The Five Dreaded Words: How Do You Respond?

What are the Five Most Dreaded Words in Sales?

If you sell for a living, you are destined to hear the Five Dreaded Words.

“Your price is too high.”

Many of us are hearing these five dreaded words more frequently in a challenging economy. In some cases, we’re lucky if we hear them at all as many unsuccessful bidders get lost forever in voice mail and email oblivion.

Two Questions

1. What are you doing to overcome this challenge?
2. What’s really behind those five dreaded words?

When you hear: “your price is too high”, one of four things has occurred.

1. Your prospect is already decided to buy and wants to negotiate a better deal.
2. Your sales process and marketing efforts have not properly helped your prospect to discover the value that you offer.
3. You are talking to an unqualified prospect: A prospect who doesn’t value or need the extras you offer.
4. Your value proposition is no longer valid. (You’re a commodity)

When a buyer’s decision making criteria is reduced to price, you have become a commodity in the buyer’s mind. Your prospective buyer views all competitors equally and uses price to simplify the decision.

What do you do when you hear; “Your price is too high”?

• Offer a discount?
• Argue your case with the decision maker?
• Move on to the next transaction with either reduced prices, confidence or both?

In response to the five dreaded words, I recommend a simple three word query:

Compared to what?

This question opens the door for a productive discussion of your value proposition.  With this discussion, you can collaborate with your prospect on reasons why your offering would be worth more than his or her perception of the “best deal”.

Is there a smarter, more strategic approach to avoid hearing “your price is too high”?

• How well have you communicated your value proposition?
• Does everyone in your organization truly understand your value proposition to clearly communicate it to others?
• Can you justify your higher price by demonstrating the return on the additional investment? (ROAI)
• Do you continuously work to improve communication of value with both your marketing and your sales people?
• Has your sales force been trained to effectively avoid being viewed as an undifferentiated commodity?
• Is your sales force supported by effective marketing efforts?
• Do you have processes in place to continuously improve your value proposition in your marketplace?

If you answered yes to all of these questions, you are not the low price provider, and you’re still hearing those five dreaded words, one question remains…

Do you have an effective strategic planning process?

What are ineffective strategy and sales skills costing your business in terms of misspent marketing programs, price cuts, discounts, lost sales opportunities, unused capacity, reduced profit and frustrated, ineffective sales people?

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