There are two mindsets when you sell. Either you sell on price or you sell on value. You should have the lowest price if you’re going to sell on price. Just be prepared to lower your price if a competitor matches your low price. Selling value is more difficult, but the benefit is that you are less vulnerable to losing your business.
Does your customer understand value?
Imagine you start to sell in the purchasing department. Your prospect wants your product and asks you the price. What you sell is $X more than your competitor’s product. Why should he pay you more? What you know is that your service includes more than just your product. You know from experience with other customers that the result is that your prospect will ultimately reduce his costs and he will pay less.
What this conversation shows your customer is that the price of the product is not the cost of the product. Every salesman who sells on value has to have this conversation. Some prospects understand that price and value are different while others don’t. You can’t sell value to a buyer who only wants the lowest price and doesn’t understand and appreciate value.
What does your customer value?
Most salespeople have many sources of value they could offer. You first have to know what value you offer before you can determine which sources fit that particular prospect. Some of the questions you can answer to determine the value you offer are: What is your expertise and experience worth? How do you reduce costs now for customers? What problems have you helped your customers avoid? How do you save your customers’ time now so your customers can run their businesses more effectively?
Understand that not all of your sources of value might interest a particular prospect. It’s like your products’ features and benefits. Not all of your features and benefits match the problems, needs or wants of your prospects. You have to learn your prospect’s problems first and then determine which features and benefits would solve their problems. Value is the same. Value is in the mind of the beholder. What interests your prospect? It’s not value if your prospect thinks it isn’t.
Be able to prove it.
Too many salespeople make claims they can’t keep. Customers are skeptical when they hear the claims that salespeople make. The value claims you make can only be believable when you are able to prove them. Can you?
You make yourself much more credible when you are able to prove what you say. How can you do that? You either provide written testimonials or you provide savings letters that document the work you’ve done. You become believable when your customers write testimonial letters that include statements about your work and the results you produced. It’s more credible when someone other than yourself makes the same claims you want to make. Your claims become real when you show a prospect a savings letter that outlines the situation before your product was used and the results you produced after.
Too many salespeople don’t want to do the work to demonstrate and prove their value. Those are the ones who will find it very difficult to sell on value. It’s going to be their word against their prospect’s experience.
Think about selling on value instead of just price. You just might find yourself making more money and keeping more of your business. Isn’t that better value for your selling time?