Increasing Prices

0:00 The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests and not those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability explicitor implies shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio or its employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W FOURCY Radio. Welcome to Powerful Business Strategies, where you will find out that everything you have ever learned about growing your business is wrong. Finally, a show where you'll learn the right way to grow your business by learning business and financial strategies that your competition isn't doing. And now here is your host. Resident of NeXTSTEP CFO Michael Barbarita and joining Michael for today's show as an executive moderator is chooky.

0:56 Obia, Yes, yes, yes, this is chooky, and I believe that gratitude is undefeated and growth is about the next step. It is an honor for me to moderate today's discussion with my good friend Michael. Michael, how are you. How are you, Chooky? How is your weekend? Weekend was phenomenal? Yeah, Mike Dallas losing. Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, the Cowboys loss something. I probably have to get therapyfore later this week. How was your weekend? Really good? Really good? Thanks? Great? And my name is Michael barbera president of Next Step CFO, and next Step CFO is a fractional CFO and strategic implementation firm. In Our vision is to ensure overwhelmed business owners achieve the time, freedom, and consistent profits to build a legacy and live the life they desire. And our mission is dedicated to guiding small business owners to leverage their time, exploding their profits, and build a meaningful legacy. The show Powerful Business Strategies and our book of the same name, is a step toward accomplishing that vision and mission. So with that, I'd like to hand it back to my co author and moderator for the show today, Chooky Obio.

2:17 Michael, Look. I am energized about today's episode. The title for today's episode is increasing Prices, and I know that we've got quite a few insights, practical insights to share. Before we do that, just a quick disclaimer Michael Look. As our regular listeners know, fact, we have a number of new listeners. Michael and I are both affiliated with a number of different organizations, and I currently serve as the managing director of business development for Better Price, a global business focused law firm. In addition to that, it's truly inspirational to collaborate with Michael to moderate a number of business roundtables really close to co and then meet with small business owners and medium sized business owners and document best practices from those business roundtables. And look, this is part of the inspiration for our book, Powerful Business Strategies. But please note the views expressed in today's show are our personal views based on success stories and successful experiences. My mission as a fearless leader and moderator for the discussion is to ask the right questions and help you as a listener to really learn the best strategies that the competition isn't doing. And Michael Look, giving your CFO and CEO experience,

3:47 I am truly truly energized by today's episode because we're discussing something that a lot of business owners might find counter intuitive. Increase in prices. Yeah, yeah, absolutely fearful even Yeah, it's something that they fare. So, as Jokey pointed out today's show, we'll show you how to raise your prices and charge your worth without losing new business. But please understand that it's value, not price, that attracts consumers and prospects. If you can increase the value of your product or service, you'll be able to increase your prices, your profit margins, and increase your sales. And there are some common mistakes made by business owners, so you first should first familiarize yourself with price fundamentals.

4:34 But before I get into that, one of the things this is really interesting, how one of the ways that I increase the value of coming to my ski stores. When I was in the ski business, one of the ways that I added value was I used to offer free freshly popped popcorn. I bought a large popcorn popper from a local carnival and when I pop the popcorn, you could smell it throughout the store. And the core concept in retailing was to get people in the store and let your merchandizing sell the product. Even if somebody comes into the store and doesn't even want to buy, the concept is is that get them into the store and have your merchandising sell the product for you.

5:23 Interesting. So yeah, so people used to come into the store just for the popcorn, okay, and and then and at the end then walk out with product in their hands. And it was you know, the popcorn was hot and fresh. It we kept you know, some some days we had to do six or seven batches, and it drove revenue. It added value versus going to our competitor. Our competitor never ever, our competitor is never ever did such a thing. And you're going to see a little later on how Japanese auto dealers do a similar thing. And what we did with the popcorn alone justified any small price hype we may have implemented. And so just coming up with ideas to adding more value to your product or service is really important when it comes time to increase prices.

6:25 So low price consumers think about this fundamental. Low price consumers will mostly consume your time if you're competing on price, and it's almost always the case. Typically they're the loudest and demanding value, and it's oftentimes it's oftentimes it's thought that the contrary is true, with the customers that pay the highest prices demand the most value. Not really true. If you really analyze who the customers are that are allowed it and are heckling the loudest, it's usually the low price customers that are the loudest and are consuming your time. So who Those who spend the most for anything should be entitled to the best treatment, and that's exactly what they get. But those customers that pay the highest prices, they simply make less complaints about value. Think about that, and let's look at two tactics where you could rapidly boost your pricing without any noticeable influence on your overall number of clients, both of which would improve your worth considerably. But here's the most important thing to note.

7:44 The beautiful thing about being in business and price increases is you could always test your prices. You can always test it with a couple of customers, test it with a couple of quotes, test it on the reflay retail floor. You're not married to it. You can always revert back. So here are those two tactics. First, in cases where an uptick and price won't scare away too much customers too much, it would be worthwhile to consider simply raising your prices just a tad a product or service that normally sells for ninety two dollars may have its price increase to say ninety seven. What if you just increase it slightly, Customers are likely to not even notice the priceike, as they likely see no meaningful difference between the new and old costs. And one of the things that we learned is that even with a small price increase over time that could mean it definitely means more gross profit dollars, but it also also means an increase in your gross profit percentage. Two of the things that we always want to look at, part of the vital five that we always want to look at, and one strategy is to think about raising the prices of anything you sell that presently costs between ninety and ninety six dollars, eighty and eighty six dollars, seventy and seventy six dollars, and so on,

9:15 and change the final digit to a seven or an eight or a nine even but today it looks like seven or eight are the sweet spots. So a product that's selling between ninety and ninety six dollars, make it ninety seven or ninety eight, and doing so will often result in no pushback and have no effect on conversion rates. You know, once again, if the thought of trying this makes you nervous, run a little test, double check your findings. In the event of client resistance, you have the option to revert back to your previous price structure. It's one of the beautiful things about business and about being in business for yourself.

9:56 You have the opportunity to test exactly right, Michael, I want to pick up on that point. So we are getting some skeptics, right, as you might imagine. Right, So there's some business owners are a little skeptical here, right, Like, let's go back to just the point. That you made about testing this, right, I. Mean, there's some folks who are saying, well, look, I mean, how do I even start to kind of build that kind of a test profile. What are your thoughts related to that? Well, you know, I mean, if you're a retail store, change a couple of prices in the store to you know, increase them slightly. See what the impact is. If you are a service organization that provides quotes, make a increase your hourly If you're a service organization you probably have labor, increase your hourly rates slightly and do a couple of quotes.

10:48 See what the impact is every or every time, or whatever price list you have. Maybe if you even if you have a subshop, okay, you change the price just one week for one week to test it, the price of a ham sandwich, I mean, whatever it is. You can always test it and revert back if you get the resistance that you're that you may or may not expect exactly. And that's and that's really how it's done. And that's the beautiful thing about price increases. You can test them. You're not married to them. It's not like you know, you have to announce them to the world.

11:29 You don't, and so it's really an effective way to maximize the optimum price. And so the second tactic tactic is something I have suggested with my clients for years and it's proven very successful. And by the way, before you do any of these tactics, you should always understand your competition's pricing, if for nothing else, just to know it and know where you stand compare it to your rivals. But what I tell clients is if you get resistance or complaints due to high prices, twenty five to thirty three percent of the time, you're probably priced correctly. If you get resistance or complaints due to high prices less than twenty five percent of the time, then you're likely priced too low. And when you get resistance or complaints to high prices more than thirty three percent of the time, you should probably keep your prices where they are, except if it becomes more than fifty percent of the time, and then you should think about retracting some of the prices.

12:39 Michael, Yeah, it's funny. You just got a nice kind of compliment here, So it seems as though that could be part of the test. Right, So you gather these data points and then you use some of the thresholds that you called out, For example, the twenty five percent threshold, you use that as a way to measure the effectiveness of your price increased strategy, right. Right, And and you know, if if your complaints a below one out of four or twenty five percent, then you're probably priced too low. Then you can start creeping up. Stop testing the creep you know, not testing the creep up, and and and that way you'll be right on top of it. Now, it's important to track your metrics on that.

13:25 You know, retails, and retail you ask the people on the floor. What's the resistance on price? If if you're in the service business, you should keep track of what percentage of the time your quotes are denied because of price. People will usually tell you if it's price, you know, they're they're getting a quote, a smaller quote from someone else. That's always and sometimes that line is not really true, of course, but yeah, but you know, I think that if you kept track of it, you know, customers a good deal, they'll keep their mouth shut when you have a good when they when when they you know, when they're ready to buy right away. So I think I have always had success, My clients have always had success measuring that using those ratios to measure whether or not their prices are in line. So let's talk about commodity based businesses because they have difficulties when trying to raise price without a corresponding value added component. And notice, you know, notice I said without a corresponding value added component. To justify a price increase for a commodity based business, you have to zero in on what makes your product or service stand out from the competitors, and that includes how it's delivered. In other words, and you've heard us say these words before. If you've listened to any of our shows, you need a position of market dominance, and we have

14:57 shows dedicated to explaining that at Powerful Business Strategies dot com. And if I have time at the end of the show, I'll explain some of the general mechanics of a position of market dominance. Again, but you're best served by going to Powerful Business Strategies dot com and there'll be a show there that talks about position of market dominance. And you should listen to that show and get a really good idea because it's critical to your ability to increase prices. So, and let me give you a quick example of a commodity based business who established a position of market dominance. So, a dry cleaning business and drag cleaning businesses are very popular and for the most part, our commodity based business.

15:43 You know, there's a lot of dry cleaners around. There's not one at every corner, but every town probably has two or three, and so for the most part, they're what I call commodity based businesses. But one of the dry cleaner both picked up and delivered your clothes. Do you think that company could raise prices without losing customers? I would say that it's very likely, absolutely, and you can see just by that how a position of market dominace sets you apart. The value it has is undeniable and immeasurably high. So how how do you raise prices gradually and avoid annoying customers? So basically, yeah, you basically have to follow these steps for the most effective implementation of this technique. And this is quite lengthy what I'm about to say, but it's well worth it, and there are some very insightful questions that I'm going to pose, So be honest with yourself. The preliminary work is to make a list of your rivals and write those names down.

16:51 So that's the first thing. You got to write down a list of your competitors, their names, the services they provide, any discounts they might offer, any uh any, the various forms of advertising and promotions that they use. And to get this information, you could collect their advertisements, join their mailing lists, go to their stores, call them as a phony customer. I used to do that all the time. I used to call my competitors and have a sock over the phone so just in case somebody could pick up my voice, I love it would be difficult intelligence, Michael, I know, I give that all away, you know, and you could browse their websites. Uh, and and the list goes on. Uh. Then you should ask yourself the following questions. First, how much do you typically charge for your main offerings? Second?

17:55 When was the last time you did a price increase? Because you really should do prey increases at a minimum of points a year. And then third, how competitive is your pricing and relation to those of your rivals? Fourth? In what ways does your product excel over those of the competition? Fifth? Is there anything more that you can offer with your goods that the buyer sees is increasing its value? Please give that number five the most thought, by the way. Six, it's simple for customers to go elsewhere to get or is it simple for customers to go elsewhere to get lower prices for the products you sell? Seven?

18:44 Do you have an understanding of your competition's greatest area of vulnerability? That's a really important question. Where is your competitive where are your competitives? Week? And how can you exploit that? Eight? Do you or are you able to make up for your competitive shortcoming after you analyze what that shortcoming is in order to achieve market share. Nine, in what ways do you think taking advantage of your competitive shortcomings will affect your sales and conversion rates? And number ten, how much more money could you make if you increase your pricing by simply three percent? And I know this is a lot of research what I just went through, but if you're planning to create a solid business, you'll do well to understand what would happen if you boost your prices by three percent while retaining your existing sales conversion rate. Would three percent be noticeable by your client or customer. It's kind of what we said at the beginning of the show. When you have a product between ninety to ninety six dollars, have it end with a seeven or an eight ninety seven or ninety eight dollars?

20:03 And is that going to be noticeable? So doing this research is essential if you're a business owner and you want to stay ahead of your competitors. But most business owners, however, are already stretched too thin to devote much more time and energy to make the most of the resources available. So consider contacting a local business school. By the way I've done this, consider contacting a local business school or community college about hiring a student to conduct this research on behalf or even better, advertising an internship position. The internships are a great, great way for business students to receive hands on experience in the field while also getting you are getting some free assistance with the research, or if it's not free and I've gotten free, but there is sometimes you have to pay a minimum wage. And by the way, if you're in a state like Massachusetts, uh, there's a program that pays for training for Massachusetts based employees.

21:09 Do a Google search for Massachusetts Workforce Training Fund Program. Let me say that again. If you're in the state of Massachusetts, do a Google search for Massachusetts Workforce Training Fund Program. If you have an existing training program, you should definitely go. You definitely should do that Google search. And if you're planning on hiring interns for any reason and you have put together a training program of any kind, whether it's interns or not, doesn't have to be in terns, you should do a Google You should do that Google search because the state of Massachusetts will pay you up to two hundred thousand dollars for training employees. So you know, if you don't have the time to do the research yourself, just hire a business student for next to nothing to do the groundwork, answer, answer your questions, and compile the results of those ten questions, and don't forget to include the following details like a list of the competitors and their contact information, a synopsis of each competitives product or service You could go and when you hire someone to do it, like an intern or a business student, you can go into these details. The prices at which it's currently being offered, the competitives relative strengths and weaknesses, and a statement of your competition competitors marketing goals and objectives.

22:40 You should learn as much as you can about your competitors. What if they have risk reversal techniques, You should understand if they have those customer service shipping costs, all that stuff, any guarantees or warranties or other payment conditions that can sway a customer and make a purchase. The point is to get you thinking about which of these will give you the greatest chance of success. And the best places uh to look for answers are the ones that will cover next. So whomever ends up doing the study should go there first. So start with their start with their online presence, then become a secret shopper, and you could.

23:24 You got business students a great secret shopper, by the way, and visit stores or locations, even if they're service companies. Visit the location, see if there's any advantage to being at the location they're in. Even make purchases. I used to buy competitors' products. If I didn't have it, I used to buy it to see if it works. Talking to consumers, analyzing advertisements, attending speeches or presentations, and checking out trade exhibits and displays. These are all ways to get new information, not just about product services, but about your competitors. You can investigate a variety of printed materials, from online directories to annual reports, to databases, to industry surveys, to trade organizations publications, to local newspapers, periodicals and journals.

24:17 I know this sounds exhausting, but it's been proven that the more you learn, the better your chances of success. And there are three essential things that can readily justify a price hike. And I know you're all going to say that's easier said than done than it is, but these are the things that really help we business owners. And once you have this crucial data that I mentioned and once again, you get an intern to do it, you can utilize it to implement three changes to your business that will allow you to charge whatever you choose.

24:59 One is you're in a dominant position in the market. Means that means you have a position of market dominance, and you have great value versus the competitors, your products are in high demand. And three, the risk connected with buying your products or services have been reduced or eliminated altogether. Now, if a company has these three things, it may easily become the dominant player in the market. Once again, it's easier said than done. But one of the things that Chuchy and I do is we help business owners with these three exact things. And let's deal deeply now into each of these areas. So your company's ability to dominate this market. This is what we call the position of market dominance. This one thing is the most crucial fact in achieving business success. And it's the position of market dominance that attracts customers to your company rather than those of your competitors. So think about this now, do you have a position of market dominance, and aps do you make your position of market dominance clear to your potential customers in all of your advertising, in all of your sales calls, in all of your interactions, including your answering machine.

26:23 What is it that you provide that makes it silly for them to consider purchasing from someone else. If there are one hundred customers in a market and nineteen firms like yours, you'll only attract five percent of those prospects if you don't have a position of market dominance, and in most industries, that's not enough. The position of market dominance is that critical component that identifies it identifies what makes you different. So never underestimate the power of having a really strong position of market dominance, especially if you're ready to take your business to a whole new level.

27:08 And imagine disempowering your rivals, okay, because that's what it does, and actually it hits them. They don't know what hit them when you have this real powerful position of market dominance, and that's what it can do. And you need to put an effort to create your position of market dominance and then make sure it comes over clearly at all of your marketing materials and all of your phone interactions and other points of contact with your customers and prospects. Since this is so important, the initial series of lessons is aimed to teach you how to establish your company as the market leader. You know, you may increase the perceived worth of your product or service by leaps and bounds, and if you can convince potential customers that you have a commanding position in the market, successfully increasing prices at that time will yield the biggest results, and it won't be a big deal because you're offering the value. But if you don't work on strengthening your position of market dominance, your your potential customers won't be able to tell you apart from the competition. And there's only one way that they'll be able to tell you apart, and that's price.

28:26 And that's what these and that's what business owners have. The business owner runs into they don't have a strong separator, they don't have a strong position of market dominance, and as a result, they're only leaving the customer. It's one choice to compare you against somebody else, and that's price. You have to constantly increase the value of your product or service and you have to be able to communicate it very easily and readily. And this suggests that you're simply another you know when your when your competition can tell you apart, it suggests that you're simply another face in the crowd. Uh and you know and and at that moment you're competing on price. Never lose sight of the fact that a prospect will only use pricing as a differentiator if everything else is equal. Secondly, in order to maximize value, many firms follow a standard operating procedure that's widely used by other organizations in the same industry. See, most companies can only adapt so much from other fields because they were founded within their current economic niche. That's why it's so important for company owners to make to make it part of their routine to research companies in other fields. Take a look at different ways that lawyers in the UK advertise and run their business, or that

29:57 travel agencies in Australia provide this services, or the methods auto dealerships which I'll give you an example in a moment in Japan used to close their deals. The next step is to determine how you can borrow successfully from their methods and implement them to your own. And this is all part of the education process of adding more value. Look and see what other companies and other industries are doing. In a nutshell, you'll rule your industry if you're able to do this. And so let me explain the customary practice that Japanese auto dealerships. So, the customary practice that Japanese auto dealerships is to provide potential customers with a drink menu on a laminated card and then may have anything to drink from a selection that includes iced coffee, hot tea sodas, hot chocolate, and water. What does that cost?

30:58 It seems like there would be a lot of companies who would benefit from using that kind of protocol. What would you what do you think? What would you think if your bank did something like that for you? Or a spa, a floris, the doctor, an accountant, a hairshop. This is this is a basic illustration of a service with additional value. These services don't break the bank, but make your company look much more valuable. Think of these types of things for sure. It's interesting. We just got a nice kind of comment related to that, Michael. Like these businesses that you listed out, they have a feature of their service that requires wait times. Right, So taken advantage of when your prospective client, your prospective customer is waiting for a service, and you leverage and that to deliver a high quality service to that individual as they wait.

31:56 So that's really interesting, Michael. Yeah, no, that's a good way to expand on that. That's right. So, you know, any any business that requires that somebody has to wait for something. You have to wait for a salesperson in an auto dealership, you have to wait for a doctor and a doctor's office. That would be an awesome opportunity to provide something, whether whether whether it's drink, food, whatever it whatever it is. Like I said, we provided popcorn nice and we you know, customers had to wait, but the popcorn was really for browsing, you know, and because people would come in just for the popcorn and browse and I can't tell you how many times they left with buying something remarkable. So when selling a product, this difficult product, it's often a great idea to throw in some free education in the form of a free report or a white paper, or even just a link to a relevant portion of your website.

32:56 I mean, how much did you really spend to provide free education? It costs virtually nothing. So but but but the education that free education multiplies the value of your product or service and justifies any small price increase you may implement. And the key is to think in terms of value of value addition to stay ahead of the competition. In today's business world, it's just imperative that you'll always be thinking about better ways to assist and support your customers and clients and prospects and provide more value. You know a lot of business owners are thinking, right now, how do I do that? But you know, we just gave you some great examples of going out there in other fields and seeing what they are doing to add more value to their product or service. Yeah, and here's another thing. You ought to be perpetually dissatisfied with your approach and constantly re examining it. All Right, it's this perpetual dissatisfaction because business always changes, and sometimes you'll do something that worked last year and it's not working this year, and so you're always going to re examine different ways to add that value. And so the following are powerful questions you should be asking yourself and your team every single day. So here's one. Can you tell us that

34:29 issues our customers have that we can help them with. So anybody on your team, whether they're answering a phone, whether they're on a retail floor or a service business where you're answering the phone or having contact giving quotes, having contact with customers, identify have those peoples not to identify the issues that customers are having that you could potentially help them with, because every customer has a problem when they call you, and sometimes that problem is not as visible as you think. Two, how can you make a bigger splash this month than you did the month before?

35:14 These are questions you should always be asking yourself and asking your team. Three what can we do better this month to make our customers feel appreciated? Mmm? Here's and here's the last one. What can I do better? What can we do better to meet their needs than my rivals do? Right now? So? How can we do better than the competition does in meeting these specific needs that our customers have? Great questions, Michael, And another kind of quick question, just to pick your brain on this, giving your vast experience, how often should a business do customer appreciation events and or customer status faction surveys?

36:01 Oh, that's excellent. That's an excellent question. Well, with respect to appreciation events, it would be nice if you could do those twice a year. And but with respect to surveys, it depends how you DELI how you do the survey. You know. I used to do customer studies, okay, and I used to do them live, and I used to pay people. I think it was fifty dollars. That was a while ago, though, so it might be more now. It will be more now to come to a a we called it customer event.

36:50 We called it some type of customer event. And we didn't disclose who we were, okay. So we asked the basic questions about their ski purchasing experience, okay. And sometimes our name was mentioned as good and sometimes it was mentioned as bad. And it was very interesting. And I think that those surveys are the most effective when a customer doesn't know who's putting it on. Yeah, all right, because I think that the most they're the most open and honest. Whereas that the survey comes directly from you, it's not as it's not as effective now. There are companies that do this, of course, but I used to do it with them. I used to have employees do it, and I thought they did a real good job. We used to construct the questions beforehand. And then.

37:45 I guess they call customer focus groups. That's probably the best word for them. Okay, nugget, Yeah, yeah, it's something that Boy was it valuable, Oh god, because they would you would be able to identify where your where your strengths are, where your weaknesses are, not just in your specific business, but also weaknesses from your competitors. Say they'll bring up the competitors. Let's say they were horrible at this, or they were terrific at that, you know, and so it's it's a real stimulating thing. And we used to you know, we used to record them. Get put.

38:25 We've got permission from everybody to record you know, when you pay them, uh you usually usually they're very uh forgiving on any on anything. You know, they're willing to do them. You know, recording is not a big deal. So now, uh you know. One of the ways that you can differentiate your product or service, especially if your your your product or service is identical to the competition. Correct, it's by paying special attention to the way you Greek customers, you really respond to their concerns, the way they make you know, when they make suggestions. Suggestion boxes are great, by the way they they're very telling as well. And you should have suggestion boxes not only for customers but for employees, and you may differentiate yourself from the competition and acquire it edge in any one of those areas, you know, just by the way you greek customers.

39:28 It's a really good point, Michael, and we're seeing this by the way, I mean, just across industries. Just a really quick nugget for the audience clients, experience customer experience professionals where all they focus in on is literally the experience life cycle when they interact with prospects and customers. So that's a really good point that you share just around. You can differentiate based on how you greet, how you engage with customers in a warm way. I'm really hard. It all counts, and you know, so you've got to remember that once the word gets out, potential customers will only care about what's in it for them, you know, that's it. At the end of the day, that's all they're going to care about. So those little things can meet a lot. And let's put ourselves in the shoes of a customer and ask ourselves or ask yourself the following what you know, what benefits may I as a consumer seeing this, what sets this business apart from others in the region, and why should people shop here or I here purchase here instead of somewhere else? And you know what you get out of is it allows you to shift your focus from how am I going to gain more clients? To how am I going to offer more value? That is a shift, a mind shift that that has to take place in the mind of a

40:59 business owner from how am I going to gain more clients? Because that's what we're always thinking of all the time. How am I going to offer more value? That really should be where the concentration is. And that increase in value coordinates with an increase in price. You know, even if you're in a market where increasing price isn't feasible, increasing the value provides to customers will almost certainly increase your bottom line even if you're not increasing prices because you're just gonna do You're gonna You're gonna get and gain a reputation and get and and get and get more value. The result really good point.

41:40 I mean, think about it, who do you think would obtain the line's share of the business if they were if you were seen in the marketplace as offering the highest value. I mean, it's just it's just it's just overwhelming how how important that is and what that means to price increases. And by the way, some customers have no problem spending a bit more in a premium service. You gotta understand that if you find this to be the case in your company, you could first improve your service and then increase your prices. And for example, think of a company as boring as an another dry cleaner example, who typically builds rapport with customers on a whole rather poorly if you think about it, But imagine how you feel if every time you visited the dry cleaner, a happy, helpful person greeted you by name and brought you a fresh cup of coffee and a sweet treat. That and that attitude that they have as being obsessively concerned about the condition of your garments. I mean that right there will make just a tremendous difference. I mean, customers of dry cleaners place a premium on those kinds of unique touches.

42:57 This you know, this dry cleaner may boost rates thanks to these incremental gains and value, and their consumers will be happy to pay it. Exactly and lastly, if you can reverse or eliminate the risk of a purchase, you can easily justify any price like you implement in your organization. Essentially, just remove the stumbling block that is preventing potential customers from purchasing from you, and this is called a risk reversal. To truly achieve a risk reversal, you must take the burden of the risk off of the customer's shoulders and place it squarely on your own where it actually belongs, since you're delivering a product or service, and this will encourage potential customers to take a step towards committing to your business, especially if you can demonstrate superior value over your rivals and a more compelling case for why your company should be the market leader. So just think about this.

43:56 I want to get into the compliments, but think about this. The majority of companies in the world offer their goods with a guarantee that's both vague and painless. What I mean by that is, if a customer calls you today and complains about something in a very vehement way, I bet you're gonna do something for them. I don't care what it is. You might you might give them a refund. You might make an alteration, you might give them a new one, you might redo the whole thing, whatever it is. But regrettably that's not often reflected in your pitch. Yeah, so all we're doing is asking you to do the types of things that you do with angry customers and just make it, just make it part of your your presentation exactly. And that's usually this risk reversal.

44:49 As they say, preventions better than cure, right, Michael. That's right, that's a really correct So, Choky, I want to give you enough time to do our compliment segment. Absolutely, so look very energized by our business complements segment. But by the way, Michael, I took a lot of notes. I think the strategies and the insights that you laid out for increasing prices strategically and tactically very helpful. So we got five business compliments. These are business owners coasts to coast that we want to spotlight. The first business owners Matt Green. Matt is an MBA and he is with Ledger Medial Accounting and Tax and Michael get this. They have six core values in how they engage client services. Integrity, transparency, ambition, accountability, accuracy, and efficiency. So kudos to Matt and team just for the client service oriented work that they do. The second business owners John Jay with Triple B so BBB Septic and portable toilets, and look, this is this is tough work that John and team do, right. I mean when you're working with septics and portable toilets, I mean you were doing the Lord's work, Michael Wright. So they started this in nineteen eighty seven, They've they've been in business for decades and what's really interesting is just their focus

46:23 on the highest level of excellence in how they engage with their business. Look, again, kudos to John and team. The third business owner that will spotlight here Mariano Solace Perez. I hope I'm saying that correctly. Mariano Solace Perez with five Star Home Services LLC. Again focused on small businesses more than almost a decade of experience. Again, the service that they provide actually really respect this and out of Southwest Florida, and they've got some other kind of regions that they focus in on, but very detail oriented in ensuring that they deliver home services at the highest level. The next business owner, the old spotlight, Amanda Nadia Abdel said, and she is with Amanda Nadia Group.

47:21 They specialize in off market new construction homes. But Michael, get this, like, I really love this focus. Here's their motto. Their motto is your dream Home Awaits, Your dream home awaits, like just a really nice image for families looking to, you know, get a home, even individuals looking to get a home as well. In the last, certainly not the least Robin Diamond with fifth and Core. This is a marketing company and the name just is actually quite philosophical and poetic, right. The fifth comes from the five senses, and then the core comes from a Latin phrase which is just so impactful. It means for the hearts. So five senses for the heart. This is why they are such a differentiated marketing organization.

48:12 So with that, Michael, I'll toss it back overse you and. Great, thank you. Chr key. Yeah, I just want to throw one nugget out here relative to price increases, wouldn't you like to know if you implemented a price increase, how many customers you could afford to lose and have the same profit as you had before the price increase. That's nothing that I do for my clients and it increases their confidence in implementing a price increase. For example, I had a client on the fence in implementing a certain price increase. So I did an analysis for him that showed him that he could afford to lose fifteen percent of his customers and still have the same profit as he had before the price increase. He said, And he said, and I quote, no way, I'm going to lose fifteen percent of my customers. And so he implemented the price increase, and that analysis kicked him off the fence.

49:04 And unfortunately we don't have time to go into detail on what a position of market dominance is. Once again, go to Powerful Business Strategies dot com. You'll see one of our shows dedicated to it. Completely. It's critical in helping you increase price. And one way to learn, however, is to go to NeXTSTEP CFO dot net. Click on the contact us page and fill out the contact form. In the message section of the form, put the words book interview and we'll send you a calendar as a schedule, and we will interview you for the next edition of our book called Powerful Business Strategies, and you'll gain valuable insights on the position of market dominance and our conversion formula well chocky. To get a copy of the book Powerful Business Strategies, simply go to our website again www dot NeXTSTEP CFO dot net. It's totally complementary. Until next Monday at noon Eastern time for Chucky Obio. My name is Michael Barberita, and remember, don't keep doing what your competition is doing.

50:09 Thank you, you have been listening to Powerful Business Strategies finding out that everything you ever learned about growing your business is wrong. Tune in next week and every week at noon Eastern time on W four CY Radio with your host Michael Barbarita of Next Step CFO and moderator Chugy Obio