Symptoms:
One of the most common objections salespeople get is about price: "That's a bit more than we were thinking about paying." "Your prices are kind of high." "That just doesn't fit our budget" are typical comments. Salespeople tend to be very quick to take these comments at face value. They assume these price objections are the real issue standing between them and an order, so the path of least resistance is almost always to begin dropping their price to get the sale. And, more often than not, once the price issue has been "resolved", more resistance comes to the surface.
Diagnosis:
Buyers may use the price objection as an excuse not to buy when, in fact, the real issue is different. Think about your own buying experiences. You've probably said on more than one occasion, "That's more than I wanted to spend", when what you really meant was it doesn't have the functionality you were looking for or the style just wasn't right. Or, because you had no real conviction the solution will work and even under the best circumstances you probably wouldn't buy it. Sometimes price resistance is real and sometimes it's just a smoke screen. Your job is to figure out the truth. This is called selling.
Prescription:
The first thing you must do when you hear price resistance is to make sure that it's the real issue. You want to isolate it so that you don't have to deal with any other issues later on. So, ask this question: "I don't know why this is, but typically when we hear the price is too high, it's something else in the proposal that someone didn't like and not necessarily the price. Is that the case here?"
Now the prospect has two alternatives; they can tell you what the real issue is, or they can say that everything else is fine and it really is just about price. If it's something other than price, you must deal with that. If it really is price, you should find out how far apart you are and determine whether or not you want to be responsive.
Assuming you have some flexibility, ask them what would happen if you were able to reach agreement on price. If their answer is anything other than "we'll have a deal", you need to do more qualifying or consider walking.
Isolating the objection is very important so you can deal with the real issue(s). Next, when the prospect declines the opportunity to be critical of other issues in the proposal, they usually start to tell you what they liked and why. When that happens, they're starting to sell themselves and that helps you diffuse the price excuse.
Critical Thinking:
Right now, there are many factors that could be at play with decision makers. Economy, budgets, supply chain worries and of course price. Be sure to apply our three favorite words, nurture, nurture, nurture, to your selling opportunities as you navigate your world this week.
The Drill
Final Thought for the Morning:
"If you think a professional is expensive, wait 'til you try an amateur." ~ Paul "Red" Adair
"Value is more expensive than price." ~ Toba Beta
Your Top 3 Goals & Tactics for the Week
LAST WEEK: Update us on how things went last week with your stated Goals and GD Tactics.
THIS WEEK: Please share your Top 3 Goals for this week and the GD tactics you plan to deploy.
