Don’t Assume Customers Want the Cheaper Option

Most salespeople, at one point in time or another, may have allowed their personal values to naturally creep into the discussion with a prospect or customer.

A simple example happened to me just last weekend…

I went to Debenhams in search of a high quality shirt to go with a new suit I’d recently purchased. There was a sign above a row of stacked shirts with a price of £80, and I wanted to make sure I was looking at the correct stack, so I asked the shop girl, “Are these £80?”

She immediately said, “Don’t worry. We have some cheaper shirts over here.”

In her mind, that was way too much to pay for a shirt, so she tried to steer me towards what she thought was a better value.

The point is that value is actually subjective in the mind of the buyer, and most buyers want a to know that they got the best value for the price. In fact, Shoppercentric’s retail analysts conducted research and found that 21t% of buyers see value as getting the best quality within their budget.

Some prospects and customers will share their budgets with you, and some won’t. That doesn’t mean you want to be the cheapest option out there – you want to offer the best value at a fair price.

Someone will always be cheaper than you. It only hurts your company’s and your bottom line when you try to compete on price. Keep in mind that people are willing to pay for quality. That’s where you want to differentiate yourself from the competition.

Here are four ways to think like your customer so that you can help them see how the benefits of your product or service outweigh the price:

1. Make sure you understand your prospect’s problem. You should have an intimate understanding of what keeps your prospect or customer up at night and what would solve their problem. Then all you need to do is educate your customer on the benefits of your product for them to see that it’s the perfect answer to their needs. Yours might come with a higher price, but customers will be happy to pay it when they know that their problems can be solved effectively and conveniently.

2. Give good value for price. This is how you differentiate your service from the competition. The competition might have a lower price, but you can provide your service faster and with less interruption to your customer’s business. If the competition has a similar service, you need to identify the extra value that comes with your service that they won’t get anywhere else. Remember, value means different things to different people, so it’s important to understand what your customer values the most. Value selling fixes everything.

3. Know the competition. You’ve found out what your prospect wants and needs, and you feel that your solution is the best fit, and the prospect throws out, “But the ABC company has a similar product at a lower price.” At this point, you should have an in-depth knowledge of the competition’s strengths and weaknesses so that you can point out why your product is far superior for the price. It may be that you give the industry best service after sale, or your materials are of a much better quality.

4. Find out your prospect’s true objection. He may say it’s price, but deep down, he’s afraid that your solution will cost not only more money, but more time and effort on his part to implement. You can’t know what your prospect is thinking until and unless you ask him. Ask something like, “If you thought you could afford this solution, would you buy it then?” And then wait. And listen. You might get at the much deeper objection that you can easily solve.

In the end, when you become more aware of your own attitude about price, you can see how it influences your interactions with prospects and customers. If you truly believe that your product is the best option at the best price, you don’t need to justify the price. Just be your natural self and show them your value.

If you’d like to immerse yourself in training that takes who you are as a person to build your own natural style of selling, give us a call to discuss how we can help you become the Super Star you were born to be.