Eight Ways to Sell Value – Not Price!

If you want customers to be happy about paying the price you charge, you need to sell them on the value of your offering, not its price. Here are eight ways to put the focus on value:

1. Be Unique: If there is nothing that differentiates your product or service from that of your competition, it becomes common, like a commodity. Webster defines the word common as “ordinary or not special.” The only way buyers select one common service over another is price.

Take inventory of your unique differentiators, such as features, benefits, skills, experience, industry served, processes, availability, credentials, business model, guarantees, customer service, and knowledge.

Focus your sales and marketing messages on your unique differentiators. Are you a specialist in some area? Are you an expert in certain facets of your business? These and other differentiators can make you unique and valuable to a select group of clients.

2. Choose Your Clients Carefully: Don’t just let your clients choose you, or you will be at their mercy. If a deal is going to close successfully, the true professional should be in control, not the client.

To begin controlling whom your company does business with, write down the attributes of the kind of people and companies you want as clients and then go out and get them with targeted marketing. The first item on your list of attributes should be people you enjoy spending time with. Being a business owner is far too challenging to work with people you don’t like just to earn a living.

Turn away people and companies who don’t meet your criteria. When you reject or refer clients, it tells the world that you don’t just work with anyone. Being selective raises your perceived value. It also makes you unique from other businesses that will work with anyone who can bring them a check.

3. Set High Standards: If you are willing to work with anyone and everyone, your value drops. If people have to qualify to work with you, your value increases. Of course, you know that there are prospects who will ask you to give them a bid with no intention of ever buying from you. They’re planning to use your proposal to leverage a discount with their current vendor or any one of a dozen other reasons that they want your knowledge but not your services. Then there are buyers who will waste your time and then purchase through another vendor they have some kind of personal relationship with.

Before scheduling a formal meeting with a potential client, prequalify them by asking a logical list of questions to determine their seriousness and loyalty. You need to know their motivation and if they are interviewing other vendors. You also need to see if they’re financially qualified. If they do not have the ability to be a serious, financially solvent, and loyal client, why waste your valuable time with them?

4. Compete On Value, Not Price: No disrespect intended to other business models, but it doesn’t take any special skill, experience or knowledge to compete on price. All you have to do is be the cheapest, but this is a losing game.

Some people may remember the gas price wars of the 1960s and early 1970s when there seemed to be a gas station on nearly every corner. To gain market share, one would cleverly lower its price. Then all the others quickly followed suit, and the only result was that everyone’s profit margin was reduced. You don’t want to be in a race to the bottom!

The way to get paid what you’re worth is to visibly demonstrate your value to your clients and then hold firm to your price. Offering coupons, promo codes, and other discounts forces you to compete on price, and they do not create value.

5. Create Value In The Eyes Of Clients: Frankly, most people throughout the country believe that people in sales do little to earn their commissions. This is our fault because we should be educating them about how hard we work before ever accepting them as clients.

Demonstrating all of the things you do for your customers to them can help create value. Frequently, clients are surprised at how much is involved in servicing them.

When you can clearly communicate the value you provide to your clients, you will never have to cut prices. If a prospect asks for a discount, you will be able to demonstrate the value they are receiving in exchange for the fee they are paying. Clients will be able to understand that if they want to spend less, they will have to accept less value in exchange for a lower rate.

6. Educate Your Clients About How Your Pricing is Based: The average prospect is probably clueless about how your prices are determined, so it might help to educate them. Focus your discussion on the aspects that allow you to deliver the value, such as hiring top performers in the industry, staff retention methods, using quality materials, the location where the product is created, or service is delivered from, before and after the sale support that is included, and so on. This will help correct misperceptions about having exceptionally high-profit margins that would allow you to provide discounts.

7. Provide value that no one else offers: When prospects are considering doing business with you, it’s helpful to provide them with a complete outline that explains the engagement process from start to finish. This is true for both product and service-based businesses. This outline can contain details like samples, a list of service providers that could be involved in the process, support that’s included, guarantees, and much more. Showing the details in this way will allow the prospect to see that no other competing business offers any of your unique benefits, so if they want to work with you or buy your product, they must pay what you ask.

8. Reject price shoppers: Studies show that only 15-18% of people make their decision to purchase a product or service primarily based on price. This means that the majority of clients appreciate value and are willing to pay for it – if they see it.

Don’t forget that real professionals earn their money by helping clients maximize value, minimize costs, save time, and much more. If potential clients don’t appreciate this, then feel free to refer them to your competition.

You don’t need every prospect in order to be successful in business. If all someone wants is a cheap transaction, send them to a vendor who competes on price and wish them both luck!