Yesterday morning my family and I went into town to have a nice Sunday brunch.

The meal cost a lot more than a conventional breakfast, but it was well worth it.  And it got me thinking about a critical mistake I see people making: instead of charging more money and giving more value… they cut costs and charge their customers less money, and provide less value.

For example, all over the place, I see these ‘recession buster’ breakfast specials – $3.99… $4.99 and so on.  How can you possibly pay for your food, pay for your tableware, dishwashing, soap, water, keep the lights on, insurance, taxes, workers comp, and so on… PLUS pay your employees… and be making any kind of money, charging someone $4.99 for breakfast.  (all you can drink coffee included, of course)

The only way you can make money doing this is if you’re buying the cheapest eggs… serving them on old bread for your toast… rot-gut coffee you probably wouldn’t drink even if you were hung over… and if your service is horrible.

And is that what a business owner wants to be known for?

Cheapest stuff around?

Who the hell’s going to survive – let alone actually make a living – doing things like this?

As opposed to the experience we had yesterday, and each meal still only cost around $12 bucks.

The sandwich came on fresh giant slabs of tasty bread… they served avocado on the sandwich – not just a sliver or two, but probably five or six smooth fresh giant slices of avocado… chicken salad with fresh thick chunks of tasty chicken, spiced really nicely with tangy raspberry vinaigrette dressing.  Rich silky coffee, as much as you want.

And my daughter had three-quarter inch think light and fluffy pancakes with GIANT chocolate chips spread liberally throughout the batter.

I mean, they could probably have charged me as much as $15-$16 for each meal, and still been delivering value.

Now this is a business that can survive — and do well — in any economy.

So from now on, start thinking about how much more you can do for your customers and clients, and how much more you can charge them for this… instead of thinking how much less you can do for them, and how much less you can charge them.  When you think in terms of ‘less,’ there are three huge mistakes you’re going to make:

1.  You’ll never make any kind of serious coin.

Thin margins virtually never yield big profits.  It’s common sense for anyone who understands numbers — you can’t make up for thin profit margins by doing loads of turnover.  With RARE exception, this game is one you will never win.

2.  You’re working way to hard… for far too little.

Think about it – if you’re charging twice as much money as you’re charging now… but you’re delivering twice as much value… is anyone going to complain?

You can lose up to half of your customers if you do this – both current and future customers – and still make the same amount of money.

That’s a lot less work, isn’t it?

And see, most people won’t lose half their customer base if they suddenly double their prices.  Although it’ll take time to reposition yourself, once you do this, you’ll be on far more solid financial ground than you are now.

3.  And lastly, I don’t care what you do for a living, but this “less” model violates every single success principle in the book.

After all, how many people do you know, throughout the history of business… who’ve been financially successful by thinking about how little service they can provide… or how little value they can offer?

This is completely inorganic to the natural order of things.  It’s like trying to drink a bottle of wine, out of a thimble.  It just makes no sense, and it’s going to get you nowhere.  What you want to do is…

Give more… get more.

Kinda like the basis for every good relationship you’ll ever have, no?

Now go sell something, Craig Garber

P.S.  Discover more like this in Chapter 11, “the 3 most CRITICAL and costly selling mistakes people make, and how to fix them, IMMEDIATELY!”

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