What is your biggest sales objection? Price? If not the biggest objection, it’s got to be very close to the top. How do I know? I’ve been in sales for over 3 decades and have ran my one-person business for twenty years. Not to mention talking to many, many sales people, entrepreneurs and small business owners over the years about this very subject.
If you think about it, it’s like a game that’s played, really for no reason at all, but I guess in a perfect world it wouldn’t be. Unfortunately, it isn’t a perfect world, whatever that means. If you break down the typical scenario, the potential customer wants your service as cheap as they can and well you’d like to make as much as you can, oh and not to mention the dreaded competitors.
Next let’s strip away some of the negative areas from this scenario. Now it’s just you and the customer trying to maximize each other’s outcome. Since services are usually more difficult to sell, you know the intangible part, something they can’t hold in their hand as well as the perceived value, back to the price thing again. I think this is the area I heard more feedback from, both from potential customers and sales people I spoke with.
So, I know this just sounds like simple negotiation, but I think it’s maybe more than that and can be simplified to close more sales and have happier customers. If it’s just a matter of negotiation, it’s less efficient and less deals will be closed. I found it can be less of a negotiation and more of educating your potential customer of the real value of what you’re selling. The real key here is for you to know the real value yourself then you convey it correctly to your customer.
One last important part I’d like to share with you on this and it’s the customer budget. This part doesn’t really apply 100% to those that sell to companies that have an established budget. This really applies more to the customers who say they don’t have a budget, but still they are discussing buying services from you. Let’s think about this, if they don’t have a budget, and don’t know the real value, perceived or otherwise then how can they make a wise decision and if your price is higher than someone else are you could just be wasting your time. Plus, do they have and money at all?
Where does this mentality come from and how is a company ran properly if they don’t know or have a budget? They could certainly make a bad decision either way. THIS could certainly be a disaster for both of you, so what do you do? This is where you can really earn your keep and have a lifelong customer. So, this is where you need to educate yourself on your services and how they can make your customer prosper THEN educate them.
Written by Tim Frisch with Get The Sale
