Wednesday, January 18, 2012

A bit more thought might be appropriate

"Hello, I'm interested in your product, how much is it?"

"£250 or £350 depending on a single machine or site licence"

"Can you drive to Liverpool/Birmingham/somewhere round the M25 to demo it?"

"No"

If you haven't worked out what the point of the above is then I'd suggest you need to think a bit more about the costs involved.

From our office to Liverpool is 202 miles

The AA say this will take 3 hours 26 minutes each way.

So approximately 400 miles and 7 hours travelling time.

Let's say my car does 30 mpg (it doesn't) that's around 13 gallons of fuel (59 litres) @ 141.90 per litre (diesel) costing around £83.

(If I use the AA running costs of a minimum of 41p per mile it's £164)

And let's say my time is worth £30 an hour (which is a very low estimate) that's another £210.

So in order to maybe get a sale worth between £250 - £350 I need to spend at least £293.

Doesn't work for me. If I got the sale at £250 and assuming I don't factor in my time at all and just take into account the fuel cost I will have made around £160 on a very good day.

If I don't get the sale at the very least I've wasted 8 hours and spent £83. During this time I can't answer calls, develop code or do anything else productive.

So if you want an on site demo of a product that costs £250 I'm going to charge you £350 for the demo.











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