How can you avoid competing on price?

In a crowded market it’s easy to think that you need to be cheaper than your competitors. But you don’t, you just need to be better. If you want to avoid competing on price, you need to offer customers something that they value, something that they’re prepared to pay for.

The reason a lot of businesses get judged on price, is because that’s all they talk about. If the only information you give customers is about price, they don’t have any other information to judge you on. So if they want to make a comparison with a competitor, they’ll compare your prices. And in that scenario the lowest price wins, because there’s nothing else to compare.

If you want to avoid competing on price, you should avoid talking about it. If you want customers to focus on other aspects of the product or service you offer, talk about them. If you talk about quality, they will focus on quality. If you talk about your experience, they will focus on your experience. If you talk about skills, they will focus on skills. If you talk about values, they will focus on values.

Your customers will focus on the information you give them.

Your first step is to identify what information to give them. You need to consider what makes you different from your competitors. (And no matter what you think, there is always something that makes you different.) Then you need to build a message that highlights all of those qualities – all of those reasons to choose you.

Now it may well be that price is part of that message – your ability to deliver all of those benefits, at a competitive price. But the important part of the message is that you deliver all of those benefits. So if you want to avoid competing on price, stop talking about it. Start talking about something else.


If you want to avoid competing on price, drop Jonathan an email.


 

Photo: Flickr – Jonathon Colman © Creative Commons