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 Lessons from the Mazatlan Marketplace

By David Frey

Greetings from sunny Mazatlan, Mexico. I'm taking some R&R from my recent trip to Kenya. Life is rough. :-)

Yesterday, we went down to the local marketplace here in Mazatlan where I witnessed several strokes of marketing genius. In fact, If any of you have visited Mexico you'll know that the local merchants are VERY aggressive.

They're also very smart marketers...for the most part. Today, I'll share with you just a few marketing tips that I've witnessed while vacationing here in sunny Mazatlan.

The Power of Bundling

After a beautiful sailing trip around the islands of Mazatlan on Monday we hit the beach. I saw a merchant selling shirts that attracted me.

I immediately picked out the one I like the most and asked him how much it costs. He said that he would sell it to me for 200 pesos ($20).

Well, anyone who's been to Mexico knows that the first price quote is only the start of a negotiation session...so I told him I would only pay 120 pesos.

Instead of countering on my first offer, he smartly changed the offer on me with a new bundled offer. He offered me not one, but two shirts for 250 pesos.

There was another shirt I like so I immediately countered on his offer with a more reasonable price and the deal was done.

Lessons Learned

Here are some important lessons from this buying experience.

Lesson 1 - Always create an offer that sells on value rather than price.

Notice that the merchant changed the offer to increase its value, which immediately forced me to negotiate at a higher price based on the increased value.

A simple application of this is when a printer (or another other small business) gets a request for price quote on a printing job and immediately returns with a direct quote.

What is there to separate that printer's quote from all the other quotes? Nothing. That's why I always tell businesses to quote on proposals and RFQ's based on products and services that are above and beyond what the merchant asked for. This way, your quote is always different and is based on added value.

Lesson 2 - Bundle products and services to increase the perceived value.

You can use a 2 for 1 bundle offer or simply bundle other products and services that the buyer would perceive as valuable.

When you do this, the buyer now determines whether he/she wants to buy based on value, rather than on straight price.

Here's a good application of this principle.

Ramon Williamson, a highly acclaimed business and personal coach, offers my Coaches and Consultants Marketing Bootcamp to his friends and associates by also adding a special one-on-one 30 minute private consultation that is valued at over $150.

This significantly increases the already high value of the Marketing Bootcamp and adds an extra incentive to buy the course.

NOTE: Ramon recently did an awesome interview with me before I left for Mexico. I revealed a LOT of great strategies and tactics that coaches and consultants would find very valuable. You can listen to it for free right here...

http://www.ramonwilliamson.com/friends/davidfrey.html

Lesson 3 - Cross Sell and Up sell During the Buying Activity There's no better time to gain additional sales than while the buyer has their wallet or purse open and they're in the buying mood.

The moment I opened my wallet, other merchants swarmed around me in order to sell their goods. The net result is that I ended up buying a beautiful carved iron wood horse, some hand made baskets, and a pair of cool sunglasses.

In fact, the people I was with ended up buying a lot of stuff from them too!

But each of the merchants were selling stuff that was different than my first shirt purchase. In essence, they were cross selling me goods that they believed I might want because I purchased the shirts.

Every small business owner should identify specific goods and services that they can offer to cross sell and up sell during the selling activity.

 Just a small change in your customer's average purchase amount can make a big change in your bottom line.