How To Handle Cost / Price Objections as a Non Salesperson

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This is from a Question & Answer call our team recently did in our program called The Accidental Salesperson. As we were transcribing this, we thought we’d give you a peak inside our thinking when we answer client questions.  (This is a transcription of spoken audio so forgive some of the clunkiness).

Q: “We are in a service industry and our biggest sales problem is overcoming cost objections.”

A: All objections are not created equal. The essence of an objection is that the prospect doesn’t believe that there’s any pain to not changing, or, there’s any pain to not choosing you.

So if I hear cost / price objections, you must conclude you’ve done a lousy job in two places in the sales cycle.

Sales Problem 1. Identifying The Problem

I’ve done a lousy job identifying the problem and attaching a cost to the problem they have. Or number two, I’ve done a lousy job of distinguishing myself against the other possible solutions that they have.

For example, we get asked to work with a company where we’re not the only option. They could go outside and work with other trainers and coaches like us, or, they can try to do it themselves.

There’s nothing that says they have to go out and hire trainers. The fact is that some companies can do it themselves. At least they could be marginally effective at it.

One Competitor Is Them Doing It Themselves

So my competitor is not necessarily the guy down the street who does similar things to what we do. My competitor also is them doing it themselves. Well, there is a perspective that people have that if I do it myself, it’s cheaper. Some of you are in business. I know a little bit about some of your business. You have that in your business, too.

I can either hire a realtor to go out looking for more commercial space or I can do it myself. But for certain solutions, doing it yourself is not a good idea.

First, it takes a lot of time. And often, people don’t put high enough value on their time like they should. If they only added up the time they spent doing things they weren’t good at, where it takes them five times longer to do it, they would realize quickly that hiring a professional is a much cheaper alternative.

So when I hear you say you can’t overcome cost objections, I would suggest that it’s probably because you haven’t done a good job upfront of nailing down the cost of the problem.

What’s The Cost of the Problem?

Once you have that, then the question is, “What kind of dollars are you willing to throw at the problem?” and if you can’t have a good, lively, honest discussion about that, then you’re probably going to get the objection that your prices are too high.

This goes for technical people who are doing add-on sales at a project. We work with a lot of CPAs, few of whom are natural salespeople. They’ve been trained to be a CPA and they’re very good at it. They were not trained to learn how to sell and market and manage the relationship. Read more

Biggest Challenges Facing Customers

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OK, here’s yet another list we want you to make. The reason for this list is prod you into paying attention to the pains that your customers have.

The shift here is that you should be constantly focused on their issues – not yours. And you can’t do that if you don’t know what to listen for. So make the list, then take the top 3-5 most common issues and insert that into your story.

You Can’t Solve Problems If You Don’t…

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 PROSPECT PAINS.

What kinds of pains/problems do you help people solve? Do you have a list of those? No? Shame on you.

How can you be a problem solver if you don’t even have a menu of the kind of problems you fix? Start that list today.

Is Your Smart Phone Hurting Your Customer Relationships?

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Brandon Gerard, one of our members of the Advanced Selling Podcast Linkedin group, asked a great question today and thought it was worth sharing:

“Is your smart phone hurting your customer relationships? I came across this great article, How Your Cell Phone Hurts Your Relationships by Scientific American, discussing how the presence of a smart phone causes people to trust you less if they see it sitting out next to you.”

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this! Click here to join in on the discussion.

Ask About Your Prospects Goals And Dreams

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PROSPECT POSSIBILITIES.

Selling is emotional. What’s more emotional than dreams? How can you help–through your service/product–create future possibilities for your prospect? Don’t laugh so quickly. If you sell a solution, then you solve problems. And if you solve problems, you advance your client to a new future. Shouldn’t you know what that might be?

Your Prospect Needs To Know Your Value

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It seems that the very thing we are looking for – the motive – is something we should study extensively, but we don’t.  Buyer motives are tricky.  Motives are usually in some form of “pain” or “problem” with the prospect’s current reality, or “unexploited opportunity” (a brighter future that they can realize with your solution).

If we don’t understand their motives, how can we sell to them?

Most salespeople think motives have to do with their products.  But that is a myth. Your value is tied to problems you solve or opportunities you help people create by being in their lives. Your clients buy from you because you solve a problem better or differently from anyone else.

How do you articulate that to your prospect?

Rule #7: Always Stay Behind the Prospect

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This means to be slightly less positive than your prospect. This might go against everything you’ve heard about professional sales….”be enthusiastic…it’s contagious.” I don’t find that to be the case.

If you’re going to be Selling From Strength, you have to create space for the prospect to convince you that they have a problem worth solving…and you can’t do that when you’re more positive than they are.

A few examples to demonstrate the idea of staying behind your prospect:

  • If a prospect says, “I’m not sure we’re interested,” then you say, “I’m not sure you should be.”
  • If a prospect says, “We already have a current supplier,” then you say, “Maybe you should stay with them.”
  • If the prospect says,”Your solution is great, I want a proposal by tomorrow” that’s equally as dangerous…especially if it transgresses your process.

Here is where you have to slow them down by getting behind them.

“Wow, that sounds kind of quick…I’m still not sure I fully understand what you’re trying to fix. And if I don’t understand it yet, how am I going to be able to recommend the best solution? Can we take a step back for a moment?”

A Great Man Is Always Willing to Be Little

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“A great man is always willing to be little.”

Not sure where I heard that first, but it makes sense in sales.

Rather than playing the game of ‘impressing’ the prospect (which we all do, albeit unintentionally), why don’t you be insignificant. Let their pains and dreams take center stage, instead of yours.

It just might be that they develop so much rapport with you from being heard, they actually buy something.

Does Our Sales Incompetence Prevent Us from Seeing Our Sales Incompetence?

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This is reflective of a case in New York where a bank robber went in as ‘himself’ to rob a bank.  When the police asked him why he didn’t wear any disguise he said that he put lemon juice on his face, took a Polaroid picture of himself and he was nowhere in the picture, thus he concluded that lemon juice made his face disappear.  Click here to read the article The Anosognosic’s Dilemma: Something’s Wrong but You’ll Never Know What It Is by Errol Morris.

A couple of psychologists got a hold of that interesting fact/story and decided to look at it from a “competency” standpoint. They have concluded that our incompetence precludes us from seeing our incompetence. 

The reverse of that is why the highest achievers among us rate themselves the poorest when it comes to self-assessing a skill.  The reason is that they see where they could be and where they are and detect a major gap.

A less competent person rates themselves higher because they don’t see much of a gap between where they are and where they could be. They don’t think they can be any better than where they are.

So the next time someone asks you about a skill that’s a core skill for your success, make sure that you think about your answer and be cautious about self-0assessing too high.  If you do, that may be an indication that there’s a lot of room to grow.