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It was 2017 and we wanted to start a program that helped us hire students early in their careers before they were done with school. It would be a discounted website company. Templated websites that students build and manage at a discounted price from our regular Stratlab websites.
Until it wasn’t.
What happened over the next two months completely blew our minds, but in hindsight, we realized what we did. And you know what they say about hindsight, it’s all bullshit.
We started getting calls from people who wanted a cheap website. An autobody in a small town who wanted the “perfect” website but was on a fixed budget. The small business owner who was picky before we even started the project. We basically created a service for the tire kickers of the world, And there’s nothing worse than trying to appease cheap people.
We ran Cupcakes and Websites for maybe a year before we stopped updating the website, quit social media, and we stopped trying to sell discounted websites.
Whenever you have a miserable failure you almost always have an amazing learning moment.
Stop trying to cater to cheap people.
People who are always looking for “a deal” and who never want to pay the “retail value” of a product or service in general, aren’t sneezers (from the Seth Godin definition of people who spread ideas or the Malcolm Gladwell definition of “connectors”). Cheap people don’t help your business, they cost you time, and money which results in stress.
Say no.
Say that again with me “do not negotiate with price terrorists!”
One thing we learned after this debacle was not to negotiate with price terrorists. We won’t do it. Our livelihoods depend on it. Once a price terrorist always a price terrorist. Do you think once you agree to a lower price they are done? Not a chance. These folks will take your company pens just so they don’t have to buy their own at home. You don’t want to do business with these folks.
If someone is trying to negotiate on price run far away. Save yourself. It’s not worth it.
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