Page 29 - Paulisms: Gold Nuggets for Small Business

discounts. I also preferred to give a dollar amount off the normal price in promotions rather than a percentage. A dollar amount creates a higher perception of value than a percent discount.
I wrote this section after an experience in the town of Colac in Victoria, Australia. Four of us turned up to hire bikes to ride along an old railway track. The prices were on a board. After I had seen the prices, I said to the guy that we wanted to hire four bikes. Straight away the guy said he would give us four bikes for the price of three. Why did he do that? The 25% of the sale he gave away was a lot higher than the percentage of the bottom-line profit. I hadn’t even asked for a discount. The 4-for-3 was a good way of giving a discount and potentially a good promo, but why give one if you don’t have to.
Hold the line on discounts.
1.8 Don’t do it all yourself
Don’t do the GST returns, tax, etc., yourself. Get someone else to do it. Consider contracting it out, or if you are big enough, employ someone – even part-time. Someone who invoices you for their time frees you up to make much more than you are paying out and enables you to work on your business. Don’t get into the trap of trying to do it all yourself. Apply disciplines early and understand the power of people working for you. If