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A client sent me an email asking me to comment on an tense exchange he and a customer had on a discussion group board. His customer thought my client’s products were “too pricey”, so my client sent him an email justifying the cost and defending it.
Bad, bad move, folks. Of course, I’m not going to include the full details of the email exchange here, however I thought what I told him would benefit many of you reading this.
Hopefully you’ll take this as a vicarious learning experience and never have to repeat my client’s mistakes.
I’ve removed his name, company name, product names and his customer’s name. And in order to give context for some of my remarks, I included snippets from his email and these have a “>” in front of them.
Here goes . . . oops, one final editorial note: my tone is very casual in this instance because the client and I enjoy a friendly, tight-knit working relationship.
Okay, now here goes:
“As I’m sure you’re aware, asking me to comment on this after you’ve posted it is a bit like seeking advice on how to close the barn doors after the horses are off galloping through the south forty.
That being said, here goes . . .
> The bottom line is - will people buy it and then keep it at that price?
Definitely not the approach to take with this objection. What you’re saying here is that your company is going to charge the maximum the market will bear. While it may be true, you never want to say that. It’s like the old rule of retail sales — never reveal your actual cost. Never, ever do it or say it.
For example, each week circling prospects and others do their best to cajole me, trick me or (laughably) intimidate me into revealing my per-hour rate and it’s never going to happen. Why?
#1 - Because I don’t have one. At least not one for the public. I do have a project rate and I calculate that using the never-to-be-revealed hourly rate.
#2 - If I ever revealed it, they would always calculate against it and never take the other factors that I take into account. I may have reasons to take the project that cannot be accounted for (pun unintended) by multiplying the hourly rate.
#3 - It’s simpler to adhere to the project rate and keep them focused on the value I provide which is (everyone say it with me) “increased responses and revenues.”
Same with your company. Keep them focused on the value and never the cost. Always shift cost objections to value ones, easy enough to do because it’s never about the cost.
Next you sorta exacerbated the matter by trying to sell on the guarantee — which is always a sign (to those who know what to look for) that the salesperson is not confident about something — either themselves, the product or a combination of both.
Fortunately, I think he (and most of your market) missed this little ‘tell.’
Good move on sending him and others to that uber-testimonial. You could’ve gone for the spike by also including links to the other testimonials in the blog posts and for the coup de grâce — the url to your testimonials page.
Nothing closes an argument like the social proof strategy.
Ok, hoped that helped.”
And for you, dear reader I hoped this helped to prevent you from making the same mistake. Know the value of your widget (product/service) and never focus on price, because price objections are never about money, anyway.
Like what you read? Then click here to buy me a coffee.
By Walter |
Topics: Client Top Secret, Lessons Learned, Pro Analysis |
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