Aug 13, 2008
Promote The Value
Surfing the web for sales sites one evening, I happened across a couple of great blog posts ran by a sales training company. One particular I wanted to comment on, but unfortunately they’ve turned off the functionality.
It was about how to handle the often thorny issue of telling prospects your price. I loved the immediate response they recommend; “expensive”.
Their reasoning goes that if they baulk at that from the off, then they’d never appreciate the value so it’s best to qualify out at the start.
They also suggest you can be open with them when they come back with ‘how much?’. My training on this back in the day prompted me with two approaches where you’re keen to brush the issue under the carpet for now:
Wide Ranging
By using your ‘range’ of pricing you can muddy the waters. Eg: we have all sorts of products at different levels, ranging from $1,000 to $100,000 and it all depends on what you want…” This also works well when you sell something ‘by the month’, as the figure can sound tiny.
Equate To Something
Favourable comparison to another figure works well too. “For less than the minimum wage” is a line I’ve heard myself use. “it’s a small percentage of the savings you’ll make” is another (albeit slightly corny) way of removing price as an immediate issue.
The people writing the aforementioned blog may well frown on such methods, as they could argue that you’re only fooling yourself if you don’t qualify hard. Yet two factors influence my alternate view. Firstly, these techniques work when you’re not speaking to the sign-off authority, ie: a minion that can only say ‘no’. Secondly, for just about everything I’ve ever sold, there’s never been a budget, and for situations where you have to create both the value and urgency of your proposition, they seem to have served me well.
I certainly don’t frown on the two alternatives that you mention here to the “expensive” approach! I think they are pretty neat and proven tactics. Under specific circumstances, I would argue.
Let’s be straight, my suggestion to say your prices are expensive was slightly provocative. It works for us because we are in the lucky position that we have more leads than we can handle right now! Also, to be fair, I was referring to the instances were you genuinely are higher priced than the competition and that is a pillar of your pricing strategy. Where your product is not avowedly “top end”, my suggestion is sadly redundant and the two here come very much into play.
Even in the downturn we are experiencing, being “proudly expensive” can still work to your advantage as a USP (unique selling point). Whatever the economy, there will always be buyers want prestige.
Where the price of a product is genuinely important and it is a KVI (known value item) like advertising or stationery then we are wasting out time skirting around the price. The purpose of the call is to win business. Not to just keep ourselves and our field sales people busy. Let’s eliminate those who really are not going to buy early on. And focus attentions on the better prospects. So let’s be refreshingly straight about the price and move straight on to “showing the value”.
If we are selling a service, such as training or consultancy, then we DO need to obfuscate on price. Because the value is much more subjective and cheap to one buyer is expensive to a poorer or stingier one. Your comparisons to known necessaries such as cups of coffee, tank of gas/petrol, etc are great to get the prospect to put the low actual cost into context. Because then the price it put on the back burner and we can focus on establishing their needs.
The ranging idea works less well each year because consumers are wising up to the tactic. Airlines do themselves a disservice in this way (£1 flight, £100 taxes and surcharges). The prospect can easily be turned off if the lower option - the one that will grab their attention - is not realistically available. If it is, then no problem and use this tactic. It also nicely opens up the conversation because the prospect will want to know where in the continuum they fit.
Love the blog by the way!
Andy Szebeni
http://www.a-and-p.co.uk
sales training and sales support in the UK