One of the things I’ve learnt is that as a small business it’s really hard, in fact maybe impossible to compete on price.
If you’re selling a product the big companies, such as Tesco or Amazon, will almost always be cheaper.
If you’re providing a service, such as web page design, the cheap competition comes from the opposite direction. There are plenty of amateurs willing to do the work for less because they have a day job to pay the mortgage and they just want some extra spending money.
So how can you compete?
Competition drives prices down and reduces quality because you can’t give customers as much time and attention. So if you can’t compete on price, you can choose to compete on quality instead.
Over the last year I’ve met lots of people at events and I’ve done plenty of networking. If you take the time to get to know people they could turn to you when they need your services or products.
I met a lady a little while ago and we spent a while talking about web sites. The price I charge for a web site was outside the budget she had, but after we’d talked, she didn’t just want a web site, she wanted one of my web sites. She decided to save up the money to afford it. In the meantime she keeps telling people she thinks my work is great and that they should get me to design a web site.
By investing a little time talking to her I’ve won a great evangelist who tells people how much she likes my work. If I tell you my work is great then you may just believe me, but if someone else tells you how great they think I am it sounds much more believable.
There are times when we all go for the cheapest option. If we’re buying petrol then we go for the cheapest filling station because to most of us, petrol is the same wherever you buy it.
But sometimes we want to buy something that really matters to us. If you’re a coffee lover then there is a huge difference between a cup made with cheap instant coffee or freshly ground beans. You’re willing to pay the extra for quality, because you appreciate the difference.
Final thought
Something I heard once was “give and forget, receive and remember”. That means if you help someone else out, forget about it and don’t expect anything in return. If somebody helps you out though look for opportunities to help them back. This helps you to become the kind of person that others want to do business with.
Nick Bramwell runs TwoLittleFishes web site design.
TwoLittleFishes creates web sites for small businesses. Great web sites should be easy to use and provide valuable content to customers and potential customers.
