Overcharged For What

Overcharged For What

French Toast

Overcharging rarely has to do with the product itself.

When going out for breakfast and seeing $11 is the cost for a couple of pieces of french toast, you’re not overcharged for the french toast.

“For that much they oughta be there to wipe the syrup from my lip.”

Would you think you were overcharged for the french toast if you knew you would have your own personal waiter, only there to wait on you? Or what if the cooks made a presentable plate of french toast? Or as some restaurants do, what if they cooked it right in front of you and made it a show? Would you still feel overcharged?

We feel overcharged when a transaction lacks special delivery, when the price is high on a “you get what you see” purchase, when there’s nothing remarkable about the experience of buying the product.

Delivery matters so much. I’m not going to wait in a line to pay $11 for the same type of french toast I can get elsewhere for $3 or $4. Not when there’s no other reason for charging $11. Nope. Sorry.

Said it a million times over. How you deliver matters.

 

Stay Positive & No One Feels Overcharged If You Overdeliver

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Pick Your Costume, Path, Hat…

Halloween is over but I still see people trying to find the perfect costume, path, hat…

(This post is choppy with a purpose. Bare with me.)

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Not everyone is cut for a traditional education, not everyone can look good putting on a hair-net and flipping burgers, not everyone can be the all-star jock. Simple fact is that different people are looking for different costumes.

My favorite part about Halloween is seeing people who think they are wearing the same costume as someone else. Two people can dress up as a cat, but the makeup is different, the ears are different, the tail is different. We all have something special to offer even if we wear the same costume, walk the same path or put on the same hat each morning.

There’s a reason most agencies need multiple coders, PR people with different personalities, and a variety of people answering phones.

My SO gets me to watch Cupcake Wars and while the bakers are all professional cupcake makers, their finished cupcake products are different from one another.

Starbucks can hire five people who can make a perfect brew, but they all make it their way. The speed they complete an order is different, what they write on the cup is different,  how they hand it to a customer is different.

And when it comes to designers, I have never seen two designers that design the same. Not even when one designer tries mimicking another.

Doing It Right

You’re getting a lot of variety thrown at you here and I appreciate you reading through the choppiness of it all. But there is a point to it.

No matter what you do, you get to invest yourself in it, add your style, put part of you into it. Unfortunately, so many people give up following their interests because what they create is so different.

I still remember one day a few years ago that I thought of melting crayons on a canvas to make art. I never did it because I thought people would say it was stupid, no one would like it, and it was just too different.

A few months after my decision not to do it, a classmate did it and her piece got showed in a glass case in the school. Then I was surfing the web and saw that she wasn’t even the first one to make something by melting crayons on a canvas.

Turns out what I thought people would think was just too different to like, they actually loved.

Doing It Wrong

You’re going to have a lot of people tell you that you’re doing something wrong because it’s different. Worse yet, you’re often going to tell yourself that you’re doing it wrong because you have never seen anything like it before.

The harsh truth is that you (and they) might be right. But it’s better to be wrong and learn from it than not do it at all and never know.

 

Stay Positive & Remember, It’s About How You Deliver

Garth E. Beyer

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How You Deliver

It’s not so much what you deliver. Getting caught up in that is a losing battle.

But, how you deliver matters a ton.

Do you make a phone call, respond to email, or knock on their door?

Does the Chef making your sushi work behind a wall or can you watch her create your meal?

Does the painter let you watch what he can do while he works or does he push you away and tell you he will be done in 4 hours, to come back then?

Does the student use a Powerpoint or her own voice, limbs, and energy?

Post industrialization, it’s not a matter of seeing to believe, it’s downright a desire to see all we can see. This makes how you deliver an extreme importance.

 

Stay Positive & Over Deliver

Garth E. Beyer