If the Client Thinks Your Price is too High, He’s Right

Is Your Price Too High?

The Entrepreneur starts out by thinking, not about the business he’s going to create, but about the customer for whom he’s creating the business. 

The Technician, on the other hand, first looks within at his skills and abilities—and only then he looks outward to ask: “How can I sell this?” To the Technician, the product is what he delivers to the customer. And since the creation of that product required his time, the customer is always a problem because he never seems willing to pay the Technician’s price.

  

But trying to justify your price based of the amount of time it takes is not a winning value proposition. That’s because the client isn’t interested in paying for your time—he wants a result produced or a problem solved.
  

Whenever we buy something, it’s because we expect more back in return. So how to you become more valuable in the eyes of your prospects? Simple. Help them get what they need. That means setting your Technician hat aside and donning the Entrepreneur hat. Forget about your skills and abilities and ask a few simple questions:

• What pain or problem are you trying to alleviate for your intended customer base?

• How do they feel about this problem?

• How do you want them to feel instead?

   

So instead of asking: "How can I sell this?" you ought to be asking "How do I want my customers to feel after they’ve bought this?"

   

Recently we can read a lot about the commoditization of web design. That happens when clients are confronted with too many choices because supply is plentiful and everything seems the same to them. Like it or not, the low barrier to entry has made that an unpleasant reality in the web design industry.
   

As The Technician, the product you deliver—a finished website—is the commodity. But as The Entrepreneur, the final question you must ask is, How do I want them to feel about me and my company, not the commodity I’ve sold to them? Answer that, and you’re well on your way to getting past, "Your price is too high.” If you don’t understand value from the client’s perspective, you’ll never figure out why the client thinks your price is too high or what to do about it.

  

Here’s what sales guru Jeffrey Gitomer says about why people buy: "It never ceases to amaze me that companies will spend thousands of hours and millions of dollars teaching people “how to sell,” and not one minute of ten dollars on “why they buy."

And "why they buy" is all that matters. Why clients buy and why they pay your price boils down to one vague, hard-to-define concept called value. And while "value" may be difficult to grasp, this much is certain. Value’s not something you establish by talking about how long it takes to build a site. The client cares about his bottom line, not yours. 
  
Establishing value means addressing what matters to him or her, not what matters to you. Figuring that out means getting inside your client’s head. Here’s where those of us who are technically-minded struggle. You need to think like your customer. And since your customer is a business person, you need to think like a business person thinks. 

  

Thinking like a business person is more that just understanding their buying motives. It’s understanding what type of people they are, and what their struggles and concerns are. Steve Jobs once said that "marketing is about values." So understanding what your client values is the key to "providing value."

  

Blanka Cigler
Senior Consultant, Coach
 and Project Manager

Top 10 reasons people resist change

During our projects for establishing sales management system we often come across people who cling to old approaches or ways even if they acknowledge they are not successful any more. 

We've realised it's all about change management and that people naturally resist change.

So I decided to write a few blogs on the top ten reasons people resist change, based on an article of A. J. Schuler, Psy. D.

1. THE RISK OF CHANGE IS SEEN AS GREATER THAN THE RISK OF STANDING STILL

Making a change requires a kind of leap of faith:  you decide to move in the direction of the unknown on the promise that something will be better for you.  But you have no proof.  Taking that leap of faith is risky, and people will only take active steps toward the unknown if they genuinely believe – and perhaps more importantly, feel – that the risks of standing still are greater than those of moving forward in a new direction.  

Making a change is all about managing risk.  If you are making the case for change, be sure to set out in stark, truthful terms why you believe the risk situation favors change.  Use numbers whenever you can, because we in the West pay attention to numbers.  At the very least, they get our attention, and then when the rational mind is engaged, the emotional mind (which is typically most decisive) can begin to grapple with the prospect of change.  But if you only sell your idea of change based on idealistic, unseen promises of reward, you won’t be nearly as effective in moving people to action.  The power of the human fight-or-flight response can be activated to fight for change, but that begins with the perception of risk.

When we present our sales teams new sales approaches and methods they are afraid of start practicing them because they fear failure. Except of our reassuring they have yet no other guarantee that this methods work. But what exactly do they have to loose?

2. PEOPLE FEEL CONNECTED TO OTHER PEOPLE WHO ARE IDENTIFIED WITH THE OLD WAYWe are a social species.  We become and like to remains connected to those we know, those who have taught us, those with whom we are familiar – even at times to our own detriment.  Loyalty certainly helped our ancestors hunt antelope and defend against the aggressions of hostile tribes, and so we are hard wired, I believe, to form emotional bonds of loyalty, generally speaking.  If you ask people in an organization to do things in a new way, as rational as that new way may seem to you, you will be setting yourself up against all that hard wiring, all those emotional connections to those who taught your audience the old way - and that’s not trivial.  At the very least, as you craft your change message, you should make statements that honor the work and contributions of those who brought such success to the organization in the past, because on a very human but seldom articulated level, your audience will feel asked to betray their former mentors (whether those people remain in the organization or not). A little good diplomacy at the outset can stave off a lot of resistance. 

Times change and we must change too. This means that we must break up with established ways, tradition and people who bind us. Of course, in good faith - past has helped us become what we are, but it is time to write a new history. We should thank our long-time mentor (that could be ourselves), who brought us where we are today but we should take courage and go our way.

3. PEOPLE HAVE NO ROLE MODELS FOR THE NEW ACTIVITY

Never underestimate the power of observational learning.  If you see yourself as a change agent, you probably are something of a dreamer, someone who uses the imagination to create new possibilities that do not currently exist.  Well, most people don’t operate that way.  It’s great to be a visionary, but communicating a vision is not enough. Get some people on board with your idea, so that you or they can demonstrate how the new way can work. Operationally, this can mean setting up effective pilot programs that model a change and work out the kinks before taking your innovation “on the road.”  For most people, seeing is believing.  Less rhetoric and more demonstration can go a long way toward overcoming resistance, changing people’s objections from the “It can’t be done!” variety to the “How can we get it done?” category.

Sales approaches that we show our customers often encounter complaints that they are theoretical and can not be used in practice. This is only because they are not "tangible", at the beginning, when we are getting to know them. But once a seller takes the bull by the horns, he starts to wonder how he has been selling till this moment at all. It is therefore very important to help put theory in practice and that's what we aim to do.

... more coming up soon.

"You can't expect to meet the challenges of today with yesterday's tools and expect to be in business tomorrow."author unknown, unfortunately ;)

Tamara Ćetković

Consultant, Coach & Project Manager