This is an idea that’s been bopping around in my head for a while now. Will it work in your industry?
When we stake a price on our goods or services, that’s it. That’s what we’ve said it’s worth. Customers pay that and only that. I don’t know anyone who’s gone to the local car wash, slid their card through the machine twice so that they could pay $20 for a car wash priced at $10 because of the great job this particular system does. However, all day long, people will pull up to a group of teenagers and hand over twenty bucks for a wash that takes too long and is mediocre at best.
On the contrary, it’s common practice for people in the web development world to develop small functions or snippets of code and allow others to use at no cost. Only asking that you donate if you feel that what they’ve produced is valuable. This rarely results in much earnings.
The difference, the corporate owned car wash sells a clean car for just $10. The web geek is selling the value of his coding and it’s functions (which he probably undervalues for the rate he commonly is willing to work for). The group of teenagers is selling your opportunity to be a part of helping them achieve. You just get a clean car as a thank you for taking part. Try it. Stop selling your goods and services. Try selling people the chance to be a part of something. Then let them choose the value of taking part.
Chances are, they’ll value you and your product well above the price you’d have tagged it with.
