Do you skate over the “willing and able” bit of the sales process?

It took a long time of full-time study of Sandler but it finally clicked. The part of the process where you use a bit of assumption, a nod to the process and a long length of hope is precisely where it will all unravel. If that is in the budget step it means you have done a whole lot right in bonding & rapport, good solid up front contract, dug for good quality and depth for pain. In other words a lot done the right way and then we try to rush across the tricky ravine that is “budget” and end up falling down it instead.

Even Sandler-trained clients are sometimes keen to advertise their discount rates, their special offers. Nothing wrong with that, surely?

Plenty

Firstly, if your competitors are doing that, stop immediately. A sure fire way to stand out from the crowd  and unnerve the competition is to suddenly drop off the radar in the latest price war. Where did they go? What are they doing? Why don’t we know their rates? What are they up to?

Meanwhile the prospect is thinking “ they are tailoring to me and my specifications, all bespoke and still a good price in terms of return on investment”

If we are attracting them in on the slimmest of difference in price from our competitors, do we really want the business? As soon as they can get it cheaper they will leaves us as quickly as they came. In other words we have deliberately commoditised ourselves the moment we put our discounts and special offers out into the market. You are forcing them to compare alternatives as this is not a bespoke service any more, it is much more transactional and that implies research into the best for price and value.

And then we are connecting our brand and solution that we want to offer as a premium service to a cheaper inferior offering, still with our logo on it. The idea that we need to offer special discounts to attract more business is not necessarily clear thinking. The dynamics of “supply and demand” might suggest a lowering of price will lead to more revenue, but that can only happen within tight limits. If we offered our service for a nominal fee would we make a fortune? No. But to listen to salespeople one would think the panacea for increasing revenue issue is to severely undercut all the competition and offer the same high level of service. But that cannot be sustainable. If this does not make sense in the long run, why should it make any sense in the short run either? It just looks like an easy answer.

Does this mean we always charge standard rates? Of course not. Sometimes we even charge more! Because the price should be part of the co-created solution. A colleague got his prospect to write out the proposal in their own handwriting and they put a large figure on it themselves. This was the correct value, not a special-discount price that devalues the brand.

So the “budget” part of the process, where they tell us what they consider reasonable and what they would be prepared to invest in terms of time, money and resources, is vital. Get it right and we have a happy client and you as a contented business partner. Get it wrong and we jeopardise not just this relationship, but all our market relationships.