10 ways to overcome price objections

 If your customers and potential customers can’t explain why your products or services are different from the competition, they’ll naturally fall prey to price-cutters.

When customers look no further than price, chances are, no one’s adequately deliver the message to them on the superior value you offer.

   Here are 10 proven ways to help customers become value-conscious rather than price-conscious, adapted from the book Pricing with Confidence, by Reed K. Holden and Mark R. Burton:

1. Identify. Concentrate on which products or services are better than those of your competitors. Recognize that value, quantify it, and put it into competitive benefits. Make sure your customers can explain why you’re more valuable than others in your industry. Confidence in value breeds confidence in pricing. To really stand apart, try to pinpoint areas where your unique advantages intersect with the customer’s critical needs.
2. Establish credibility. When you discuss prices with prospects and customers, you need to be able to stand behind what you’re saying. Try to understand how the prices were arrived at. What process was used? What criteria were used to evaluate pricing options? Without answers to these questions, you may be put on the defensive and hard-grinding customers will sense weakness.  
3. Show knowledge. Let your customers and prospects know they need your knowledge and skills. There’s a great opportunity for salespeople who recognize the opportunity to gain knowledge and develop expertise as they work with customers.
4. Anticipate. Some prospects make unreasonable demands just to measure a salesperson’s response. Salespeople who can control their emotions and hold their ground are usually able to handle unreasonable demands. They look at pricing as a problem-solving process, exchanging information and generating creative tradeoffs and alternatives.
5. Pinpoint key problems. Prospects usually forget about price when you identify problems and help solve them. It’s your job to point out the relative advantages of your product or service and show how it will help prospects solve problems.  
6. Analyze the competition. Look at all aspects of your competitor’s offering, not just product or service and price. How satisfied does the prospect seem to be with the present supplier? What value can you bring to the table that your competitor isn’t offering? You can’t come up with a competitive strategy without fully understanding the present supplier’s position, strengths, weaknesses, strategy and resources.
7. Recognize the change in customer loyalty. There’s far less brand and vendor loyalty than in the past. When customers don’t understand value, they may shop around for the lowest price. Successful salespeople resolve the loyalty problem by directing the presentation towards value, not price. They uncover the customer’s need, analyze the costs associated with that need, and translate features of the product into what it will do for the customer.
8. Understand the customer’s position. Customers are paid to press for concessions, especially in price. Effective salespeople don’t give in to every demand for fear of losing the sale. They try to find alternative tradeoff opportunities that will get the customer to think in terms of value and not price.
9. Create. Look for conditions for satisfying customers. This is a key to overcoming price objections. Give your customers ideas on how to improve their business operations. During your dealings with a wide variety of businesses, you probably pick up ideas and techniques that can be helpful to other customers. Try to pass along helpful suggestions to customers. They appreciate this type of concern and it will get them to think a lot less about price.
10. Focus. Customers want you to focus on how you are the same as your competitors to level the playing field on price. But you have to focus on how you’re different and feel confident about the services you provide to make your solution better. Take the understanding of how you create value and build the confidence you need to be successful in today’s tough world of customer negotiations. Make your customers respect you and want to do business with you.