Hey there and welcome to the Bringing Business to Retail podcast. Now I remember the first time a customer came in and spent what I thought at the time was a crazy amount of money. It was over $1,000. Now my average order value at the time was probably around $150.

A couple had come in for a workshop that we would host on Saturday mornings, and at the end of the session they came to the counter with armloads of products. And they just kept asking me, what else do we need?

I would quietly suggest something else. All the while I was thinking, surely they won't want to spend any more. But then they would take it and they would put it on the counter and say, What else do we need? Instead of being excited by the at the time was the biggest sale I'd ever had, I spent that whole time wondering when they would realize what the total was going to be and they would put stuff back or their credit card would decline.

They would just walk out thinking I was ripping them off. None of that happened. I ended up throwing in some extras because I felt so indebted to them for spending with me that it just seemed rude for them to walk out without me giving them more, me expressing how I thought they were so generous spending that money with me. And I wanted to express my gratitude, so I would just add more things in.

That couple went on to become extremely loyal customers and what I call drum beaters, people who absolutely rave about your store. Now it took me a long time to realize that customers aren't actually surprised when you ask them to pay. And in fact, it says more about ourselves than it does about our customers when we're shocked when they want to give us money. In this little mini episode today, business owner Kevin.

highlights how he also fell into this trap and we discuss why it happens and what to change if you find yourself in this situation. Let's jump in.

I just thought about the last promotion I had and it it really was just discounts. Like that's all it was. It's like, here's my here's my product, come by for me, take this much money off. And I know that's and do you think that that now that we've we've had this conversation, do you think that that might be alienating some of those?

You know, the customers that are prepared to spend more? I think so. Like I have the same problem when people come into the brick and mortar store. Like I have physically, like in my brain, stopped myself sometimes from like, I'm just gonna give them a 10% discount that they didn't ask for because they bought a lot. And I'm like, I'm like, I know I can see your face. And I I've been listening to your podcast. So some of that is I can hear your voice in the back of my brain like.

Why you giving your money away? Like they didn't ask for it. Why are you giving it to them? Yeah. Well, you deserve it just as much as they do. and I think one of the big it's not even, you know, if if we want to take away the money, you know, the why are you giving away your money? Think about it more just along the lines of by giving them a discount, you actually devalue the entire experience. Like, yes, there's sometimes sometimes people, you know, we get a little bit excited when someone says, that's on sale. It's like, yeah, a little bonus.

But actually, and one of the things I have had to learn myself is that people with money think differently. Like none of you guys are poor, right? But the more money you make, the more you start to actually not care about how much things cost. What you care about is what's in it for you, which is why I will door dash some AA batteries from the store, which is five minutes away.

Because the hour of my time and focus, so it would only take me five minutes to get on my bike, ride there, walk in, come back. I'd be here back in 15 minutes. But the focus that I lose and that 15 minutes them you know themselves is worth more to me than the five dollars for the DoorDash. Yeah. And so we have to start thinking about the fact that actually you devalue the experience when you say to somebody, here's 10% off. Like my first thing is.

My first question now is like, why? Like, was it on sale? Like, but if someone says “no”, I'm just kind of like, well, it obviously wasn't worth that then. Like, now you're ripping me off. Yeah. Like, rip off. Does it make sense? So it's it's it's hard to break out of this idea that we're in this to make money. But Kevin, I'm gonna say you have a biological advantage.

men think differently to women. So you and this isn't I'm not making this up. This studies show that men think differently to women. And when it comes to business, men are less fussed about the obstacles that get in the way and this a lot of this mindset stuff. Yeah. So I'm gonna say, Kevin, you have a biological advantage over the rest of us because your brain is literally wired to, I'm in this thing.

For a reason, which is to make money and make my customers happy, what's gonna happen to get there? Yeah. So let's stop thinking about ourselves, except for the fact that we this is a business that we make to make money. But it's about our customers as well. But not our customers at the detriment of ourselves.