This client wanted a website from me, but then objects when i give price ?

Try spin selling, ive found it works pretty effectively, but the one rule i go by is on to the next one

Edit: actually what i use all the time is i say oh well a video will cost $1k, but for you i can do just $500, sound fair enough? that works very well

Could you have done more to close him? Possibly.

Could it just be that you called someone that was cheap (thus the page builder on Godaddy) and that cared more about cheap than quality? Possibly.

You could always do more, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you can close everyone. The sales pros on here will come with lots of advice, I'm sure, so be attentive to it, but don't think that you can always sell every call.

I'll take a stab at offering one piece of advice. It seems like you prospect there was concerned about the mobile version primarily and your price was too far a jump from his current cheap service so he's off to see if he can make his cheaper one work well enough. Maybe you could have built some value by showing him how much he business he may be losing by not being mobile friendly. People will often react stronger to an avoidance of losing something than they will to get something. Here this guy is losing money because his site looks bad or performs poorly and you could have really pointed this out. You aren't just selling websites that look better or that are mobile ready, you are selling them business results in the form of more customers by engaging them on your websites. Business owners want more business. You offered him a prettier site and that wasn't worth the price to him. Maybe if you went through the potential loss that he is suffering because of his inadequate site it could have helped. Then again, some people think a website should cost $10 because that's what a particular site builder costs, and those people aren't your market if they feel that way, so move on and find people in your market.

You absolutely could have closed him. If you giving up that easy your probably missing atleast 50% of the deals that you could be closing. That means another web development company with a decent salesman will probably get that sales. Price is the easiest objection to overcome and of there asking that there ready to buy. You need to be aggressive.

If that was a fair reflection of your call then you could have closed to kingdom come and not got the sale.

The issue isn't with the close but with what's gone on before. You've provided the potential customer with absolutely no value and as a result no mental wriggle room.

There is a lot of research that shows that successful sales people ask more questions than poor sales people. They close fewer times and sell more.

So let's look at your call a bit more:

Earlier in the call you need to do some questioning to try and understand why the prospect is thinking about changing.

Essentially this will allow you to use their own reasoning as a close. After the guy asked for samples I would have had a conversation on the following lines:

The close should really take care of itself from here on in.

Now every call won't be as forthcoming which is fine they don't need to tell you details you just need them to think about it.

So to bring it back to your call imagine the prospect had a price of $500 in mind. In your call you've given him no reason why he should break his budget to go old school their is no 'what's in it for me'.

In my call I'd quite happily quote him $5,000 - $10,000 for the work. Against 52k it has a good ROI.

$800 would be a no brainier if the works good.

You really don't know what kind of prospect this was because you hadn't QUALIFIED him.

Many people will pretend to be interested in what you offer so they can get a FREE EDUCATION from you. Price, features, How To...

The important thing is that you are noticing what is going on, and realizing you could get a different result. That's great. Keep at it because this is a learning experience. A course correction, one of a thousand on the way to success.

When we feel 'pain' we remember. You're never going to forget this experience, and what it makes you learn. A lot of people never notice what you noticed, or learn what you're learning.

Qualify first, sell later.

Humans are a mystery to me too!

There are lots of possibilities. Here's a couple...

Maybe someone pointed out that his site didn't display well on a mobile, so he gave this guy (the OP) who he'd just met at a networking meeting a call, to see what it would cost. Maybe he had in mind a $10 fix, a $50 fix, a $100 fix. Maybe because he paid $100 for his original site, his expectations where $10, $50, $100... When OP gave his price, he was just scared off.

More likely, I think, is that he just didn't get the right feel for the OP. Someone said this about OP in another thread, that OP wouldn't get his business as he comes across as an amateur...

Might even be that his price was too cheap...

We don't really know because the OP didn't dig deeply enough...

The decision to buy is always emotional, never logical. So I'd never try to explain it logically... even if I truly understood it myself

This probably hasn't helped your understanding at all...

No, he could not absolutely have closed him. You are assuming that the guy had enough money... I've met a lot of people at networking events. Some who didn't have 3 pennies to rub together wanted a website and they acted like they could afford to spend some money to grow their business. To close them, the web designer would have had to sell at $0 to $20.


OP, it wasn't a client, it was a prospect, and, as people have said, he was interested in the movie he has going in his mind about himself and his business.

You showed him a site (or several) and let him script that information into his movie... As others have said, whether they contact you first or you contact them first, it doesn't matter, you should have an idea of what's going on in their mind and direct the movie for them.

But, first, you should know if they can actually afford you... And that means, they have the money to pay you should they like what you offer AND they are willing to part with whatever money you want (and here some won't because you have not shown value and some won't because they're stubborn or can get the same value somewhere else or because it's Tuesday or their mother breastfed them for 11 months).

I would very much like, today, to own a yacht I saw for sale for over $2 millions. It's gorgeous. Don't know what I'd do with it if I had it seeing that I don't like water on account of it being wet. But I'd like owning one. And if some 2-million-dollar-yacht-salesperson caught me during my lunch hour, I'd sit down with them and pretend I'm a for-real 2+ million dollar yacht buying prospect.

I would even ask if I could have geometric teal-inlays in the living room rosewood floor, for Christ sake!

It would just make me tingle all over.

And I'm not the weirdest one out there.