Shut Up and Listen!: Hard Business Truths that Will Help You Succeed

by Tilman Fertitta

Next, see what your competitors are selling and at what price. There are plenty of resources available regarding industry standards that you can refer to. Use them as a guide but not as gospel. By knowing your numbers—such as production costs, labor, and others—you’ll begin to see what, if any, adjustments to those prices you should make to help your business become both more profitable and accessible to the most customers. This is as common a problem as I’ve seen in all sorts of businesses. Entrepreneurs routinely price their products higher than they should if they want to attract a wide range of customers. And that goes for wholesale as well as retail. Wholesalers expect deeply discounted prices by buying in quantity, yet entrepreneurs often ask for prices that are anything but discounts. Sometimes that’s a production issue—decreasing production costs always translates to lower prices—and sometimes an inexperienced entrepreneur hasn’t been exposed to the sorts of discounts that major wholesale buyers can command.