Salespeople have two major fears: #1 is rejection and #2 is price or fee. Most salespeople (not you, of course) are hesitant when it comes to talking price or fee. The reason is, in their own mind, they think their prices are too high.
As a salesperson, I am sure you have all shopped the competition - and they all offer similar items at lower prices. And you are worried your customer will look at your price structure and say that your prices or your fees are too high.
LET ME GIVE YOU A CLUE: That is the single biggest fear of every salesperson in the world, you included.
When it comes to price, the first thing you have to have, as a professional salesperson, is a deep-rooted belief that the value of what you are offering far exceeds the price or fee that you are asking. If you don’t believe this, the highest level you will rise in your sales career is to the level of mediocre. Worse, your prospective customer will sense that your belief system is not deep enough by your language.
Here are the telltale signs that you do not believe deep enough:
1. You try to justify your price.
2. You apologize for your price.
3. You rationalize your price.
4. You have to go back into your presentation to clarify your price.
4.5 You try to ignore the signs that are evident hoping that they will go away.
Worse than that, you go back to your boss and say, “We lost one on price.” Let me share with you - you did NOT lose on price, you lost on perceived value and you lost on perceived difference. If the customer does not perceive the value of your offering, if the customer does not perceive a difference between you and the competition, then all that is left is price.
When is that last time you walked into a Lexus dealer and had a price battle? Answer is never. However, at Ford and Chevy, $50 can swing a deal on a $20,000 car because there is no perceived difference between one car or one dealership and another. I am certain you have seen the new car ad for a “dollar over invoice.” I do not want to ruin your belief in Santa Claus, but that means that if they sell a hundred cars, they make a hundred dollars. I do not know about you, but I am not buying that. I think they are lying to me.
Wouldn’t it be cool if one dealership put an ad on TV and said, “Our cars are $250 more than anybody else because the service we provide after you buy the car will not only blow you away, it will also enhance the lifelong value of your car. You invest another $250 in our dealership, and you win back thousands when you trade your car in.”
Doesn’t that seem obvious?
In a price fight, everyone loses especially all the sellers.
The price or the fee for the products or services that you offer must be presented, clarified, justified, and affirmed during the sales presentation - not at the end. If the presentation is perfect, the value is clear, and the differentiation is obvious then a reasonable price will not only be accepted, it will be accepted without a fight.
Too much emphasis in any sales environment is placed on price. Salespeople moan that their product or service, whatever it is, is becoming a commodity. Commodity is your word, not theirs.
If you spent as much time concentrating on value and differentiation as you do moaning about price, the issue would disappear. There’s one more key. Your customers are better at justifying and extolling the virtues of your price than you are. If I were you, I would have a few one-minute videos on my laptop of existing customers who believe in you, who have gladly paid your price, and who are proud to do business with you.
Those customers will help you gain new customers, faster and better than your sales presentation. BUT they do not replace the sales presentation. They enhance the sales presentation.
The key to mastery of price is a combination of the belief system set in place by past wins, and the voices of encouragement from the customers with whom you’ve built a relationship. The combination of those two elements will breed self-confidence so evident, that when you walk into a room, you’ll be attractive (I don’t mean pretty, I mean attractive in that people want to do business with you). You become attractive by the manner by which you present and the obvious superiority of your offerings versus others.
It’s pretty interesting to me that in sales, you often hear the phrase “no brainer.” I don’t believe in that phrase. In fact, I think the phrase is as insulting as any phrase in our language. What someone is saying is that the offering was so powerful, the offering was so different, and the offering was so value packed that the decision was obvious. But let me share with you, plenty of brains went into that process, and plenty of brains went into the preparation.
Therefore, the secret to price is combining brains and sales balls. You got both, use them.
If you want a few price statements, go to www.gitomer.com, register if you’re a first time user, and enter PRICE in the GitBit box.
Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Little Red Book of Selling and The Little Red Book of Sales Answers. President of Charlotte-based Buy Gitomer, he gives seminars, runs annual sales meetings, and conducts Internet training programs on sales and customer service at www.trainone.com. He can be reached at 704/333-1112 or e-mail to salesman@gitomer.com © 2007 All Rights Reserved – Don’t even think about reproducing this document without written permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer. 704-333-1112
