For the first couple of years running my auto body shop, I used to budge on price.

A customer would come in, hear the quote, and say something like: “The garage down the road is doing it for less.” And more often than not, I’d adjust the number to keep the job.

I’d win the business. Then spend the next two weeks grumbling through it.

Because once you’re in the work, the things you didn’t account for start showing up. And when I looked at what we actually made relative to the time and materials, the maths rarely held up.

The problem wasn’t that we were overpriced. The problem was that I hadn’t yet learned how to explain why the price was right.

At the time, we were completing full-body paint jobs in 7 to 10 days, starting at $10,000 TTD, using high-quality materials. Down the road, the same job was going for $6,000. But it was taking 3 to 4 weeks, and cheaper materials meant many of those customers were back in a couple of years looking at a repaint.

When I started framing it that way, something shifted. I wasn’t defending a higher price. I was helping the customer understand what they were actually choosing between: weeks without their vehicle versus days, a paint job that lasted 3 years versus one that lasted closer to 10. The price objection didn’t disappear, but it changed shape.

The business advice I kept hearing at the time was to compete on value, not price. It’s true. But it only works if you can name what value actually means, and most businesses can’t. 

Merriam-Webster defines it as utility, importance, and desirability. 

Those three words pointed somewhere useful. They sent me deeper into the question of how people actually make buying decisions, something I grew more curious about when I left the garage and ventured into financial services.

What I eventually worked out is that every purchase, in some way or another, is an attempt to improve a person’s condition. And that improvement tends to fall into one of six categories.

1. Continuity – help me survive.
2. Capability – help me do something.
3. Control – help me act on my own terms.
4. Connection – help me belong.
5. Curation – help me build who I am.
6. Comfort – help me feel good.

1. Continuity – Help Me Survive

This is the most basic layer of value.

The customer is buying safety, survival or stability.

Housing, shelter, food, clean water, clothing, safe transportation, health and personal safety all fall into this category.

When issues touch any of these, survival instincts are triggered, and buying triggers are sharp. People act because the downside of doing nothing feels dangerous. It’s the basis of the concept: sell painkillers, not vitamins. Pain, more specifically, relieving pain, is a strong motivator for purchases.

Grocery stores, pharmacies, hospitals, insurance companies, and home security providers. These businesses rarely need to manufacture urgency. 

The customer already feels it. The category does the motivating, which is part of why health, wealth, and relationships are consistently cited as the most durable markets to build in.

2. Capability – Help Me Do More

This one is about expanding what’s possible.

Here, the customer is seeking greater output, better ability, more efficiency, new access, improved results or extended skill.

A course that teaches you to build your own website. A tool that automates two hours of your day. A vehicle that makes a previously difficult commute manageable.

This category is about possibility, not just avoiding pain.

A laptop with the right specs can be a productivity upgrade for a video editor.
A van that can take 50% more load than its competitors is a capability upgrade for a hardware store doing deliveries.

This matters because businesses undersell themselves by describing features instead of communicating how their products expand capabilities.

3. Control – Help Me Act on My Own Terms

One of the most underestimated forms of value.

People buy control when they want more freedom, more flexibility, more predictability or less dependency on others.

They may want to save time.
They may want to avoid relying on others.
They may want more freedom of choice, time or circumstances.

Think about how Netflix disrupted traditional TV. The content wasn’t always better. What was better was the arrangement. What you want, when you want it, without anyone else’s schedule. That’s a control play.

A personal vehicle offers control versus depending on unreliable transport.

Control is an underrated positioning play because brands describe features rather than freedom.

If your product genuinely gives people more agency over their own lives, say that. Directly.

It’s more powerful than you think.

4. Connection – Help Me Belong

Humans are social creatures. We are wired for group membership.

Value here isn’t functional. It’s relational.

We want to be accepted, and will often buy things that help us participate, fit in, feel included or signal membership.

Fashion, events, social platforms, certain food brands, Carnival experiences, gyms, schools and even some professional services can create value here.

A Carnival costume in a big band is more than just the materials used to make it. It’s often an entry point to an experience, a tribe, a memory, and a shared identity.

A golf club is often more than a place to play golf. It’s about where it places you socially.

What makes Connection interesting from a strategic perspective is that the category’s value grows with adoption. The more people involved, the stronger the appeal – unless it’s an intentional exclusivity position.

5. Curation – Help Me Build Who I Am

This category sits close to Connection, but it’s more personal.

Connection is about belonging with others. Curation is about shaping the self.

Here, the customer is buying identity construction.

They are choosing things that help them express taste, standards, values, aspirations, status – do not underestimate the power of this one – worldviews and personal mythology.

Aspirational brands live in this space. Often, the brand does more than identify the seller; it gives the buyer the tools to build themselves and communicate something about themselves.

Most people don’t purchase luxury fashion labels because they are well-made or of a higher quality, though they can be. They buy them because of what those labels say about them.

The same is true for cars, tech, fitness brands, skincare, and some household items.

Some brands help people say:

• “I am successful”
• “I am environmentally conscious”
• “I am creative”
• “I am refined”

What’s interesting about Curation is that price sensitivity drops here. Not because the customer stops caring about money, but because the purchase is doing deeper work.

It’s helping them become someone. And that perception is worth more to the right person.

6. Comfort – Help Me Feel Good

This is the most underacknowledged category.

Sometimes people buy things for no reason other than it feels good. It was enjoyable, and made an ordinary Tuesday better.

Not because it is essential.

Not because it improves performance.

Not because it says anything about who I am.

They buy because it is pleasurable, beautiful, soothing, enjoyable, convenient, indulgent or emotionally rewarding. No functional justification required.

There’s a reason fast food is called comfort food. Comfort includes sensory pleasure, ease, delight, reduced friction, and emotional uplift.

A great mattress. A soft shirt. A smooth ride. A dessert. A spa treatment.
All things that contribute to comfort.

But it’s the category that makes many brands uncomfortable. It feels too simple. Too easy. So they reach for Capability and other types of language to dress it up.

“Premium ingredients.” “Artisanal.” “Crafted with care.” “Designed for performance.” All to sound more sophisticated – but in doing so, they’re saying the truest thing about their product in the least convincing way.

What “Compete on Value” Actually Means

When people say “don’t compete on price,” it doesn’t mean “charge more for no reason.”

What they’re getting at is usually this: make sure the customer clearly understands the kind of value you create, and why that value matters enough to justify the price.

If all the customer sees is a commodity, price becomes the fastest comparison tool.

But when your offer is anchored to one or more of the six value categories, the comparison changes.

The conversation moves from “Why are you more expensive?” to “Is what you provide worth the difference?”

That is a far better battleground. Because:

• Cheap is easy to copy.
• Meaning is harder to copy.
• Trust is harder to copy.
• Identity is harder to copy.
• Belonging is harder to copy.
• Relief is harder to copy.
• Freedom is harder to copy.

Price is what someone pays.

Value is what they believe they are getting in return.

And that belief is built on a deeper calculation than most businesses give credit for:

• Will this help me survive?
• Will this help me do more?
• Will this give me more control?
• Will this help me belong?
• Will this help me become who I want to be?
• Will this make life feel better?

Your customer is answering one of those questions every time they decide to buy, or not to.

The more useful question is whether you know which one.

Not which one you intend to answer. Not what your marketing says. But what the customer actually walks away believing they received.

That gap, between the value you think you’re creating and the value the customer is experiencing, is where most pricing problems start.

A Simple Way to Apply This to Your Business

Ask yourself four questions:

1. Which of the six value categories does my offer primarily serve?

You may touch more than one, but there is usually a lead driver.

2. Is the value urgent or deferrable?

In other words, is this behaving like a painkiller or a vitamin?

3. Does my messaging reflect the value the customer actually cares about?

Or am I talking about features while they are thinking about outcomes?

4. Am I trying to win by being cheaper because I have not made the value clear enough?

Most price competition is a failure of value communication.

A simple example:

A bakery owner might think people buy cupcakes only for taste. 

But if the real driver is Comfort, then the message should focus on enjoyment, indulgence, and the feeling the product creates. 

If the real driver is Connection, the bakery should emphasise birthdays, celebrations, and shared moments. 

If it’s Curation, the packaging, aesthetic, and brand image may matter just as much as the product itself.

That’s the difference between selling a cupcake and selling what the cupcake means to the buyer.

Conclusion

The more clearly you understand why people buy, the less you have to chase them on price.

Because once you can name the value you create, you stop sounding like a vendor and start sounding like a business people can trust.