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Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Handling the pricing objection

Handling communications from prospects on pricing is one of the hardest tasks for a salesperson, particularly where it begins with “your price is too high.”


Let’s look at a real situation --- an email reply from a prospect --- very early in the sales cycle:


“We think the Davinator is a pretty great tool.  But for it to be useful for us we must have the premium package and we think your current premium packages are quite expensive for our budget. For that reason we will hold off on using Davinator until further notice.”

In this scenario, you are a salesperson at a company that is struggling and needs every bit of revenue it can get.

What’s your best next step?
a) email offering a 5% discount
b) email and offer a 25% discount
c) email and tell her why the premium package is worth it
d) ask your manager if you can offer a discount

The answer is:  e) none of the above.

The goal here is to get this person on the phone.  Price should never be “discussed” in an email.  It’s an emotional issue for buyers and needs to be handled in a medium where you can have a real-time discussion involving pricing, needs, benefits and more.  If you can get them to meet in person, even better (if the price justifies the time/expense of the meeting).

So here’s your best next step:  reply back and indicate that you’d be glad to speak with her about a possible discount if she would have ten minutes next X-day at Y-time.  If she is truly interested in your product, and really wants a discount, she’ll agree to the call.  

How to handle that phone conversation?  Stay tuned....


1 comment:

  1. Hi Dave,

    I really like this post and heard from a sales rep this week that lost a deal over price via an email exchange. So, although talking over the phone seems easy, it is not natural. It is natural to speak in the language that you are spoken to...email for email. As Sales experts, we need to change the frame of the art work to get the buyer to see the problem from a different angle.

    ReplyDelete