEx, as well as some of the rather more "flaky" free services. However, I had previously tried DimDim and declared it "useless" because it was so slow. But that was well over a year ago and a few months ago I gave it a second go. I am so glad I did. At that time GoToWebinar upped their prices - if you want to hold large scale online webinars, for more than 100 people they recently increased their charges from $99 a month to $499. (Yes, a five-fold increase...!) DimDim's price for up to 1,000 attendees is a mere $65 a month. You can see why I thought about changing...! Of course, I was dubious - my early experience with DimDim had been negative; I had even checked reviews which suggested the service was not great. But I am so glad I gave them a second glance. For a start, the system has been dramatically overhauled and improved. Secondly, if you only need online meetings for 10 people or less, the system is completely free. I've been impressed with their technical support in recent weeks, as they solved what I thought was a problem - but was merely my lack of thinking - with patience and good grace. The webinar the other night went well (you can watch the recording at www.thefutureofspeaking.co.uk/webinar if you wish...! For more info on DimDim check out: http://GJurl.com/dimdim What things have you rejected in the past which are worth a second look now? If you want to check out what else I've been doing for the past week, you can always look at: http://www.grahamjones.co.uk/week
THIS WEEK'S "MUST BUY": Celebrate 50 years of "Corrie" I have been watching the TV soap, Coronation Street for as long as I can remember. I am a lifelong fan - even watching throughout my university years much to the amusement of my fellow students. Interestingly, two of my student mates became TV directors and one of them went on to direct soaps, including - you guessed it - Coronation Street. The Street, or Corrie, celebrated 50 years on our screens this week - with several episodes including an hour-long "live" special. This wonderful book is a celebration of the Golden Anniversary. Even if you are not a Corrie fan, you will know someone who is - and this book will delight them. To find out more about this book visit: http://GJurl.com/corrie50 So, that's it for this week - see you in seven days...! Kind Regards
Graham Jones Web: grahamjones.co.uk Tel: +44 118 336 9710 If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter than you can delete your name from the mailing list by clicking this link: {!remove_web} Affiliate Links: Some of the links in this newsletter are affiliate links providing me with a small commission when you purchase the item. However, I only use affiliate links for products which I personally value. |
