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The Price Is Right

Written by: Jim Meisenheimer

Article Overview: The price is right if you don't have to lower it in order to get the business. Learn new pricing strategies you can use to grow your business.

The Price Is Right

The Price Is Right is a TV game show made famous by Bob Barker and his familiar call to the audience "Come on down."

I was reading an article in the Sunday paper about how restaurants, in an attempt to save money and increase profits, are downsizing their dinners. They are also using creative pricing strategies - which got me thinking about The Price Is Right.

Now you're probably wondering, what in the world does any of this have to do with selling? In fact it has a lot to do with selling.

David Letterman could probably come up with a list of the top 10 things that drive salespeople crazy. Based on my experience and observations and talking to thousands of salespeople, dealing with the price objection would be number one on this list.

Some salespeople are so fearful of hearing the sales prospect bring up the price objection they start talking about pricing even before the subject ever comes up. Now - that's not the way it should work.

The only time the price is right is when you don't have to lower it to get the business. If you must lower your price always get something in return.

For example, if a sales prospect asks, "How much better can you do with your pricing," you could respond with, "I can wiggle with the pricing if you can wiggle with the size up the order."

If you don't like this approach - change it. The point is you shouldn't have an exasperated look on your face every time you get the price objection. A little preparation and a lot of practice can overcome anyone's fear of hearing the dreaded price objection.

Whenever someone asks you, "How much does this cost" try responding with "It depends." Of course your sales prospect will then ask, "It depends on what?"

Then tell him, "It depends on the size of the order or it depends on the quantity or it depends on what else can be added to the order."

The article I was reading, focused on creative restaurant strategies, mentioned two things you might be able to experiment with in your business.

If you have any products that have pricing which ends in 95 cents raise it to 97 cents. This gives new meaning to the old saying - every penny counts.

Another idea which you may be able to use is to spell out the price instead of using numbers for example: three hundred and fifty dollars instead of $350. Don't discount the idea at least until you try it.

Here are a few more ideas and these did not come from the article. Never offer a price that includes zero's. Four example $3500. Those zeroes are an invitation to negotiate. Change this price to $3497. It's more specific and implies you've already sharpened your pencil.

You should also know that numbers ending with the number 7 sell more than any other number. It's true!

For even more ideas on how to deal with the price objection you can do a search on Google with the key words - price objections. You'll find 569,000 results. There's no shortage of ideas at Google.

There's no need to fear the price objection. The more you explain the value of your products and services the less you'll have to defend your pricing.

I used to get the price objection often. About 19.5 years ago I scripted a way to deal with it and have been using it ever since. And by the way, as soon as I prepared my response to the price objection I was getting - I didn't get it as often. Truth be told - I don't get the price objection as often because I'm very confident I can deal with it. Amazing isn't it?

If you want your price to be right don't talk about it.

And remember this Meisenheimerism - the more you talk about price the lower it gets!

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Article Tags: audience, bob barker, david letterman, fear, look on your face, money, objection, pricing strategies, profits, restaurants, sales prospect, salespeople, sunday paper, tv game, wiggle



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Re: Hi from Greenville, SC - [quote="Evan":39hn23oh]Welcome Philip - from my experience in working with different merchant service providers I've found the following criteria to be important: 1) Price - at the end of the day it's very competitive industry and you don't need to be the cheapest option but you can't be too far ahead of the other guys. Automatic volume discounts are also much appreciated. Ones I've been involved with in the past give you volume discounts only if you apply. 2) Service - are you available when I need you? If I call will you be available and help me right away? If I email will you get back to me quickly? People often don't need service from their merchant service provider. It's one of those things where as long as it's working we tend to forget about you running in the background. But when there's a problem it's usually a big problem because we can't get money so we need fast and good quality service. 3) Integration support. Help people get set up. Even offer to do it for them - now that's a great way you can stand out. The integration support from most merchant service providers is terrible. You're pretty much on your own to figure out how their APIs work. I hope that helps - good luck![/quote:39hn23oh] I find all of these to be true on a daily basis. I have a strong hold in my particular area. Fast service is imperative. If I can get a restaurant a new terminal in a couple of hours as compared to the fastest national company(at least overnight) then I win. Being local is huge in my industry. I have successfully managed accounts is other areas. Usually I give them a back-up terminal so if the other one breaks down they can switch out the two ship the broken one to me and have a new back-up the next day. I have done a few online accounts. It is not my specialty though. I have found it to not be too hard if you are using a CMS and your host is at least fair. We can integrate with almost every website. It is usually as easy as dropping a pem file in the correct folder in cpanel. For more difficult ones I have a webmaster that I consult with. Price is the last one. Price is always the biggest. You cant give it away or you have no way to give good service. How apt am I to give back-up terminals or make sure I have 24 hour customer service if the margins don't support it? At the same time I have to be very competitive especially when landing large accounts. I made things too easy on one of my large accounts one time I guess. They thought all providers were like me so when they got a quote for less they switched. 11 days later they called me to help them get their machines downloaded back to my companies settings and their website was completely messed-up. I had to delete everything in the file and reload a back-up I had.
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