Go Beyond Price When Talking to Prospects

Your salespeople should never let price become the dominant factor in any customer’s decision. Even if your prices are competitive, you’ll do better in the long run by focusing the buyer’s attention on other areas – like quality, value, and service. Here are some strategies for redirecting the conversation when prices comes up: 

Discuss options. When the first question is “How much does it cost?” be prepared to answer by offering a different option: “When do you need it delivered?” “What colors do you want?” “Will you want a service contract?” This gets the buyer talking about needs rather than costs. 

Broaden the range. Provide a broad price range: “This item usually sells for $300 to $500, depending on capacity, availability, and other factors. What do you need it to do for you?” 

Stress variety. If you have the ability to offer lots of options for customers to select, use a wide variety of choices to deflect the topic of price: “It’s hard to give you an exact price because we have over 120 styles to choose from. Could you give me an idea of where and when you’ll be using it?” 

Build the suspense. In many cases, the best thing to do is quote the price but emphasize the value as you lead up to it. “This is one of our finest products, it has the lowest repair rate of anything on the market, and it’s one of our biggest sellers. The price is $ ____.” 

This gets the prospect in the right frame of mind to consider the value of the product.