Back in the early 1980's, one of the most colorful Sales Trainers who covered the national scene was Don Sheehan----Don was a former Dale Carnegie sales star, the top in the nation at one time, who went on his own, and ran what he called "Don Sheehans Courses."
In addition to teaching selling skills, Don, also held Saturday seminars on such things as "Group Selling" etc. He distributed a special packed cassette bundle of 60 cassettes, and even though it has been over 20 years or so, I still have a few cassettes that I still treasure.
In one of the sessions, Don would ask the room of ...well, mostly men, to stand around in a circle. Then... he asked everyone to hold hands....and sing "All I want in life is my FULL LIST PRICE" and go around in a circle singing it. Once you did this for a minute or so on a cold Saturday morn, the memory of the lesson lasts a lifetime. It was the serious recession of 1982---and Don taught that in times of recession, the key to business success was not cutting prices, but being a price leader---offer extras to the service. Be the best in the line of business you were in....but never cut prices just because one felt uncomfortable about the possibility of rejection. VALUE was the key element to focus on,,,and to tell the customer all the advantages of the product.
In the Christmas of 2008 season, as coupons and discounting has reached a fearish pace in all kinds of retailers to the point of market confusion----those seminars of Don Sheehan have come back in my memory. As he used to say, 'Nobody ever survived in business by being the cheapest---it is the sure way to go out of business."
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