Mary Schmidt Marketing Troubleshooter

As a follow-on to my post last week on The Art of Pricing. (Tip: “Competing on Price” is almost never a good idea - in any size or type of business. You’ll end up poor and panic-stricken.)

Domino 1: You cut prices to the bone, maybe even operate at a loss because you want market share at - literally - all costs.

Domino 2: Your profits start dropping (duh). You cut costs. No travel to see customers; have a hiring freeze; put all raises on hold; get rid of the water coolers and free coffee. (Yep - those water bills were killin’ ya.)

Domino 3: Profits still in the tank so you lay off field service technicians.

Domino 4: You lay off marketing people.

Domino 5: You lay off product managers.

Domino 6: You slash the “bottom” sales performers.

Domino 7: You cut customer service heads.

Domino 8: You cut development and support budgets and spend gazillions on “image” advertising. (But who is answering the phone even if those ads generate interest? Hello?)

Oops! We’re outta dominos! Hey, wait a minute! Where did everybody go? And, why don’t we have market share? Why are we losing customers?

Been there, done that - with more than one company. Some still in business, some not. None of them happy places to work.

Tags: marketing, marketing troubleshooting, pricing