When was the last time you made a major purchase, like a car? Look back on how you shopped and interacted with the salesperson. Ask yourself these questions:
- Did you embellish some information or withhold some facts from the salesperson?
- Were you willing to gather information from one salesperson and buy from another?
- Were you less than 100% honest and 100% transparent with the salespeople you spoke with?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are normal. If you answered no to every question, you are unusually honest and transparent in your buying habits, even when it costs you money to do so.
Most people engage in these behaviors to get the best deal. Buyers don’t always tell the whole truth or share transparently and honestly all details of their buying process. We know this from being consumers ourselves.
Do your customers do this? Emphatically, yes.
Although you know you aren’t always 100% honest when you buy, it’s common to forget that other people buy this way when you sell to them. It’s all too common to take what customers tell you about pricing, competitive quotes, budgets, etc. at face value as a fact, and then respond to that feedback as if it’s an irrefutable fact.
Customers don’t tell the whole truth about pricing. At best, they curate what information they share. At worst, they might actually lie or fabricate quotes. But salespeople believe them too readily.
Salespeople tell us every day about the “market intel” that they get from customers. They tell us that what they know about market dynamics and competitive pricing comes directly from their customers. In other words, they believe what their customers and prospects tell them about pricing.
If you believe what your customer tells you about how much they want to pay you for your goods and services, you have already lost the pricing excellence game.
It’s not personal. It’s the job of the customer to save money. They have a job to do, a boss to look good for, a business to run, and employees counting on them. You have a job to do, too. You have to sell and defend value. Those competing goals create the tension of sales.
Even when customers like you, trust you, and respect you, they sometimes curate the information they share with you. They don’t tell you when you are the cheapest, but they definitely let you know when you’re more expensive.
If you fall prey to believing your customers and prospects about pricing, you will tend to accept what they say about your pricing, their budget, and competition at face value. Instead, apply a healthy dose of skepticism and ask more questions when your customers share pricing information.
Think that can’t be done without damaging customer relationships and trust? Contact us to learn how to preserve and improve relationships while selling at higher prices.