TJ Walker, CEO of Media Training Worldwide, explains why he doesn't discount his media and presentation training. Discounting damages perceived value and hurts repeat business. He offers one path to a discount: get competing proposals to compare.
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Hi, I'm TJ Walker, CEO of Media Training Worldwide. Each week we get dozens and dozens of requests for proposals from all over the world, from people who are interested in our media, our presentation training services. Now, each month, we get at least a dozen requests from people asking for a discount. The reason you're being sent this video is you're one of those. Now, let me state right up front, there's nothing wrong with asking for a discount. I ask for discounts on the time. There's nothing wrong with that. It's prudent business practice. I wanted to share with you some of my concerns, and then if we can figure out a way of making each other happy, I'm all open to it. Now, for starters, again, there's nothing wrong with asking for a discount. I go to Walmart, I want discount garbage bags, in part because I view garbage bags as a commodity. Now, there are media and presentation training services that are commodities, too. You can go to a local community college teacher for public speaking training. There's Dale Carnegie, there's Toastmasters. They do a good job of what they do. That's not what we're about right here. Now, if you want the best brain surgeon in the world to operate on you, if you want a Rolls Royce, if you want a Rolex, typically, you're not asking for a discount. You're asking for the highest quality product or service, and that's the price you pay. That's really our attitude of what we're about here at Media Training Worldwide. Now, let's stop and think about what we're trying to purchase here. You are essentially thinking of hiring me to pay you to be a persuasive speaker, either to live audiences or to the media. If I haven't persuaded you of my value, there's frankly a problem. It means I fail. Think of what we're trying to do here. I'm trying to persuade you of a particular value for a particular service. You, on the other hand, are trying to persuade me of a lower value for the very same service. Now, if you can persuade me of the lower fee, that means you're better at persuasion than I am. Which begs the question, why would you hire me in the first place? You wouldn't hire a tennis instructor that you beat regularly on the tennis court. So I frankly am not quite sure why you would even want to hire me if at this stage of the relationship, you can actually be more persuasive than I am. The next point to think about is, really, why start any relationship if both people aren't happy. I think if I came to you and asked you if you'd like to take a pay cut, would you be happy? The answer is probably no. You're essentially asking me for a pay cut. It doesn't really make anyone happier. The next issue is repeat business. Now, I care about your business, but if we're going to work together, you do need to care a little bit about mine. The lifeblood of this business is repeat business. If I give you a great training at a reduced price, what that's going to do is set up an expectation from you in the future. You're going to want the same service at a reduced price. So I've essentially talked myself into a permanent pay cut. Why would anyone want to do that? The next concern I have is referral business. That's the other lifeblood of a business like mine, referral business. If I give you a training at a reduced or drastically reduced fee and you like it, you're going to tell other people about it. You're also going to tell them how much you paid. So I'm going to be generating prospects who are going to be asking me for a pay cut. Why would I want to do that? That doesn't really help my business at all. The next concern I often get is people saying, tj, we'd love to hire you. We'd love to hire you at your full fee, but it's not in the budget. Well, I know what you mean on the one hand. On the other hand, there's always a budget for anything that's really important. Look around your company. If there's something that's really important, for that matter, you as an individual, if it's really important to you, somehow the budget miraculously appears. Budgets get set because people value something at a lower level. If you don't value training or you don't value it too much, the budget's obviously going to be much lower. Now, many people also say to me, tj, you know, you sound great. We want to hire you, but we don't need the online training. We don't need the books, the videos, the audios. Well, a couple points, and I don't want to sound cocky or arrogant here, but with all due respect, if you knew what you needed to actually get better and to be a great speaker, you wouldn't need me in the first place. So part of what you're paying for is my judgment on what will actually help you build your skills. The best short term and long term. So I'm using my judgment. The other issue is you're not paying separately for the online training or the books or the videos. You're paying for my judgment and experience to make you great. I've been doing this for 28 years and I've worked hard to beat the best in the business. I've taken the time to write number one USA Today best selling books. I've taken the time to get in the Guinness Book of Records for most talk show appearances ever in a 24 hour period because I want to walk the talk. I've taken the time to cultivate business in six continents. I've taken the time to build my credibility to the point where or I train presidents of countries, prime ministers, Nobel Peace Prize winners, Miss Universe. It's that experience that creates a value in me that helps you. That's what you're paying for, not any one particular little book or online video. The final point I would ask you to think about is if you want a discount, that's great, I'll give you a discount. Here's what I ask from you. Take my proposal and get other people to give you a proposal with a budget. I'd be willing to bet no one is willing to give you the services I offer for less than $100,000. So if you want a discount, you just got a 90% or more discount. So you've already got the discount right there. Yet again, what I'm selling is not a four or eight hour block of time. I'm selling the expertise to help you become dramatically better in the short term as a communicator for live speaking events or media interviews and then a long term way to get better and better and better. Finally, I just leave you with your money is important to you. It's valuable to you. You shouldn't purchase any training or product unless you're convinced you're getting the absolute best value for your dollar. I'm convinced that in the proposal I sent you I'm giving you the absolute best possible value for your dollar. And that's the only reason I would ever want you to use me. I'm tj. Thanks a lot. If you have any more questions, feel free to call me 212-764-4955.
