SellingBrew

Insights & Tips

Already a subscriber? Login

Become a subscriber and unlock an information arsenal focused on making your sales operation more effective.

Go Ahead…Give Them a Lower Price

In a guide published in the SellingBrew Playbook — Three Types of Buyers That Don’t Buy On Price — Nelson Hyde offers subscribers some fantastic advice about how to recognize and deal with different types of buyers. In the guide, he even provides a chart outlining the different buyer types and their typical characteristics—a very handy training aid and deal-support tool.

But in response to a question in the guide, Nelson offers a piece of advice that I know I will never forget. The question was this:

“What can I do if I can’t really tell whether the customer is serious about needing the absolute lowest price?”

Nelson’s advice? Give it to them.

That’s right—if the customer claims they need the lowest price, take them at their word and give them the lowest price you can muster. Now, this lowest price won’t be for the full-featured offering with all of the value-adds—of course, you’ll strip all of that away in order to reach the lowest price.

From here, Nelson says one of two things will happen:

  1. The customer will be grateful that you were able to quote a price that was low enough to meet their budget, or
  2. They will yell and scream about all of the value that was stripped-out in order to reach that low price-point.

In other words, by taking them at their word and delivering against their stated objectives, you force the customer to reveal themselves. If they really are a price buyer, they’ll be happy with the low-price/low-value offering you’ve put together for them. But if they are really a relationship or value buyer just pretending to be a price buyer, you’ll find yourself in a much better position to actually get paid for the value you provide.

I love this strategy because it takes all of the games and guesswork out of the equation. You can simply give the customer what they ask for and then let them tell you what they really wanted all along.

Some would say that’s calling their bluff. I prefer to think of it as just providing great “customer service”.

Get Immediate Access To Everything In The SellingBrew Playbook

Related Resources

  • Selling Through Uncertainty

    As Sales Ops practitioners, we're expected to make weighty decisions with imperfect information. How do we "illuminate" the landscape a bit? What steps can we take to reduce the ambiguity, uncertainty, and risk?

    View This Webinar
  • Reducing Friction Between Sales & Marketing

    Some amount of "friction" between Sales and Marketing is expected. Too much, however, is counter-productive. In this on-demand session, we discuss dozens of ways to address seven root-causes of friction and conflict between the Sales and Marketing functions.

    View This Webinar
  • How to Improve Your Close Rates

    Trial and error with something as important as your close rates is risky. How do you know which strategies and tactics you should use to improve? In this on-demand training webinar, learn effective strategies and tactics for improving your sales team's ability to win---at scale and with less risk.

    View This Webinar
  • The Fundamentals of Effective Sales Analysis

    In this on-demand training webinar, we share the fundamental concepts and principles behind effective sales analysis, expose the critical building blocks that need to be in-place, and walk through a basic analysis example to pull everything together.

    View This Webinar