#803

The biggest fear of salespeople is NOT. . . fear itself!

Salespeople have two major fears: #1 is rejection and #2 is price or fee.

Mostsalespeople (not you, of course) are hesitant when it comes to talkingprice or fee. The reason is, in their own mind, they think their pricesare too high.

Asa salesperson, I’m sure you’ve all shopped the competition – and theyall offer similar items at lower prices. And you’re worried yourcustomer will look at your price structure and say that your prices oryour fees are too high.

LET ME GIVE YOU A CLUE: That is the single biggest fear of every salesperson in the world, you included.

Whenit comes to price, the first thing you have to have, as a professionalsalesperson, is a deep-rooted belief that the value of what you’reoffering far exceeds the price or fee that you’re asking. If you don’tbelieve this, the highest level you will rise in your sales career isto the level of mediocre. And worse, your prospective customer willsense that your belief system is not deep enough by your language.

Here are the telltale signs that you don’t believe deep enough:

1. You try to justify your price.

2. You apologize for your price.

3. You rationalize your price.

4. You have to go back into your presentation to clarify your price.

4.5 You try to ignore the signs that are evident hoping that they will go away.

And worse than that, you go back to your boss and say, “We lost one on price.” Letme share with you – you did NOT lose on price, you lost on perceivedvalue and you lost on perceived difference. If the customer doesn’tperceive the value of your offering, if the customer doesn’t perceive adifference between you and the competition, then all that’s left isprice.

When is that last time you walked into a Lexus dealer and had a price battle? Answeris never. But Ford and Chevy, $50 can swing a deal on a $20,000 carbecause there is no perceived difference between one car or onedealership and another. I’m certain you’ve seen the new car ad for a”dollar over invoice.” I don’t want to ruin your belief in Santa Claus,but that means that if they sell a hundred cars, they make a hundreddollars. I don’t know about you, but I’m not buying that. I thinkthey’re lying to me.

Wouldn’tit be cool if one dealership put an ad on TV and said, “Our cars are$250 more than anybody else because the service we provide after youbuy the car will not only blow you away, it will also enhance thelifelong value of your car. You invest another $250 in our dealership,and you win back thousands when you trade your car in.”

Doesn’t that seem obvious?

In a price fight, everyone loses, especially all the sellers.

The price or the fee for the products or services that you offer must be presented, clarified, justified, and affirmed duringthe sales presentation – not at the end. If the presentation isperfect, the value is clear, and the differentiation is obvious then areasonable price will not only be accepted, it will be accepted withouta fight.

Toomuch emphasis in any sales environment is placed on price. Salespeoplemoan that their product or service, whatever it is, is becoming acommodity. Commodity is your word, not theirs.

Ifyou spent as much time concentrating on value and differentiation asyou do moaning about price, the issue would disappear. There’s one morekey. Your customers are better at justifying and extolling the virtuesof your price than you are. If I were you, I would have a fewone-minute videos on my laptop of existing customers who believe inyou, who have gladly paid your price, and who are proud to do businesswith you.

Thosecustomers will help you gain new customers, faster and better than yoursales presentation. BUT they do not replace the sales presentation.They enhance the sales presentation.

Thekey to mastery of price is a combination of the belief system set inplace by past wins, and the voices of encouragement from the customerswith whom you’ve built a relationship. The combination of those twoelements will breed self-confidence so evident, that when you walk intoa room, you’ll be attractive (I don’t mean pretty, I mean attractive inthat people want to do business with you). You become attractive by themanner by which you present and the obvious superiority of yourofferings versus others.

It’spretty interesting to me that in sales, you often hear the phrase “nobrainer.” I don’t believe in that phrase. In fact, I think the phraseis as insulting as any phrase in our language. What someone is sayingis that the offering was so powerful, the offering was so different,and the offering was so value packed that the decision was obvious. Butlet me share with you, plenty of brains went into that process, andplenty of brains went into the preparation.

And so the secret to price is combining brains and sales balls. You got both, use them.

Ifyou want a few price statements, go to www.gitomer.com, register ifyou’re a first time user, and enter PRICE in the GitBit box.