If You Are Not Going to Sell Price

The job of the salesperson is to create value for their client AND to capture some of the value that they create for their company. There are some iron laws about not selling price.

You must justify your higher price

You cannot command a higher price without demonstrating why you deserve to be paid more for what you do. You might be the most delightful person on the planet, but unless you can convert that into a financial metric that either produces greater profit by increasing your dream client’s revenue or by reducing their costs, your wit, your charm, and your savoir-faire is not going to cut it.

You are going to have to prove that you are going to create a greater return for the greater investment. This is the difference between cost and price. Your competitors sell price; you have to sell cost.

Your role as a salesperson is to be able to justify your price. You are going to have to prove it.

In order for you to capture some of the value you create, there has to be enough created to share.

If you cannot create value for your dream client, there is nothing to share with you. In order to share the value you create with you, you have to create enough value to deserve your share.

If the value you can create is a tiny bit better than your competitors, you can command a tiny bit more in price. There isn’t going to be a whole Hell of a lot to share with you. If, on the other hand, you create a massive amount of value, then there is going to be a lot more to share with you.

There are a lot of salespeople and sales organizations that are trying to compete on price, when it isn’t their company’s strategy. Because they are focused on trying to convert clients who are focused on and already receiving a low price, these salespeople try to command a slightly higher price than their competitors for a slight improvement. This is a race to the bottom. There is rarely enough value created to create enough to really share.

Too many salespeople sell price even when it is their company’s strategy to create greater value and command a higher price. This is not selling! Being able to create value and capture some for your company is the only path to profitable business for you–and for your company.

Conclusion

No one wants to sell price. Selling a greater return on the money invested is more difficult. It requires that you first create enough value that some be available to you as a higher price, and then to justify that price and prove your claims.

Questions

1. 1. Is it your company’s strategy to sell by having the lowest price? Is that the value that your company sells?

1. 1. How do you justify the higher price that you charge? Is it by proving a lower cost because you increase your dream client’s revenues in excess of your price? Is it lower cost because you reduce their overall costs by more than your lower priced rivals?

1. 1. How do you prove your claims to creating enough value to justify your higher price?

1. Do you create enough value for there to be enough to share it with you? Do create enough value that there is a willingness to share it with you?

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