How To Handle The Price Objection | Professional Selling Skills Training
Do you often give discounts? If so, you may be losing more than just money. Successful selling creates a win-win situation: high profits for you and top value for your clients and prospects. If you don’t defend your pricing, your clients and prospects may develop doubts about your value.
Pricing is an emotional as well as logical issue. Understanding your prospects’ pricing emotions can help you to anticipate and handle price objections before they arise. There are three key price emotions:
Price resistance
Price anxiety
Payment resistance
Be Prepared
Anticipating price resistance will enable you to be prepared with a strategy for handling the situation. Understanding how sticker shock and buyer’s remorse occur just before and after a purchase decision will help you deal effectively with buyer anxiety. And payment resistance can be handled long before the check is cut.
Some buyers habitually ask for a discount from every provider of goods or services. Here are three strategies to maximize your pricing and your clients’ perceptions of value:
Don’t telegraph your willingness to discount. Business owners are savvy when it comes to purchasing goods and services. If you let them know you have a policy of discounting, you are inviting a lengthy series of negotiations over price. As you are beginning your presentation, say something like, “We may not be the lowest priced firm in town, but that’s not what you’re looking for, is it?”
Start your pricing at the highest expected amount. Don’t say, “We estimate our fees will be between $10,000 and $15,000.” Say, “To do this right and achieve maximum value, I believe you may need to invest up to $15,000 with us.” When you give a range, the prospect hears the low end while you are thinking the higher end. When you start at the high end, you leave room for concession.
Discuss price only after you have created value in the client’s mind. Talk about your responsiveness, your network of business contacts, your satisfied clients and your firm’s reputation before covering price. Show your prospect testimonial letters from happy clients. Create a perception of value, then cover price.
Conclusion
There are pricing pressures in every business. By being prepared to sell value, you can help keep your price—and your receivables—where they belong.
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