the MARTINI SHAKER

I’m testing posting to the blog from my Treo 300 while waiting for some brake work on my Xterra. How quickly I forget that I absolutely hate the business model of auto repair facilities.

I’ve been stuck here for the past 2 hours only to be told that my brake work is going to cost $330.00. No thanks. I was able to knock the price down about $100.00 by refusing some of the services.

This gets me thinking thinking about whether or not I’ve made clients feel like I’m holding them over an edge… upselling them on services and addons purely out of fear of technology or the unknown. Because, if you think about it, mechanics and web developers have the same advantage in that when selling your diagnosis, proposal, or whatever, you’re usually dealing in terms, technologies, and services that the average person isn’t familiar with.

You can make bells and whistles on a CMS, Flash site, or CSS layout sound awful important if you spin it just right. Just like a mechanic can spin rotor cleaning or line flushing to some people that do it just to cover up the fear that they’ll regret it later if they don’t do something that sounds unfamiliar to them, or go along to cover up that they just don’t understand what’s going on.

I hope I don’t do that. I hope you don’t either. As a profession, I think we’re better than that.

Upselling is great. I do it every chance I can, but I try to at least give some education as to why I’m suggesting extra features, or what the genuine added benefit will be in the end.