Yesterday, I met the owners of an apartment I am trying to rent in Barcelona. They are a married couple, very elegant and stylish, a few years older than me. We met at a cafe.
I sat down across from them and I leaned back in my chair. “So what do you have for me,” I said.
The husband smiled at me. “Would you like to drink a coffee first?”
I smirked, stared him in the eye, and said nothing.
“Oh okay,” he said, clearly browbeaten. “So you’ve had a chance to look at the apartment? You liked it?”
“The apartment is fine,” I said. “But let’s talk turkey. How much do you want for it?”
The man paused for a moment. He and his wife looked at each other in confusion.
“What do you mean?” the wife said. “The rent is right there on the listing.” And she repeated the number. It was a round figure, divisible by one hundred, ending in two zeros.
I laughed with contempt.
“A round figure?” I said, barely controlling myself. “You haven’t done one minute of work on this, have you? You just pulled that number out of your ear, without checking comparables and without putting in any effort to calculate a fair price. No! I don’t trust your round figure. And I don’t like being disrespected like this. I’m not interested in renting your apartment any more. Goodbye!”
I got up and left the cafe. The husband ran after me, begging me to reconsider, offering to make the price more specific and jagged. But it was too late.
In case this sounds like a slightly fantastical scenario… well, that’s because it is.
What actually happened yesterday was that I did meet the owners.
I smiled at them and I put on my best and most responsible face.
Using subtle sub-communication, I made it clear that if they let me rent their apartment, I would not adopt a pitbull… I would not host any drug-driven orgies… and I would not take up drumming as a new hobby.
After a few minutes of this renter mating dance, the owners were satisfied. They agreed to let me have their beautiful apartment, and I agreed to take it, at a perfectly round monthly rent, neatly ending in two zeros.
If you’re wondering why I’m telling you this, then, like my fantasy owners above, you clearly didn’t read my email yesterday.
That email was all about the power of specificity. Specifically, the power of specific numbers. Recently proven by some fancy scientific research, but suspected by smart marketers for decades and probably centuries.
Except…
There are times where your numbers don’t have to be specific.
My rent situation above was clearly one.
I accepted the nice and round price. Doing anything else would have been foolish, bordering on very foolish. The rental market in Barcelona is insane. There are only a few available apartments and thousands of hungry renters swooping down on each one.
But you might say, “Sure, you can get away with a round price sometimes. That doesn’t mean that a specific, jagged price wouldn’t work just as well or better.”
Maybe. Or maybe not.
There are situations where a round price is not only acceptable, but actually better. Where a round price sub-communicates high status, a lack of neediness, and a position of power.
Take for example the curious case of one Joe Sugarman. Joe was a multimillionaire marketer who created the BluBlocker sunglasses empire.
Joe sold each of his BluBlockers for $69.95.
But when Joe ran an ad to advertise his legendary copywriting and marketing seminar, he didn’t promise to reveal “7-figure funnel secrets,” or offer a *9.99 price.
Instead, Joe said, “Come study with me,” right in the headline. And then in the subhead, he told you how much it would cost, — $2,000, with three round zeroes at the end.
So take time and ponder on that. I’ll leave you today with a bit from Joe’s ad:
There are two types of successful people. Those that are successful and those that are super successful.
To be successful you must learn the rules, know them cold, and follow them. To be super successful, you must learn the rules, know them cold, and break them.
For more marketing ideas, some worth $9.99 and others worth $15,000, come and read my email newsletter. You can sign up for it here.