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The Realities of Price Objections by Tom Reilly ©Copyright 2000
There are several constants you will encounter when it comes to price objections. You will hear lots of them in your sales career. They are a daily reality for salespeople. You’ll Hear Price Objections Price objections drove me to write my first book, Value Added Selling Techniques. They precipitated my writing Value Added Sales Management. When I sold industrial chemicals, price objections were the daily diet of lead from the buyer’s cannon. To this day, price objections rank as the number one reason why people attend our Value-Added Selling seminars. Here’s reality: You will hear price objections. Get used to it. Be prepared. Deal with them. John Ruskin wrote this over one hundred years ago: There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man’s lawful prey. Even though this was written over a hundred years ago it’s as relevant today as then, and I expect it will be around another one hundred years from now. Giving versus Getting When the buyer says, “Your price is too high,” he’s more focused on what he’s giving than what he’s getting. He’s more concerned with what he loses than what he gains. Adam Smith, an eighteenth-century economist, wrote: The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it. What everything is really worth to the man who has acquired it, and who wants to dispose of it or exchange it for something else, is the toil and trouble which he can save to himself, and which it can impose upon other people. He was concerned with the benefit of what people receive for what they pay. What you sell must be worth more to the buyer than what he exchanges for it. As a professional salesperson, your job is to convince the buyer of this. Be Prepared to Lose Some Business You will lose some business because of your price. If you’re not losing at least one out of six orders because of price, your prices are too low. You want to lose some business because of price. There is some of that low-margin, high-aggravation business that you want the competition to have. Once they take this business, you take Napoleon’s advice: Never interrupt an enemy when he’s making a mistake. You Will Win Some Orders in Spite of Higher Prices There are plenty of shoppers out there who will pay more for something without giving it a second thought. In my seminars I ask salespeople to recall a sale they made when their price was higher than the competition. Every salesperson has a story to tell about successfully selling in the face of price resistance. They have found that there are as many reasons why buyers will pay more for something as there are buyers. Some Price Objections Are Real and Others Are Bull It’s your job to distinguish between the two. There may be legitimate reasons why the buyer is objecting to your price. Maybe you’re selling a sledgehammer to kill a fly. Maybe the buyer’s budget is too low for what you’re offering. You must determine this for yourself and respond appropriately. Whoever is better prepared to deal with price objections ultimately triumphs in a negotiation. It’s either you or the buyer. The choice belongs to you. Next Crush Price Objections Article Tom Reilly is a professional speaker and author. Since 1981 he has trained more than 100,000 salespeople and written twelve books. His first book, Value-Added Selling, continues to be a hot-seller for salespeople. This article is an excerpt from his book, Crush Price Objections. You may order this by calling Tom Reilly Training at 636-537-3360 or visit his website www.TomReillyTraining.com
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