“You are still in control of your own pricing urines still in control of your own sales cycle.” – Jason Cahill in today’s Tip 420
How about you? What will you say when someone asks for a price upfront?
Join the conversation below and feel free to share your thoughts!
Jason Cahill on LinkedIn
Ceridian
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today we’ve got another tip from Jason Cahill from Ceridian in Canada. Here he is:
Jason Cahill: Hey Scott! Jay here again with another tip. Today I thought I’d give everybody a practical tip and one that I use quite often and philosophical one. So here’s my practical tip for today.
As salespeople, we’re often taught to deliver value and our unique value proposition and differentiate ourselves in the marketplace, which is absolutely true. We have to do that. However, that really goes out the window when someone, a prospect comes to you and says, “Hey, you know what? I just want a price.” It’s difficult to walk away from those and just say “No.” Because you know, it’s hard enough to find a prospect that’s actually interested in what you’re doing or what you’re selling. Harvard business review suggests that a sexually 6% of your total territory or account list is actually looking for a new solution and in any given month. So when I swear by that wall. So you don’t want to just absolutely just flat out say “No” to somebody who’s saying, “Hey, I’m interested in whatever you’re selling, but just give me a price upfront. I don’t want to have a meeting. I don’t want to have a sales guy call me and have a meeting and all that stuff.”
So what do you say? I’ve never really heard anybody give really good advice at this because then it’s just pushing for a meeting and it just kind of gets out of control. But I’ll share with you what I do and I find this works really well. I just say “Yes. Yeah, absolutely.” If someone says, “Hey, I’m interested in your product, but you know what? I just want a price upfront to see if it’s in my budget or I just need a price for my boss.” And I go, “Yeah, absolutely no problem. I’ll get you that. It’s going to take me a couple of days because they got to configure this and they got to get approvals. But you know what, let’s set up a meeting next week and I’ll just bring it to you.” That’s what I say. And usually some they’ll push back a little bit and say, “Well, you know, give me the price first and then we’ll see if we need to set up a meeting.” And I’m like, “Yeah, absolutely no problem. I’ll definitely get on that but Tuesday works for the next week and 15-minute meeting, we’d do a call and I’ll have a definitely keep figure you by that.”
Sometimes that will work. And actually there’ll be like, “all right, cool, fine, sure. Set it up for Tuesday at two o’clock, that’s great.” And then two days later they’ll call back and say, “Hey, you have that price.” They’re like, “Oh yeah, I totally forgot. You know? Absolutely. Thanks for the reminder. Definitely get on that. There’s been, you know, something going on, I’ve been busy, whatever. I’ll definitely get that configured for you. I’ll bring it to the meeting.” Just keep basically saying yes. Even though when it’s even actually when it’s no, I’m not doing it to be a price upfront and I want them to chase me because I’m the person holding the keys. Just because asks you for a price upfront doesn’t mean you actually have to give it to them. You are still in control of your own pricing, you re still in control of your own sales cycle. You don’t have to just throw that out the window just because somebody asks.
So that’s my practical tip. Just say yes and defer until you get to the meeting and then once you get to the meeting, bring the pricing into the meeting. They won’t commit on the meeting. Just don’t see anything at all. Just totally forget about it and they’ll call you if they really want to do business with you, but there’s no point in putting in pricing in your CRM or building a proposal for your management team to hound you about what’s going on with this deal. When you have zero control over it, you just gave somebody a price and you’re not delivering your value as a salesperson.
So that’s my practical tip. I hope you like it. I swear by it. I use it and I use it in every situation, even outside of sales. I’m going nerds to someone asking me for something I don’t want it to. I ask her in an elegant, a negotiable. All right, thanks guys. Take care.
Scott Ingram: For the video version of this tip and links to connect with Jay. Just click over to DailySales.Tips/420 and be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!