I was in an Apple store yesterday, looking to pick up a new MacBook. There was a couple there inquiring about the price of a MacBook Pro. The girl who was helping them quoted around $2,000 and the guy started trying to haggle, suggesting she could make a sale if she dropped the price to $1700. Her response? We don't do that here. Our price is final. There's no haggling. The couple got pretty mad and stormed out after a while, when they realised they couldn't push the price down by a cent.
Meanwhile, there must have been a good 50 people in there who were looking to buy, and they were serious about it. People who walked into that store looking to buy a premium product, while being prepared to pay for the value they were getting. Apple don't ever negotiate on their prices for a simple reason - if they did, the rest of their customers would stop looking for value, and start looking for a cheap deal. As soon as a company puts their focus on providing cheap products over premium products, you can guarantee that the quality would fall through the floor.
10
The same applies with a sports car. You don't haggle over the cost of that kind of quality.
The same applies in almost any transaction. There was a Buzzfeed post that went viral about this just the other day - "Say No To The Dress."
There are hundreds of customers who purchase dresses and clothing online from unknown sellers through Facebook and Instagram. The dresses they advertise look exactly the same as high end fashion items when they're displayed in their social posts, but they're priced at one tenth of the real products. And you know what? It turns out, there's a reason. Here's what those customers are getting vs. what they thought they'd purchased:
There's an old rule, that has never and will never stop applying. If something looks too good to be true, it's because it probably is. When you try and shop around for the lowest prices, you're probably thinking that you're going to get the best deal. The fact is, all you are going to get is a product or a service that's only worth what you've paid. Let me put it like this. If you go out and try to hire a professional, and they give you a quote that is half as much as a qualified, established service provider would charge, you'll be getting a service that is at best only half as good.
The best of the best charge what they're worth.
When you hire an accountant who is prepared to charge a respectable, reasonable fee that reflects the premium quality of their services, you'll be getting a lot more than a few simple services with an invoice attached. A good accountant is a partner, an adviser and a trusted element of your own success. A good accountant can charge you $10,000 for services that go on to save you $250,000. At Charltons, we offer services that transform businessses. Those services are provided by experienced, knowledgeable business, tax and accounting experts. When you work with us, it's under the Charltons' guarantee of quality.
We've had clients who have come to us for a quote, been impressed by the level of service we provide, and failed to look beyond the dollar signs of our fees. We know that when they walk out the door to hire a service provider who can undercut us and charge a fraction of our fees, we'll be seeing those clients again. It might be six months down the track, or it might be a year. But when the cheap services for which they've paid a cheap fee end up losing them substantial amounts of money or limiting their business' growth, they'll come back to us to straighten out those problems. When you're paying a low fee, you're really just committing to paying a higher one down the track when you run into grief.
The best of the best give more than they charge.
A quality provider will never nickel and dime their clients. They don't need to; their fees cover their services, so they won't try and squeeze every invoice out of you. When you hire premium service providers, you're building a partnership, you're establishing a long term understanding that can benefit your business in ways you'd never have imagined. It's one of the greatest benefits of paying for best-in-class professionals. They think outside the box, they go above and beyond, and they find the solutions that transform problems into opportunities and anticipate challenges.
We've been able to work with clients who have come to us for advice on a taxation matter, and walked away with strategies that grow their profits, improve their products and keep their business stable, secure and well protected. That's because we're deeply invested in our clients' success and well being. We're interested in providing premium value. We're not focused on billing as much as we can to make up quantity over quality. When you work with providers who are only concerned with getting as many small fees in as possible, you might get what you pay for you. But you'll never get more.
Shopping for fees might sound smart. But it doesn't make you money.
If you're looking to hire a professional, or purchase a product, whether you're talking about an accounting firm, a surgeon, or a new laptop, you're always going to have the option of shopping around for fees. That's your right, and we wouldn't take it away from you. What you have to remember is that you're wasting time. You need to be shopping around for quality. That's the deciding factor. Shopping for quality will find you the best possible options, and you'll walk away knowing that you made the decision and the purchase that was right for your business. You'll know it was right because you'll be achieving your goals, growing your profits and saving more money than you ever would have saved on a cheap fee.
