The Secret To Overcoming The Price Objection
By www.menhealthonline.biz
Ok. This is false advertising. There is no secret to “overcoming” the price objection. The truth is that the price objection cannot be overcome. That is because it isn’t intended to be overcome. It is meant to be resolved through thought facilitation by a sales person. The sales person’s role is to help the prospect work through the price concern as opposed to attempting to overcome it.
First, can we agree that it isn’t really an objection? It is a concern. I know that many sales books call it an objection, but it is not. It is an attempt by the prospect to resolve financial questions in their mind. People want to feel good about decisions they make and that is why concerns are brought up.
The mistake many sales people make is that they think they understand the prospect’s concern when the price issue is initially raised. A fatal flaw, indeed! The truth is that the cause for this concern isn’t initially known. A myriad of possibilities could be causing this to come up now such as:
- Is it a question of how much use they will get of the product?
- Is it whether or not they can afford it?
- Is it that they saw a similar product at a cheaper price?
- Or is it a sales person being hyper-sensitive to the mere mention of price?
There are others, but you get the point. The bottom line is that without knowing what is causing the price concern, you can’t possibly help the prospect work it through. To share a personal example, I live in Minnesota where owning a boat is commonplace. To me, however, it is expensive. It isn’t the price of the boat, or the cost of maintenance, or even the price of the slip. It is the fact that the season for boating is so short that I don’t feel I would get enough usage out of it to make it worth the financial investment.
On the other hand, I bought Peg Perego, motorized cars for my three kids. Each one had a $300 price tag on it. Expensive to some, but cheap to me. Why? Because I’m rich? Hardly. No, it is because my kids use them, a lot! From my perspective, it’s worth every penny! If I get significant utility out of something, I can justify the price in my mind. At the other end of the spectrum, like most parents, I have also bought tons of toys in the $20 price range that have been used once, maybe twice. After that, the toys are never touched again. To me, that is expensive.
Some other price concerns center on whether or not the prospect can financially afford the product. A good sales person will facilitate the conversation that helps the prospect to recognize the options available to them for financing the purchase.
In other scenarios, the prospect has seen the same product, or a similar one, at a lower price. The human mind tries to make everything into an easy to understand commodity. When I worked in employment background screening, prospects would compare a $9.95 database search with a comprehensive courthouse search. The comparison of the two was apples and oranges. The strong salespeople were able to explain the difference
