It’s Never the Price!

When you ask a salesperson to list the top reasons why prospects buy, they will say price. When you ask buyers the reasons why they buy, price is usually third or fourth on the list of criteria. Could there be something else going on in John’s sales process that caused price to become the issue?

John had to break the news to his Sales VP that he had lost another deal. When asked why, he said it was because of price. John went on to tell him that to win business they had to undercut the competition. After all, “it was an extremely competitive environment”. How many of you have heard this before? Sales people looking to discount price causing margin erosion and lowered revenues? If we really examine this situation, was price the real reason John was losing deals?

When John received the opportunity to “quote” on the new contract, he went into the meeting with the mindset that he had to be “low price” to win the deal. After all, he was an experienced pro and knew how competitive the market was. So when the prospect pushed for price, John caved and started talking price. As a result, price became the focal point of the conversation. Not the problems or issues that his company’s solution could potentially solve for the prospect. In other words, he was not creating any value for the prospect and got into an apples to apples comparison. Unfortunately, it was the only the price apple being compared.

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