If you find yourself in a very competitive market, without setting yourself apart from others, you will rather sooner than later find that your only leverage is to compete on price. That is fine if you do it on purpose. But here is how I find most of my clients. Margins are low to start with. That is a self-regulating mechanism in a crowded niche. It’s normal. To counter the small margins, you have to sell more items. And how do … Read More
Stating “The client is always right” is like volunteering for slavery. It’s diminishing. If that’s your fetish you should visit another kind of site. My fetish is to help YOU be the dominator in your business. It is a positioning problem. It shows that you desperately chase your clients and that you rely on luck to close a deal. It tells how rare prospects find you attractive, or proves that you are just a commodity. That there are many like you, … Read More
How do you make decisions? And how can positioning fight stress? We are wired to make decisions by comparing stuff. It’s how our brain works. Comparing details and finding differences is what we constantly do, sometimes without even noticing. But you will notice tension and stress rising if you fail to find something that will help you make up your mind. Similarly, finding yourself in front of too many choices, is confusing and stressful. Mainly because, if nothing stands out, you’ll … Read More
“Eight of out 10 businesses fail within the first 18 months” was the myth spread by Forbes in 2013. Don’t let this journalistic marble scare you. It’s not that bad. Jet, the real numbers still show you have to do your homework. So lets start right now: Half of new businesses fail during the first five years, of which 30% in the first two years, … seem to be the accepted rough numbers across multiple institutions and media. For me, that is … Read More
Are you happily employed? You better skip this post then. I’m about to argue against employment. Let’s say you have some average job and you go to work every day. The entrepreneur, your boss, will have to sell your work for more. There is no other way. He/she will have to pay you as little as possible and sell it for as much as possible. Clearly, the entrepreneur has to pay for a lot of stuff, like rent, materials, marketing, … Read More
Value based pricing is by far the most discussed and most interesting pricing method out there. It’s also the best. In theory, it could be applied to almost any pricing situation. Depending on your business, value based pricing can be a game changer, however, you need to be aware of its limitations. There are two main ways to understand value pricing. The more classical one, is usually applied to products and productized services that only have some differences when compared to … Read More
Convenience is one of the biggest driving forces in decision-making. We try to cut corners every day. We give up our privacy, just to be able to buy with one click. Some even prefer stomach surgery to dieting. We would do anything if it would spare us some effort. Most people can’t fight this kind of laziness, it’s part of evolution. Nature needs to be efficient and preserve energy whenever possible. As a result, we are on a shortcut hunt all the … Read More