When I started off as an entrepreneur, I fell into the same trap as most of them — compromising on price.

I charged low feed for my services. I reckoned this would keep the flow of work and income steady for me.

Well, I was half right and half wrong. I was flooded with work,

but squeezed for money. I had to find out where I was going wrong.

So I sat with a successful businessman over lunch. He asked me what my USP was.

“Price,” I said. “I offer the cheapest services in the market.”

His response: “Yusuf, low price is never a USP.

There’ll always be some hungry newbie who’ll undercut your price. Maybe he’ll end up broke and wind up within a few months. But he’ll ruin your low-cost-services market. Your USP should be addressing a pain point of your audience which helps them get better return on investment.

It doesn’t matter if everyone does it. If you can do it better, you’ll be a winner.”

I didn’t want to listen to him. So I opposed, argued and justified. But later that night, I reflected on how the low-cost strategy was hurting me:

My clients demanded a Mona Lisa for the price of a rookie painting.
They demanded rudimentary work and refused to understand the concept of meaningful engagement. Hence, I had zero work satisfaction.
Budget constraints meant I could only hire ‘cheap’ employees.

Since then, I’ve identified speed of delivery and measures of engagement as my USP’s. I negotiate on value instead of price. If I gauge that a prospect doesn’t believe in value, we part ways amicably.