Price is where the selling is – that’s what twenty five years in the job has taught me. Selling without price is giving stuff away, and making hard work of it at that. So let’s agree selling is price, and price is selling.
They’re like two sides of the same coin – you can’t have one without the other. if that’s the case, sales guys need to learn to use pricing like a tool. We can’t avoid it being part of the conversation.
If we don’t use it to influence the customer, he’ll use to control us. If it is going to be another tool, and a powerful one, in our bag we should learn to use it well and grow to love the options it gives us. Pricing is the ultimate Swiss Army Knife in the sales guy’s kit bag. We can do so many things, with a little imagination.
If we only have one product, and one price, life can be really straightforward. We can qualify early on the cost to the prospect. If acceptable to the customer we can focus all our attention on his/her aspiration – how we’ll help the customer get there.
With a choice of products and flexibility in our pricing we can use it to win the deal. Now it’s a multi-dimensional game – perceptions as to value/cost/risk/ – with us playing the consultant. Customers love being sold to when they get to choose what suits them.
We discussed in Never Discuss the Price in Detail how maintaining some flexibility in scope can protect us from the “professional” buyer. Another benefit to keeping some wiggle room is we can use prices to close deals. “If I can do it for $xxxx, will you give me the order now?” is a great Conditional Close.
There are lots of other cool things we can do with pricing – we’ll discuss those later in this series – but there are a number of concepts it’s helpful to remember:
* Pricing is only the deciding factor when the buyer has no interest in what she’s buying.
* Generally people believe in the “we only get what we pay for” philosophy. They want to buy up market.
* Value Add is the killer strategy – getting something for nothing because it’s built into the price turns buyers on.
* Every buyer has an emotional ceiling to the amount they’ll pay. That’s our price point.
* Never let the competition win the deal with pricing. Always keep the prospect thinking he can get a better deal from you, when he’s ready to sign.
Finally, if this article has got you thinking you might enjoy some of our other Sales Coaching articles
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