“The other guy said he could do it cheaper….”
“Why does yours cost more?”
“Your competitor is cheaper…”
I recently designed a unique memorial for a man looking to honor his parents. Over the course of a few weeks we went back and forth on the details and eventually landed on a pretty cool design that would stand out in any cemetery. It was going to be quarried and crafted right here in America and came in at just over $6,000.
One day he came in the office and informed me that he had asked our nearest competitor what he would charge for something similar (how our competitor could even guess at the cost was beyond me as my client never showed my competitor the design, he just gave him sizes and an oral description). The man told me my competition was “close to $3,000” under my price. Then he asked the question I hear often: “Why does yours cost so much more?”
I’ve decided in this blog to show you why we cost more. I’ll do it using a monument I saw recently while visiting a cemetery. It is for a family that also wanted to purchase something unique from us but ended up going the cheaper route. Here is the monument
I noticed immediately that the competition saved the client money buy purchasing it in China. How did I know that? It has all the unfortunate marks of inferiority. Most salient of all was the atrocious rock pitching
In case you were wondering what rock pitching should look like….
The latter example is a monument we crafted. Note the sharp, crisp lines and the rugged appearance of the rock area. The cheaper China version is devoid of crispness and any semblance of ruggedness. So why does it look so bad from China? In China they sandblast the rock when they’re done rock pitching it; a big no-no.
If you look closely at the bad example you will see a bunch of grayish-white dots. That is where they hit the stone with a chisel. As you can see they did that a LOT! Rock pitching should have as few stun marks as possible but that only comes will skill and knowledge, something China lacks. The irony is the technique they use to hide their inferior rock pitching skills (sandblasting the rock) actually makes it look WORSE.
So why do we charge more? Because we actually know what we’re doing when it comes to rock pitching.
Now let’s take a look at the rose
Ever seen a rose with fat, rounded petals with blunt edges? Me neither.
Here is how it looks when we do it
So why do we charge more? Because we believe when you pay for a flower it should resemble a flower.
These pictures clearly demonstrate 2 reasons why we charge more than our competitors. A visit to our website or our showroom with provide you with several more reasons why we charge what we do. At Bott Monument you get what you pay for; sadly you get the same with our competitors.