Overcoming Sales Objections to Price and Increasing Your Profits with Actions You Can Take Today
Stephen Craine
January 16, 2009
How do some businesses overcome sales objections to price, maintain high profit margins, and thrive in a competitive market where pricing is a major selling point?
A few simple actions that you can start using today, and a creative new perspective, can help you overcome sales objections to price, and sell at the highest prices in any marketplace. Consider the ideas and viewpoints that follow, and see how they can be adapted for your marketplace and for your customers.
We often get sales objections to price when the customer sees the price we are asking as greater than the value of the product we are offering. The best way to deal with any sales objection is to pre-empt it and inoculate your sale against the objection before it occurs.
Salespeople in advertising ask their customers how much each sale, generated by an advert, will be worth to the customer. They follow this with how few sales the advert needs to generate to pay for itself. Then they fire the big attention grabbing benefits. They show how much the customer will profit from the additional sales their advert brings in, after it has paid for itself. A good sales person makes the advert sound like it will be free because it pays for itself, and then generates more revenue. They turn the return on advertising into a measurable figure, and compared it to the investment cost. This is how they overcome sales objections to price when selling very expensive, and unproven, advertising services.
Presenting the financial value of what the product will do for the buyer will work in many markets. You can build the value of any products that save time by converting the time saved to a monetary value. This works well for business to business, direct sales, and retail selling. The aim is to build the value of the product to a figure greater than the cost, in order to pre-empt sales objections to price.
Be creative when pre-empting and handling objections, change your own viewpoint, and re-frame how you measure the benefits of your products and services. Look at the benefits your product offers and transform them into something measurable. Then show how the benefits far exceed the cost.
For example, can you convert the time your product or service saves the customer into something more valuable that the customer could do with that time? How valuable is spending that time with their children, doing something they really enjoy, or just relaxing. Good questioning of the buyer's lifestyle is a how many sales people overcome sales objections to price. They find what´s important to the buyer, and convert their benefits into a measurable value that can be compared to the cost of the product. This is a great selling technique for turning objections into sales.
Shout about your price, and be proud of it
Don't shy away from the price, make it a key point of your sale, and show that you don't sell cheap products. You sell products that have value way in excess of the price you're charging.
There is a fantastic advert on UK television for an expensive premium lager beer. Rather than trying to sell it at a low price, to compete with the low cost competition, they make the high price a benefit of the product. They use phrases like, 'Reassuringly expensive.' Think about how you could use the same strategy for your products to inoculate against sales objections. Is there a way that you could package what you sell to add to the value, and also use the price as a selling point?
If you were selling cars to parents and family focused customers, would they prefer a cheap car, or one that was reassuringly priced because you don't want your customers to drive unsafe cheap cars? If it was my car dealership I would have a wreck of a cheap car on display to show the consequences of objections to price. Safety is another factor to present when handling sales objections to price. What price will your customers put on safety when comparing it to the investment cost of buying the product?
When faced with an objection to price don't immediately start looking for ways to offer it cheaper. A reduction in price may get you the sale, but it also eats into your profits. Look instead at ways to build the value of what you are offering to the customer. Then compare that built-up value to the price of the item. Find ways to repackage your product so it is seen as different to your competitor's cheap products. Changing the package can give an overall price that is difficult to compare to the low cost competition.
Practice these objection handling sales skills and pick up more sales tips on overcoming sales objections to price by opening How to Handle Sales Objections. You will then be able to increase revenue, drive up profits and maintain your prices in any market conditions. The next time your competitors start a price war, use your new perspective and consider putting up your prices instead of cutting them.
The objection handling sales skills offered here have been proven in real sales situations by the sales teams I manage and train for a major organisation. You can see a workbook training course on how to quickly apply these techniques to your sales role at The Sales and Training Solution section of my website.
A few simple actions that you can start using today, and a creative new perspective, can help you overcome sales objections to price, and sell at the highest prices in any marketplace. Consider the ideas and viewpoints that follow, and see how they can be adapted for your marketplace and for your customers.
We often get sales objections to price when the customer sees the price we are asking as greater than the value of the product we are offering. The best way to deal with any sales objection is to pre-empt it and inoculate your sale against the objection before it occurs.
Salespeople in advertising ask their customers how much each sale, generated by an advert, will be worth to the customer. They follow this with how few sales the advert needs to generate to pay for itself. Then they fire the big attention grabbing benefits. They show how much the customer will profit from the additional sales their advert brings in, after it has paid for itself. A good sales person makes the advert sound like it will be free because it pays for itself, and then generates more revenue. They turn the return on advertising into a measurable figure, and compared it to the investment cost. This is how they overcome sales objections to price when selling very expensive, and unproven, advertising services.
Presenting the financial value of what the product will do for the buyer will work in many markets. You can build the value of any products that save time by converting the time saved to a monetary value. This works well for business to business, direct sales, and retail selling. The aim is to build the value of the product to a figure greater than the cost, in order to pre-empt sales objections to price.
Be creative when pre-empting and handling objections, change your own viewpoint, and re-frame how you measure the benefits of your products and services. Look at the benefits your product offers and transform them into something measurable. Then show how the benefits far exceed the cost.
For example, can you convert the time your product or service saves the customer into something more valuable that the customer could do with that time? How valuable is spending that time with their children, doing something they really enjoy, or just relaxing. Good questioning of the buyer's lifestyle is a how many sales people overcome sales objections to price. They find what´s important to the buyer, and convert their benefits into a measurable value that can be compared to the cost of the product. This is a great selling technique for turning objections into sales.
Shout about your price, and be proud of it
Don't shy away from the price, make it a key point of your sale, and show that you don't sell cheap products. You sell products that have value way in excess of the price you're charging.
There is a fantastic advert on UK television for an expensive premium lager beer. Rather than trying to sell it at a low price, to compete with the low cost competition, they make the high price a benefit of the product. They use phrases like, 'Reassuringly expensive.' Think about how you could use the same strategy for your products to inoculate against sales objections. Is there a way that you could package what you sell to add to the value, and also use the price as a selling point?
If you were selling cars to parents and family focused customers, would they prefer a cheap car, or one that was reassuringly priced because you don't want your customers to drive unsafe cheap cars? If it was my car dealership I would have a wreck of a cheap car on display to show the consequences of objections to price. Safety is another factor to present when handling sales objections to price. What price will your customers put on safety when comparing it to the investment cost of buying the product?
When faced with an objection to price don't immediately start looking for ways to offer it cheaper. A reduction in price may get you the sale, but it also eats into your profits. Look instead at ways to build the value of what you are offering to the customer. Then compare that built-up value to the price of the item. Find ways to repackage your product so it is seen as different to your competitor's cheap products. Changing the package can give an overall price that is difficult to compare to the low cost competition.
Practice these objection handling sales skills and pick up more sales tips on overcoming sales objections to price by opening How to Handle Sales Objections. You will then be able to increase revenue, drive up profits and maintain your prices in any market conditions. The next time your competitors start a price war, use your new perspective and consider putting up your prices instead of cutting them.
The objection handling sales skills offered here have been proven in real sales situations by the sales teams I manage and train for a major organisation. You can see a workbook training course on how to quickly apply these techniques to your sales role at The Sales and Training Solution section of my website.