Most salespeople are under the false belief that the lower the price, the better chance they have at making the sale. Nothing is further from the truth.

The truth is, your customer will not buy at ANY price if you do not have value established. When YOU truly believe in your product and YOU truly believe that it is worth the price, then the customer will believe as well and the price will become nothing more than a mere detail in the transaction.

There are a couple of mistakes you can avoid regarding the price of your product and how you handle it.

Price is not a differentiator; do not pretend that it is. Price is the least defensible differentiator in business and also the least effective. Customers understand that a company cannot be the lowest priced and still be the best. Yet companies still proclaim; 'We will beat all prices,' and 'Dollar over invoice.' The only reason they are making those claims is to try to beat their competition, but their competition is saying the same thing. Therefore, if your company is doing the same thing as the competition, how are you any different in the eyes of your customer?

Then there are those salespeople who automatically lower the price as a means of trying to add value. When you lower the price as a means of trying to ‘add value’ to the product or to your company, you are actually doing the exact opposite. You are immediately telling the customer you know the product is not worth what you are asking and you’re willing to lower the price.

Lowering the price in this manner, you create an uncomfortable selling environment and set up the customer for a bad case of buyer’s remorse. If you were so willing to lower the price, what would you have done if they pushed you harder? They will automatically assume you would have gone even lower. This means that even though you gave them a better price, they are more likely to feel like they got ripped off. Seems counterproductive if you ask me.

In addition to buyer’s remorse, when you start offering discounts, you are telling the customer this is the type of purchase where haggling is necessary. Therefore, by lowering your price as a means of adding value, you actually are taking value away from the product and from your company.

When you can eliminate using price as a differentiator and lowering price as a means of adding value, you can focus on what is truly valuable to the customer. By focusing on what the customer feels is truly valuable, you will make price a mere detail in the transaction. The obvious result will be higher margins and happier customers.

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