A business associate of mine once used to charge $5,000 per day for his consulting services. I asked him once how he came to that rate and he said he heard someone was charging $4,000 per day and he wanted to be sure he was the most expensive option available. At the time he billed out about two hundred days per year at that rate. According to behavioral economics, he was banking on the power of expectations. With a high price tag, his customers had the expectation that he was the best that money could buy, and they wanted the best.
If you went to a wine tasting and samples were provided in plastic cups instead of quality stemware your impression of the wine would be different, even if the actual wine in the glass was the same, because you had a different expectation drinking from a fine piece of stemware.
Tahitian black pearls and chocolate diamonds result from impurities and are considered to be inferior junk within their industry. However, great marketing campaigns make them appear to be rare. Raising these jewels’ prices to make them appear more valuable made them very desirable. Simply adding an elegant leather cover to a document or serving sandwiches on a silver platter will raise the consumer’s expectation of the quality of the actual product.
How can you use the power of expectation to raise the value of your product or service?
