Tell Them To Keep Their Money

I used to want everyone to be my customer for anything I happened to be selling. This led to me offering high quality stuff at really low prices so as to not exclude anyone on the basis of money. In the long run this led to many more headaches than it solves problems.

Buyers who buy cheap are the worst buyers. As a seller you learn this pretty early: Cheap buyers spend the least amount of money, do the most complaining, ask the most questions, are the slowest to part with their money, and they’re not part of the 20% of buyers who are producing 80% of the revenues.

Cheap buyers don’t think value, they think price. Everything is measured in numbers to them, and you find this out as soon as you one of them becomes your customer – or thinks about it. Cheap buyers are solely focused on how much they spend, not the value they get. Those who buy groceries at Walmart instead of Whole Foods because of cost is a good example. The Walmart trip saves $590/year; if the WF goods stretched your life by even one month, would it be worth $590?

Why does it cost this much? How do I know it’s worth it? Can you explain in detail what I get (even though this has already been laid out)? I just want to make sure I’m getting value for my money. I don’t have a lot of money to begin with! 

(Note: if a lack of money is your issue, that’s even more reason for you to buy high quality things: they last longer and are actually worth much more in the long run than the cheap stuff. But you don’t see this immediately, which is why cheap buyers buy cheap things and continue the cycle. I’ll admit I was not privy to this for most of my life.)

These are things cheap (many friends of mine prefer to use broke) buyers say. As a seller, what do you do?

  1. When you see them, run. Of course, you can’t stop people from buying from you unless you’re manually taking each order, but here’s and easy tip: Cheap buyers usually ask a ton of questions before parting with a dollar. You will know about them. Kindly let them know that they may be smarter to keep their money than buy something they’re not sure about – that would be better for both you and them. Cheap buyers only need one reason to back out and they will, quickly. I have recently began employing this method.
  2. Raise your prices. You’ll eliminate many cheap buyers just by this alone — you can even explicitly explain it in a post or email to everyone — and know you’re only dealing with people who are seeing value and not dollar signs.
  3. Target people who can actually afford what you’re offering. Maybe you already have some low-end priced items — keep them there and automate the system as much as possible. With your future stuff, determine your audience: who needs it AND can afford it? “Can afford it” = $_____ (product price) is not primarily a bank account decision, but a do I want/need this? decision. These are your buyers.

When you sell to cheap people, you now have a lot of cheap headaches who aren’t even worth the effort. Stop chasing 100 $1 dollar bills and look for the 1 $100 dollar bill.

Written By Dre Baldwin