A few years ago, my accountant wrote this ditty to his clients:
If you use the Postal Service to mail your tax returns, spend the extra money for certified mail. For $3.75 you can purchase certified mail. Yes, you will have to stand in a line (or you can use the automated machines in many post offices), but you now have a receipt that verifies that you have mailed your return.
About fourteen years ago one of my clients saved $2.42 (I think that was the cost of a certified mail piece then) and sent his return in with a $0.37 stamp. It never made it. He ended up paying nearly $1,000 in penalties and interest…but he did save $2.42.
It boggles the mind how expensive being cheap can be.
Most people demand everything fast, free, and yesterday.
And most people are dirt broke – which I doubt is a coincidence.
Another example is email:
I’ve lost count of how many email marketers — who supposedly “know their numbers” — will cheap out on what is essentially the beating heart of their business by price shopping for the platform they use. They will take gigantic hits in inbox deliverability, time lost and never to be regained from diddling around with clunky interfaces, and whining about having to pay per email (which is becoming the norm for all ESPs anyway, wild west of the internet has ended, Tex…) instead of focusing on building a better list, writing better emails, and making better offers, building out 1-click upsells, and delivering experiences that would allow them to more than recoup that money if they were simply in front of more leads — including leads who aren’t getting their emails at all due to them being so cheap.
Another example:
Our Low Stress Options company.
A small handful of people (we don’t cater to cheap people, so get very few of them) over the past few years have used Low Stress Options to make out so well that the monthly fee to use the software, get ongoing guidance, etc is the proverbial drop in the bucket… but they dropped out thinking they are “saving” money, which those of us using it, learning, growing inside it, getting better (and, thus, making more profits as a result, far more than the measly monthly fee) laugh at their small thinking.
Ten years ago this sort of thing used to astonish me.
I just could not fathom why anyone would step over dollars to pick up pennies.
But then I realized some people are just born cheap.
It reminds me of the guy who bought Marvel Comics and they went bankrupt many years ago. He was also so cheap he made employees use the public rest room to save on the water bill, and would go around at night looking for staples and paper clips, and penalizing people for not reusing them.
So this is definitely a thing.
Personally, I am convinced these types cannot help themselves and it’s literally in their DNA, probably. These are often also the types who live and die by a spreadsheet in marketing focusing only on the bottom line, while ignoring the intangibles of time, emotion, and energy that, if invested properly, add MORE, not less, to ye olde big ol’ fatty bottom line (revisit this last December Email Players issue for more on that). These types will both literally and figuratively drive 50 miles out of their way to save five cents per gallon on gas.
I wish I could say that was an exaggeration.
But alas… no.
I’ve seen this and much worse, and you probably have, too.
I almost feel sorry for them.
Almost.
Because, they are not innocent victims, they are willing victims. And in my experience, there’s not much you can do in these cases but price your offers in such a way that scares them off like the timid little woodland creatures they are behaving like, and focus on people who do value time, comfort, and convenience over a few pennies saved.
I don’t know who needed to hear this.
But I can think of a handful of people on my list who will take offense.
And that’s good.
I said what I said, and so it is.
Things ain’t getting cheaper, after all, so you might as well learn how to sell.
To learn how to do that see the paid Email Players newsletter:
Ben Settle
