4 Secrets for Selling Value Instead of Price
by Tessa Stowe
Do you find that your prospects are focused on the price of your
products and services and often pressure you to give them discounts?
You've told your prospects in so much detail about all the great
value they will receive but they just don't seem to get it. You know that if
only they could see the value in your products and services then price would not
be such an issue.
Here are four secrets, if learned and applied, will guarantee that your
prospects will see the value in your products and services so that price is no
longer the issue. These four secrets are commonsense and obvious once you know
them but in selling what is commonsense and obvious is rarely applied.
Secret #1: Forget about selling and trying to get your
prospect to buy your products and services.
The common trap, that you don't want to fall into, is to start selling your
products and services from the very first conversation with your prospect.
Instead, you want to forget about selling and trying to get your prospect to buy
your products and services. Just have a conversation and ask the right questions
so you can understand their problem and determine, if in fact, you can help
them. I call this initial phase the 'Discover Phase' and it is where you should
be spending the majority of your time in the sales process.
Secret #2: Have your prospect tell you the value (instead of
you tell them).
If you tell your prospect about the value you offer, they may or may not see
this as relevant, of interest or of value. However if you ask the right
questions so your prospect tells you the value of solving their problem, they
will then see this value as relevant, of interest and of value. The big
difference is that they have told you (and themselves) the value as opposed to
you telling them.
Secret Number #3: Have valuable conversations.
The conversations you want to have with your prospect should include so much
value that they actually thank you for speaking with them and, in fact, look
forward to having more conversations with you. How do you have such
conversations? It's easy really. You see probably no one has asked your prospect
powerful questions which help them get clarity around their problem and what it
is costing them. This sort of clarity and information is of great value to your
prospect. They will see that you have a valuable skill and they will want to
have future conversations with you to continue gaining clarity in other areas.
They will see having conversations and having a relationship with you as
valuable.
Secret #4: Add your value to their value.
Once your prospect has told you the value they will receive from solving their
problem, they will be receptive to listening to how you can add even more value.
Not only will they be receptive to listening to how you can add more value but
they will also be appreciative of the additional value you can add. This is
because, at this stage, they will have effectively sold themselves on taking
action to solve the problem and the more value they can see that they will
receive; the easier it is for them to justify buying your products and services.
In summary, as a consequence of not selling while you ask the
right questions, your prospect will see both the value in solving their problem
plus they will see the value in having a relationship with you. You are then in
a position to help them justify a buying decision by adding more value to what
they have told themselves. This all leads to a decision based on value and not
on price.
(c) 2008, Tessa Stowe, Sales Conversation.
Tessa Stowe teaches small business owners and
recovering salespeople simple steps to turn conversations into clients without
being sales-y or pushy. Her free monthly Sales Conversation newsletter is full
of tips on how to sell your services by just being yourself. Sign up at
http://www.salesconversation.com |
