Great Advice You Should Refer to Before Starting Your Small Business

What was the best business advice you received when starting your small business? Originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others, and better understand the world.

This is advice I picked up indirectly, from reading one of Doberman Dan’s books.

Selling is hard in general.

Selling a $1,000 product is almost as hard as selling a $50 product.

But selling a $1,000 is many times more rewarding than selling the $500 product.

So why not go for the higher ticket sale?

It takes the same skill level…

The salesman selling $10 circus tickets at the fair needs as much salesmanship as the salesman selling $12,000 Rolex watches.

And so I decide early on that, if I were to put in the work to sell my services to somebody, I will do so to people who can afford to pay more.

My time is very valuable to me — and the older I get, the more so…

I don’t want to waste it picking up crumbs.

I’m a shy person and I’m naturally intimidated by people whom I perceive to be way higher on the social scale than me.

But I learned to fight and control my natural tendencies, and resist putting people on a pedestal.

We’re all people — just wearing different clothes, and driving different cars.

Still not convinced about how much of a difference it makes selling to more affluent people?

Let me give you an example…

I used to sell my signature car cleaning package for $50 to $70 (depending on the size of the vehicle)…

Now I sell the same package — which takes me as long to complete — for $297 to $347.

Same package — different clientele.

I can work the same amount — or less, because I don’t have to clean as many cars to reach my target — and make more money.

Simply by targeting a different clientele.

One who can afford to pay more for my service.

Now, there is a system to this — it’s not as simple as raising your prices and expect people to gladly pay them.

If you do just that, you’re going to see 90% of your current clientele disappearing overnight…

The key is to completely re-position yourself and your business to attract a different type of customer — and in the same time, repel the wrong time of customer.

Yes, you read that right… you want to actually repel certain people.

The tire-kickers, the time-wasters, the looky-loos, etc….

The ones that ask, but never buy.

And once you put this system into action, you’re going to see your whole business — and your life — transform practically overnight.

Contributed by Alex Draghicescu, Self-Proclaimed Expert in car cleaning and detailing