Justifying your price

Ken C.

I do service and repair work for a flat-rate plumbing and heating company whose prices are higher than many companies in our area (especially T&M companies). I often get asked by customers, "Why are your prices so high?" If the customer is nice about it and seems genuinely curious, then I take the time to explain in detail the overhead involved in running a plumbing business. If, on the other hand, the customer is just complaining because he/she is cheap, I tend to respond with the attitude, "This is our price - take it or leave it." (Well, I'm not quite that blunt.) I'm curious to learn how others handle the "Why are your prices so high?" question.

Boiler Guy

How high

My fave answer is " Well, this what I think my product/service is worth .... Obviously the "other guy" thinks that what theirs is worth.

Greg Swob

I hear that all the time

We are usually the high bid, we virtually never get new construction projects due to pricing. We are often the guys that get called in to fix, undo, redo what others blow in cheaply. We are the only ones who actually perform heat loss calc's. We get a nice wage and real honest benefits. We receive actual training periodically. I do my absolute best to exemplify value for what we do. That's tough to sell when price is a major object. But, recently I had a couple come in with a folder full of internet-downloaded information, Consumer Reports magazine printouts, competitor brochures, etc. Finally I heard those words we are told to get the consumer to thinking: "...you had the high bid, but offered the most value for our home. We appreciate all the additional work you did (heatloss, etc.) and liked the fact you offered options for us to choose from. We feel we are going to get the best system." Made my day! Unfortunately, I haven't heard those sentiments from anyone since. Tell your customers what they are getting for their money - YOU and the fine knowledge, work ethics, attitude, etc. YOU possess. Take a look at the Hot Tech Topics and you will see a page on the topic of 'you may be wondering how we arrived at the price for your project' and '21 things to expect from us'. I use a similar format and have had some success with it. Keep stroking away. Greg

Mad Dog

We are in the same boat

do hardly any new houses, only a custom job occassionally. Try Badger dataforms. That is the invoice we use. Frank Blau turned us on to them. They explain all the "high costs of doing business" in a nice phamplet. Mad Dog

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Murph'_4

show them the numbers

> I do service and repair work for a flat-rate

> plumbing and heating company whose prices are

> higher than many companies in our area

> (especially T&M companies). I often get asked by

> customers, "Why are your prices so high?" If the

> customer is nice about it and seems genuinely

> curious, then I take the time to explain in

> detail the overhead involved in running a

> plumbing business. If, on the other hand, the

> customer is just complaining because he/she is

> cheap, I tend to respond with the attitude, "This

> is our price - take it or leave it." (Well, I'm

> not quite that blunt.) I'm curious to learn how

> others handle the "Why are your prices so high?"

> question.

Murph'_4

show them the numbers

I just got a product called "numbers cruncher" from nspg, mike conroy. this program is designed to formulate all your cost of doing buisiness, then divides out to the billable hours and arrives at you selling price whether you are t&m or flat rate. the really cool part is a letter at the end of program where you can punch in a real customer, or have some pre-printed scenerios that will show down to the pennies what the service call cost!!


Murph'

clammy

pricing

As some one told me years ago the sweeten of a cheaper price is soon forgotten after the bitterness of poor quality.This saying rings clear as always plus as my father had told me for nothing you can work any where

don_9

Tell

Them that you collect for Uncle Sam as well.

Wayco Wayne_2

Murph

Sounds like an interesting program. could you give me a lead on where to find it? Thanks WW

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ScottMP

Wayne

Here you go.

http://www.nspgweb.com

Scott

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Eric_10

explain high prices

A response I might use,
We charge enough to do the job correctly rather than take shortcuts to make money on the job, I would rather apologize once for the high cost then apologize more for poor quality, reliability of the products we install