Why You Always Get What You Pay For

You may not like what you get, and you may not like what you pay, but you will always get what you pay for.

If you don’t like what you get, you still paid for it. If you didn’t like it because it was less than you feel you should have received, it was exactly what you paid for. You think you invested enough, and the seller does as little as possible, reducing what they do to be able to give you the price you want. When you underinvest, you rarely get what you really wanted. This is why buyer’s feel cheated when they get the bargain they insist upon.

If you don’t like what you paid, you still got what you got. If you paid more than you wanted to and got less than expected, you got what you paid for. You again received what you paid for, even if you made a more substantial investment and expected much more. You invested enough, but the seller invested too little. This how sellers lose future sales, future clients, and receive poor word of mouth.

If you like what you got and you liked what you paid, you invested the right amount in the outcome you wanted, and the party that sold it to you invested enough to deliver it.

The idea that you get what you pay for is well recognized in some areas, but in other areas, it’s as if it’s a foreign concept.

Taking Money Out of Your Program

Some people are deeply committed to the belief that they can take money out of their solution and somehow make it better. Never in the history of all human history has taken money out of anything improved it. Yet, there are people, companies, and certain roles who operate from this belief. They get what they pay for, reducing their supplier’s prices, and much of the time, increasing their costs. This group insists on taking money out of their own program.

Others deeply believe you get what you pay for, ensuring they make the necessary investment to deliver. People who buy this way think that paying more means that they should expect more, and the seller should—and will be—accountable for the outcome. They get what they pay for, paying a higher price, and experiencing lower costs and better results. This group insists on a fair deal and the outcome of their investment.

The first category of buyers believes they can shrink themselves to greatness, removing more money from their programs, mistakenly believing they have taken the money from their supplier. Instead, they have reduced the investment in their own program, making it more difficult and less likely they get what they want and expecting it anyway.

The second category of buyers is not buying price. Instead, they are buying an outcome. And while they are always going to ask you for your best price, they are not going to try to extract so much of a price concession that it would cause you to fail them. They want to invest what is necessary to produce the result they need, not more, and not less.

As someone who sells, you want to acquire clients and customers in the second category, and as much as is possible, avoiding those who would expect more than they are willing to pay for.