Stop Being Compared On Price – What The Oldest Barbershop in the World Can Teach Your Business
If you want to stop competing on price, the answer is not automatically to lower your quote, offer another discount, or find a clever way to explain why your labour costs more.
The first question is much simpler: can the customer actually tell why your business is different?
Imagine a homeowner asks three companies to quote the same job. All three websites say they are licensed and insured. All three promise quality workmanship, exceptional customer service and free estimates. Their trucks look professional, the reviews are reasonably good, and the actual quotes contain many of the same line items.
What is left to compare?
The number at the bottom.
This is one of the biggest positioning problems facing local service businesses. The owner may know that the workmanship is superior, the employees are better trained and the company stands behind its work, but if none of that difference is visible before the purchase, the customer sees three remarkably similar businesses.
One London barbershop provides an extraordinary example of how to escape that problem.
Truefitt & Hill dates back to 1805 and is recognized by Guinness World Records as the world’s oldest barber shop business. More than two centuries later, customers are still walking through its doors for a service that, at its most basic level, can be purchased almost anywhere: a haircut or shave. Guinness World Records: Oldest Barber Shop Business
The lesson isn’t that your electrical company needs wood panelling and portraits of royalty.
It’s that a service stops feeling interchangeable when the business surrounding it becomes distinctive.
Why Do Customers Compare Service Businesses on Price?
Customers compare businesses on price when they cannot identify another meaningful basis for comparison.
That sounds obvious, but look at how many companies accidentally create exactly that situation.
“Quality service.”
“Family owned and operated.”
“Licensed and insured.”
“Your satisfaction is our priority.”
“Call today for a free estimate.”
None of these things is bad. In fact, some of them are important.
The problem is that your competitors are saying them too.
Generic Claims Create Generic Businesses
Suppose one electrical company’s website says, “Experienced electricians you can trust.”
Another says, “Professional electrical service with quality workmanship.”
A third promises “reliable electrical solutions for your home or business.”
To the owner, those phrases may feel reassuring. To a customer, they blur together.
Now imagine another company says that every electrician on its residential service team is a Red Seal journeyperson, shows each electrician’s photograph and name, documents actual panel upgrades around Edmonton, and explains the inspection process completed before every job is closed.
That’s different.
The customer has something tangible to evaluate.
At Inspired Method’s approach to marketing for service businesses, this is a major part of the work: getting the expertise that already exists inside a company out where prospective customers can actually see it.
Excellent work hidden behind generic marketing still looks generic.
Lesson 1: Stop Saying You’re Good and Start Proving It
Truefitt & Hill has something most businesses would love to possess: more than 200 years of history.
Its official history says the company began in London in 1805 and has served notable figures ranging from British royalty to Winston Churchill, Charles Dickens, Frank Sinatra and John Wayne. It also describes the 1935 acquisition of Edwin S. Hill & Co., which led to the modern Truefitt & Hill name. Truefitt & Hill’s Official History
That kind of heritage cannot be copied by a competitor opening next month.
But you don’t need two centuries of history to have proof.
Find the Evidence Your Competitor Cannot Easily Copy
If you’ve served Edmonton homeowners since 2009, say 2009.
If your employees hold specific certifications, explain them.
If you’ve completed hundreds of electrical service upgrades, show some.
If a manufacturer has certified your business because your team meets particular installation standards, explain why that matters.
If customers regularly mention one employee by name in five-star reviews, feature those reviews.
Specificity creates credibility.
One useful test is to take your ten most recent customer reviews, remove your company name, and ask whether those reviews could describe virtually any competitor.
If every review simply says “great service, friendly staff, highly recommend,” they’re positive reviews, but they don’t yet tell prospective customers what makes your company unusual.
The best testimonials contain specifics:
“They covered every floor before bringing equipment into the house.”
“They showed me photographs of the damaged wiring before making the repair.”
“They called every Friday during the renovation without us having to chase them.”
“They arrived when they said they would.”
Those details are proof.
Lesson 2: Decide Who You Actually Want to Serve
Many small businesses are terrified of narrowing their message.
Understandably so.
If you run a plumbing company, why would you tell the market you’re particularly good at one kind of plumbing when you are capable of doing twenty others?
Because customers do not usually choose the company that appears capable of doing absolutely anything.
They choose the company that feels particularly capable of solving their problem.
Truefitt & Hill has never tried to position itself as low-cost grooming for everybody. Its language, history, products and physical environment consistently point toward a particular kind of customer and experience.
Specialists Are Easier to Trust
Consider these two roofing messages:
“We offer residential and commercial roofing, repairs, installations, maintenance and more.”
Versus:
“We replace hail-damaged residential roofing systems and help Edmonton homeowners understand the insurance process from inspection through completion.”
The second company may actually perform other work.
That isn’t the point.
Its marketing gives a particular customer a reason to think, “These people deal with my exact problem.”
The same principle applies to renovation companies.
“Renovations of all sizes” sounds flexible.
“We specialize in occupied kitchen and bathroom renovations with defined schedules and weekly project updates” communicates something far more specific.
This does not necessarily mean turning away every other opportunity.
Your marketing should be disproportionately focused on attracting the work you most want to become known for.
That’s closely connected to the idea of selling the customer’s desired outcome rather than merely listing deliverables, something we explore further in how service businesses can sell transformation instead of just the service.
When the right customer sees themselves in your message, price has more competition.
Lesson 3: The Experience Is Part of the Product
A haircut is a haircut.
Except it isn’t.
Anyone who has paid $20 for one haircut and $100 for another already understands this.
The technical result matters enormously, but the environment, confidence, attention, interaction and presentation surrounding the service influence how the customer evaluates the entire purchase.
Service businesses sometimes resist this idea because they think it means being flashy.
It doesn’t.
Premium Service Is Often Built From Ordinary Details
Consider the experience of hiring someone to enter your home.
Before the appointment, you receive a confirmation message containing the technician’s name and a realistic arrival window.
The technician arrives in a clean vehicle and clean uniform.
Before entering, they protect your flooring.
They explain what they are going to inspect.
Once the problem is identified, they show you what they found and provide a written price before starting additional work.
When finished, they clean the area thoroughly and explain what was completed.
A day later, someone checks that everything is working correctly.
There is nothing luxurious in that list.
No champagne.
No marble lobby.
No expensive gift basket.
Yet compared with the contractor who arrives sometime between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., walks through the house in muddy boots and disappears after emailing an invoice, the first company feels substantially more premium.
The experience changes the perceived value of the service.
Your Website Is Part of That Experience Too
This is where many excellent service businesses undermine themselves before anyone calls.
The website is effectively the reception area.
If it loads slowly, uses blurry photos from seven years ago, contains broken buttons, hides the phone number and looks almost identical to every competitor’s website, customers begin forming an impression before they’ve met anyone.
You do not need the fanciest website in the city.
You need one that suggests somebody is paying attention.
Real people.
Real projects.
Clear services.
Clear geography.
Easy navigation.
Proof.
A straightforward next step.
Your digital experience should reflect the standard customers will experience after they hire you.
Lesson 4: Modernize Without Throwing Away What Made You Valuable
Surviving more than two centuries requires change.
Truefitt & Hill did not continue operating exactly as it did in 1805. The company evolved beyond its early services, expanded its product range and moved into international markets while maintaining a recognizable identity around traditional men’s grooming.
This balance matters for smaller businesses too.
Change the Delivery Without Abandoning the Standard
You should adopt better software.
Improve your website.
Automate confirmations.
Use online booking where appropriate.
Offer maintenance programs.
Create video content.
Improve the quoting process.
Use AI where it genuinely saves time.
But technology should make the experience better, not erase what people trusted about you in the first place.
A family-owned contractor should not suddenly sound like a multinational corporation because an AI tool wrote its website.
A company known for personal service should not automate every customer interaction until nobody can reach a person.
The goal is not to preserve old methods simply because they’re old.
The goal is to understand which standards created trust and make those standards easier to deliver at scale.
How Recurring Service Makes the Customer Relationship More Valuable
There is another business lesson hidden inside Truefitt & Hill’s expansion into grooming products.
The relationship does not need to end when the haircut does.
Many service companies still operate almost entirely through isolated transactions.
Something breaks.
Customer calls.
Company fixes it.
Invoice gets paid.
Relationship ends.
Then the business starts searching for another customer.
That is expensive.
Give Customers a Reason to Continue the Relationship
An HVAC company can offer annual maintenance and priority booking.
A roofing company could perform periodic inspections and provide photographs.
An electrician could offer recurring electrical safety reviews for appropriate customers.
A plumbing company might create a maintenance program around water heaters, sump pumps or other critical systems.
The purpose isn’t to invent subscriptions customers don’t need.
It is to identify legitimate reasons to continue serving people you’ve already earned the trust of.
A customer who knows your team, understands your process and trusts your standard is very different from a brand-new lead clicking five companies on Google.
How Do You Stop Competing on Price?
If you genuinely want to stop competing on price, do not begin by raising prices.
Begin by becoming easier to distinguish.
Open your website on your phone.
Do not study it like the owner.
Look at it like someone standing in their kitchen at 9 p.m. with a leaking pipe and four businesses open in different browser tabs.
Give yourself five seconds.
Then answer three questions:
What Do You Do?
Could a stranger understand the actual service immediately?
Who Is It For?
Does your language speak to a particular customer or does it attempt to appeal to absolutely everyone?
Why Should Someone Choose You?
This is the uncomfortable one.
If your answer is “quality,” “service,” “experience,” or “we care,” keep going.
Where is the proof?
What do you do differently?
What can a customer see?
What happens when someone hires you that does not reliably happen when they hire the cheaper competitor?
If those answers aren’t clear, changing the price is unlikely to fix the underlying problem.
Stop Trying to Be the Affordable Option
Truefitt & Hill did not survive from 1805 to the present because it spent two centuries trying to offer London’s cheapest haircut.
Its longevity comes from something much harder to build.
A recognizable identity.
Proof accumulated over time.
A clear understanding of its customer.
A service experience that reinforces the positioning.
And enough consistency that generation after generation has encountered essentially the same promise, even as the business itself evolved.
You do not need 200 years to begin doing the same thing.
You can start today.
Replace one generic claim with specific evidence.
Choose one customer you want your homepage to speak to more clearly.
Fix one weak point in the customer experience.
Document one process that currently depends on employees remembering what to do.
Take one part of your excellent work that customers never see and show it to them.
Those changes stack.
And eventually, instead of asking whether you can match the lowest quote, the right customer begins asking a much better question:
“When can you start?”
That’s the position you want.
Don’t work harder to become the affordable choice.
Build a business that becomes the obvious one.