Do you know how to handle the price question on a sale?

One of the issues that arise most in our sales training is precisely this: price and how to deal with it.

What to do when we are in the early stages of the sale, and the customer very abruptly questions us:
“But after all, how much does it cost?”

Sales rules tell us that we must create value in our customer’s head before we go on to close the deal.

Theoretically, that would make the price issue easier to address.

But is that true these days?

As far as we’re concerned, no!

These days our client is already well informed and tends to cut to the chase as we usually say.

This is a regular occurrence these days, most of the times because customers do it to disorient the reasoning of the salesperson. So what should be the right way to deal with it?

In our opinion, it is to take the price factor off the table right from the start.

There are several ways to do this.

The ideal way depends a lot on the product, service, or even the way your sales process is structured.

So let’s look at some of the techniques we can use.

First, we can put the price factor on the table right at the beginning.

For example, if we notice that the customer may be more susceptible to price than others, we tell him directly that our product or service is expensive.

Something like that:

“But tell me how much is this solution for?”
“Mr. Client, our solutions are not exactly cheap.

I can also tell you they’re not the most expensive on the market.

However, they have been preferred by our clients over the years, and we now own about 40% of the market.”

This technique redirects the customer, immediately vaccinating the price factor, but keeping a door open.

Another way to deal with the price factor is to use value ranges.

We should go prepared with a probable value in our head. However, we should not present it directly.

That is, the most effective way is to leave room for maneuver, indicating a range of values from X to Y.

Something like that:

“What is the investment we have to make?”
“Mr. Client, every case is a case, but from what you’ve indicated to us, I think it’s safe to say that a solution like this, in your case, could go between x and y.”

The advantage of this technique is that it later will allow us to pull the value to where it is most advantageous in the proposal to be presented.

Finally, giving the value directly to our client when it arises in the conversation. Sometimes it is not worthwhile to go around the issue.

If you are a fan of the use of consulting sales (if not, you should seriously start thinking about it), your business process often involves interacting with your client by asking questions to determine their real needs.

If the question of price arises in an inelegant way in the middle of our questions, of the kind:
“Look, that’s very nice, but what is the price?”

We must respond directly and quickly to the questions of identifying needs to continue the process.

The trick here is how quickly we resume the ongoing business process and not stick to the price factor.

These are just some of the ways to deal with price.

As you can imagine, many others exist within our business methods and strategies.

At the moment, due to the state of the market, many companies around the world face price issues with their customers every day. Many of them feel a little lost in the process.

We have helped our clients to change the perspective with which they currently face their commercial challenges and especially the price.

All processes start with a non-committal conversation with the companies’ management. In these initial conversations, we analyze with you what we can do to help you Sell More and Better in your company.

This week take a break and think about all the things that can go wrong and what you can do to solve or prevent them.

---

Also published on Medium.