Not a Boring Case Study

Have you ever seen Kill Bill? You know, the Quentin Tarantino movie?

If not, don’t worry, we got you.

In Kill Bill, the lead character is in need of a new sword, and not just any sword, but one made by the greatest living sword maker: Hattori Hanzo.

Hanzo had retired and was instead now a sushi chef. Trading in his old work for a new, less evil lifestyle.

The lead character was willing to do anything for a new sword from Hanzo, because without it, she had no chance of victory against those who were wielding a Hanzo themselves.

Is your business this irreplaceable for those it caters to?

This was the solution for one of our clients at MCo: How do we make your product the Hattori Hanzo of your industry?

The Solution: Develop content that expressed the craftsmanship and quality of the products and a price point that expressed that quality to anyone who saw it.

The Challenge: Convincing the client that a price point nearly double their current price wouldn’t hurt sales, and would instead accelerate them. While developing a content strategy that was doable in-house at a minimal budget

The Results: In less than 18 months the client had doubled their sales (even during the Covid-19 Pandemic) and was now having issues producing bats fast enough to keep pace with ordering

Next Steps: Use the quality positioning established by the main product line to develop other high margin, lower effort items to supplement income and develop new revenue streams that flatten the curve of certain seasonal buying cycles.

How you can use this: If you currently are selling items with a strategy of being the low price option, as a small business owner you will nearly always lose to larger brands with the scale to drive prices down exponentially. Instead, begin developing products and services with larger price points, while steadily scaling up your current pricing.

Why this works: If you see someone driving a beat up Honda Civic wearing a hoodie, jeans and sneakers, you may quickly assume this person fits a certain quality standard of themselves. However, take the same person and put them in a BMW M8 and even their style changes. You realize the hoodie is a $600 Supreme Hoodie and their sneakers are $300 Yeezys!

The initial perception of quality is quickly established in a price. 

For consumers, two businesses with 5 stars are equal in satisfaction, but the one with higher price is for many a safer bet. Because 5 stars and a high price ensures a successful purchase to many, while the lower price connotes that these people were happy because it was worth the price (cheap vs expensive).

So go ahead and look at your pricing, you would be surprised how much room you really have to grow it, and in turn, grow your business.