In a sales presentation, there are many important pieces, such as features and benefits, a powerful story, an enticing solution, and price. However, the one that differs from the rest is price. Your price is your intellectual property! In some situations, sure, you can state your price, but in other situations, your price will mean nothing to the prospect.
Ask yourself, “What conditions need to exist in order to give someone my price (intellectual property)?” Let’s face it, in these 5 situations, your price will mean absolutely nothing:
- Your prospect doesn’t have any pain or emotion attached to the transaction. Don’t set yourself up to be price shopped. It’s your job to figure out your prospects emotional drivers for wanting what you have. Your professional assumptions of what the problem might be just doesn’t fly and quite frankly is dangerous.
- The problem (or pain) the prospect is experiencing simply isn’t important enough to act on. This happens more than we’d like to think. Many people would call this type of prospect a ‘tire kicker’.
- Your prospect isn’t interested in doing business with you. Of course, prospects never tell you that. They will appear interested and act motivated long enough to see your intellectual property.
- Prospects aren’t willing to invest time and resources with you to discuss the real issues and develop solutions based on those issues. If a prospect can’t invest an appropriate amount of time to answer questions and help develop a solution then they’re probably not a prospect at all.
- Your prospect isn’t willing to give you a ‘yes or no’ decision. Have you ever given a quote or proposal (your intellectual property) with a wishy-washy agreement to follow up next week? After 5 voicemails and 6 emails, you realize the prospect just high-jacked your intellectual property.
Once a prospect has your price there isn’t much more they need from you and for many buyers, it gives them leverage to shop around. The prospect got what they wanted and have no reason to return your calls and no reason to return your emails.
Remember, your price is private information. In each sales meeting or sales call, the prospect must earn the right to see your price.
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Rick McDermott has over 25 years of successful sales experience working with several of North America's largest steel and aluminum distribution centers. Working in sales and management roles throughout his career, Rick has provided a broad range of products, value-added services, and logistic solutions to companies in diverse industries such as Oil & Gas, Semi-Conductor, Aerospace, Mining, and Capital Equipment Manufacturing. His passion for business and desire for helping others has been combined through the creation of McDermott Professional Solutions Inc., a licensed Sandler Training® center located in Independence, Ohio.
