How much does this cost?

Of course they do.

The buyer tactic here is to reduce all suppliers to commodity level, make everything equal, and then have you all battle it out over price. The prospect sits back, laughs and has a ball while you dispense extra trial periods, bonuses, free designs, price concessions and other goodies.

So you need to be Tough and stand up to this.

Otherwise, you'll be just another commodity. Live by price, die by price.

"I'd be happy to answer that question <about price>. Before I do, though, I'm sure you'd agree that it's important for me to learn a little about your situation. I mean, otherwise how can we be sure this is the right solution for you?"

"Could you tell me a little about your situation? What first made you think that maybe you needed ______?"

Don't let them off the hook. If you do, you fall into the trap.

Cost and Price are two very different things.

If a customer is interrupting you and demanding pricing, then there are two possibilities.

1) You are a Super Salesman and your Presentation is so good he/she doesnt need to hear more and is ready to sign over everything they own just to buy your products/services.

Or...

2) You are losing control during the presentation process and need to learn to regain control.

Giving a Price before you have had the opportunity to build value is a recipe for certain disaster.

I am not going to tell you whether it is Number 1 or Number 2.

I have faith you will figure it out for yourself.

I'll agree with the previous posters, it's all about controlling the rhythm of the call.

As far as 'nuts and bolts' responses, I'll typically have a couple things that I say if someone calls up asking for price right out of the gate:

1- "We've got a variety of programs and each of them have different prices. Let me ask you a couple questions and then I can point you in the right direction." At this point it's your job to get in there, build some pain, get a feeling for what they really need, get any doubts out of the way, and then quote a price.

2- "Let me ask you, the first thing you mentioned on the call was price. Is price the main sticking point for you? If it is, we may not be the right company for what you are looking for. Our pricing is typically much higher than our competitors." Usually I say something like this when the person on the call rubs me the wrong way in being too brusque, rude, forward, ignoring simple social niceties, etc. This is the type of person who thinks he owns the service provider because he has the money and they have the service. I'm lucky enough to be somewhat choosy with who I work with so I find the previous line of questioning gets me a few results:
a- They continue being brusque and I can weed them out before they've taken a lot of my time.
b- They immediately start to qualify themselves and then sell me on why they would like our services.
c- They are a cool person, really do want my services, but really don't have much money. At this point I can try to customize a pricing plan for them or at least make a good contact. I can actually track a decent amount of revenue from this person who later comes back once they have money. Even if they never buy it's nice to have a good conversation and, at times, I've received referrals from these people even though they never bought my services.

I think it depends on what you are selling. If you only sell custom web packages you don't have a price yet. If you are selling a service with a number of packages you might say I have packages that start at blank plus can create a custom package that works for you. If you are selling SEO you have no price yet either because you have no idea which key words they need to rank for.

Answer the question with basics and than listen to Jason and get it back on track. Unless you are just selling something with one price in which case give the price and start closing.

Also I disagree that giving a price is "bad". But it may be pointing to things you are doing wrong. Basically you may be boring them or not qualifying them before info loading them. -The price question in the long run isn't really important because you know what you are worth and are pricing accordingly. Those that can't afford you don't matter. But the fact they are asking normally means you are boring them in some way. Even if it is because they want to buy it means you are missing buying signals and taking too long.

But being on the other side I will tell you the fact he isn't just telling yiou not interested means you have to be doing something right. Just figure out what is right and get rid of the bad and you will close more.

But remember every question should be answered but you should use a question back to reengage them like Jason mentioned above.

Also I would honestly reccommend a lot of offliners starting off to get some sales training. Either pay for it from guys like Jason or go get a sales job that trains well.

For those in the midwest I would recommend American TV & Appliance. Their training is amazing. Not phone sales but for in person sales you will never get better training from a company that pays you to be trained for a week at the corp office in Madison, WI. As a manager I got even more weeks of training up in Madison plus all the in store training.

Let me ask you a question...

You're a smart guy/gal right?
(Uhh... Yeah, of course)

If you got a 5 to 1 return on your investment......
Meaning for every dollar invested, you got 5 back....
How much would you invest????

Uh.... xxxx

Now, you know what they are willing to invest.

*It works a lot better in person. Have a $5 with you.
Have them pull out a dollar, give it to you, and you give them your $5.
While saying what I said above.
Then you are targeting all three types of people. Visual, Auditory, and Kinectic


You have to fulfill the service.

You can't give crap away, but you can get paid pretty well for selling money at a discount.



If you don't think you can deliver on a 5 to 1 investment..... then go on to this:

Great, well, that's what we have been able to achieve for some of our clients.
But, I don't want to over promise something.
Let me ask you this....
Would you still be okay with a 2 to 1 return on investment?
Meaning for every dollar you invested you got $2 back.
........ (answer) Yeah, of course, sure, etc.

Well, that is where we like to start.
I know you said you would be comfortable investing $xxxx, but I would feel more comfortable if we started around $97/month.

(At this point, you haven't even told them what you were selling them.)

This will allow you to realize the ROI, and make sure we are a good fit for each other before getting any further involved.

This works well, if you offer several services.
To where you can have a lead in at a lower price.
Once they pay you, they are 21 times more likely to do business with you again.

I have more on creating more value.... But that will have to wait.
This is getting too long already.

I dont know if this is popular or right but I tell them price right away because it is likely already in my offer to them. Get your business online for only $499! Or whatever. It is what grabbed their attention in the first place.

I hate companies that dont tell you the price of something right away. Why hide it?

That is if the service is know. If it's not known I give them a range. A mobile site can be xdollars and a full blown package can be $2000.....blah blah.

Why waste time if you are not offering something in their price range?

Actually lemme give example. My doctor told me to go to a medical weight loss clinic to lose a few pounds fast. I called them asked the price. They didnt tell me. I set up an appointment with the guy and he did his usual NLP tricks and finally told me the price....WAY TOO much. Out of my price range. Why could he have not told me before. It would not have affected my perception of the value of his service, I just could not afford it at the time. If it was maybe 50% less I would have. So he wasted both my time and his. Lesson learned.

@David...sometimes people just ask for price first because they don't know any better. They assumed everything was equal. Yes, some are people we can qualify Out in a short time because they aren't a good fit for us. But some will be surprised at what we do, and how it's different from other's offerings.

I answered this question on the bobrossoffline forum (about the giant postcards), and I'll reprint it here:

I got asked this question all the time when I ran my dog boarding business. "What's your rate?" First thing outta their mouths after "Hello, is this the dog boarding business?" So let me describe that situation, because what I did there will help you with this one.

My dog boarding business was called Freedom Dog Boarding. We called it that because we had three acres of fully fenced property for the dogs to run around in. Plus, my wife and I would only take on a maximum of about a half-dozen dogs...we usually had two or four. And that's it. They got lots of attention and we tried not to put them in crates unless they wanted to go in one.

People who called up asking for price first needed to be qualified. My price was NOT the cheapest. It also wasn't the most expensive. For what I offered, it was a really good deal. But if the person didn't really care whether their dog was locked up in a crate for the duration beside a hundred other canines, it was not going to be a fit.

So I'd ignore their question. I'd let a second's pause go by, and then say, "Have you had a chance to check out our Facebook fan page?" They could click through from the craigslist ad to Facebook. The fan page had photos of everyone who stayed with us, and talk about how we treated them like family members...and happy comments from delighted owners. If they said they had, that was a good sign. If they hadn't looked, then I'd say, "Oh. Well..." and tell them about what we did and how we were different.

If the person was impressed and said it sounded great, it was probably going to be a fit. I'd then quote my standard rate and they'd almost always accept and book the time immediately.

If the person gave indications that they didn't care, my facility and care probably wasn't what they were looking for. Now pay attention: I'd jack up the price. Not a ton, but some. If the person accepted, then I'd know they were taking it seriously. If they were just shopping around, then I probably didn't want them as a client anyway (people who LOVE their dogs and treat them as full human-level members of the family are begging for spots at places like mine). They'd say Thank You and be gone. If they called back and booked, great. I made some extra dough and knew my customer valued what I gave them and their pet. If I never heard from them again, who cared?

So find out why your prospect called you.

"What's your price?"

"Great question. Say, can I ask you a question before I tell you?"

"Sure."

"Why'd you call me? (Laugh) I mean, what was it that you were hoping I could you help out with?"

You need to derail your prospect's GET THE PRICE train and get your own investigative process working. Find out why they want to talk to you, and you'll stand out from everyone else who says "It's $497 for a 1/8th page space."

Live by price, die by price.

**

And we got plenty of repeat customers. At least half of our biz was repeat.

Well yeah, we're in agreement on that.

When I used to sell accounting software, for instance, we had to get out of that trap of the prospect thinking all accounting software is created equal.

What I'm confused about with your approach is that you seem to be saying that anyone who calls you up and begins by asking about price should be politely sent away.

Am I misunderstanding?

Yeah. I'm sort of on DMs side on this one and I will tell you why. I have investigated what I call my competitors (even though they are technically not my competitors) and 90% of them have no prices listed on their website. If a client is looking around for a website for instance and comes across me and I begin to go into long details WHY my services are different, what my USP is blah blah before answering the price question...I think it would put the customer off or make them suspicious. Although I do like the method the dog place used, I do not see that saying the rate in the first place or not would have changed the customer's experience...it would have still filtered the bad customers out likely.

Another way I do this is "my xyz package is $499, which is already $200 cheaper than most of my competitors (and I know this because I have contacted them) and unlike them, for this week only, I am also giving away free qr codes, mobile site blah blah."

Saying all this, I am interjecting my own customer traits into this thread. In other words, it is like my second worst pet peeve in the world for someone to not answer my question, or more importantly having to ask that question in the first place. I did deal with it with landlords that would not put their rental rate on a sign or ad. I HATED THAT. And I usually took their potential tenants because I answered their questions promptly. "How much is the rent? $500/mn. Is it in your price range? Well not really, I was thinking $400/mn. Well I do have 5 other fantastic properties that may be in THAT range.

OR

You can bitch slap them with a REALLY exorbitant price ...i mean waaaay out there.

IF they don't immediately hang up on you, you now have gained control of the conversation, you also have there complete attention.

a side bonus, is they really want to know what your selling that can cost that much
and they will be listening close and when you ask for the money, its a relief for them your not asking for the crazy price,

actually whatever price you do ask for at this point seems more then reasonable.

----
i know i am going to catch flack, and some of you are NOT going to like what i just said.

however i think some people in this forum particularly need to learn

Selling Aint for Sissies