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| A Note from the Editor |
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| DON'T BUY THE BOOK . . . TODAY |
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Coming at you: Tomorrow we're going
to offer $2,500 worth of valuable sales tools when
you purchase Top Dog Sales Secrets. This
will include e-books, white papers, articles, and
reports from top sales and business growth leaders.
You have to wait until tomorrow. You can't do anything
about it yet. But, we'll send you an email with
the offer.
If you've already purchased the book, don't despair,
we'll email you too, so you can access these valuable
bonuses. |
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Tina LoSasso
Managing Editor, SalesDog.com |
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| This Week's Newsletter |
How to Delay Talking about Price until You've Identified
Value
Don't quote price until you've established value. Sounds great
in theory, but how do you handle the prospect who demands, "How
much?" Sales performance expert Alan Rigg shows you exactly how
to respond.
Talking about price is an important step in the sales opportunity
qualification process. After all, if a prospect can't afford your
price, is he really a valid prospect? Do you really want to invest
your valuable time trying to sell to him?
That said, it often does more harm than good to discuss price before
you and the prospect have determined whether your product or service
can provide value. Just about any price sounds high when it is quoted
"in a vacuum." Yet, that very same price can sound very
reasonable, or even cheap, when compared to the quantified impact
of a prospect's business problems.
What is a quantified impact?
Just about every product or service can solve specific problems for
your prospects. Your mission as a salesperson is to ask questions
to determine whether a prospect has any of the problems that your
products or services can solve.
Once you determine that a prospect has one or more of the business
problems you can solve, your next step is to ask questions to uncover
how each problem impacts the prospect's business. Then you should
ask questions to encourage the prospect to quantify (associate dollars
or percentages and time frames) with his business problems.
Here are several examples of quantified business impacts:
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- Our top-performing salespeople produce $200,000 more net
profit per year than our average-performing salespeople.
- [Problem] generates an extra million dollars in operating
costs in a six month period.
- [Problem] increases our administrative expense by 22%
per month.
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Quantified impacts are an invaluable aid to closing sales
How? If the quantified impact of a business problem exceeds the investment
required to fix the problem, a buying decision is easy to justify.
The larger the difference between the impact and the required investment,
the easier it becomes to close the sale. If the quantified impact
is a multiple of the required investment (for example, a quantified
impact of millions of dollars versus a required investment of thousands
of dollars), the buying decision becomes a "no-brainer."
To make your case, your prospect must be the source of the numbers.
Why? In general, prospects don't trust salespeople. Many have dealt
with salespeople who were more interested in making sales than they
were in providing value. Plus, prospects recognize that salespeople
have a vested interest in building a convincing business case that
can be used to support a buying decision. This causes prospects to
discount any quantified impact information that salespeople provide.
However, when the prospect is the source of the information, he perceives
it as unquestioned truth. This makes learning how to ask questions
to quantify the impact of business problems a valuable skill indeed!
What do you do if a prospect asks for the price of your product or
service before you have had a chance to uncover the quantified impacts
of his or her business problems? Depending upon where you are in the
process, you might respond in one of the following ways:
"Bill, I promise that I will provide complete pricing information
before we finish our conversation today. However, at this point I
don't even know:
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- ... anything about your business. What does your company
do?"
- ... whether you have any of the kinds of problems we address."
(Then ask a qualifying question that will help determine
whether the prospect has one or more of the business problems
that your products or services can solve.)
- ... whether it even makes sense for you to consider buying
anything from us." (Then ask a question that will help
the prospect quantify the impact of a specific business
problem that has been identified.)
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In my experience, nine times out of ten the prospect will be willing
to defer the pricing conversation. In the rare case where the prospect
refuses to answer your question and continues to push for price, you
might say something like:
"Bill, at this point we don't have anything to compare the price
with. My experience has been that a price quoted in a vacuum always
sounds high. Would you agree? (Allow Prospect to respond.) If we can't
establish value, would any price convince you to buy? (Allow Prospect
to respond.) Could we spend a little time trying to figure out whether
[product or service name] will produce value for you?"
The prospect may not be willing to engage in a value discussion
This is especially likely if your product or service is seen as a
commodity. If that is the case, you will need to decide whether you
want to try to win the prospect's business based upon price. However,
remember that this situation is the exception. Nine times out of ten
the prospect will be willing to defer the pricing conversation and
answer your questions.
So remember, the key to successful price discussions is first determining
whether your product or service can provide value. This value creates
a frame of reference against which price can be compared.
To determine value, ask questions to discover whether your prospects
have any of the business problems your products or services can solve.
Then, ask questions to identify how each business problem impacts
the prospect's business. Finally, ask more questions to quantify the
impact of each business problem. The greater the quantified impact,
the better your price will look in comparison, and the greater your
chances will be of making a sale!
Sales performance expert Alan Rigg is the author of "How
to Beat the 80/20 Rule in Selling: Why Most Salespeople Don't Perform
and What to Do About It." His company, 80/20 Sales Performance,
helps business owners, executives, and managers end the frustration
of 80/20 sales team performance, where 20% of salespeople produce
80% of sales. For more information and more FREE sales and sales management
tips, visit www.8020salesperformance.com.
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| Praise for Top Dog Sales
Secrets |
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"One of these top dog secrets can earn you a fortune."
– Jeffrey Gitomer
"It's like reading the best ideas from 50 sales books
all in one book."
– Michelle Nichols, Savvy Selling International
"I HIGHLY recommend it for the inspiration AND the skills
that one will learn or ‘re-learn.’ It is easy to read,
entertaining, and very broad in topic selection."
– Lori Richardson, Score More Sales
Order
your copy of the book today to learn an effective strategy
that will help you take back control of the sale. |
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