Sooner or later in the life of every salesperson the infamous price objection will rear its ugly head. The reality is that buyers want to spend as little as possible. Salespeople want to maintain high maintained margin and don’t want to be viewed as a commodity for which there is no customer loyalty.
So how can you differentiate yourself from the competition and sell your products and services at higher prices? The answer is: Add value and service. But before that you have to:
Do your homework. Make sure that you know your product, your market, your competition and the needs of your prospect
That means asking your prospects open ended questions and listening to their responses. Develop a list of 10-15 questions to get to the root of their needs. While, on the surface, price may be an objection, it may be overcome by a cast iron guarantee or value added services and support options.
For example, you sell apples for 79 cents each and the store (vendor) down the road sells them for 75 cents. The only difference aside from the price of the apples is that you have a return policy. If the customer buys an apple from the store down the road to save a couple of pennies and gets a rotten apple, they’re stuck with it. If they buy the apple from you they can get a new one. It’s a matter of developing a comfort level.
When selling higher-margin products, you need to educate prospects about what they’re getting for their money and why it’s in their best interest to do business with you.
An additional way to overcome a price objection is to surround the account and become a consultative salesperson. In other words if a customer has needs that are beyond your capacity to deliver, have the courage to go the extra mile and partner with outside non-competitive sources that can help you get the job done for them.
Remember: Customers don’t care how much you know until you show them how much you care.
William F. Kendy – TBS