Just Give Me A Reason

I think this mantra deserves many repetitions. It is simple yet works very well to help you communicate to your customers why you are increasing prices.

The real reasons why you should increase prices are many but I sure do hope those reasons start with your customers.

It could be because your initial price is wrong – you did not understand what your customers are paying for.

It could be because you see an opportunity to move them all to next higher version and shutdown your lowest priced version.

It could be because you want to change your customer mix and want to have more of those that value your product higher than most.

Ultimately all these reasons are rooted in profit motive. And that is good, I believe making profit is a noble pursuit.

But when you communicate your price increase to your customers make sure you give any reason but the aforementioned logical ones.

You must give a reason, any reason or reasons –

1. Because our costs went up
2. Because our landlord increased rents
3. Because of foreign currency fluctuation
4. Because of Obama Care
5. Because of minimum wage increase
6. Because of flood in Thailand
7. Because my mom told me to
8. Because our customers asked us to
9. Because of menu alignment
10. Because because (see here)

Just make sure these are not the real reasons you increase prices.

Giving reasons, regardless of how least realistic, relatable or  relevant they sound, helps defuse any backlash from customers from price increases.

Just give me a reason, just a little bit is enough.