As an entrepreneur are you results-focused or sales-focused? Do you elicit early on from your buyer without fail what his or her intended result is (desired overall improvement or saving) before offering terms (your “frame”) or do you simply respond to his or her demand to buy your service (fear of losing the business) by immediately quoting a price you hope you can get away with?
If your default position is the latter, you are using his or her “frame”. You are building a low-fee / low-margin business. You are leaving huuge money on the table, which you will never recover from. You are instantly a “commodity” purchase in the buyer’s mind. Your buyer will increasingly seek a new and improved “deal” (three for two), at the next opportunity, trying to keep more of the money on the table, and cutting your margins further.
In the absence of educating your buyer about the “value” in advance, you have a one-sided set of scales – cost (your fee) – with all the weight on it (time, money and energy) and transparency, leading to an inevitable low estimation of the return-on-investment by your buyer.
You have lost control of the discussion, the relationship, and the results that will ensue with the buyer.
Welcome to the “commodity trap”.
