“Apart from the Money … ”
A quick and easy way to look beyond price tags.
When you’re making an impulse purchase, you don’t really think about the money.
But when you’re looking at something bigger and more expensive, you naturally want to ask yourself: “is this worth it?”
The problem is that we can sometimes put too much weight on the price tag. (And don’t worry. This isn’t a sneaky way for me to pitch some exhorbitantly-priced service. Not selling anything in this story other than my ideas. Oh, and an invitation for you to follow me on Medium: Anthony English).
When the price tag is too big
I don’t mean the price is too high. I mean that sometimes the price tag is TOO BIG.
I’m talking about when the price tag is overweighing the assessment of the value of something.
It could be something you’re buying. It could be something you’re selling.
Either way, you may be too focused on how much it costs, rather than looking at the value to the one who’s buying it.
Sales People Can Make This Price Focus Worse
When the first question a sales person asks is: “what’s your budget?”, they’re putting the focus primarily on the price, rather than the ultimate value to the buyer.
I once did a little video sketch with my then 11-year-old daughter. She was pretending to be a florist.
She asked me “how much did you want to spend?”
I responded with a cheeky smile: “if you could give me the flowers for free, that would be awesome.”
You see, I don’t want to spend anything. But I’m willing to spend something — maybe even a lot more than you’ve suggested — if I can see what transformation it’s going to make in my life.
Are you selling something?
What about if you’re selling a digital product yourself. How much should you charge for it? Should you make it free? A nominal amount, so that it’s a no brainer?
The answer to this is going to depend on who you’re selling it to, and why they’re buying.
If your digital product — a course, an eBook, a template — will be something that’s a minor time saver for them, then they may not want to spend much at all.
But if your offering is going to result in a massive transformation for them, then once they see that, they ought to be willing to pay more.
“Apart from the money … “
When the money becomes too much of a focus — either when you’re considering buying something, or when you’re looking to sell something — it’s worth asking this one question:
“Apart from the money, is there anything else holding you back?”
I know someone who has been very successful in his business (after a number of failures). He says that rather than setting himself a money goal when pricing a service, he literally plucks a number out of the air! But then he packs in so much value for the client, that it’s obvious to the right client just how much worth there is in what he’s selling.
When Income Disappears Suddenly
I was inspired to write this Medium story because I had a bit of a financial blow last week. You see, my YouTube channel makes me between $240 and $320 a month in ad revenue. Not enough to quit my day job, but still, nothing to sneeze at either.
Last week — suddenly — I received a notice that a tax form I had previously sent had now expired and my YouTube channel was making exactly $0 until I completed a new form.
No big deal? Except the tax form will take a while — maybe a few weeks — to get sent and processed by YouTube. In the meantime, I’ll make a big fat zero from ads on my channel.
It got me thinking about why I’m still making videos without any income from them.
It makes you realise there are other reasons — apart from the money — for writing on Medium, making videos or sharing your perspectives and life lessons with the world.
If your side hustle income was growing too slowly, or cut out suddenly, what would you do?
What do you have driving you … apart from the money?
