A number of years ago, I was asked to bid on a very large training contract.  I assumed, as there were lots of good consultant/trainers running around, that I was in a very competitive situation and therefore, the only thing that mattered to the customer was the price.  Thus, I decided I would lower my already low asking price by 25 percent in order to make sure I would have a fighting chance to land this job.  The first order of business was to go to the city where the corporate headquarters was located and meet with the corporate staff that had the authority to hire me.

When I arrived at the corporate headquarters, I was met in the lobby by one of the members of the corporate staff who informed me that the meeting would start a half hour later than originally scheduled.    This individual apologized for inconveniencing me and took me to his office where he told me to make myself at home until the meeting started.

As it turned out, this staff person had a secretary who was very friendly and personable.  After we had talked for a while, I felt comfortable asking her some questions about the training program.  When I asked if her company had ever conducted such a training program in the past, she told me they had during the previous year, but it had ended in disaster.  She went on to say that the instructors had done such a poor job that the program participants had gotten up and walked out before noon on the first day of the program.  In addition, she informed me that the corporate staff wound up with egg all over their faces and were really under the gun to find a quality instructor this time, because the president himself, who was not happy with situation, was going to sit in on the program to make sure it was done right.  She also volunteered that because one of the staff members had attended one of my seminars during the previous year, I was the only person they were considering for the job!

As you can see, my initial assumptions could not have been more wrong.  This staff’s true self-interest was not low price; it was whether or not I would make them look good enough in front of the president to get them out of his “dog house”.  If I could convince them that I would do just that, the job would be mine and price would not even be an issue (as long as it was within reason).  I immediately raised my asking price by 50 percent and quickly developed a strategy to convince the corporate staff that I was their guy.  At the end of the meeting, I was given the job and the price I asked was not even questioned.

The lesson here is, once you figure out the true self-interest of the people who stand bet the people who stand between you and success or failure, getting them to pay premium prices is really quite easy.

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