Stop Selling Commodity Chili

Skyline Chili, $5.49, on sale.

Hormel Chili, $2.79 every day. Same-size can.

My recipe for Cincinnati-style chili beats anything that comes out of a can. (DM me if you want a copy.) And the canned Skyline on the shelf does not hold a candle to what you get in their restaurants.

That is not the point.

This is where price becomes a story.

The Skyline buyer, "exiled" in Atlanta where these photos were taken, is not just buying chili. Standing in the grocery store, memories of home start flooding their mind: childhood in Cincinnati, late nights after Reds games, visits with grandparents, music on Fountain Square.

They are buying "home" in a can.

Hormel is baseline nourishment.

Skyline is a memory, an identity, a little piece of "who I am."

Your work as a professional service provider is no different.

Your best clients are not paying for hours, deliverables, or a line item in a budget. That's baseline nourishment.

They are paying for the advisor who calms their anxieties. The firm that got them through the last crisis. The person who bolsters their confidence.

That story lives in their head, not in your proposal.

If you present yourself like commodity chili, you attract price comparisons and bargain shoppers.

If you present yourself like Skyline, you become part of the client's story.

And they will gladly pay more to keep that story going.

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I'm John, author of The Generosity Mindset, and I help expert-service professionals like consultants, coaches, and fractional executives overcome pricing fears and charge what they're worth. Need help? Let's talk.