Here’s a fact for you, if you are not already aware of it — People don’t buy for rational reasons, they buy for emotional reasons.

Perhaps the most important aspect of emotional reasoning is — value for money. Value is a indeed a truly subjective quantity.

But wait! If you have any experience in selling — be it anything — then you would have probably realized that value boils down to just one thing. Yeah I mean even if you were to go and sell something to Bill Gates then also it would boil down to just one thing.

And that thing is - getting most benefits for the least amount of their hard earned money.

I hear you say that you don’t compete on price at all! You are a premium segment player.

Yes sir, so am I.

However, here also the value means the same. If you are into premium segment (or for that matter, into mass market also) then you very well have a unique selling preposition (USP) that differentiates you from your nearest competitors. Right? Otherwise, why would people pay you extra if you don’t offer something better than your competitor.

That “something better” is the benefit that people want. They also want it at the least amount of their hard-earned money.

Mind you — I said “they want it” rather than “they should get it”. They don’t want cheap stuff… they want value for their money.

Discounts sure give a sense that they are getting a deal and works very well… but that’s another tactic.

The tactic which has never failed to work for me to create a sense of value for money is to take your premium pricing and twist the numbers in such a way that it looks ridiculously low in front of the benefits being offered.

Let me give you an example. Say you are a web host and your selling point is your extremely efficient support team. Your competitors charge $9.95 a month whereas you charge $19.95.

Ouch! That’s $10 a month more than your competitor for virtually the same offering. So, how do you use the tactic I described above?

Well, you explain that you are charging $10 more (it’s worth it to forget $19.95 and talk about just $10 more) for a month. That is $120 a month more for 365 days of service or just 30 cents a day.

For just 30 cents a day you are offering a much more efficient support team. Now ask yourself, what if your hosting service gets a glitch and you get struck. For hours people will not be able to visit your site. Just imagine the business you will lose.

Is that lost business worth 30 cents a day that you are basically paying for an extremely efficient support team? You can pay $2.50 for a cup of coffee but you can’t pay just 30 cents a day extra for keeping your virtual presence always available and having an extremely efficient support team to hold your hand whenever you face a problem?

Now there you have broken down the premium price you are charging to such a ridiculous amount that suddenly it looks foolish to not pay such a small price for a huge benefit - reliable support team!

This tactic never fails to work — just use your imagination! And don’t forget to deliver what you promise or you will soon have a huge PR crisis.

All the best!