The Price is Right

What happens when prospects ask your price upfront before you’ve discussed any aspect of the business? Are they just shopping around, or maybe they don’t see a difference between you and the competitive product?

If you fire off a quote, put together a beautiful package of information with some great brochures and a cover note, what are the chances you will get the business? Is that different than what your competition will do? You can always send the stuff and hope; or you can “plant your feet”, save yourself and the prospect some time, and operate as a business person in sales rather than a vendor.

Price is rarely the determining factor when buying. An incredible rock-bottom low price isn’t all that great if the quality is unsatisfactory, or if you have to call 1-800-Who Cares when you need service. When you buy, is the price the ultimate factor in every purchase? Do you drive the cheapest car whether it is comfortable or not? Do you live in the worst neighborhood, because the price was right? I doubt it, and I also doubt that your prospects buy that way. Many times price is not a factor for buying; it’s a means of negotiating, and that’s a completely different circumstance.

Price is an intellectual decision factor, but most people buy on emotional decision factors. That doesn’t mean price isn’t an important factor, but after people have made an emotional buying-decision, they’ll justify it intellectually.

Your job is to uncover the three levels of buying-decisions: the surface reasons that they’ll freely tell you and everyone else about, the business reasons that affect their ability to do the job, and the personal reasons. The personal reasons tell us how the problems affect them emotionally, and you need skills to discover those.

Finally, any inquiry will get you an intellectual response first. You have to ask a minimum of three questions and be prepared to dig deeper to get to the emotional reasons.