Win the Sale Even If Your Price Is Higher

00:00:00] Right now I’m hearing a lot of salespeople say that their prospects are telling them, “The price is too high. I just can’t buy it. It’s too expensive.” The problem is it’s probably not too high and probably not too expensive. The problem might be you. Let’s get into it

All right, so this pricing thing comes from a variety of different places, and you’d be surprised where it comes from. So a lot of times people think it’s because, well, their competitors are pricing it a little bit too low or more aggressively and all that kind of stuff. And while that could be happening, there are several features that could be hitting this and making this happen and why people are reacting that way.

So the first thing I would say is perhaps, and maybe this is you, maybe this is not, but perhaps you might be having a money block.

Now, quite simply, what that means is if you think back to when you were young, very young, as you were growing up, if you heard phrases that were similar to, “Well, we just don’t talk about money here,” or if you heard somebody say in your family, “Hey, you, [00:01:00] you can’t ask somebody how much money they make.

That’s not appropriate,” or, “You can’t ask the question about, uh, how much does this cost?” Or, “Is that really expensive?” Or, “How much money do you have on you? You can’t ask money questions,” or, “Money doesn’t grow on trees,” something along those lines, you might end up at some point hitting a money block. And I know I’ve talked about this once before on the show, but quite honestly, it is probably the biggest driver for a lot of people to whether or not

they can think about money in terms of there’s value in one version or another. Okay? And so what I mean by that, and we’re gonna get into this in a little bit, is how does it relate to the need of the person who’s buying? So if you’re thinking about it in terms of your own needs and your own thoughts and your own feelings about money, you’re doing it wrong.

You have to flip that. You have to go the other way. Now, that’s the first thing that can typically be the problem with how much am I charging? It feels like it’s too much, or it might be charging too much, or the customers are telling me that. You’re blaming the customer maybe, and maybe the customer really is [00:02:00] just saying, “I don’t see the value.”

Right?

So the second piece that could be feeding this numbers issue could be just simply they had another salesperson talk to them and they gave them a price that was half the price of what you’re quoting.

And while that could be okay, and they could be accurate, or maybe you’re accurate, the, the reality is, is they were talking to this other salesperson first. They’ve now anchored what they think that number is based on that conversation. And typically, what I find is that that previous salesperson doesn’t do a good job of determining what that person needs or what their pains are or what their problems are really and how it’s affecting their business.

And so the depth of what the issue is and how much needs to get fixed is probably not as accurate as what you will find out if you’re asking all the right questions. So if they have spoken to another salesperson, then you need to start to think about, okay, did they price it way lower or way higher?

‘Cause it can happen both ways, right? You can have somebody price you half price or double your price. [00:03:00] Whichever way that is, you need to determine whether or not they’ve priced you higher or lower, and when you do that, you’re gonna figure out what your, your response needs to be. So your response could be, for somebody that prices you really a lot lower what you’re gonna need to do is start asking questions.

And what my number one question usually comes back as is, “Why do you think they’re priced at that price point?” Because what that does is it gives that prospect a feeling of, “Yeah, I don’t know why they priced it at that price, and maybe, maybe it’s not the, as good of a value as I thought.

Maybe I’m not getting as good of a quality back,” right? So it makes them think about their decision, and it’s okay if they wanna make that decision to go on the cheaper route. That’s okay. So when I’m talking about somebody else’s price, I’m gonna bring up, “That sounds really cheap.

That’s pretty good. Why wouldn’t you go, why wouldn’t you go buy it from them?” Right? Using the word cheap, what does that do? It makes their price sound like it’s not a very good value, even though it may be the same thing, and they’re just discounting it greatly, right? [00:04:00] Maybe they’re a person that is just getting into the business, and they’re trying to build a, a customer base, and that’s the reason why their price is as low as they are.

Maybe they have no idea what the real r- going rate is for their services or their products. All those things can fit in, right? So by asking the question about what that prospect thinks, do they think that’s an accurate price, do they think that’s a good price, I would always push them to say, “Well, if that’s such a really good price, why, why wouldn’t you just…

Well, I mean, why are we talking? If that’s, that’s a good price, go buy it,” right? I mean, you might as well. You’re gonna save a lot of money, and, and, and it’s cheaper. You know, go for it. Without sounding like I’m rude, I’m just trying to say, “Hey, you know, maybe that’s a good value. Maybe you should go do that.”

And sometimes they will say, “Yeah, I think I will.” And most of the time they won’t, okay? If they price out higher, if your competitor comes in higher, then your questions need to be a little bit different. Same question sometimes. Sometimes I’m asking that question, “Why do you think they’re priced like it is?”

And, and [00:05:00] sometimes they’ll come back with, “Well, they added a lot of stuff I don’t think I really need,” or, “They’re, they’re giving me things that I don’t really want. I, I’m just kinda curious what I could do without having all that stuff, ’cause I don’t feel like I need that.” Again, I go back to, there’s probably a related pain question that wasn’t asked or answered that that previous salesperson is just throwing out a number and seeing what sticks sometimes, right?

So you have to be able to ask the right questions so that you determine what that means in their brain, so you understand what’s going on in their head. Now, sometimes they’re a premium that you’re up against, and that’s okay. If it’s a premium brand, maybe that’s what that person wants. You’re gonna have to start asking questions to find out- Are they looking for somebody from a status standpoint?

And you’re not asking them, “Hey, are you looking for a status?” But, but is it a mental thing where they’re like, “I need to have the best of the best,” right? And so if you know who that is that you’re quoting from, and they’re two, three times the price, is it a status thing? Is that important to them? And [00:06:00] so sometimes the question is really simply, is it more important to make sure that you’re spending the right amount and a higher amount to make sure you get what you need out of that?

Is that, is that something that’s important to you? What you’re trying to determine is whether or not their ego is feeding their decision. And if their ego is feeding their decision, then your price is probably too low for them sometimes, right? So that can happen

The other thing that can feed into this a little bit from a pricing standpoint is Google, yes, is one of those questions, but it’s AI, and it’s also some of those other web- websites out there like Upwork and so forth. Sometimes they, you know, “Hey, you can get this done really cheap and really inexpensive.”

Again, I go back to the same question: Why wouldn’t you just go do that? Or if AI gave them that answer, where do you think AI got that answer from? And, and they can’t tell you sometimes, right? So if they don’t know where the answer came from, then how, how am I supposed to compete against that?

And I would… I– the response usually becomes, “What should I do now?” Because if they’re pricing it based on AI’s answer and I’m telling them it’s [00:07:00] this price, well, what do you want me to do now? ‘Cause I, I– if AI can build it or do it, go for it, right? I- sometimes it doesn’t work that way, right? So there’s nothing you can do with that.

Before I get to the last point, and this is an important one If you found this to be helpful so far, and if you find the next tip to be helpful, I’m gonna ask that you like and subscribe if you haven’t already. And I would love it if you would leave a comment. Tell me that you’ve had money issues in the past, comment yes in the comments for me, would ya?

Because that way I know if that’s money issues out there, that’s a real thing. It’s okay. I’ve had it myself before, and once you get past it, and once you start to think about money differently, it changes your life. So let’s move on.

The last point I wanna make is, is when you’re pricing stuff, your price should be accurate, obviously, but it should also be anchored to their pain. Here’s what I mean. This is the most important thing you can take out of this. If you don’t have enough pain in the conversation, and you haven’t driven it down enough, you will not get the sale.

I don’t care who you are, [00:08:00] you don’t get the sale if there’s not enough pain. When you’re in the process of working through this with them, you need to ask a lot of questions. Determine how much their pain is, how much that’s costing them, how much that’s aggravating them, how much that’s causing problems for them, how long has this been going on.

All of those questions you need to be asking. I equate it kinda like to if you go to a dentist office. When you go to the dentist, if you walked in and say, “Hey, my d- doc, my tooth hurts. I, I– can you check it out?” Yeah, they, they walk in, they sit- set you down. Like, the doc looks at it, taps on it. “Yeah, it looks like it hurts.

Take an aspirin. Get out.” Are you gonna be happy with that answer? No. Right? That’s not a good answer. Y- the doc didn’t even figure out if there was enough pain, what the problem was, wha- what’s causing it. Didn’t ask you anything, didn’t do any- just, “Take an aspirin, you’re fine.” Right? But if the doctor says to you, “Hey, sit down in the chair.

We’re gonna take a couple X-rays. We’re gonna take a look around, see what’s going on.” He takes the X-rays, comes back, shows you the X-rays. “Look, you got a problem here.” Taps that. “Does that hurt here? Does this hurt?” “Yep.” “Okay. And [00:09:00] then what about in this part of your mouth, does that hurt?” “Yeah, yeah, that hurts too.”

“Okay. All right, so it looks like we need a root canal. And here’s the problem. The root canal is not gonna just be a simple one, because you’ve got some infection growing in there. There’s some things going on, and this is gonna be a little bit of a surgery. And so it’s– I hate to say this, uh, but this is gonna be probably a good $2,000 surgery thing,

or some sort of a process that you’re gonna have to go through to get this taken care of.” If the doctor didn’t do the X-rays, didn’t go through the research of finding out is this a problem, is this a problem, poked in there with that scraper, didn’t do any of that stuff and, and just said, “All right, we’re gonna do surgery,” that’s not, that’s not gonna be good either.

You need to have your mind shift into, “This is painful, and it’s, and it’s bad.” And if the doc says, “And if you wait, this is going to continue to get worse,” now that’s a position that a doctor can say he’s the expert, right? He or she.

But if you’re in the chair and you have the pain, and the doctor says, “These are the things we can do.” And this is what I’ve, what I’ve [00:10:00] experienced with a good dentist, is they say, um, you know, “Here’s the problem. Here’s what we can do. What do you wanna do?” And they leave it to you a little bit, right? Now, they, they will tell you, “If you do nothing, uh, it’s only gonna get worse,” right?

So when they say that, you know that, all right, this infection, this thing, whatever the problem is, is only gonna get worse. And so you’re gonna wanna make sure that in your sales process, in your questions, you’re asking questions that let them discover and talk about and share the pains that they’re in.

The more you do that, the more likely you are to stick with your price. The more likely you are they’re gonna say, “It’s worth every penny of that price because it’s gonna fix my problem.” That is the key to all of sales. There’s a bunch of other stuff that goes into it, but obviously, that is the most important one because without pain, there is no sale.

So remember, if this helps, remember to like and subscribe, if you don’t mind sharing, yes, if you [00:11:00] do have or have had in the past any money issues, because it makes a difference in your sales process. Until next time, slow down and close more.