Practical Sales Training™ > How To Lose The Sale > FU PRICING
FU Pricing
What Is It
A number can say no without a single word. So price something high enough, and the price does the talking for you.
That’s FU Pricing. You set the cost deliberately high, not to boost profit, but to signal the thing isn’t really for sale. It’s a polite way to say no without ever saying it. The name means exactly what it sounds like. The goal is to discourage a certain type of buyer, request, or project on purpose.
Why Does It Work
It works because pricing acts as a filter. Someone sees a number far above what they expected. So it discourages them from moving forward, without you ever having to justify your reasoning.
It’s especially useful when you’re asked to take on work outside your sweet spot. It’s also handy for work that comes with red flags. If they walk away, great. If they say yes, the number means it’s genuinely worth your time and energy.
How Can You Use It
Quote The True Cost
Use it for custom work, awkward requests, or one-off jobs. It also works for clients who seem like a bad fit from the start. Instead of turning them down outright, quote a number that reflects the true cost to your time, sanity, or schedule.
Protect Your Focus
Use it to protect your focus too. So it keeps you available for the right clients, not just any client who happens to ask first.
Be Ready To Follow Through
Be honest with yourself before you quote it. If they accept the price, you’ve genuinely got to follow through. So only set it where you’d actually be glad to do the work.
When It Works Best
This works best when you’d rather lose the deal than take it on. So use it whenever the wrong yes would cost you more than the right no.
When It Becomes Dangerous
It becomes dangerous when you use it out of laziness rather than genuine misfit. A price built to repel the wrong client can just as easily repel a good one. So that good client deserved a straight answer instead.
Common Mistakes
Setting The Number Too Softly
Setting the number only slightly high. A soft deterrent invites negotiation, so the price needs to be uncomfortable enough that nobody haggles their way past it.
Feeling Guilty When They Say Yes
Feeling guilty when someone actually says yes. You set the number, so you owe them the work at that price, guilt or not.
Overusing It
Using it on every awkward request instead of the genuinely bad ones. Overuse turns a sharp tool into just another off-putting price list.
FU Pricing – An Example
Northern Rock’s Renewal Shock
In 2008, the UK bank Northern Rock ran into serious financial difficulty. I personally held a mortgage with them, which came up for renewal right in the middle of it.
At renewal, the payment jumped from around seven hundred pounds a month to four thousand. They were making themselves deliberately uncompetitive, since they needed to shrink the number of mortgages still on their books. The price wasn’t there to earn more from me. It was there to push me toward leaving instead.
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