You can’t sell on price!
If you’re selling on price, why does the customer need you? If you follow me, you know this is a real hot-button of mine.
When we start playing with our price and thinking we need to discount it to close a sale, we open up Pandora’s Box.
Price is not a sustainable competitive advantage. Don’t think for a moment you’re going to be able to build a business based on being the cheapest.
There will always be somebody somewhere who will be able to make, produce, ship, design, or provide what you’re offering a little cheaper.
In the 1960s, if you wanted the best price on something, you went to Sears. In the 1970s and 1980s, Sears was replaced by K-Mart. By the time the 1990s arrived, it was Wal-Mart with the cheapest price.
And now we’re watching Amazon overtake Wal-Mart as the lowest price provider.
Price may allow you to win today, but it will never allow you to win for an extended period of time.
Using price as the reason you’re superior completely eliminates the role you play in the sales process and is admitting what you have is merely a commodity. Regardless of what you sell and the number of competitors you may have, you cannot view what you have as a commodity.
The objective of the sales process is to uncover customer needs that allow you to fashion your Solution to not be focused on price. Price should not be a key reason why a customer buys from you.
We are not saying price is to be ignored. What we are saying is your ability to close a sale must be on the merits of how you are going to help the customer.
One reason salespeople have problems with price is they invite trouble right from the start. If a salesperson can’t deliver their price with confidence, then why should a customer accept it?
Want to know about this? The above insight is an excerpt from my newest book, Advisor Selling: The Art of Becoming a Trusted Advisor.
Copyright 2014, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Selling: Win the Sale Without Compromising on Price.
