I’m not sure who, in the history of selling, originally got it into his head that lowering his normal price — having a sale — was a brilliant idea. I believe if it were possible to clearly identify this man, I believe his decendants should be punished for his crimes against commerce. Maybe they — all of them, down to every man, woman and child — should be relegated to working in WalMart marking down slow moving merchandise.

Well, maybe that’s a bit harsh. (Maybe I said.)

I remember two pivotal points in my life when the indiustrial sized halogen bulb went off above my noggin, and it occurred to me that the classic concept of “sales” was flawed.

Incident number one occurred as a result of my youthful and frequent trips to an independently owned record and stereo electronics store. The owner of the store priced his records at $6.67 each. (Records, for you young folks, look a lot like those twelve inch round, black, plastic disks DJs put on turntables and spin. Except these had good music on them.)

Now, in the history of all retail recordom, I’m not sure any record store owner ever chose such a pull-a-number-out-of-the-air price. But this record store owner did. And I was happy to pay it, too, because not only was it just a little less than the larger chain store down the road, but one day I noticed that when he rang up my purchase and added tax, the total owed came up to an even $7.

Oh, wait a second…

When I asked, he confirmed my youthful, but inciteful suspicion. $6.67 plus city and state taxes, added to seven bucks even. You see, he hated dealing with coins.

I came to appreciate the not-so-subtle differences between a B.I.C. brand receiver and McIntosh separates, and the even-less-subtle differences between a pair of JBL speakers and a pair of Klipsch LaScalas. (Please allow me a moment of silence as I bow my head and bring to mind the end of that once wonderful company called Klipsch…)

As a result of that audio enlightenment, I discussed not the latest Led Zeppelin release — which ownership was taken for granted — but which amplifier would be most appropriate to drive my new Klipsch loudspeakers so that I could enjoy at maximum volume and velocity the glorious strains of “Kashmir“ in all the “Oh, let the sun beat down upon my face” near-religious experience (can I have an “amen” brethren) Jimmy Page must have imagined when he mixed the song.

Once the decision was made, the inevitable question was raised: would this preamplifier and amplifier pair happen to go on sale any time soon?

The answer was quick and pointed. At least it was once the blank stare ended along with the accompanying uncomfortable silence:

“We don’t have sales here.”

I recall thinking to myself in that moment that, quite obviously, it was not incense I smelled burning in the back room of the store.

“What do you mean, you don’t have sales?” I asked.

He answered that he didn’t feel it was fair to charge me a lesser price this week on the very same piece of equipment he’d sold to someone else last week at the regular price. His prices were fair and reasonably set to begin with and allowed him to keep his shop open, service his customers, and earn a living.

Then he put on a brand new copy of “Fresh Aire II” on the Thorens turntable, turned up the preamplifier, closed the glass door, and let Chip Davis Steamroll my objections away one note at a time.

It was as perfectly a reasonable response then as I find it is today.

Incident number two could have happened one week, one month, or one year later for all I can remember. But I do recall it clearly because it set into concrete what that record store owner told me that day.

I was in line at a fast food restaurant eager to fill my young, healthy arteries with death-promoting chemistry that lab rats wouldn’t eat unless shocked into it. The guy ahead of me ordered the very menu item I’d planned to, and was subsequently given the same total I was used to hearing. But then Mr. Oh Wait, I Have a Coupon handed the cashier a little slip of paper that reduced his three dollars and change meal down to a dollar and change.

I didn’t have a coupon. And I wasn’t very happy at that moment to know this company could afford to sell to one guy ahead of me the same meal I was about to order, for a lot less than they were about to extract from me. Sure, logically I understood the idea behind coupons, but I didn’t have one so I wasn’t feeling like being logical about it.

The interesting thing about the fast food restaurant-no coupon experience was that everytime I later had the urge for one of those death-promoting feasts, I hesitated because I didn’t have a coupon handy. In one fell swoop, they’d conditioned me to not pay full retail price.

Department stores are notorious for that behavior today. I can’t imagine any sane human being paying full price for anything at Foley’s. Every Sunday newspaper includes a circular offering an additional 10-20% off the already reduced prices. And if you missed the newspaper circular, somewhere in your stack of junk mail (the old fashioned kind that actually costs the sender something to send, and lands in your old fashioned inbox) you’ll find a circular. Didn’t get one in the mail? No problem; there’s a stack at every door entrance and along side every register.

If Rod Serling were not dead I’d half expect him to sidle up to me next time I’m purchasing my $65 $45 $31 $23 $19 Oxford button down.

In the end, I’m just not comfortable buying anything from Foley’s — or any store that has entered the never ending cycle of sales on top of sales. I’m never confident I’m actually getting the best deal I can. And an uncomfortable shopper is not a shopper you can count on always being there.

When you price your entertainment services, keep in mind three things:

1. When a potential client focuses on price to the exclusion of anything else of merit, regardless what you say, you are dealing with a shopper and not a long-term potential client. Shoppers shop. That’s why they’re called shoppers.

2. The amount of money a client is willing to pay you is in inverse proportion to the amount of trouble you’re going to experience collecting it. This is axiomatic and is probably canon law somewhere.

3. Charging a higher fee often gets you the job over a lower priced competitor’s fee. (In those cases where this is not true, kindly refer to number two above.)

3. Clients talk. Eventually what you charged Client A gets back to Client B and if the rates are different, there had better be a plausable reason why. (By the way, to the guy who paid more, there is no such thing as a plausable reason why. You have been warned.)

We are in the service business. Clients are not equipped to adequately and intelligently rate service in the same way they cannot rate a lawyer’s or accountant’s service. They can only be happy with the results. Happy is an emotion. People buy things from people they like.

Okay, so that was eight things.