Will 1/4″ really do?
Give your customers the solution they need, rather than just the service they ask for.
A man walks into a hardware store and asks for a 1/4 inch drill bit…
The SERVICE PROVIDER salesman says to him: “No problem, here’s a 1/4 inch drill bit.”
Then charges him $2.99 and he’s on his way home.
The SOLUTIONS PROVIDER salesman says to him: “Sure thing. What are you doing?”
The man replies “I’m hanging a picture.”
The salesman asks “Really? How big is it?”
The man replies “It’s really big. Almost 4 feet across with a thick metal frame.”
“Oh, I see,” says the salesman. “And do you know what type of wall you’ll be drilling in to?”
“Plaster” replies the man.
The salesman thinks for a second, and says “You might want to consider a plaster anchor so you don’t damage your wall, and a little larger drill bit to accommodate the anchor. In fact, given the weight of the picture, you’ll also probably want wire instead of string to hold the picture up with an enforced hook, or maybe even two hooks.”
The man, now holding what he needs pays the $29.99 fee, and leaves the store happy.
The Solutions provider actually charged 10X the Services provider. However, as is often the case, the “Total Cost” of the SOLUTION was actually less than the cost of the SERVICE, since before the man was finished with the 1/4 inch drill bit he would have had to return to the store, and possibly even damaged his wall.
What kind of company do YOU want to be?
There’s a case to be made for providing solutions rather than services. In fact, in most cases when you take into account how something works when it’s finished, or the cost of doing something twice, or the time required to fix something that’s not quite right, or even just the price of a headache when something goes sideways, it’s easy to see how a “more expensive” SOLUTION could actually cost less than the less expensive SERVICE.
It’s the paradox of the three legged stool named price/quality/expertise.
And the communication that SOLUTION providers must master in order to educate clients about value and sell over the allure of low price.