How to avoid a car-crash pitch
No need to apologise for your prices
When I was learning to drive I was taught something very strange.
Apparently if I caused an accident I should never say sorry, as it would somehow be an admission of guilt and the insurance company would take me to the cleaners (as if they wouldn’t spot the crumpled car).
It seems to me that when you’ve made a mistake you should say sorry. Nobody likes the weasel-worded faux apologies of politicians in the spotlight as they try and pretend that something wasn’t their fault when it clearly was.
Likewise, if you’ve made a mistake in business then an honest apology to your client is the best approach.
But when you’re telling someone the price for your recruitment services there’s no need to apologise.
It is what it is, as the philosophers of Love Island like to say.
Your price is your price. No mistake. Not an accident. So no need to apologise.
Now I understand why people get nervous when talking about their prices. I do too! So much is on the line, and as recruiters we brace ourselves for the inevitable pushback from our client.
But showing your fear when talking about your prices is incredibly costly to you. Firstly, it sparks a seed of doubt in your client’s mind: If she’s not confident in her own price, what’s wrong with the service?
Secondly, it encourages negotiation. So when you nervously talk about price, you end up creating the situation you were nervous about in the first place.
These reactions clearly lower your chances of winning the business, and anything you do win comes at a heavy discount.
The good news is there’s a simple answer to this problem. And once you’ve cracked it, your clients will be more confident in your value, and less likely to negotiate. More clients, respecting what you do, and paying you more? It’s a problem worth fixing.
If you want to sound more confident - and less apologetic - about your prices, you need to be able to justify why your price is what it is. And to justify it to your clients, you need to be able to justify it to yourself. Which means having a strategy for setting your prices in a way that makes sense to you and your market.
So if you want to build a pricing strategy that gives you the confidence to pick up better business and bigger fees, simply reply to this email and we can arrange a one-off consultation to discuss where you are and where you could go.
Jon
PS. I’ve worked with many recruiters who’ve been so apologetic about their prices that they discount them before they even start talking about them: My rate is 25%, but for this role I can do it for 15%.
This is confusing for clients, even those who are keen to get a discount. After all, how do you start negotiating with someone who is already negotiating with themselves?
Once I help recruiters stop apologising for their prices, they tell me that they have to negotiate less with their clients - even though their fees are higher than before (as much as 40% higher in some cases).
So if you want to build a pricing strategy that gives you the confidence to pick up better business and bigger fees, simply reply to this email and we can arrange a one-off consultation to discuss where you are and where you could go.