If you’re not selling enough now at current prices, charge more. In fact, double the price. This isn’t just based on the theory that the more you charge, the more that people think it’s worth. Instead, the idea is to get you thinking about value, not price.

You see, matching prices is a fool’s game, especially on the Internet where a lower-priced competitor is but a click away, and a comparison shopping robot is even closer.

So you’ve got to distinguish yourself using something more than price. And the answer is value.

For example, if you’ve got something priced at $50, double it – and charge $100. Then ask, what you would have to do to make them think that $100 is a bargain-basement price that they’d have to be stupid not to pay.

You see, when you start thinking that way, you’re thinking about value, not price.

So stop selling a $25 book, and start selling a $100 package that includes the $25 book, a $50 follow-up workbook, a $150 ticket to a forthcoming event, and a $500 certificate for a phone consultation.

Is that worth $100? Yes, provided that all the bonuses are really of value to the customer. If they are, then it’s a no-brainer decision, and price doesn’t really come into it.

Here are three other things that you can do …

1. Use testimonials

A simple benefit-oriented testimonial from a past customer is worth a thousand words of hype from you.

By benefit-oriented, I mean something that’s more than just “Oh, wow! I just love you guys”. That sort of testimonial is nice, but it doesn’t necessarily match a prospective customer’s requirements (unless that reaction is an important part of what you’re selling).

2. Give a long guarantee

You should give a guarantee, it should be as long as possible, and you should not have any weasel words in it to allow yourself to wriggle out of it. The stronger the guarantee, the easier it is to convince customers to buy.

3. Make it scarce

Make your products scarce, and promote that scarcity. Perhaps you’re getting rid of old stock to make way for new. Perhaps you’ve got limited seating to an event. Perhaps you’re looking for early bookings to secure a venue. Perhaps the manufacturer goofed and sent you a palette of slightly damaged stock. Perhaps your grand-uncle died and left you a valuable art collection. Perhaps you’re starting a new membership club and you’re offering a limited amount of “foundation memberships”.

Whatever you can do to add a bit of scarcity to your product or service offering, do it.

When you’re selling electronic products to corporate clients, there are different ways to price the products.

With physical products like a book, the pricing is simple, because you generally charge based on the number of units sold. Sometimes you might do a special deal – such as a discount for buying in bulk, or a special version with the client’s logo on the cover. But broadly, you charge by the number of items you sell.

It’s different with electronic products – such as an online course – because there isn’t a cost for each item you sell. So you can be more flexible in your pricing arrangement with the client. Here are three common methods used.

1. One-off fee

This is sometimes called a “site licence”, where the client pays a fixed fee based on the number of users. It’s often set up in tiers – e.g. one fee for up to 10 users, a higher fee for up to 100, a higher fee for up to 1,000, etc.

This is the simplest for the client, because it just comes out of a single budget. You negotiate the price once, invoice the client for it, and that’s it.

2. Pay per download

This is not so easy for the client to budget, but can be attractive because they don’t have to pay up front for something their people might not use.

The trick here is to be able to accurately monitor downloads, which is tricky if it’s on the client’s intranet. Even if they genuinely want to help you, it’s not always easy to get accurate numbers, unless they already have some system in place for accurately tracking hits/downloads of other intranet documents.

Some people address this by using the number of online course sign-ups, which is accurate. One of my clients has been using this principle for years. He licences clients to run his programs in-house, but asks them to send him the list of e-mail addresses of attendees so he can send them the online courses. Of course, there’s no way of him knowing if they run the program without the online component, but he trusts them.

3. On-going fee

With this option, the client pays a subscription fee for access to the service, and they can use it as much as they like as long as their subscription is current.

This is attractive to some clients because it’s a lower up-front fee, but it might be difficult to keep budgeting for this. That said, people who run membership sites do exactly this, and it works for them.

And yes, it’s possible to do this on an intranet as well, although of course it won’t be a membership site. Instead, you would send them updates every month. For example, one person I know sends her clients a CD-ROM of updates every month, and the client’s IT department loads them to the intranet.

Harlan Ellison has a rant about being asked to do some of his work free:

What do you think? Do you agree with his sentiments, or are there times you’d be willing to do work free in return for getting something else in return?